Models

When you first start working in Japan, you tend to spend a lot of time on trains. Since you can't read anything, you tend to focus more on the pictures than the messages they're trying to convey. One thing I couldn't help but notice during my first year was that all the ads seemed to almost always feature foreign models despite the fact that the intended customer base was entirely Japanese and the companies selling the products were Japanese.

I asked my students at that time why there were so few Japanese models featured in advertising and they gave a variety of answers. Some of them said that foreign models were more expensive and it was prestigious to feature them. Others said that foreign models caught the attention of the Japanese more than Japanese models. Still others said that they were considered more attractive than Japanese models.

The latter sentiment was actually one that one of my private students expressed recently. While I can't say her viewpoint is the same as all Japanese people's (and in fact, I'm nearly certain it's not), it does fit in with what I was told 17 years ago by students at Nova. My student felt that Japanese faces were too "flat" and broad and that foreign faces had more definition and that made them more appealing. Of course, she also felt she looked "plain" and I'm pretty sure most foreign men would find her fairly attractive. I think her perceptions may have reflected a bit of the grass being greener thinking.

Getting back to the foreign models though, I arrived around the time of the end of the economic bubble so companies were still burning excess monetary fat on ridiculous luxuries and paying more rather than paying less for everything. Fast forward about 10 years and the bubble had truly burst. The ads on the trains then started featuring far more Japanese models. I'm pretty sure this was linked to saving money but I've often wondered if there is a psychological link as well.


I hadn't thought much about how the ads used to overwhelmingly feature foreign models until a few days ago when I received a catalog with my credit card statement. I generally don't look much at these but the cover being dominated by a smiling blond woman piqued my curiosity. When I looked through the catalog, I noticed there was not one Japanese model in its pages. In fact, nearly every page is dominated by smiling, blue-eyed blond foreign women with the odd shot of a brunette here and there (and a couple of pages of square-jawed pretty boys). Seeing this catalog made me wonder if advertising was going full circle or if this all foreigner approach is specific to the underwear business. ;-)