CM idol level UP
Commercial breaks on TV in Japan are not what you would expect. Sure, there are a certain amount of video game adverts, cup noodle adverts, car adverts etc, but by far the most dominant genre of CM (the way Japanese refer to TV ads) is that of the commercial loan company - especially during peak viewing times.
It’s a sort of depressing symbol of the current economic climate when 80% of all commercials on TV are for loan companies offering instant loans that you can negotiate over the telephone. The interest levels for these loans are incredibly high - reaching up to 28% in some cases. In other countries, we tend to refer to that as, you know, EXTORTION but somehow it’s overlooked in this country.
So why do I care? Well, in a painfully obvious yet thoroughly pleasing bid to out-sex each other, most of these companies have a female ‘mascot’ who appears in all their CMs. Along with this, they have over time pretty much totally ripped off the format of each other’s CM to the extent that now we have several different loan companies with essentially the exact same CM but with a different front lady.
We’ll take a look at the 2 most ubiquitous CMs at the moment, the offerings from Acom and Promise. Click those links to be brought to a page where you can view their CM online.
The scenario of the Acom CM (which was the first company to bring out this kind of CM) is that our cheery, smiling lady is working hard at the office and is describing to us the factors that are important to her job, such as her voice and smile. She conveys quite successfully a genuine desire to work hard for her company and to be courteous to customers on the phone. She grins in an undeniably inane manner the entire way through the CM but somehow we forgive her because we realise that SHE knows it’s all part of the job. Plus the cheesiness of her smile is strangely endearing, giving her an air of being spirited and friendly. Background music is provided by a kind of folky, acoustic guitar jingle with a solo male singer.
The scenario of the Promise CM is a carbon copy of the above. Same ‘lady at job’ scenario, same comments about the importance of a good voice and smile (although not vocally stated - it’s written on a post-it-note on her desk), even the same fricking style of music in the background.
However there is an EASY way to distinguish the two adverts in that the Acom girl seems authentically happy and friendly and the Promise girl seems to be two Luis Vuitton handbags away from asking you if you want a bubblegum flavoured blow job with your high interest short term loan - which although sounds like a good thing, most certainly ISN’T.
Why is this? Well, when I see the Acom girl I instinctively think “that’s the Acom girl” for she has become synonymous with the brand due to the fact she does very little else on TV. When I see the Promise girl though, I instinctively think “oh there’s that silicone-based chat show whore with the lips that look as though they are about to explode what the hell is she plugging this time oh right loan company oh look my eyes are bleeding”. You see, the Promise girl is on TV all the time and she successfully encompasses all the bad stereotypes of Japanese women into a body that is quite blatantly a shameful melange of different surgical enhancements. She is the type of person who will spend an hour on a chat show saying nothing but “sou desu ka!?” to other guests’ comments, most likely because she has been contractually obliged by her agent to not say anything else in case everyone discovers just how stupid she really is. She also does this thing at the end of the Promise advert which makes me want to harm baby animals with sticks - after the final line of “PU-RO-MISU!” she gives a dumb little grin and shrugs her shoulders in the kind of hee-hee-golly-gee way you would expect an 8 year old girl to act in a commercial selling happiness flavour candy to rich American suburbanite kids, not in the way you expect a woman in her 20s to act selling lifetimes of DEBT.
Popular opinion however, varies considerably. For some the very fact that the Promise girl is a vacant, ample-bosomed shell of a human being is a plus point when evaluating the two CM idols. For others, the Acom girl’s spirit and sincerity creates a stronger, lasting appeal that provides a more concrete attraction.
I asked an online JET discussion board to weigh up the two CM idols, stopping short of asking bluntly “which one would you rather bone” but to most of the men on the discussion board the implied context was more obvious than an absent-minded Predator walking down to Safeways to do his weekly grocery shop with his cloaking device accidentally switched off. Here are some of their comments, reproduced entirely without anyone’s permission:
“AKOMU - cute, great smile”
“Promisu girl wins hands down. Stunning rack and great blowie lips. I rest my case.”
“the AKOMU girl is also fit, but the other girl has those dirty porn star looks which stir my loins”
“I’d pay money to give that Promise chick a smack in the face.”
“Acomu girl definitely, Promisu girl is too fake….I hate the one CM where she gets up and Arigatos the guy on the phone, too bloody annoying that spot…Acomu girls are more girl next doorish…..I can’t believe I am saying all this.”
“I’d like to give the Promise girl MY 25% RATES all over her face!”
Please enlighten me with your own opinion after you view the commercials.
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