Via Agenda, the LA Times features the decline of an age-old (well, decades old) Hollywood tradition, appearing in Japan-only ads (Winona Ryder and Jodie Foster for a Starbucks knock off, anyone?). Check out Japander for examples. From the LAT:
The Stars Realign in Japan - Hollywood celebrities once commanded big bucks to pitch products overseas. Now, ad agencies and consumers prefer talent from Asia.
TOKYO — Brad Pitt did it.
George Clooney and Meg Ryan did it.
Bill Murray pretended to do it. And back when he was just a celluloid action hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger was very, very good at doing it.
But none of them does it much these days.
A Hollywood in-house secret, Japanese TV commercials were once talked about with a wink and a shake of the head. Piles of cash were paid to stars willing to peddle anything from whiskey to cigarettes, cars to coffee, instant noodles to cafe latte — as long as nobody told the fans back home. Hey, did you know Dennis Hopper did one for bath products? How much do you figure Leonardo DiCaprio got for that SUV spot? A million? Three?
Sadly, the days of seeing, say, Harrison Ford guzzling Kirin beer may be over. American stars have not vanished from the Japanese advertising landscape, but their numbers have dropped dramatically since the heyday of the 1990s, when even Mickey Rourke was considered bankable here.
...
Many in the world of Japanese advertising argue that the decreasing use
of American stars marks a cultural watershed, in which Japanese
audiences increasingly embrace stars and celebrities from Asia instead
of the West.
"The Hollywood brand isn't the best anymore, and
Hollywood actors aren't effective enough anymore," said Yukio Mori,
president of Systrat Corp., a marketing and promotion consultancy in
Tokyo. "Consumers are in favor of singers or artists who are familiar,
rather than foreign movie stars."
The catalyst for the
change, almost everyone agrees, has been Japan's raging love affair
with Korean culture that took everyone here by surprise two years ago.
