Anime, as you can probably imagine, is everywhere in Japan. This doesn’t mean that everyone here is an anime otaku 24/7. The usual pattern is, children watch daytime anime and read manga like Shonen Jump regularly when they’re young. When the pressures of school and life start to assert themselves around junior high and high school, everyone makes a decision, whether to remain an active fan of anime/manga/light novels as they get older, or whether to put all that behind and become a person with more mainstream hobbies.
Since everyone has an emotional connection to anime on some level, it makes sense to use that connection when advertising and cross-marketing products. Like using the classic Heidi Girl of the Alps to sell educational products, or showing Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service as a teenager to sell you some instant noodles, or offering the official Mai Sakurajima nectar for sale. Or making anime commercials with the aim to get Japanese women to switch to tampons?
It’s an uphill battle, since Japanese women seem to have a cultural fear of tampons, and will giggle like silly schoolgirls if you suggest they use them even once. It’s far more common for Japanese women to prefer pads, though the commercial below (for Sofy Soft Tampons by Japan Unilever) is trying to promote their various benefits, in the friendliest way imaginable, through an anime commercial. I wonder if it will do the trick?
What do you think of anime commercials, of using anime to sell products?
Anime is pretty much everywhere in Japan today, even in…tampon commercials?
Japanese women are generally users of pads, and will giggle like schoolgirls at the idea of using a tampon. Sofy (owned by Japan Unilever) is trying to change that with this commercial. pic.twitter.com/2feAKgPkZm
— Peter Payne (@JListPeter) January 4, 2019
Another fun commercial tying the emotional appeal of anime with products, Cup Noodle in this case. This is a "sequel" to Kiki's Delivery Service. pic.twitter.com/PscBLJu9tL
— Peter Payne (@JListPeter) January 5, 2019
Remember the time Haruhi was used to market Lotte chewing gum? It was really ahead of its time. pic.twitter.com/6suajbkJZu
— J-LIST (@jlist) November 13, 2018
