Top Dollar, and No Image Problems

By Margaret Shapiro

Washington Post Service

1. TOKYO - Dressed in a white tuxedo and red bow tie, Sylvester Stallone clearly has something important on his mind. But it's not Rocky or Rambo.

2. «Ito Ham», the American movie megastar says in the Japanese television commercial. «O-okay».

3. In the print version, Mr. Stallone is even more eloquent about Ito's processed meat: «It is so delicious that it is a gift of love».

4. Mr. Stallone is only one of many movie su-tah, as the Japanese call stars, showing up in advertisements these days. With companies paying top dollar and promising to run the ads only within the confines of this insular nation, Hollywood stars are eagerly appearing in commercials that they wouldn’t be caught dead doing in the United States.

5. Paul Newman, for instance, hums in an elevator before letting viewers know that Fuji Bank’s credit card is his «main card». Arnold Schwarzenegger, in excellent Japanese form, slurps up a mouthful of steaming Nissin instant noodles.

6. John McEnroe, the tennis player, and his actress wife, Tatum O'Neal, joke together in matching shirts while holding up a box or Assess toothpaste.

7. James Coburn and Roger Moore both «Speak Lark», the slogan used in ads here for Lark cigarettes. Even Woody Allen, the reclusive film director, once did a stint (клип) in Japanese advertising, appearing in a 1982 ad to promote the Seibu department store.

8. Movie stars rarely do commercials in the United States, lest it tarnish their image and their marketability. In the United States, getting into commercials is often a sign a career is on the way down.

9. But when it comes to Japan, said Irving Axelrad, a motion picture attorney, «I tell them to do it. They pay a lot of money and it's a couple of days».

10. Mr. Axelrad and others protect their clients’ American reputations by demanding that «Japan-only» clauses be written into advertising contracts. The clauses impose heavy penalties on Japanese companies if the ad somehow gets shown in the United States. Shinobu Ina, a casting manager at Dentsu Inc., Japan's largest advertising agency, said, «They want the money from appearing in the commercials but they don't want it known in the United States». They want to hide as much as possible that they are appearing in commercials in Japan.

11. Agents for several movie stars refused to comment, or never returned telephone calls Japanese companies were equally leery of publicity. One company spokesman, after first demanding anonymity for himself and his firm, would only say, «Our star hates to be mentioned».

12. Nobody would discuss the fees paid to specific celebrities, although ad executives in Tokyo said well-known American or European actors make between $500,000 and $1 million, with the heftiest pay going to only a few major stars, like Mr. Newman or the British rock star, Sting, who appears in ads on behalf of Kirin beer.

13. According to Mr. Ina at Dentsu, American stars have been appearing in Japanese commercials since the 1950s. At that time they were the ultimate status symbol, since only a few companies could afford them. Instead, most relied on Japanese, actors and actresses, who routinely appear in commercials.

14. «When we heard we needed $1 million, well, we thought that is really a lot of money», he said.

15. But the world has changed. The dollar has plummeted in the last four years, and so American movie stars, like US golf courses and office buildings, have become quite reasonably priced in yen terms.

16. In fact, Mr. Ina notes, the money is no longer a problem. The problem is finding enough stars.

International Herald Tribune

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