This is USA TODAY's Life cover story for April 4, 1996.
TOKYO - A few decades back, Nissan had a hit here with its Skyline car ads. They featured a generic American couple, Ken and Mary, cruising the USA.
Today, Ken and Mary wouldn't even get a callback.
While once a Screen Actors Guild card was enough to land a lucrative Japanese commercial, now it's advisable to have an Oscar or at least a strong cult following. After spending up a tsunami in the '80s, a fiscally cautious Japan is experiencing attitudinal shifts that are reshaping its ad market and recasting the commercial use of foreign celebrities.
"We call it neo-Japan. After traveling abroad, consumers come back to Japan with a new appreciation of their culture," says Koh Sakata, president of the McCann-Erickson/ Japan ad agency. "The use of foreign stars already is down. So we like big stars or those who have not appeared before."
Which is why today's hot U.S. tarento - talent - includes Brad Pitt (Honda) and Mariah Carey (Kose cosmetics). Vets Harrison Ford (Kirin beer) and Jodie Foster (Keri cosmetics and Caffee Latte) also carry clout. Paul Newman, who in the past pushed and raced Nissan cars, is one of few Hollywood legends welcomed back for return engagements (Evance watch stores).
More significantly, one famous ad that always used foreigners - Lark cigarettes' "Speak Lark" campaign - has left behind the likes of Roger Moore and turned to the grizzled face of local film hero Ken Takakura. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda makes a splash in a coffee ad because he coaches Japanese pitcher Hideo Nomo.
"More Japanese celebrities are being used in ads today," says Hidekazu Aizawa, senior manager at Japanese ad giant Dentsu. "Overall, there is a trend to reduce the cost of making TV commercials, from production to pay."
What's more, a growth in the number of Japanese who have traveled abroad - 125,000 around the time of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics vs. 10 million today in a population of 125 million - has left Japanese consumers less impressed with foreign stars and more intrigued by local celebs.
Notes Risa Tanaka, managing editor of the ad magazine Sendenkaigi: "If you compare a U.S. star to a Japanese star, people in their teens today don't see the Japanese star as necessarily inferior."
According to McCann data, nearly 80% of Japanese ads use celebrities, the majority local. Of foreign stars, the most likeable are noodle pitchman Arnold Schwarzenegger and whiskey ad man Steven Spielberg.
A survey of last year's 55 most popular ad campaigns featured only two with American stars, Harrison Ford and Mickey Rourke (liquor), says John L. McCreery, an American with 16 years in Japan and international creative director at Hakuhodo, the country's number two ad firm.
"In the '80s, Japan was buying everything," he says. "They could buy Schwarzenegger, so they did. Now, there's pressure to be much more strategic" with advertising budgets.
And that means a new tack for Japanese ad firms: listening carefully to market research.
Ages ago, Charles Bronson was chosen by a failing hair gel company to be its spokesman. This debut gaijin (foreigner) appearance was such a hit the company changed its name to the name of the hair gel. Today, execs would be more inclined to find out whom its audience wants in ads. Quips editor Tanaka: "I bet you those ad department people didn't even know who Brad Pitt was when (data told them) Pitt was popular."
Despite a general cutback in foreign star use, Hollywood actors hardly have been chased off Japanese airwaves. Spend enough time in front of the tube and out pop Andy Garcia and Sean Connery (cars), or Sharon Stone and Lara Flynn Boyle (cosmetics). Sylvester Stallone hams it up, barking Oishii desu! - "Tasty!" - for a popular sausage company; those few stars who do utter one- or two-word phrases in the local tongue enjoy increased popularity.
But there is a marked difference in how they are being used, for which a munching Stallone proves a perfect example. The trend is moving away from the foreign star as untouchable icon and toward the star-as-neighbor.
They tend to be used "in a more natural way," says McCann's Sakata. Adds Dentsu's Aizawa: "That is why you see Harrison Ford as an ordinary man (in a Kirin ad), dressed as a salaryman talking to colleagues."
Some have a different take. Japan long has had an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the West, says book translator Mitsunobu Yamamoto, who adds that half of Japan's top 10 books are translated foreign fare.
So, he says, advertisers often "make fun of (foreign stars). Take Ringo Starr," who does an ad for applesauce, which coincidentally is what his name means in Japanese.
Others are making silly commercials. Madonna slays a dragon and whispers, in English, "I'm pure" - a liquor company's slogan, but surely not hers. And Janet Jackson and dancers gyrate through airport lounges for Japan Air Lines.
Longtime Japanologist and market researcher George Fields puts it bluntly: "Ads using foreigners as court jesters are successful. In a way, it is an image of them kowtowing to the once-conquered nation."
And why kowtow?
"Only one answer," says McCann's Sakata. "Money."
Just how much is kept hush-hush by contracts that also rule out any use of ads outside of Japan. Japanese stars can fetch $500,000 to $1 million for a one-year contract; foreign stars can count on as much or more, Japanese industry experts say.
Stateside, various film stars and agents declined comment. Curiously, top stars often have no problem lending their voices to U.S. ads - for example, Donald Sutherland and Volvo - but shun making appearances in the flesh.
"(Stars) make enormous amounts of money from Japanese ads and just don't want the publicity," says Hollywood star-watcher and Daily Variety columnist Army Archerd. "And some do cigarette ads (like Charlie Sheen for Parliament Lights) and don't want that publicized."
Well, money isn't the only motivation. Fields suggests this key cultural difference: "In the U.S., if you're in a commercial, your career is over. In Japan, if you're not in a commercial, your career is over."
Sendenkaigi's Tanaka cites Dennis Hopper's quirky pitch for Tsumura bath salts. "The number of people who recognize him is limited. But they see him playing with a toy in the bathtub and think it's funny. Then, after they find out he's a star through his next movie (Waterworld), they think, 'Wow, and he's doing something like this?' "
And the viewer's next thought? Merely the reason why American stars were enlisted in the first place: "Using international talent is a way of saying, 'Hey, (Japan is) doing OK!' " says Hakuhodo's McCreery.
Which is why despite a recession, renewed Japanese cultural pride and an aging population, work for foreign stars in Japan will never dry up completely. For one, celebs equal quality, and quality means boosted sales. And second, the Japanese view American stars more as images than people, a dissociation that also helps move product off shelves.
"If I see a Japanese star, I think about what I know about their life and don't pay attention to the product," says Yokohama student Teppei Yamamoto, 20. "But the American star I know only from movies."
Yamamoto is a child of an internationalized Japan. He favors the footwear of Britain's Doc Martens and the music of Canadian-born rocker Alanis Morissette. But he has a yen for the USA, land of his favorite cartoon, Beavis and Butt-head.
"Japanese people have an America complex," he says with a sheepish smile. "If we see an American star wearing nice clothes, we think it is very handsome. And we'll buy it."
By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY