wow interesting..haha

Ouch. O___O

This is SO LAME!

Even though she had the petite size and disabled left ear, it does't mean she wasn't able to carry the responsibility as an endorser.
Just look at the latest Lumix CM, she did so fine even she has a disabled left ear.

BTW, I don't want to think that Ayu cannot do the D-SNAP and D-AUDIO CMs anymore. :(

That's what we think outside of Japan, but my boyfriend who is from Japan even said that it was a pretty bad offense by Japanese culture standards. It wasn't so much the thing that she said, but the way that she said them which was considered very crude.

I'm glad that Ayu is at least not in the top 5!

It may be cultural BS or whatever, but if it is something cultural, the reasonings aren't stupid at all. A local company has to respect their local culture if they want to get people's empathy over their products. I still don't understand why people are mistaking business with american morality, ignoring that Japan is not US, that business is not charity or a social equality campaign, and that business does require that their targeted market has to be well studied before making investments and promotions on it. I don't even study market or business but I know the relevance of those, because it's so obvious that you don't need to be majoring on those to have such a basic knowledge. If Japn's population and culture still has skepticism over divorce and other taboos, a company can't just ignore that fact when they're going to promote their products, just because in United States of America people wouldn't care. They may even make use of controversial themes in a commercial, but only if the general idea where it will be placed is indeed very good and has a higher chance of appealing to the public than causing repugnance, or unless their targeted market is actually those few people who are tolerant over the controversy, because if not, they won't put their company at the risk of losing a lot of money only because they ignored such a trivial thing. :yes Business is cruel like that.

Look at what the media try to force on us everyday: That being beautiful is not accepting yourself, but actually using a lot of cosmetics products and using the most expensive clothes to try to achieve the impossible beauty patterns. That looking like a model is what everyone should try to. That you can only be happy if you have all the latest techonology devices, some of them in which you won't even use 20% of their capacities/utilities. Every day we're bopmbard with all kinds of BS culture that the media tries to build in everybody's mind. This is how some things get to sell so much. This is probably why CROCS are so popular, when they are so fugly and obnoxious. This is the power of business, and someone who knows how to do it, can only succesful and rich. Someone who understands of business and its applications won't care about compassion and equality if they have better means to get their way accross $$$.

I'll just quote what Bazaa said, because it makes so much sense:

cruel comments.
but then again all these surveys are quite useless XD

How many times does someone have to explain this to u guys?! :irked

*waits for someone to complain about ayu being on the list and ignore everything he just said* :rolleyes

=(...how horrible...

Koda Kumi, because of her unfortunate "rotting amniotic fluid" comment....<--LOL

wow people need to get over that...really

Who really gives a **** what these greedy corporations think? All that matters is what 'we' her fans think of Ayu!

Wada Akiko = Hisamoto Masami, y/n? :|

Anyway, I thought "artist" meant singer, so I predicted Koda Kumi would come first, but she didn't. So. Yeah.
The reason that the companies noted Ayumi was kind of true [from a marketing viewpoint], but when you'd look at it as if a human being with a heart, you'd totally look past her medical condition.

I agree with this.


And regarding Koda, I'm sure she would've been up there no matter what, she doesen't photo very well and she cannot change that.

Of course anything that gets to the public eye will make a spokes person more or less valuable for a company. A spokes person is a commodity, not a person with feelings in this context, just like a foot ball player.

In sales everything counts. Certain products women sell better to men and vice versa or the other way around. It may sound sexist in some context and it may change over time as culture changes. Why doesen't a braid afro-beauty slon on the corner here use caucasian women in their ads? because they want to attract an african audience and putting out somehing else would hurt sales.

Since we're talking about some cultural differences, here are two cases.

-Kobe Bryant, arguably one of the best NBA basketball players now, cheated on his wife and yet he still makes commercials for Nike. And I don't think anyone even thinks about that any more.

-Hikari Utada, arguable one of the best j-pop singers, does not make any commercials anymore other than for her record label (correct me if I'm wrong) because she, like this poll's first pick choice Kanda Uno, would make one think of divorce.

I chose these two for their similarities; they are very popular and likable in their respective countries and they are good role models for the most part. So one conclusion is that Japan is more sensitive on marital issues than America. Since I'm not too keen on Japanese culture, I have to ask you guys, does this conclusion make sense?

I can't answer with accuracy here because I personally don't know much about japanese culture to be honest, but look at what happened to Ami Suzuki. She was blacklisted in the record industry just because she sued some guy that clearly took advantage over her, but since she had a contract with him, there was this thing in jpan's record industry that it's very rude to sue those you work for (of course the history might be a little different as I personally don't know much about it, but it seems like the reason for her blacklisting was really BS). Also, those HP! scandals with some artists smoking and being suspended or even fired, etc. I doubt this would happen to some fairly famous american artist. I think there's a lot of things about cheating and other issues that involve trust and honor that can really be sensitive to japanese people. I could be very wrong though.

O__o

i'm just glad ayu's not at the top...

that sucks...

I'm glad ayu wasn't in the top 5 ^_^

you people are so naive. If you're going to throw millions of dollars on an ad obviously you want the best possible choice and of course it's gonna get picky. They are not lame reasons.

Lol what does acting in short 30 second commercials have to do with being deaf in one ear? I don't see why those two relate at all, but whatever.

unless she advertise something that's related to hearing like d-snap or cellphone then yea it can relate to deaf in one ear.