THE NARRATION WITH

WESTERN
ACCENT IN

JAPANESE
TV COMMERCIALS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aub57EZc00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3UDh07ai9Q
Research Questions
1. Why would 2. Why not
Japanese TV other accents?
commercials
tend to use the
narrations with
the Western
accent?
Previous Researches

• Western images in Japanese print and TV ads

• Narration, Scenes, Texts and Models
Charles Bronson
1969, Shiseido
First foreigner in Japanese TV ads
Proportion of
Caucasian Models

57.8% 70.6%
1997 2001
 Homogenization of
Consumption Taste

Use Models from the Japanese Who

Their Home
Culture Globalization Can Speak English
(英語が使える日本
人)

The Prime Fetish

in a New Symbolic Universe
Western Images
as a Status Appeal
• Hofstede s Power Distance: the
degree of acceptance of social
hierarchy and respect for people
with higher status
• Advertising: Build Identity
• Japanese equate Americanism with
both modernism and high status
Consuming the other: The fetish of the western woman
in Chinese advertising and popular culture
Perry Johansson

Racial Fetishism
Western Orientalism
Orientalism is the tradition of imagining, writing
about, and having power over the non-West

irrational
uncivilized

West Colonization
East
Chinese Occidentalism

West Colonization
East
Racial Fetishism

Desire
Fear

West Fetish
East
Advertising Strategies
Katakoto：Broken Languages
Limitations
• The researches are outdated
• Status appeal & classes of audiences
• Racial fetishism can hardly be verified
• Globalization is a cliché that can be applied to many cases
• Current Japan
The Promotion of Cultural Diversity
• Population aging
• Low birth rate
• Up-coming Olympic Games
Hypotheses
• The adoption of narration with western accent is a reflection
of the cultural diversity in current Japanese society
• The adoption of narration with western accent is a katakoto
strategy for leaving impression in audiences heads
• Audiences find the narration with western accent more
appealing compared to other accents
 Methodology
1. Why would Japanese TV commercials tend to
use the narrations with the Western accent?
Interview：Advertising agency (Strategies or reflection of the
diversity)

2. Why not other accents?

Questionnaire & Interview： Audience（Status Appeal）