What makes something resonate with a target audience? It all starts with understanding the culture of that target audience.
When it comes to TV, we’ve explored before the ways that Japanese TV draws in viewers as well as the underlying cultural elements behind them. No discussion of the topic, however, would be complete without mentioning the use of well-known figures: celebrities, idols, and comedians. This is not only an important part of drawing in viewers for TV shows, but also a key marketing tactic in commercials that is crucial to understand for any company hoping to advertise in Japan.
Let’s take a look at how this concept manifests in some concrete examples, along with comparisons to their US counterparts.
McDonald’s
In the US, commercials often focus on visual impact and getting across a message. For example, this American commercial from 2022 is centered around glamorous shots of mouth-watering burgers, all coming together to convey the primary message that you as a customer can “hack” the McDonald’s menu as you please. Text style is minimal, and besides someone’s hands appearing a few times, there are zero on-screen actors. All attention is cast on the burger itself and menu hack idea.
In comparison, Japanese commercials focus on conveying a positive overall feeling through well-known figures, with the “message” taking a back seat. Take a look at how McDonald’s produced this Japanese commercial in winter 2023. Although there are still glamor shots of the burger like in the US one, attention is mainly given to the two well-known actresses that appear, Nanase Nishino and Marie Iitoyo:
Notice that the burgers don’t even appear in many of their scenes! Instead, the shots are mostly of the actresses enjoying themselves singing and dancing around, and this is meant to instill positive feelings in the viewer so they associate that with the product. Where text does appear, the typography is much more elaborate than in the US commercial, and this helps add to the mood.
Amazon
At certain points in the year, Amazon holds special sales and markets them through channels such as this Black Friday commercial:
Notice that the elements from the McDonald’s commercial are also present here: there is visual impact in the Amazon box stack character running around, and a clear message is being conveyed (“This Black Friday, let the deals come to you”).
Let’s now contrast this with a Japanese Amazon commercial. This one was made for a Japan-specific sale at the end of March because this is when Japanese students begin the new school year and new company hires begin their jobs, so many people are moving into new places around this time. Unlike the McDonald’s commercial, no people visually appear on-screen. What’s important in this case is the person narrating: Miyazon, a well-known Japanese comedian with a very distinct voice the average Japanese viewer would instantly recognize.
This reinforces again that for Japanese TV commercials, celebrities are used to make positive feelings stick with the viewer. Just like the McDonald’s commercial used famous actresses to convey positive vibes, this one uses a famous comedian to set the positive mood of the ad, even if only through his voice. The commercial actually ends with him reciting his famous saying, “yaruzo, yaruzo, yaruzo~!!” (means something like “let’s do it, let’s do it, let’s do it~!!”), and this adds to the “stickiness” of the ad by making it very easy for viewers to associate the Amazon sale with something they’re familiar with.
Reebok
To many Americans, while commercials with celebrities have become slightly more common in recent years (the Super Bowl is famous for having a ton of them), celebrities in commercials are still often seen as “selling out” in the US, and many have expressed their dislike for the trend.
However, the one major exception to this is athletes. Sports and fitness in general are a big part of US culture due to how deeply intertwined they are with the American value of “hard work leads to success”, and athletes serve as icons embodying this. Thus, many sports ads use athletes to boost their credibility – see this Reebok commercial featuring Allen Iverson, a famous basketball player from the 2000s:
Note also that once again, there is visual impact (the dramatically lit room Allen stands in) and a clear message being conveyed (“Life is not a spectator sport”).
So what does this ad’s Japanese counterpart look like? While athletes are occasionally used in Japanese commercials, Reebok decided to take things in a completely different direction. They ditched any connection to sports and instead focused the commercial around SixTONES, a male idol group:
Why does this work? In addition to what was discussed in the previous examples, a lot of it boils down to how big idol culture in Japan is. Fans of idols are dedicated – they’ll follow their favorites to nearly every public appearance they make, whether it be a performance they put on, a drama they starred in, or a quiz show they were a contestant on. Thus, Japanese idols have enormous influence over the younger generation that makes up most of their fans, making them icons for style and fashion. By painting their brand as “hip” and “current” through idols, companies like Reebok also extend their reach to the general public overall by tapping into a common desire to feel connected to society through the latest trends.
Takeaways
The biggest takeaway from all this? The fundamental way content is designed often needs to be completely different depending on what region you’re marketing in. Companies may think they can simply take their western-centric materials, slap on translations for the text, then release it in another country and expect it to be successful, but as we have seen with TV commercials, it is often the underlying way content is built that dictates everything.
This echoes a common misconception I see as someone in the localization industry: that localization isn’t much more than translation of the text. This is wrong because localization is about how to adapt content to resonate with a target audience, both culturally and linguistically. Although the commercials in this post are arguably not localization because they were likely created from scratch in each target region, it speaks to the interdependence of localization and marketing in terms of how important the cultural factor is. For example, if you’re attempting to localize marketing materials into a new region, having the cultural expertise on your team (which could be your translator!) would help you do a culture check on whether the content design would even resonate with the target audience at all.
By recognizing the importance of both the cultural and linguistic elements in a region, companies can get a leg up on spreading their products and services throughout the world. Appreciation of the interconnection between language and culture is one of the biggest reasons I got into localization, and it is a concept I hope I can continue to spread among the people I meet in my career.
