Commentary: ‘Cute-washing’ and sexism are at the heart of Japan fast food’s bid to attract female customers

SEXISM AS MARKETING Strategy

The existence of profound sexism in corporate Japan was not the large expose right here, although the volume and immediacy of general public outrage were being encouraging. 

Fairly, it was Ito’s inclusion of the specifically jarring, visceral terms for “young girls” and “hooked” – phrases that gave his verbal picture this sort of repellent vividness. And this is where matters get challenging.

Ito, accompanied by a grovelling apology from the organization, was promptly sacked. It was a transfer that Yoshinoya obviously hopes will permit it to disguise the episode as one particular man’s folly, alternatively than blowing the industrial mystery that the sport, which the quick-foods company is in (and has been winning for a long time), calls for deep reserves of cynicism and ugliness.

Take into account – devoid of forgiving his vocabulary – Ito’s advertising challenge from an investor’s perspective. Japan’s populace is irrevocably shrinking and adult men, broadly talking, do not have to have significantly convincing that a bowl of fatty beef on rice, wolfed down at a strip-lit counter, is US$5 well put in. 

If there is domestic development for the enterprise to be discovered everywhere, it is amongst the younger, funds-strapped woman inhabitants that has nevertheless to recognize what they are lacking.