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Japander Much?

Back in the old days, maybe 10 years ago, most Hollywood and pop-music stars were reluctant to do American TV ads, I guess because it was considered declasse. But everything has its price, including declasse-ness, so now American TV commercials are full of stars like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jay-Z, even Robert DeNiro.

So this website, which has been around a good while but which I only just discovered, isn’t nearly as interesting as it once might have been. It’s called Japander.com, and it collects the Japanese TV ads that American stars have done. (Great title, if nothing else.) I couldn’t find any Woody Allen commercials, unfortunately (the site catalogues its ads by actor, not director), and no Vinnie Chase either (his commercial from Entourage was fictional), and a lot of them (like Brad Pitt’s) are pretty old. But it’s still pretty interesting.

And it did make me wonder if perhaps Japander.com played a small part in encouraging American stars to do American commercials. After all, if …

1. the reason they did Japanese ads and not American ads was that they could make a lot of money without cheapening their image in the U.S.; but …

2. Japander.com made it possible for anybody with a computer to see these stars’ Japanese ads anyway …

then …

Did Japander.com in some small measure help shrink the stigma of an American star making an American ad?

Probably not. But in any case, this is yet another neat example of how the Internet helps to blow apart an information asymmetry. Before a website like Japander.com, an American star could safely make a Japanese commercial without the home fan base finding out. Now that’s no longer possible. As it turns out, I have a feeling that the fan base cares a lot less about the stars “cheapening” themselves than the stars themselves. To paraphrase a line from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, it’s kind of like being seasick: You think you’re dying, but the rest of the world thinks it’s just a little bit funny.

Happy Thanksgiving.


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