Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Japanese commercials are famous for their high usage of celebrities. Studies have reported celebrities appearing in approximately 50% (Lee, Choi, & Tsai 2007; Praet 2009) to 70% (Hagiwara, Prieler, Kohlbacher, & Arima 2009; Mooney 2000) of Japanese commercials. This figure stands in stark contrast to most other countries. As Praet (2009) shows in his comparative research on commercials in 25 countries, only one other country, Korea, shows a similar number of celebrities in television advertisements. Analyzing the percentage of celebrities in TV advertising, Praet found three groups of countries: One in which 50% or more commercials used celebrities, including Japan and Korea; one in which around 25% of commercials showed celebrities, including Brazil, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia; and finally Western countries, where celebrities are not very common in commercials (less than 15%). Japan’s situation is quite unique in this respect. Although some research has highlighted this phenomenon in general, as yet no study has focused specifically on older celebrities. This article will examine this phenomenon in greater detail. Older celebrities are becoming an increasingly important topic, since Japan is one of the world’s fastest-aging societies. According to the latest estimates (October 2009), people aged 65 and older account for 22.7% of the population, and those at least 50 years old constitute more than 43% of the population (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2009). Is Japan’s age distribution reflected in the well-known phenomenon of celebrity usage within Japanese TV advertisements, and if so, how are these older celebrities portrayed compared with their non-famous counterparts? In short, this article is the first that investigates the differences between
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2183089599