One fun aspect of living in Japan is seeing how many television commercials you can watch before coming across one featuring a famous famous foreign star pushing some product. It might be Leonardo diCaprio doing a CM (as TV commercials are called here) for Suzuki’s newest small car (“Go! Go! Wagon R!!”), or Korean heartthrob Chan Gunsoku pitching a Korean rice wine, or a digitally resurrected Audry Hepburn enjoying some refreshing Afternoon Tea by Kirin. Bruce Willis (whose last name unfortunately makes Japanese people think of the word “virus,” for reasons related to the above paragraph) has had a successful side career pitching Eneos gasoline and Subaru’s Outback Wagon. Some companies develop reputations for being in love with foreign stars, like Suntory, which has paid actor Tommy Lee Jones to portray an alien observing life on planet Earth in their BOSS canned coffee commercials for years.
Ads featuring famous stars are everywhere in Japan.
