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Yesterday's Wall Street Journal contained an article by Amy Chozick on Japan's effort to drum up support for television commercials. As with any marketing promotion in Japan, a cute cartoon figure is obligatory:
"The campaign mascot is a monkey named 'Coma-saru' -- a play on the words 'commercial' and 'saru,' Japanese for monkey -- with a face shaped like a TV. Networks are hoping that getting viewers excited about watching commercials will result in marketers buying more advertising time.
"Dentsu, Japan's largest advertising agency by revenue, made a spot called 'Family With No Conversation.' In this ad, a father is trying to talk to his teenage daughter, but she ignores him, playing with her cellphone instead. Then, a funny commercial comes on the TV. They look at each other, smile and begin to laugh. At the end a voice-over asks, 'What is a television commercial?' The ad implies the answer sometimes is: shared ground that can bridge awkward generational gaps and bring families together."
