Controversial Groupon Super Bowl Commercial Exploits Tibet for Laughs

By jozjozjoz | Sunday, February 6, 2011

I was only half-watching Super Bowl XLV today, but my attention was piqued when an ad featuring Asians (Tibetans) appeared on my TV. It turns out, it was an ad by Groupon, featuring Timothy Hutton which opened with what seemed to be an impassioned plea for the oppressed people of Tibet. Suddenly, Tibet became a punchline about delicious food that you could get for cheap through their site. Continue Reading »

| Posted in Observations, Sports, TV, WTF | 19 Comments

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SuperBowl Ad features Doritos Samurai Throwing “Ninja Stars” and Swinging “Nunchucks”

By jozjozjoz | Monday, February 8, 2010

Here’s a SuperBowl commercial that annoyed me, courtesy of Doritos. In this ad, some guys in a gym take Doritos from samurai– and suffer the consequences!!!111!!1 OMGLOLWTFBBQ! This ad was popular enough that it ranked in the Top 20 of the USA Today Super Bowl Ads Meter. (This was one of 4 consumer-created ads which aired during the big game.)

I don’t care that the Doritos Samurai is a white guy– in fact, I think it might be kind of racist if it was an Asian guy. This ad annoyed me because it used various martial arts in combination with each other– mixing up of the martial arts– not to be confused with intentionally featuring “mixed martial arts” (MMA).

Maybe I’ve just seen too many depictions of various martial arts being confused for each other– I’m talking about you Karate Kid 2010 and The Foot Fist Way– that my first reaction to the commercial was “Why is the Doritos Samurai throwing Doritos shurikens and swinging a Doritos nunchaku?” I mean, would it be so hard to make the guy swing a Doritos katana? Maybe shoot the guy with a Doritos yumi?

Then again, we are talking about a guy wearing a samurai outfit made out of Doritos, so who cares about accuracy?

On a side note, his outfit does look quite cheesy, crunchy, and delicious. Too bad it probably chafes. (Ow.)

| Posted in Food & Drink, Observations, TV, WTF | 5 Comments

Shopping With GASP!

The Top 10 Marketers to Asian Americans

By Jeff | Friday, January 29, 2010

One of the few things that I look forward to when I have to go to my Wells Fargo bank branch is looking at the photo murals there. On one wall are long ago scenes of Chinatowns and also pictures of the Filipino farm workers from the 1920s and 1930s. Wells Fargo also has a history blog from their archivists, which occasionally covers Asian American history. As it sponsors a blog featuring Asian American history and with an ad that shows Asian American couples as regular folks, Wells Fargo is not surprisingly on an Ad Age list of the top 10 marketers to Asian Americans.

3630907566 3b4b4d42c9 o The Top 10 Marketers to Asian Americans

(Flickr photo credit: webchicken)

Other top marketers on the list are Toyota, JC Penney and McDonalds. Toyota has been a sponsor of the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. JC Penney had a marketing effort targeting Asian Americans, where they commissioned a wonderful little song by David Choi and Kina Grannis. The McDonalds ad on the left is on a bus in San Francisco, and McDonald’s also has a web site targeted at Asian Americans – www.myinspirasian.com.

I wouldn’t necessarily buy a product just because they show Asian Americans or use a language that’s familiar to me (my Asian BMI doesn’t need any Big Macs), but doing so does get me to notice, which is half the battle in advertising. Finally, it’s good to see a top 10 list, especially compared to advertisers on the bottom end such as KFC or Salesgenie.com.

| Posted in Business | 2 Comments

Watching TV on a Sony Bravia HDTV can improve my Chinese?

By John | Tuesday, September 29, 2009

A loyal reader pointed us to this latest Sony commercial. In an ever-increasing field of HDTV manufacturers, Sony has been making the case that it’s worth buying their brand and claims, “You can’t fake Sony quality. It makes watching sports in HD better.”

Justin Timberlake chimes that the more sports you watch on a Sony, the better you get at sports (while playing a mean Forrest Gump-like match of table tennis with quarterback Payton Manning). A claim like this is actually somewhat plausible — especially watching individual sports like golf or tennis.

However, Manning then claims that watching HD on a Sony has also improved his Chinese in Chinese. Now unless Manning is watching a lot of Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, I have a hard time believing that a product from a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer such as Sony will improve my Chinese. And Timberlake’s Chinese is just God awful – is he even trying? His feeble attempt at Chinese is almost as bad as Rosie O’Donnell’s (okay, maybe not that bad).

Chinese can be a difficult language to learn, especially given its tonal nature as well as learning Chinese characters. I have to imagine that had Manning and Timberlake claimed that watching a Sony would improve their linguistic abilities with another Indo-European language besides English, the commercial just wouldn’t be as funny.

I have to admit, I thought the commercial was funny. And Timberlake can be quite the comedian. But I have to wonder, are we going to see more Chinese and Chinese families being the comedic twist in commercials, television and movies as China and Chinese language grows in global prominence and popularity? If watching HDTV can improve my Chinese, I should be completely fluent by now! Personally, my favorite Sony Bravia TV ad was an ad of bouncing balls in San Francisco that was ironically only aired in Western Europe.

h/t: David

| Posted in Observations, Technology, TV | 3 Comments

KFC vs. KGC: WTF???

By John | Monday, June 1, 2009

KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) has been promoting their new offering, Kentucky Grilled Chicken, with the tagline, UNTHINK what you thought about KFC – Taste the unfried side of KFC.

Joz and I both noticed that KFC is running a new, “multicultural” KGC commercial which features white, African American and Asian American actors. I had been channel surfing and upon catching the tail end of this commercial, I immediately re-wound the DVR just to make sure what I saw was what I saw. My initial reaction was “WTF.” Why are the Asian American actors wearing kamikaze headbands with what looks to me to be Japanese martial arts-type wardrobe, and speaking with foreign-sounding accents — while all the other actors and actresses came across as average Americans? What the hell is KFC trying to convey with those two Asian Americans? It’s stupid commercials like this that reinforce the idea that Asian Americans know martial arts (more than once as a kid I recall being asked if I knew karate, etc…) or that Asian Americans are “foreigners” (I’ve also been told that my English is excellent – which it should be since I was born-and-raised in the United States). Does reinforcing some Asian stereotype have anything to do in promoting fried chicken versus grilled chicken?

The Asian characters in the commercial haven’t been in other previous KFC commercials, so there is no rational context as to why these Asian Americans are dressed the way they are. In the context of this commercial, how would African Americans feel if there was a gang banger or basketball player representing them (or even more ridiculous, traditional African wardrobe?). The only white stereotype I see possibly is the two “preppy” twenty-or-thirty-something guys wearing sports jackets … and I think I’m stretching when I say that. BTW – Almost everyone in this commercial, as well as other KFC commercials, are dancing ridiculously to the tune of the commercials’ theme music, to convey the excitement to KFC now offering grilled chicken.

Joz’s commentary:
Wow, first the Oprah/Kentucky Grilled Chicken coupon fiasco, and now this! KFC is screwing up royally with their promotions for KGC. Regarding the KGC commercial with the two Asian guys dressed with kamikaze* headbands… Everyone else in the commercial is dressed all normally, but why are the Asian guys the only ones dressed all stupid and fighting about chicken while speaking in dumb accents?

John, thanks for uploading the video… If people start saying “What’s wrong with this?! Asians DO sometimes wear Kamikaze headbands and argue about chicken,” I will punch them in the neck.

Maybe these guys are actually fighting about KFG?!

* Ok, I know they are not really kamikaze headbands and I definitely know they are not in martial arts clothes. I can tell they are supposed to be Japanese cooks. But these guys make no sense and are totally out of context. (Moye says the headband is called “hachimaki.” I still say that most Americans know those things as the headbands worn by kamikaze pilots. Or by Daniel-san in Karate Kid.)

| Posted in Business, Current Events, Discrimination, Food & Drink | 91 Comments

McDonald’s “Asian Weeks” Ad Baffles 8Asians

By jozjozjoz | Thursday, January 15, 2009

… at least two of them anyway. Moye shared this with me and neither of us can figure this out.

Does the ad fold down? Huh? What?! You can count ME confused but somehow, oddly, I am craving a fried eggroll with some mysterious red dipping sauce. Do any of our European readers have any insight?

Seen at ibelieveinadv.com: “Asian Weeks till 24th August.”

Advertising Agency: DDB, Helsinki, Finland
Art Director: Jukka Mannio
Copywriter: Vesa Tujunen
Photographer: Mikko Harma / Kustom
Other additional credits: Mika Wist

(Hat tip: mrod)

| Posted in Food & Drink, WTF | 20 Comments