With the recent ongoing controversy involving Nakai Masahiro and FujiTV, AC Japan's advertisements have been thrust into the limelight again as companies pull off their ads from FujiTV and replace them with those from AC Japan. So what is AC Japan and why are their ads being used in times like this?
To begin with, AC Japan stands for Ad Council Japan and its Japanese full name is 公益社団法人ACジャパン (Koueki Shadan Houjin AC Japan). It is a private non-profit organisation under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which distributes Japanese public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors including companies in the private sector, NPOs and government agencies. As such, its advertisements are nicknamed as "filler ads" meant to take up the advertising slots vacated due to a variety of reasons. For example, after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami crisis, most advertisers withdrew their TV ads and replaced them with AC Japan ads which promoted traditional Japanese values.
AC Japan does not actually produce the public service advertisements itself but is a coordinator and distributor. Its ads must be non-partisan and have relevance in Asia and Japan on a national or regional level. Advertising campaigns are assigned to volunteer advertising agencies tasked to produce the ads before AC Japan distributes them to media outlets. The organisation also accepts requests for Japanese advertising campaigns which are focused on specific social issues.
Now...the thing is, advertisers still have to pay the media outlets for the advertisement slots even if they replace their own ads with AC Japan's. In terms of what is happening during the current issue with Nakai and FujiTV, what this essentially means is that companies still have to pay FujiTV for their pre-booked advertisement slots until the time when their contracts with the TV stations expire. It does not mean that the advertisement income flowing to FujiTV is immediately cut off especially if such payments were made in advance.
As such, the significance of pulling the ads off FujiTV is more symbolic rather than dealing actual damage to FujiTV's bottomline now. The movement by these companies can be interpreted as a indication of not wanting to be seen by the public as still supporting FujiTV in the midst of this controversy. While they can't deny payment to FujiTV for now due to the existing contracts, the bigger challenge going forward for the TV station is when these advertisement contracts are due for renewal. If there is no specific and satisfactory resolution reached by then, these companies can then have a choice of not signing new contracts with FujiTV. That is probably when it will hurt FujiTV the most since advertisement income is the lifeline of a TV station.
However, it is still early days to judge whether the advertisers will stick to their decisions to boycott FujiTV over a longer term. Generally, the new financial year begins in April so if this issue with Nakai is yet to be resolved by then, we might continue to see a lot of AC Japan ads on FujiTV in the meantime at least till end March 2025. And depending on how the controversy develops in time to come, that will also be a key deciding factor for advertisers when planning their next fiscal year's advertising budgets.
No comments:
Post a Comment