Manga Rul'z #1: Psychotropic drugs and advertising research don't mix.

May 10, 2005 8:58 PM

JAPAN IS SO COOOOOL AND SO KAWAII . . .! Is the highlight of this website a hair product or a marketing campaign gone horribly, hilariously wrong? Feel the Manga power and judge for yourself!
posted by Anonymous (31 comments total)

...in a world where everything is made up of bright colours and bubbles...

Thanks, I needed that.
posted by hopeless romantique at 9:06 PM on May 10, 2005

Awesome, just awesome.
posted by oddman at 9:11 PM on May 10, 2005

holy shit.
posted by jimmy at 9:26 PM on May 10, 2005

Born in Vienna, Bernays was both a blood nephew and a nephew-in-law to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and Bernays's public relations efforts helped popularize Freud's theories in the United States. Bernays also pioneered the PR industry's use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns. "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it," Bernays argued. He called this scientific technique of opinion molding the "engineering of consent."

One of Bernays's favorite techniques for manipulating public opinion was the indirect use of "third party authorities" to plead for his clients' causes. "If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway," he said. In order to promote sales of bacon, for example, he conducted a survey of physicians and reported their recommendation that people eat hearty breakfasts. He sent the results of the survey to 5,000 physicians, along with publicity touting bacon and eggs as a hearty breakfast.

Bernays's clients included President Calvin Coolidge, Procter & Gamble, CBS, the American Tobacco Company, General Electric, Dodge Motors, and the fluoridationists of the Public Health Service. Beyond his contributions to these famous and powerful clients, Bernays revolutionized public relations by combining traditional press agentry with the techniques of psychology and sociology to create what one writer has called "the science of ballyhoo."

posted by airguitar at 9:38 PM on May 10, 2005

If I use this stuff, will I get a creepy laugh and be able to shoot lightning bolts out of my ass?
posted by gunthersghost at 9:42 PM on May 10, 2005

Pop will eat itself?
posted by Tlahtolli at 9:44 PM on May 10, 2005

holy shit, harry morgan.

you just posted the secret phrase!!!!
P-W-E-I! P-W-E-I! P-W-E-I! P-W-E-I! P-W-E-I!
posted by puke & cry at 10:06 PM on May 10, 2005

it's a style that's always changing...a metafilter hero can undergo amazing transformations depending on the situation he finds himself in. his prose can change shape and size depending on his mood and emotions.

metafilter prose can be white, yellow, long, short, blowing in the wind or styled into aggressive spikes.

metafilter heroes have style by the bucketload, with their androgynous bodies, their huge eyes, and tiny mouths and noses.
posted by carsonb at 10:27 PM on May 10, 2005

I'll be so glad when the western world stops going batshit insane over everything and anything related to Japan.
posted by nightchrome at 10:41 PM on May 10, 2005

Then they'll just move on to Russia...remember in the 80's when everything Australian was cool? There's always an in culture.
posted by nyxxxx at 10:49 PM on May 10, 2005

Actually, the next big thing is Liberia.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:56 PM on May 10, 2005

Russia was "cool" in the mid eighties wasn't it? The watches, the hammer and sickle shirts, the hats, the russian writing on everything and, oh god, Nikita by Elton John.
posted by dabitch at 10:57 PM on May 10, 2005

Come together all over the world. From the hoods of Japan Harajuku girls. What? It’s all love. What? Give it up. What? (shouldn’t matter) What? I rock the Fetish people you know who I am.
posted by airguitar at 11:04 PM on May 10, 2005

I don't care. This Halloween, I WILL BE DOMO-KUN.
posted by dreamsign at 11:06 PM on May 10, 2005

Oh my.

I think I died a little.
posted by Amanda B at 11:34 PM on May 10, 2005

I just threw up a little, overwhelming my sensitive pallate. BLEECH!

How many of those small jars does it take to get your hair that permeated?
posted by blasdelf at 12:15 AM on May 11, 2005

Well, ok, but if I buy something with "Explosive Putty" on the jar I expect to be able to take off a safe door with it.

...IN A WORLD where everything is made up of bright colours and bubbles, ONE COP on the edge...
posted by queen zixi at 2:24 AM on May 11, 2005

I'm with nightcrome. I'm sick of Japan.

Note to Germany: make some stupid fetish animation to appeal to big fat gamers and no one will remember your wartime atrocities anymore.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:25 AM on May 11, 2005

God, I saw posters for this stuff in Sheffield and I kept on blinking and going "No...no..."

Now if I could just get the Sailor Moon hair...
posted by Katemonkey at 5:23 AM on May 11, 2005

Note to Germany: make some stupid fetish animation to appeal to big fat gamers and no one will remember your wartime atrocities anymore.

Right. They really should get cracking on those Furry warm-up suits.
posted by sourwookie at 6:51 AM on May 11, 2005

Kazakhstan is the new Japan.

Kazak-stanu wa super-KAWAIIIII des'!!! Watashi wa Kazaku des'!!!

Look for the first introduction of (misnamed) 'kazakhstanimation' into American TV this summer.

You heard it here first.
posted by theorique at 7:27 AM on May 11, 2005

That was fricking awesome. And if the guy's hair was about 2 inches shorter, Hairstyle Number 5 guy could be pretty much any teenager in Japan.

Gotta dig the fake Chinese music playing on a page about Japanese comics, too.
posted by Bugbread at 7:32 AM on May 11, 2005

Apple should sue them for their red-yellow-green dot logo.
posted by mike3k at 7:41 AM on May 11, 2005

That's what my hair used to look like when I woke up, about 15 years ago.
posted by Foosnark at 8:09 AM on May 11, 2005

"Japan is a place where, no matter where you're from, or what you do, you can lose yourself" [Picture of odd animal and mushrooms]

Somoene should have told them that the japanese banned shrooms in 2003

:(
posted by delmoi at 10:10 AM on May 11, 2005

"Manga heroes have style by the bucketload, with their androgenous bodies, huge eyes and tiny mouths and noses."

Yep, that's what everyone looks for in a hero. An androgynous body. And wacky hair.
posted by me3dia at 11:56 AM on May 11, 2005

There are posters for Garnier Fructis shampoo (or whatever the stuff is) all over the metro here, and none of them feature this manga theme. They show an attractive young woman with super-long hair a la Rapunzel. Web-based advertising is undoubtedly cheaper than tons of subway posters, so maybe they're testing the waters with the manga ad but putting their real money into a more mainstream pitch.

You'd think that San Francisco, which is pretty receptive to Asian stuff, would be a great place to plaster the subway with manga-themed ads for the hipsters. The fact that they're not suggests that this ad campaign is somewhat experimental. In fact, all the background info about manga and the hipness of Japan gives me the feeling that whoever designed the website was working hard to sell Garnier's management on the project (Disclaimer: I only looked at the first couple of pages, didn't get into the psychotropic part.)
posted by Quietgal at 12:05 PM on May 11, 2005

Well there are posters of this in the Paris subway, and they do feature the manga theme. Last time it was a gel that made people look as if they had just got out of bed. Now it's manga. I'm expecting the gel that makes you look bald.
posted by elgilito at 12:23 PM on May 11, 2005

Ah, yes. Androgynous bodies.

posted by Bugbread at 12:51 PM on May 11, 2005

Elgilito, that's interesting. Different advertising for a different market, clearly. Paris must be way hipper than SF (let us know when the bald look is in, OK?) I'm still waiting for bad hair to be hot, since I've got that look nailed. I don't need to buy anything to get wacky hair, thank you. Have manga posters been spotted anywhere in the US? C'mon, marketeers, we need to promote greater cultural tolerance of wacky hair!
posted by Quietgal at 2:23 PM on May 11, 2005

Mayor Curley: Imagine how I feel, I live in Japan.
posted by nightchrome at 6:28 PM on May 11, 2005