In Japan, Broadcasters Pitch Commercials With Commercials

IN JAPAN, BROADCASTERS PITCH COMMERCIALS WITH COMMERCIALS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Amy Chozick amy.chozick@wsj.com ]
Facing a slowdown in ad revenue, Japan's television networks are running commercials ... for commercials. The country's 133 commercial stations this week kicked off a month-long ad campaign to remind viewers of the contributions made by TV commercials to popular culture. The first day, Monday, was dubbed "Commercial Day" and featured a barrage of commercials starring some of Japan's biggest TV personalities. One of the most popular, Mino Monta, appears in an ad that will run throughout the month. "Do you know how many TV commercials are made in a year?" he asks. "Twenty-thousand!" The tactic highlights how Japanese broadcasters, like those in the U.S., have become desperate to retain eyeballs and ad revenue. At $17.5 billion a year, Japan's TV-advertising market is the world's second-largest, after the U.S. But it has been hit recently by changes in the way people consume media. Despite strong growth in overall ad revenue, TV has seen its share of ad spending in Japan stagnate as marketers pour money into cellphone, Internet and other nontraditional outlets. Part of the problem is that viewers have grown so used to seeing commercials, "they don't catch people's attention that much anymore," says Hiroyuki Yabuuchi, a producer for Mainichi Broadcasting System in Osaka. What's more, Japan is among the fastest markets in the world to embrace digital video recorders, devices that make it easy for people to zip past the ad breaks in shows recorded earlier. According to Tokyo-based Nomura Research Institute, the number of Japanese households with DVRs is expected to rise to 44% by 2009 from 15% in 2005.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115697852940249935.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
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