Cutter's edge: American ad studio takes Tokyo, for The ACCJ
COOL JAPAN | MEDIA ( ACCJ Journal ) Cutters Tokyo CEO, Ryan McGuire The New Mad Men The evolution and transformation of advertising in Tokyo By Roland Kelts Among the fastest ways to check the barometer of a nation’s popular culture—to see who’s cool and what’s in style or comical—is to watch domestic TV commercials. Advertising cuts to the heart of a culture’s DNA. TV ads from Japan, for example, have long been coveted abroad for their apparent outrageousness or sheer oddity. Entire YouTube channels and websites (see the seminal japander.com) upload Japanese commercials featuring American A-list celebrities. On Japanese TV, Leonardo DiCaprio promotes the Orico credit card and hawks Jim Beam; Tommy Lee Jones guzzles Boss canned coffee; and Madonna sports geta (wooden sandals) to tout Takara shochu. Then there's Sofia Coppola’s 2004 film set in Japan, Lost in Translation. It makes cross-cultural advertising a comical plot point, with Bill Murray playing a washed-up...