On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 12:20:07 +0900, CL wrote:

> Ed wrote:
> 
>> or is Japanese television becoming even more brain-dead than usual? My wife
>> just loves watching this show which features a fat guy who wanders around
>> Tokyo eating food. And not even crazy disgusting food, but just... regular
>> food like spaghetti or ramen or rice! And then there's the show which has
>> these two black tarentos who appear to do nothing more than act like
>> complete retards. Not just regular gaijin tarento retards, but true morons.
>> 
>> And I previously thought Dave Specter's hair was a low point of Japanese
>> TV!!!!
> 
> Well, now that we've flogged that puppy for week, let's move on to the 
> musical question "Are Japanese advertising people just stupid or are 
> they _really_ different?" 

I'm going to wager all 50 keys on incredibly stupid. 

Japanese marketing executives are as brain-dead as you'll ever have the
misfortune of running across. The real problem is that they don't see the
difference between advertising and persuasion. On one hand, you've got
these weird guys like that Aum fella Asahara something that could persuade
people to do shit they would have never thought they would do on their own,
and then you've got the blue-suited moron sect that can't figure out that
if they are showing a commercial with a model showing serious leg, then we
will somehow be interrupted in our perusal of her gams in order to figure
out what sort of product they want us to buy. 

Maybe the idiots-in-charge ought to pull some strings and get Asahara Shoko
out of the pokey so he can help sell TVs instead of Sarin.