17408: On The White House & White Advertising Agencies, Part 10.

President Donald J. Trump’s return to supremacy continues to mirror Adland.

 

The Independent reported Trump clumsily delivered a culturally clueless Pearl Harbor joke to a Japanese reporter and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

 

Was Trump inspired by iconic Adman Jerry Della Femina?

 

Incidentally, the president’s comedy routine, well, bombed.

 

Trump cracks Pearl Harbor joke when pressed by Japanese reporter on lack of warning over Iran attack

 

Oval Office crowd left briefly silent after Trump makes light of 83-year-old attack

 

By Andrew Feinberg in Washington, D.C.

 

Just over 83 years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt called the Imperial Japanese Navy’s December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor “a date that will live in infamy” as he urged Congress to declare war.

 

On Thursday, President Donald Trump turned it into a punchline.

 

Trump was finishing up a question-and-answer session with reporters during a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi when a Japanese journalist asked why he did not inform key American allies — such as Japan — before the start of the joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign against Iran on February 28.

 

The president initially replied that the U.S. “went in very hard” and “didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise.”

 

But Trump’s response took an awkward turn moments later when he said: “Who knows better about surprise than Japan?”

 

After some muted laughter from the U.S. officials who’d joined him for the meeting, he turned to Sanae — who was born two decades after the attack — to ask her another question.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?”

 

At that point, laughter turned to audible groans. The room went silent.

 

Takaichi, who spent two years in Washington working on Capitol Hill during the Reagan administration and has a strong command of English, was clearly taken aback by the president’s attempt at humor.

 

The smile she’d had on her face disappeared and her eyes widened as she realized what Trump had just said.

 

After an awkward pause, Trump returned to the topic he’d been asked about, telling reporters, “He’s asking me about surprise, and we did.”

 

“And because of that surprise, we knocked out ... we probably knocked out 50 percent ... and much more than we anticipated doing. So if I go and tell everybody about it, there’s no longer a surprise,” he said.

 

The surprise Pearl Harbor airstrike against the U.S. Pacific Fleet on Dec. 7, 1941 left more than 2,400 American service members dead and nearly 1,200 injured from bombs and shells that sunk four American battleships and left four more severely damaged. It was the deadliest attack on American soil until the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

 

Seven of those ships were salvaged and returned to service, while the seventh — the U.S.S. Arizona — was left where it had settled just below the harbor’s surface after a Japanese bomb detonated inside a explosive powder magazine.

 

The attack took place after months of failed negotiations between Tokyo and Washington over economic sanctions imposed by the U.S., the U.K., China and The Netherlands in an attempt to deny Japan’s military the raw materials it needed to prosecute wars in China and what is now Vietnam.

 

Japan declared war on the U.S. on the day of the strikes, but the official declaration did not arrive in Washington until afterwards.

 

The Pearl Harbor attack gave Roosevelt the leverage he needed to push for the U.S. to formally enter World War II — allowing him to join ally Great Britain in fighting Adolf Hitler’s march through Europe — with the House and Senate approving declarations of war against Japan by margins of 388-1 and 82-0, respectively.

 

Less than four years later, Japan would accept America’s demand for “unconditional surrender” after the U.S. dropped the first two — and thus far the only two — nuclear weapons to be used in combat in separate strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

The Japanese government has never formally apologized for the infamous sneak attack, though one of Takaichi’s predecessors — the late Shinzo Abe — delivered a speech expressing "sincere and everlasting condolences" to the American and Japanese personnel killed in the fighting that day during a 2016 visit to the Pearl Harbor memorial above the wreck of Arizona.

 

Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022, said at the time that the U.S. and Japan “must never repeat the horrors of war again.”

17360: Detonating Dentsu Destruction…?

 

Adweek reported Dentsu overhauled its leadership team to stage a turnaround of struggling overseas business.

 

Okay, except the C-suite rejiggering involved elevating an existing executive to the top role, as well as eliminating key positions. Such insular succession rarely leads to success.

 

Then again, hiring an outsider like Dentsu tried in 2020—recruiting Wendy Clark to serve as International Global CEO—didn’t succeed either.

 

Dentsu is beyond dented.

 

Dentsu Overhauls Leadership, Names Takeshi Sano CEO 

 

The company installs its Japan chief to revive its struggling overseas business

 

By Audrey Kemp

 

Dentsu has named Takeshi Sano its new president and global CEO as it reshapes its leadership team, the company announced.

 

Sano, currently CEO of Dentsu Japan and deputy global COO, will step into the role on March 27, 2026, replacing Hiroshi Igarashi.

 

The change comes at a rocky time for the company. Earlier this month, Dentsu reported a ¥327.6 billion ($2.18 billion) net loss for fiscal 2025, largely driven by a ¥310.1 billion ($2.03 billion) goodwill impairment tied to its struggling international operations. The company also suspended its year-end dividend to preserve cash.

 

Dentsu had been exploring a sale of its international business—which includes operations across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC outside Japan for months. According to a report from Campaign Asia, those talks fell apart after potential buyers walked away, and Dentsu is now focused on fixing the business instead of selling it.

 

As part of the leadership reset, the company is eliminating the global COO and global president roles. Regional CEOs and practice leaders will now report directly to Sano. Dentsu has also added new global transformation and corporate affairs roles and is continuing a cost-cutting plan that includes previously announced layoffs.

 

The moves reflect a broader effort to steady its overseas operations after several difficult years.

 

In announcing the changes, Dentsu said the new structure is designed to “enhance execution excellence and drive stronger growth outcomes for our clients.”

 

Sano previously led Dentsu Inc., the company’s core Japanese business, through 11 consecutive quarters of revenue growth. That unit accounts for roughly 40% of group net revenue and more than half of its underlying operating profit, making it the company’s financial backbone.

 

A Dentsu veteran who joined the company in 1992, Sano has spent much of his career focused on business transformation. He now takes on the task of reviving the company’s struggling overseas operations.

 

“Dentsu will continue to sharpen the distinctive value that sets us apart and position ourselves as a true growth partner, supporting clients consistently from strategy through to execution,” he said in a statement.

16307: Scorn On The Fourth Of July.

 

Adland gleefully celebrates the 4th of July—despite the fact that four of the big six holding companies are not American enterprises, hailing from Japan, France, and the UK.

 

Does this reality impact true dedication to DE&I initiatives? Do the majority of holding company leaders view such nettlesome matters as primarily US concerns—local nuisances to check off from to-do lists preceded by more pressing priorities like quarterly earnings, mergers, award pursuits, digital capabilities, and AI? And it doesn’t help that holding companies take a colonizing approach to growth.

 

Are most of the men in charge—by virtue of their geopolitical perspectives and foreign interests—further levels removed from those seeking equality and justice?

 

16242: Overreaction Of The Week.

 

In Adland—a racist galaxy not so far, far away—Star Wars Day receives more attention and resources than Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Even though the iconic movie series features deep influences (and direct rip-offs) of Asian culture.

 

15454: Record-Breaking Cultural Cluelessness.

 

MullenLowe Group is responsible for this France.TV promotion hyping the upcoming Olympics in Tokyo. The spot deserves a gold medal for stereotypes.

 

 

15424: Turn Down The Racket, Rakuten.

 

Rakuten follows up “Rocket Man” with “Whatta Man/Rakuten”—perhaps in an attempt to Americanize the Japanese-owned enterprise…? The company should ask for its cash back from the hackneyed creative team responsible for this contrived crap.

 

 

15345: Cultures Collide In Clichéd Cluelessness.

 

This limited edition Nissan Tokyo campaign from Hungary blends Japanese and Hungarian imagery—stereotypes standard.

 

14892: Campaign Combining Cars & Clichés Creates Cultural Crash.

This Nissan campaign from Germany presents the Japanese automaker via fans. Sorry, not a fan of cultural clichés.

14257: Dentsu Dividing…?

Adweek reported Dentsu Inc. is considering a restructuring scheme that would divide the enterprise into a holding company and an operating company. So instead of being one shitty company, Dentsu would become two shitty companies. Seems like even the holding companies are starting to see the business model is flawed and increasingly outdated. It might be fitting that Dentsu is taking an initiative for change, as Japan has often been a leader—at least versus White-led companies—in the business world. Then again, Dentsu has the distinction of officially valuing an employee’s life at 500,000 yen, which is roughly $4,400.

Dentsu Inc. Considers Restructuring Operational Model to ‘Maintain and Enhance Growth’

President and CEO made the announcement at board meeting today

By Erik Oster

Dentsu Inc., parent company of Dentsu Aegis Network and agencies like mcgarrybowen, Carat, 360i, Merkle and Isobar, is considering a restructuring plan which would see it split into an operating company and a holding company.

Dentsu Inc. president and CEO Toshihiro Yamamoto announced the proposition today during a meeting of the company’s board of directors. Implementation of the changes would be dependent on approval of shareholders at a meeting scheduled for March 2019.

“Analyses of specific schemes will be based on a concept where the currently-existing Dentsu Inc. will be split into an operating company and a pure holding company,” according to a release. “The pure holding company will hold the shares of the post-split operating company and the existing operating companies in Japan, and the shares of Dentsu Aegis Network.”

More details will be provided following further analysis.

According to the release, the decision to analyze the potential restructuring was prompted by a desire to “maintain and enhance” growth, as a response to “radical changes in the business environment resulting from the evolution and enlargement of business areas” and to “Establish governance that enables expeditious decision-making from medium and long-term viewpoints.”

Dentsu Inc. maintains that due to global development and rapid growth, “it has become increasingly important for the Group to make more unified and cross-sectional decisions within a set of shared values,” leading to a need to “establish a governance structure that is not restricted by the current framework of each operating company and enables expeditious decision-making from a medium and long-term perspective.”

Beyond the Dentsu Aegis Network, the larger company also operates a number of Japanese subsidiaries; this move would combine all Dentsu businesses under one umbrella, hence the “pure holding company” designation.

The announcement accompanies Dentsu Inc.’s earnings report for the second quarter and first half of 2018.

Dentsu Inc. reported organic growth of 4 percent for the first half of the year and 5.9 percent for the second quarter, its fourth consecutive quarter of increased organic growth. Dentsu Aegis Network reported organic growth of 3.4 percent, due in part to new business wins in the second half of 2017. In Japan, organic growth was reported at 4.7 percent for the first half of the year, also attributed in part to new business wins.

Dentsu Inc. reported that underlying operating profit on constant currency basis declined 1.8 percent for the first half of 2018. For Dentsu Aegis Network, profit decline was explained as a reflection of planned investments in global platforms and systems. In Japan, profits grew but were partially offset by planned investments in working environment reforms.

Dentsu Inc. was fined 500,000 yen (approximately $4,400) for violating labor laws last October. The “suicide due to overwork” death of 24-year-old digital account manager Matsuri Takahashi in 2015 led to the resignation of CEO Tadashi Ishii in December, 2016.

14108: Black Shogun, Afro Ninja.

In 2014, Atlanta Black Star published a report titled, “The World of Sakanouye No Tamuramaro: Black Shogun of Early Japan.” It’s a lengthy piece, but well worth reading. Wonder if modern-day descendants include the infamous Afro Ninja.

12742: Let’s Not Go Places.

Toyota Global Head of Communications Julie Hamp resigned after being arrested for allegedly importing drugs into Japan. Hey, Hamp, you should be concentrating on importing cars versus controlled substances. And what exotic drugs inspired the creative teams responsible for the Total Toyota bullshit campaign that included depicting a former slave plantation?

Toyota’s Communications Chief Resigns Following Arrest

Police Said Julie Hamp Allegedly Imported a Controlled Drug into Japan

Toyota Motor Corp. said Julie Hamp, its first female managing officer, resigned the position after her arrest last month for allegedly importing drugs into Japan.

Toyota accepted the resignation “after considering the concerns and inconvenience that recent events have caused our stakeholders,” the Toyota City, Japan-based company said on its website. Hamp, 55, had been named the global head of communications for the world’s largest carmaker in April.

Hamp’s resignation comes after President Akio Toyoda called a press conference one day after her June 18 arrest to express confidence that she hadn’t intentionally broken Japanese law. The company had pointed to Hamp’s appointment as evidence that it was diversifying its executive ranks, which is predominantly comprised of Japanese men.

Tokyo metropolitan police arrested Hamp on suspicion she had imported the pain medication oxycodone, police spokesmen have said, asking not to be named in accordance with its policy. She joined the company in June 2012 from PepsiCo Inc., where she was a senior vice president, and worked previously for General Motors Corp.

Oxycodone is designated as a narcotic in Japan and users need advance permission from the health and welfare ministry before bringing it into the country, according to the Narcotics Control Department.

--Bloomberg News--

12329: Facing Uncomfortable Topic.

From The New York Times…

World War II Sex Slaves Bear Witness

By Aileen Jacobson

Chang-Jin Lee, a New York artist, wanted to commemorate what she feared would become a “forgotten history,” she said. After reading an article in The New York Times in 2007 about the experiences of an estimated 200,000 women and girls who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II, she decided to do something about it.

From 2008 to 2012, Ms. Lee, who grew up in Seoul, South Korea, took four trips to seven countries to interview survivors, take photographs and gather images, which she has exhibited in different ways across the United States and in other countries over the last few years.

The latest exhibition — seven striking panels showing survivors when they were young and two videos with interviews, photographs and folk songs — is now on view at the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University. Titled “Comfort Women Wanted,” it is named after the headline in newspaper advertisements intended to lure women to work as prostitutes for soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Army.

The advertisement did not work very well, Ms. Lee said, though a few women may have been paid for their work in the beginning. The rest were kidnapped or deceived with offers of other jobs that did not exist. They ended up being raped up to 100 times per day by one soldier after another in spaces, euphemistically called “comfort stations,” which came in the form of huts or rooms in industrial complexes throughout imperial Japan, and occupied territories. A former Japanese soldier — one of only two to publicly acknowledge and apologize for the practice, she said — describes the conditions in one of Ms. Lee’s videos.

“It was fast,” says Yasuji Kaneko, the former soldier. “No hug, no kiss. We had no time to do such things.” The women sat, wearing kimonos, he says, as men stood in front of them for a few minutes “and just had sex.” His video runs concurrently with a longer one featuring interviews with some of the survivors.

Emah Kastima, an Indonesian woman who was kidnapped from a market when she was 17, says in a whispery voice: “It hurt me inside. Some of them beat me. It hurt my heart. I hated being treated like that.” Jan Ruff O’Herne, who Ms. Lee said was the first European to come forward, describes being selected at age 21 at a Japanese prison camp where she had already spent three and a half years, as her mother and the families of nine other young women who were also being hauled away with her cried and wailed. Lee Yong Soo, a Korean and a former comfort woman, says, “If I am ever born again, I hope to be born as a woman soldier.”

The cacophony created by the battling sounds of the simultaneous videos is intentional, the artist said; it is meant to draw a visceral response. It also reflects the controversy that still surrounds the issue. Though Japan issued an apology in 1993, the current government’s policy, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is to deny that the women were coerced into working in brothels. However, many other nations and most scholars believe the testimony of the survivors (who represent only about 25 to 30 percent of the women who went through the ordeal, Ms. Lee said).

Jinyoung Jin, the associate director of cultural programs at the Wang Center, who invited Ms. Lee to show her work and curated the exhibition, said it was not about “finger-pointing” but did highlight a continuing global human trafficking problem. “The video is very caring,” Ms. Jin said. “This happened to women who didn’t have a strong voice in society.” The exhibition has elicited strong responses from viewers and has benefited both history and art students. “How you interpret a historical subject in a visual language is also important for students studying art,” she said.

Logan Marks, an master’s student in fine arts at Stony Brook, helped to install the show. “Its location is very effective, because it’s kind of in the belly of the building” on its lowest level, he said. “It has darker and more ominous subject matter, so it fits well with the space.” He added: “It’s a heavy-duty subject. If you’re not moved by that, what kind of person are you?”

Ms. Lee agreed that she set out to make bold artistic choices. “I’m not a documentarian,” she said. To help present the women “as individuals rather than as victims,” she said, she asked each to record a favorite song in her own language to introduce each segment. With support from several grants and fellowships, including aid from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Asian Cultural Council, she traveled to Japan, Korea and Taiwan in 2008, to China and Indonesia in 2010, to Australia in 2011 and to the Philippines in 2012. Seven languages are represented in her video.

For the large prints showing the women who were able to give her photographs of themselves as teenagers before, soon after or, in one case, during their enslavement, she went for a “strong visual impact,” she said. “I want it carved into your memory.” Each print is more than five feet tall.

Fashioned after the advertisements, the photographs are at the center, framed in black and red with “Comfort Women Wanted” boldly displayed in English, Chinese, Filipino and Korean. But the background is gold leaf, “like a saint’s halo in a Renaissance painting,” Ms. Lee said.

The one she finds most moving is of Mei Chen, a Taiwanese survivor whose unsmiling face was photographed by a Japanese soldier. “It’s like she’s no longer there,” Ms. Lee said. “Her expression says something about what these women went through. She’s just not there.”

“Comfort Women Wanted” is on display through Jan. 10, 2015 at the Zodiac Lobby Gallery, Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University. Information: stonybrook.edu/wang or 631-632-4400.

12059: Overreaction Of The Week.

The Wall Street Journal reported Burger King in Japan is selling black burgers. Somebody please make sure they don’t use Mary J. Blige to hype the special menu items.

Popular Burger King Japan Offering Back, Black

By Jun Hongo

In the roulette wheel that is fast food, Burger King Japan has a strategy when it comes to its new hamburger menu: always bet on black.

The company, whose previous offerings include the “Windows 7 Whopper,” said on Wednesday it will start selling the Kuro Pearl burger and Kuro Diamond burger beginning on Sept. 19. The burgers will feature black buns, black sauce and black cheese in addition to black-pepper heavy beef patties. Kuro means black in Japanese.

The black burgers were first introduced for a limited time by the chain in 2012 and became a hit, outselling all other new products that Burger King offered during the year, according to the company. They were also available for a limited time in 2013.

“The black burgers sold extremely well because of their visual impact, but people continued to come back for them because of their taste,” a spokeswoman for the company told Japan Real Time.

The Kuro Pearl and Kuro Diamond, which will be made available until early November, will take things up a notch from the previous versions. According to the company, bamboo charcoal was added to the cheese to give it its color, while squid ink was added to the sauce to make it darker.

“The bamboo charcoal adds a nice aroma to the bun as well,” the spokeswoman said.

The simple Kuro Pearl burger, which has a bun, cheese, patty and sauce, will be available for ¥480 ($4.50). The deluxe Kuro Diamond burger, which will also have tomato, lettuce, and onions, will cost ¥690.

12034: Sprint Seeks Creative Saviors.

Adweek reported Sprint is seeking a new creative agency. Why bother? Over the years, Sprint has hired some of the top shops—as well as some of the bottom (e.g., Leo Burnett, Digitas and the incumbent shithole)—and always failed to move the sales needle. Innovative advertising is not the answer for the bombing brand.

In January, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son was quoted as saying, “At one recent meeting, I learned that our advertising at Sprint was not cost-effective. This made me quite angry. Sprint spends a large amount of money on advertising every year, but its effects have been almost negligible. … I directed the Sprint executives to terminate all existing contracts with the company’s advertising agencies. We will shortly start from scratch on advertising, with new agents also making proposals.” Okay, but it looks like Son forced the birth of the Frobinson framily, so his creative judgment is questionable at best—and shitty at least.

Given the international diversity at Sprint—from the Midwestern troops to the Bolivian Sprint CEO to the Japanese SoftBank CEO—perhaps it’s time to look beyond the U.S. White agencies. Then again, a galaxy-wide search would probably not identify candidates qualified to resuscitate Sprint.

Sprint Looks for New Creative Lead Agency

Search said to focus on TV work

By Noreen O’Leary

Sprint is looking for a new creative lead agency, sources said. The review is said to be focused on above-the line marketing, much of which is spent on TV. The telecommunications company spends about $800 million annually on measured media but it could not be determined how much of that amount is invested in television advertising.

In late 2011, the Overland Park, Kansas company unexpectedly shifted its account from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to “Team Sprint,” a unit comprised of Publicis Groupe agencies and led by DigitasLBi. While the Publicis digital shop initially worked with corporate sibling Leo Burnett, which produced Sprint TV commercials, more recently the marketer has moved that assignment to start-up Figliulo & Partners to handle TV spots. (ARC/Leo Burnett continues to handle Sprint’s shopper marketing.)

It’s not clear if the current search also includes digital work handled by DigitasLBi.

The agency search is not entirely a surprise given critical comments the CEO of Sprint’s new parent Softbank made at the beginning of this year: Writing in a January guest column for Nikkei Asian Review, Masayoshi Son said “At one recent meeting, I learned that our advertising at Sprint was not cost-effective. This made me quite angry. Sprint spends a large amount of money on advertising every year, but its effects have been almost negligible.” The executive continued: “I directed the Sprint executives to terminate all existing contracts with the company’s advertising agencies. We will shortly start from scratch on advertising, with new agents also making proposals.”

DigitasLBi and Figliulo, started last fall by former TBWA\Chiat\Day N.Y. chief creative officer Mark Figliulo, could not be reached for comment. A Burnett rep declined to comment, referring calls to Sprint execs who did not respond to an inquiry.

11725: Stereotyping Foreigners.

From Advertising Age…

Fake Noses, Blond Wigs: Are These Ads Offensive?

ANA is the Latest Japanese Company to Take Flak for Caricaturing Foreigners

By Angela Doland

Japan’s All Nippon Airways has come under fire for an ad that some found off-putting and even racist: It depicted a Japanese actor dressed up as a foreigner, wearing a big rubber nose and blond wig.

The blunder might be a lesson for Japanese companies and agencies preparing for the international spotlight of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics—especially since the ANA ad was created by Japan’s increasingly international Dentsu, and because it isn’t the only commercial to caricature foreigners that way.

ANA’s ad drew more press than most, with Time’s news website referring to it as “whiteface” in a headline. The airline quickly apologized, said it meant no offense and revamped the ad.

Foreign bloggers living in Japan have pointed out many similar ads, including a 2013 spot for a Toshiba ricemaker/breadmaker that featured an actress in a plastic nose and that later disappeared from the company’s website.

Brian Ashcraft, an Osaka-based writer who covers Japanese pop culture, flagged that ad on Kotaku.com, a news site for gamers, along with a spot from rental car company Budget showing an Elvis impersonator wearing a pompadour and yet another prosthetic nose.

“Typically, in Japanese popular culture, whether that’s 19th century art or modern-day manga, foreigners are portrayed with large noses. This isn’t always true, and, of course, there are more nuanced portrayals,” he wrote in an email.

“If the gag is just a rubber nose, then that seems rather tired, no?” Mr. Ashcraft wrote, noting other commercials in Japan that depict people of different backgrounds in clever, non-offensive ways.

The ANA commercial was apparently trying to depict the airline as more international. It showed two Japanese airline pilots speaking English together to chat about new routes to foreign countries.

“Let’s change the image of Japanese people,” one said. “Sure,” said the other, and the camera panned to him suddenly wearing a wig and a pointy prosthetic nose. Reactions online were mixed – some didn’t understand the fuss, and others said the ad was insensitive and asked people to imagine if it had poked fun of the appearance of non-whites instead.

An airline spokeswoman said in an email Monday that the ad was not meant to offend, and that a new version had already been broadcast to get across “the message we wanted to convey in a more effective way. That is to highlight the increased number of international flights that ANA is offering from Haneda Airport.” She said the commercial came from Tokyo-based Dentsu. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Michiko Morales, VP for public relations for the Virginia-based Gabriel Marketing Group, said the airline surely “had no clue it would offend certain people.”

“Japan is so homogenous, and people idealize blond hair and big noses,” said Ms. Morales, who was raised in Japan and recently lived there again for three years.

But with 2.5 million foreigners living in Japan and the Tokyo Olympics coming up, Ms. Morales said, Japanese companies need to remember “it’s not just Japanese people living in Japan who are watching.”

The ad featured a well-known actor and comedian, and it clearly was thought-out for months, she said. She believes the ad team probably neglected to run it by a few foreigners to see how it would play.

“They really just needed to ask someone,” she said.

11597: Perry Act Made In Japan.

From The New York Post…

Katy Perry’s ‘offensive’ appearance at AMAs

By Hardeep Phull

Everyone was expecting Miley Cyrus to do something outrageous at Sunday night’s American Music Awards, but it turned out to be her usually squeaky-clean pop rival who did the offending.

Katy Perry raised plenty of eyebrows as she opened up the ceremony at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles with a culturally insensitive, Japanese-themed performance of “Unconditionally” which featured the singer dressed as a Geisha. Within minutes, fans and viewers were accusing her of cultural appropriation with one Twitter user commenting “This is the performance equivalent of an offensive Halloween costume.”

11233: Chicken Suit.

From The Associated Press…

Colonel ‘suits’ Japan’s KFC boss

From AP

DALLAS — The president and chief executive of Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan bought the trademark white suit worn by company founder “Colonel” Harland Sanders at auction yesterday for $21,510 — then promptly tried it on.

Masao “Charlie” Watanabe grinned while putting on the suit jacket and black string tie at the Heritage Auctions event, standing beneath a photograph of Sanders, a popular icon in Japan.

11154: Godzilla Fries Attack Japan.

From The New York Daily News…

McDonald’s Mega Potato back at select Japan restaurants

The eateries will sell the massive servings of fries for about $5 and the serving size is the equivalent of two large orders.

By Sasha Goldstein / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Super-super-super-size me!

In Japan, they want fries with that — and McDonald’s is giving it to them.

On Friday, the country’s fast-food lovers will welcome back the Mega Potato, a gigantic, unwieldy looking box of those delicious golden fries. It’s the equivalent of two large orders, Japan Today reported, and will set you back 490 yen — about $5.

It might also be your only meal for the day. The thing weighs about three-quarters of a pound and clocks in at 1,142 calories, Muripo reports. It also has about 57 grams of fat and almost 800 milligrams of sodium.

But McDonald’s insists the carton is perfect for sharing. The promotional photo of the beast shows four different hands digging in.

The Mega Potato is a limited-time offering at the fast-food restaurant, like the on-again, off-again McRib sometimes found at McDonald’s in the U.S.

Japan Today said the hefty potato package is about three times the size of your standard hamburger.

It’s not the first time Japan’s love for those Golden Arches fries has made headlines. Last year, Japanese students were photographed having “potato parties” in McDonald’s. With a low promotional price of about $2, kids were getting together to buy huge amounts of fries. In one instance last October, a group of high schoolers bought 60 servings of large fries and spent three hours downing each and every last one.

10091: False Lies.

This ad campaign from India tries to be oh-so-clever with its tall tales and misdirect copy, yet did the writer deliberately misidentify kung fu as a Japanese martial art?

From Ads of the World.

9307: Aflac Is Wack.

This new Aflac commercial is a sequel to the one with the duck breakdancing in the park. Except now everyone is rhyming. It demonstrates once again that White adpeople—and White ducks—love hip hop.


Plus, while searching for the spot, MultiCultClassics noticed Aflac is selling special wristbands with proceeds benefiting rescue and relief efforts for the recent Japanese earthquake disaster. Hey, did the idea for the promotion come from Gilbert Gottfried?