Keywords

1 Introduction

While traditional gender norms are being challenged in Japanese youth culture, in particular in anime, manga, cosplay, and so forth, the Japanese advertisement industry continues to rely on more conventional constructs of binary gender, even in their efforts to promote female empowerment. Sports brand Nike Japan can be cited as a company engaging in strategic media campaigns that raise awareness of gender-related issues. Nike Japan, for example, released an advertisement video called “They can’t stop us” in November 2020. The two-minute commercial featured several teenage girls in Japan being bullied for their racial or ethnic heritage, but then showed them empowered, having found themselves through the power of sports. It is worth noting that the portrayed ‘victims’ of bullying in this video were those conventionally identified as the weakest members of society, not only because of their gender but in some cases also because of their race or ethnicity. This advertisement garnered much attention and was viewed more than 14 million times on YouTube alone in the first 48 hours of its release. While the commercial was well received among those who agreed with the sporting brand’s progressive message to tackle xenophobia and bullying in Japanese society, there was a sizable backlash from domestic viewers who criticized it as an anti-Japan campaign. According to one media outlet, there were 46,000 favorable reactions and 29,000 negative reactions on social media in the first four days; this was also accompanied by angry calls to instigate a boycott movement against Nike products (Joongang Ilbo 2020). The backlash was reported in both domestic and international media (Denyer and Kashiwagi 2020; Fickenscher 2020; Mizuno 2020; Mori and Ohno 2020; Reuters 2020). This particular advertisement has garnered some interest among scholars, particularly in the context of continued oppression of the zainichi (permanent Korean residents of Japan) and the rejection of “superficial multiculturalism” pushed by multinational corporations (Oh and Wan 2021).

This chapter investigates recent Nike ad campaigns in comparison to other sports brand commercials as a window into the discussion on diversity and inclusion in contemporary Japanese society. More specifically, this chapter explores the representation of female athletes and the message of female empowerment in sports brand advertising in Japan, focusing on a series of Nike advertisements on YouTube over the last few years from 2020 to 2022. By examining the advertisements in chronological order, particularly against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter and the increasing drive to ensure diversity and inclusion in society, we take a close look at the rhetorical vicissitude expressed by these sports goods manufacturers. In particular, this chapter will address the following questions: What was the global marketing strategy that influenced Nike Japan’s controversial advertisement? What did Nike Japan do in their subsequent video advertisements after the controversy? How can these subsequent videos be interpreted when read through a feminist lens? What are we able to extrapolate about the appetite for diversity and inclusion in Japan based on the trajectory of Nike Japan’s message strategy since 2020? In this chapter, the commercial is analyzed as a microcosm among the debate on whether or not Japan is ready for a dialogue on diversity and inclusion.

2 Advertising for Social Good

There are currently many global companies emphasizing social good in their advertisements. According to a 2018 survey on consumer attitudes, 66% of Japanese consumers responded that global brands can play a powerful role for good in the world (McCann, n.d.).Footnote 1 In another survey, 55% of Japanese consumers said they would choose, avoid, or boycott products based on the brands’ attitude toward social issues (Matsuura et al. 2020, p. 8).

One key feature of the new wave of social agenda-driven advertisements is the representation of women. These campaigns employ linguistic and visual rhetoric to celebrate female empowerment. Coined “femvertising,” this neologism combines feminism and advertising (Kapoor and Munjal 2017). A critical analysis of femvertising delves into “issues of lack of authenticity, dilution of feminist discourse, interconnection with social movements as well as linkages to increase representation of women in advertising” (Varghese and Kumar 2020). This chapter thus takes cue from Varghese and Kumar to offer a critical examination of femvertising by sports brands in Japan.

As many may know, Nike is an American multinational corporation that was founded in 1964 and was renamed to its current appellation in 1971. It was in 1987 that Nike aired its first advertisement directed at female consumers. Prior to that year, there was no Nike ad geared specifically at female consumers because the sportswear maker believed it “would compromise Nike’s authentic and serious sports image” (Helstein 2003). Michelle T. Helstein (2003) analyzes the historical context which led Nike to the idea of female empowerment, or what Helstein considers emancipation, as a key strategic concept in their marketing. She points to the influx of women and girls gaining access to sports after the passage of Title IX in the U.S., the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities. Secondly, she argues that neoconservatism in the 1980s allowed the percolation of blame to any socioeconomic issue as rooted in individual inadequacies. These ideas led to the notion that people can change their material realities as long as they put the effort in (Helstein 2003). In addition to the hope of emancipation, Nike’s global advertising has been about excellence as well. Helstein analyzes the nature of the two concepts as follows:

Excellence is an elitist paradigm in which all but one person (or team) is produced as the loser. In opposition, emancipation is a democratic force in which all people (or teams) are free to achieve. This pairing works within the discourse of Nike because both excellence and emancipation are vacated of substantive meaning so that the rhetorical value of both overcomes the illogical nature of the pairing. (Helstein 2003, p. 283)

Arguably, this paradoxical relationship between excellence and emancipation is precisely what gives room for advertising agencies to play with the calibration of these two concepts.

More so than other sports brands, Nike is known for centering its advertisements on ideological concepts rather than advertising its products. Such a strategy applied with strong messages, though, begs the question of why Nike continues with this strategy regardless of the high risk of inviting a divisive response and losing customers. Some may argue Nike has proven to itself that risk-taking has worked well over the years. For instance, Nike ran the “Dream Crazy” campaign in 2018, commemorating their brand’s 30-year anniversary. They featured Colin Kaepernick, who became infamous for taking a knee during the National Anthem at an NFL game. Although the campaign triggered a boycott movement and led to the company’s stock falling dramatically following this ad, the brand subsequently regained stronger loyalty because of their bold stance to risk it all in order to follow their convictions (Matsuura et al. 2020, p. 6). Consequently, this particular ad campaign ended up being an enormous success, receiving global recognition such as winning an Emmy Award and the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions, an international festival for advertising, creativity, and marketing. One can see how this kind of success in the U.S. emboldened Nike Japan to follow the mothership’s brand strategy.

It is not that Nike has not made any marketing faux pas in the past. For instance, the company launched a campaign in 2019 for its trail running shoes with a tagline “Lost Cause.” Historians such as Amy Kohout took to Twitter to inform Nike that this was a slogan employed by confederates echoing the embracement of slavery and nostalgia for the Southern way of life before the Civil War. And that since then, white supremacists had used it to justify their cause. Nike quickly pulled this ad within 6 hours and their social media fodder disappeared in a day. Nike also pulled a 2012 campaign for sneakers called the “Black and Tan,” which was a historical term used for the British troops that antagonized the Irish in the 1920s. Nike apologized for this advertisement as well (Nelson 2019). While these were more cultural gaffes than intentional risk-taking, the sports brand has gone through this kind of crisis management over the years, making them adept at dealing with controversy.

Nike is one of the companies that has leaned heavily on their social campaigns in the last two decades. Arguably this has been a particularly strategic move attempting to compensate for the allegations of human rights abuse claiming oppressive work environments in their manufacturing factories in Asia. These allegations by an international group of individuals and organizations caused a media splash in the 1990s making Nike a posterchild for the ill treatment of laborers driven by the globalizing labor market and corporate greed.Footnote 2 Indeed, Nike does not make their shoes in the U.S. but almost everything has been outsourced to manufacturers in East Asia, including Korea, Taiwan, and China. Consequently, Nike has put a great amount of effort into changing that narrative and removing their association with sweatshop factories.

After the brutal murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in August 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement forced companies to show a stance. Some corporations were quick to put out a statement supporting the BLM movement, whether it was offering donations to causes, promising immediate change to their corporate organization, or committing to conduct in-house training for their employees. Other companies were boycotted for not taking a stance immediately. These include corporations such as Amazon, which tweeted a message of support for the BLM movement a whole week after the incident. Amazon received harsh criticism from consumers saying a tweet was insufficient without a charitable donation, and was merely lip service for a company their size. While Amazon donated to charitable causes three days after this tweet, Matsuura et al. argue that Amazon was a case where appropriate action was met with backlash due to the following three characteristics it shares with other corporations that suffered a similar fate. These included a sense of indifference for not responding immediately, the brand’s statement or mission followed by no action, and overall slowness in reacting to societal movements (Matsuura et al. 2020, pp. 6–7).

Negative flare-ups of public relations in Japan are recognized to such an extent that it has acquired its own terminology. Enjo commercials are now considered a genre or at least a type of recognized reaction which occurs after a campaign failure. Enjo literally means to “flare up” in Japanese, and is used in social media or advertising context to indicate how a post has gone viral garnering negative attention and controversy. Corporations are typically scared of Enjo and try hard to avoid such negative publicity. There are many reasons for a campaign or social media output to flare up, including problematic representations of race, ethnicity, gender, and disabilities. Gender studies’ scholar Kaku Sechiyama categorizes the types of reasons for why an ad may flare up for gender-related issues. The categories are as follows:

  1. a.

    advertisements believed to have fixed ideas about gender roles or perceived as strengthening such fixed ideas

  2. b.

    advertisements depicting a person’s appearance which is interpretable as gender discrimination

  3. c.

    advertisements that include sexualized messages which are interpreted as representing male desire

  4. d.

    advertisements depicting fixed ideas on male gender roles which are then criticized for strengthening male stereotypes. (Sechiyama 2021, pp. 13–14)

Japanese corporations in recent years have tried to avoid these flare-ups to varying degrees of success. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics brought a catalytic moment as the promotion of diversity and inclusion was set as a key target of the games. As the slogan of diversity and inclusion permeated society, stakes became higher for corporations to avert faux pas in their marketing strategy (Takemoto 2021; Daibashitii 2020).

When avoiding controversy, varying cultural sensitivities pose an added layer of complexity to the marketing strategy. Japanese corporations have often relied on Western advertising agencies to develop campaigns. Sports sociologist Koji Kobayashi argues that “in contrast to American advertising agencies (which) developed hand in hand with American transnational corporations as their global market expanded, the giants among major Japanese advertising agencies, such as Dentsu and Hakuhodo, often faced communication barriers deriving from the particularity of Japanese language and business orientations. As a result, they tended to focus on the domestic market” and were not able to take up the opportunity of becoming a global marketing agency (Kobayashi et al. 2019, p. 160). This explains the discord and tension often seen in the portrayal of Japanese products in global marketing campaigns. For example, in a case study on Asics and its sub-brand Onitsuka Tiger, Koji Kobayashi, Steven Jackson, and Michael Sam (2019) point out that the global advertising campaign for these athletic shoes was developed by a European subsidiary of an advertising agency rather than the Japan global headquarters. Kobayashi et al. also suggest that “this mode of creative alliance between Japanese transnational corporations and western subsidiaries/advertising agencies is best framed as ‘self-orientalization’ through which a Japanese transnational corporation accommodates, albeit through negotiation, European representations of Japanese authenticity and coolness as ‘the spectacle of the “Other’” (Kobayashi et al. 2019, p. 158). In other words, there is a complex set of politics at play when social messages are conveyed in advertising for Japanese brands, especially as social messages play out in culturally specific ways.

In the following section, we will examine three recent campaigns by Nike Japan and how they have grappled with advancing their social message in the local context.

2.1 Case 1: You can’t Stop Us

The Japanese subsidiary of sports brand Nike released a two-minute advertisement video (mentioned above) called “You can’t stop us” in November 2020.Footnote 3 It showcases several teenage girls in Japan being empowered by sports after first being bullied. The video focuses on three specific girls: one is bullied for her mixed heritage, her afro hair and complexion; another student is ostracized for being a permanent Korean resident wearing traditional Korean attire; and another student is isolated in school. The copy is delivered as a voice over narration by these three main characters:

Girl 1::

Sometimes I wonder who I am. Are there things I can accomplish? Am I a disappointment? Am I not normal? Can I accept this as normal?

[A girl looking at her smart phone. On the screen it says “Recurring column: Analyzing the Korean resident problem today. Another girl looking at her social media feed about Naomi Osaka which reads, “Is she American or Japanese?” A third girl reading comments about her social media post “Does she think this is cute?”]

Girl 2::

I wish I could ignore it all. Do I stand out? Should I blend in more? Can’t I belong here?

[Teacher’s voice over: “Attention everyone. We have a new transfer student.”]

I need to be liked by everyone. I need to pretend. I need to look like I’m not fazed by this.

[Quarreling with her mother, “Stop comparing me with others!”]

Girl 3::

It’s always been like this. I kept saying to myself this was normal. But maybe it doesn’t have to be the case. Nope. No. Definitely not.

Some day everyone will be able to live as they like? I can’t be waiting around for that.

[tagline] You can’t stop sport. You can’t stop us. (Nike 2020)Footnote 4

This video quickly became social media fodder as people both praised and criticized the advertisement. Computational social scientist Fujio Toriumi conducted a statistical analysis of the Twitter responses to this Nike Japan advertisement in 2020. Toriumi based his analysis on 300,000 tweets he collected about the Nike ad including those with hashtags such as #Youcantstopus, #nikejapan, and #Nikeboycott. By doing so, he discovered that the tweets formed mainly three clusters. The first cluster consisted of positive responses to the ad. The second contained criticism about Nike as a company, including comments that referenced the allegation of Nike exploiting laborers. And the third cluster was about negative responses to the allegation of Japan being a racist country (Toriumi 2020). Some of the Twitter comments pointed out Nike’s hypocrisy remembering the allegations of worker exploitation in Asia. Others pointed out Nike’s hypocrisy citing a controversy where Nike alongside Shibuya Ward in Tokyo had forcefully removed homeless people from Miyashita Park (Isono 2021).

In 2021, Nike Japan continued with the diversity and inclusion message releasing a new video, this time promoting gender equality (New Girl 2021). This video illustrated the apprehension of having a baby girl in Japan today. The expectant parents initially smile as they are told the sex of their new baby, but it is followed by a montage of the stigma, discrimination, and disadvantages a woman may experience in contemporary Japan: a woman not allowed to speak at a company meeting; a young woman looking scared as she walks down a dark alley. During the baby shower scene, there is a voice over that mentions the 43.7% income gap between men and women in Japan. As the expecting mother is driven to hospital after expressing anger about the discrimination, it leads to another set of montage images where women are empowered: a young female athlete playing baseball; women represented in corporate meetings; a female sumo wrestler; a female rugby player; professional tennis player Naomi Osaka; and an imaginary press conference by a female prime minister. Some are portrayals of real achievements, and other achievements appear still fictitious and ideal. It ends on a positive note implying that women can do anything, as the mother asks the newborn, “What do you want to be?”.

This video has been viewed 11.5 million times since May 2021 (as of April 2022). While this was another direct commentary from Nike Japan about gender disparity in Japan, there was not as much criticism by the public. Some criticized the naivete of announcing that “women can do anything” when there are clear examples of female discrimination in Japanese society, such as where female applicants were systemically penalized for their gender in medical school admissions until recently. Freelance writer Sumire Yukishiro (2021) posited that society should first ensure gender equality before telling women that they can be anything they want to become. When compared to other videos that Nike Global ran on female empowerment such as “What are girls made of?,” this New Girl campaign demonstrates that diversity and inclusion campaigns have to be “Japanified” to be acceptable—and that seems to be the lesson that Nike Japan learned based on their subsequent videos releases (Nike Women 2017). The undercurrent of cultural conservatism and societal norms remain overwhelming for one company like Nike Japan to take on. Through the cases included in this chapter, we will see how sports brands including Nike grapple with conversations on gender issues in Japan.

2.2 Case 2: Minding My Own Business

In 2021, Nike Japan launched a new YouTube video series called “Own the Floor.” In this series, three female dancers who excel in hip hop and break dancing are featured. All three dance regularly in international competitions and are highly regarded in the field. While their regular performances do not seem particularly feminine or gendered, their portrayal in the Nike videos are highly feminized and gendered. The voice-over narration by the dancers themselves shows traits of typical Japanese womanhood as seen below (emphasis added):

Kyoka

Hip hop dancing is perceived as something intense and vigorous; it’s often considered scary. But I want to remove that bad image, that there’s softness in the strength, and that it can have various elements. That’s what I’d like to express. My grandmother was a grand master of koto, and so I got to see up close how she uses her fingers, how she wears her kimonos. I’ve always felt that was cool. And these elements make up the suppleness that is unique to Japanese people. I want to honor the wabi sabi spirit and express it in my dance. Hip hop has many genres, it puts your heart on fire and makes your heart dance; it’s freeing. Listening to your favorite music, moving in your favorite dance style, dancing as one wants to. That is the beauty of dance.

[Final tag line; With your own style, make everyone single person check you out]. (Kyoka 2021)

Kotori

I like big movements and smooth movements. I pay attention to the groove and flow of my dance moves. The key is to showcase my own style as I feel the place and time and music vibe, I pay attention to that. I loved showing my dance from when I was in primary school. I wanted to show who I was, but I was bad at communicating with people. But I loved dancing, and what I wanted to show about myself is somehow connected with showing my dance. In the future, I want to create dance opportunities in my home town or in areas where there aren’t a lot of dancers, so they can have a better dance environment. I want people to know how great and wonderful dance is, especially to people who’ve never danced. I want to be influential like that. I think dance is communication. With dance, we can connect. (Kotori 2021)

Ayane

I started dancing because I liked things that were cool rather than cute. That’s why I started doing breakdancing. The great thing about my dance style is that it’s got strength and speed, and I want to break the barriers between B-boy and B-girl styles. I incorporate a lot of moves that B-boys tend to do. At a dance battle, one of the judges told me to dance like a girl more. I couldn’t understand what “dancing like a girl” meant; besides that’s not what I’m looking for. That exchange made me realize this was my style. Breaking is a genre that seeks originality; you’re looking to create something no one else has ever done, and then to make it your own. Using that move as a weapon to win against others is the great thing about break dancing. I just want to leave an impression with as many people as possible. I want people to go home saying, “Today’s Ayane was awesome. Ayane was the best today.” I dance hard every second so people will think that of me. (Ayane 2021)

There are a few characteristics to note. First of all, the soft-spoken voices and mild manners represent a typical feminine existence that allow them to be acceptable to mainstream Japanese society. Nike Japan makes sure these three dancers seem malleable to Japanese society, still able to adhere to societal norms and are not meant to be disruptive forces. In fact, Nike’s overcompensation is rather conspicuous as they attempt to overturn the stereotype of breakdancing as a delinquent activity. The selection of three dancers seem rather calculated as their coolness appeals to the younger generation, but at the same time their mindfulness of their “place in society” will not alienate the older consumer population. Particularly contrived is Kyoka referring to her grandmother who is a koto grand master and intimating that her hip hop dance has lineage and inspiration stemming from Japanese wabi sabi (beauty of ephemeral imperfection) esthetics. It is a rather obvious self-orientalizing comment highlighting the uniqueness of Japanese culture, evoking the Nihonjin-ron (an essentialist claim about the uniqueness of Japanese national and cultural identity) argument. Kotori’s dreams of wanting to create spaces for young people in rural areas also speak to the depletion of young energy in many parts of Japan. This dream may sound rather wholesome and inward looking, especially when she could just as easily discuss dreams of conquering the global dance scene. Even Ayane’s criticism of gender norms is not too harsh, given her soft-spoken mannerisms. Noteworthy is that Ayane does not criticize the societal norms per se, all she desires is a space to be herself.

Comparing the Nike video with other YouTube videos in which these three hip hop dancers appear (most of which are of competitions), Nike Japan’s representation of these dancers has a clear remit: to emphasize their femininity and ensure the portrayal of subservience as young Japanese women (“Kyoka” 2020; “b-girl Ayane” 2017; “Kotori” 2019). In fact, many of the feminine traits that Ford et al. (1998) extracted from the Japanese magazine advertisements in the 1990s still remains true in these Nike ads. Female protagonists must be delicate, elegant, feminine, gentle, modest, reserved, and submissive. All three of these dancers have been given make-up and a manicured look. Both Kyoka and Kotori are wearing form-fitting Nike clothes, compared to their normal form-hiding oversized cargo-style hip hop clothes.

In order to understand Nike Japan’s strategy in its regional context, one also needs to look at what their brand competitors are doing. A quick search of YouTube reveals that many of Nike Japan’s domestic competitors do not conduct social message campaigns. Neither Puma Japan, Asics Japan, nor Yonex Japan have content related to female empowerment. (The Global YouTube Channels for Puma and Asics have female empowerment videos, but these are beyond the scope of this study.). New Balance Japan relies on consumer-generated content and does not produce its own content. Mizuno Japan has sites for just their golf and baseball products. Arena also only has videos on their swimwear products on their YouTube channel. Onitsuka Tiger has a channel but represents itself as a high-fashion brand rather than a sports brand and is therefore omitted from this study.Footnote 5

Worthy of comparison are Under Armour Japan, Adidas Japan, and Canterbury Japan, which will be explored briefly here.Footnote 6 In a 2020 campaign for Under Armour Japan, break dancer Nao Uochi was featured in a two-minute video series entitled “We don’t all have to be the same.” In the interview clip, she says:

I’m often told that I’m very different when I’m dancing and when I’m not […] Not a lot of dancers do just power moves, especially if they’re girls. I was born with broader shoulders and stronger muscles than the typical person. I used to envy girls who were quite willowy. But now, rather than taking it as an inferior complex, I’ve started muscle training. In high school I used to be told that my dance was impressive but not cool. When I heard that, I thought that it’s people who are dedicated to their craft that look cool. And I’m not that dedicated yet, so I’m not cool. If I work harder, I think I can look cool. (Uochi 2020)

There is a humility or lack of confidence that is communicated in this message, which is perhaps an effort to avoid sounding too confident or arrogant. This kind of underselling of her worth and talent is in drastic contrast to the sharp dance movements seen on the videos. This drastic gap between the soft-spoken voice and sharp dance moves are similar to those of the hip hop dancers created by Nike Japan. A minor difference, however, from the Nike videos is that Uochi is not in make-up and the video takes a more documentary style approach, conducting the interview in the gym.

Another similar message of individuals overcoming hardship is shared in another campaign by Under Armour Japan. This series called “The only way is through” features five female athletes speaking about the stigma that they must overcome to play their sports. This was uploaded as part of the company’s celebrations of Women’s History Month in 2021. These women talk about the obstacles they face, but the final message is about progressing in their own individual way. The accompanying website shows greater detail of the life stories of these female athletes, whether they are a yoga instructor getting their body back in shape after giving birth, professional basketball player coming back from a serious injury, a rugby player overcoming gender-oriented stigma, lifestyle model/yoga instructor, or alpine skier competing internationally during the pandemic. It is told as a personal story of women dictating their own path. This is an individualistic story about addressing challenges in a way that is good for you personally, and encourages the viewer not to judge themselves in comparison with others. The series epitomizes a message that these athletes are interested in carving out a place for themselves to fulfill their goals, rather than being socially conscious or trying to create a better future for younger people. This resonates with the brand of neoliberal feminism that Helstein described.

Compared to Nike Japan or Under Armour Japan, Adidas has just one global channel, and it is not organized according to region. Interestingly Adidas uses one unified marketing strategy and applies it to all markets around the world. There is still regional content made, as some Japanese athletes are featured with Japanese descriptions and Japanese language audio, clearly meant to be consumed by Japanese consumers, but the overall theme remains the same across national borders. The latest campaign “Stay Ready” features athletes from around the world. This campaign includes Japanese athletes such as skateboarder Momiji Nishiya, judoist Uta Abe, Taekwondo Paralympian Shoko Ota, and sport climber Miho Nonaka. Interestingly Nishiya’s video has an English narration, whereas the rest have Japanese narration. In contrast to Nike Japan or Under Armour Japan, these videos are not edited to depict these female athletes as delicate, gentle, or elegant as characterized by Ford et al. (1998). Adidas do not seem to be pandering to the Japanese patriarchal views of women.

For example, in Abe’s case, she discusses how she pushes herself to the limit:

I imagine a situation where I’m at a disadvantage. Or when I’m in a tough spot. That’s what I think of when I’m training. It’s at the end of the match, or when my muscles are fatigued when I feel the actual match is just starting. That’s what I am always thinking when I train. (Abe 2021)

Nonaka also discusses how she trains for excellence:

I create situations where I can only make one mistake. I imagine these to be real situations in competition, and I pay attention to that one move. If I have even one thing that I’m unsure of, I won’t be able to give it 100%. I prepare to create a miracle at the right moment. (Nonaka 2020)

These videos show the Japanese female athletes as professionals at the top of their game. The rhetoric they use is no different from their male counterparts as they talk about the seriousness of pushing themselves to the limit and striving for excellence at the highest level. In this manner, this Adidas campaign allows itself to be more progressive by circumventing the local market politics and directly placing the female athletes amidst other professional athletes, regardless of their gender.

Perhaps even more on the offense is the Canterbury Japan video that directly tries to exemplify what gender equality can look like in the Japanese market. In this rugby goods manufacturer’s video “Be independent,” Japanese female rugby player Ano Kuwai is featured alongside Edward Quirk and James Moore, both Australian rugby players who play for Japanese teams as well as the Japanese actor Gordon Maeda (‘Be independent’ 2020). The female player does not speak about being a gendered minority, nor is she depicted as one. Emphasis is added on Kuwai’s utterance:

Maeda::

Open yourself. Tackle one by one. Learn from losing. Want to give dreams.

Quirk::

Take care of your team. Respect differences. Look straight ahead. Believe in your future.

Kuwai::

Believe in the hard work that you put in. Convert the many voices of support to one’s ability. I can grow because I am needed. I can become stronger because I am needed.

Moore::

Be positive during hard times. Give your all in every game. Help each other. Be the best at what you do. Overcome adversity.

The juxtaposition of these four (and the conspicuous absence of a Japanese male rugby player) speaks volumes of the conscious choices the advertising team made to get their message across. Given the relative success and popularity of the men’s National Rugby Team, it would actually make sense for Canterbury to showcase the male rugby players, particularly as they are the official sponsors; however, this rugby kit manufacturer seems keen to disrupt long-standing assumptions. As a sports brand, Canterbury of New Zealand’s market share is smaller as they only offer rugby-related products and their advertising impact is indeed less significant. In addition, the Japanese market is relatively small for Canterbury compared to other markets, where rugby is a mainstream popular sport. However, the smaller market in Japan may mean they are able to take greater risks. While the Adidas series represents just as progressive an imagery by not making the female athletes look coy, they have avoided engaging directly in a discussion about gender issues in Japan.

Compared with these domestic competitors, Nike Japan’s “Own the floor” series seems rather regressive when it comes to advancing the social agenda of gender equality and representing female athletes. While the dancers’ movements articulate strength and excellence, the personas portrayed through their speech, soft-spoken voice, and cosmetic appearance create stark incongruence. This is even significantly different from the equally first-person narration seen in the Adidas “Stay Ready” series.

2.3 Case 3 Nike Playing Safe

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought strong interest in maintaining good health while restrictions on social activities have impeded group sports. This has led to trends in doing yoga and other exercises at home (Aono 2020). But the overall decrease in exercise opportunities is a problem not just for the mental and physical health of the public but also for sports brands who are concerned about long-term impact of a shrinking population engaged in sports. In 2022, the second full year of mask-wearing, Nike Japan launched a series of YouTube videos to ensure that exercise stayed relevant even amidst social-distancing guidelines.

In this new series, they offer practical online instructions for doing light exercises at home (Nike Juku series 2022). They use the metaphor of a juku (cram school) to encourage young people, particularly secondary school students, to exercise during their study breaks. These Nike videos have a different tone. The pop esthetic and funky hip hop music indicate that the aim is to appeal to the youth, sending them a message about exercise being a cool activity. There are a range of personalities that are supposed to guide the viewer: four female dancers wearing typical Japanese school sailor uniforms, a comedienne, and teenage models. The representation seen in this series evokes the typical Japanese gender stereotypes that account for Japan being 120th in the gender gap rankings according to the 2021 World Economic Forum report. Here Nike reverts to old gender stereotypes, particularly about bukatsu (school club activities) and high school students. Teenage models Haruto Ikeda and Rika Tachibana are the personalities for one of the videos. They perform exercises using backpacks as their weights or using classroom items to stretch and train their muscles. What is rather shocking here is that the male student explains all the exercises, while the female student is the obedient learner. She models subservience, letting the male student be the authority figure in this video, even though they are both students.

3 Discussion

Having canvassed recent YouTube videos by sports brands, there are a few things to note about the representation of female athletes and the state of diversity and inclusion in Japan. With the 2020 “You can’t stop us” campaign, Nike Japan tried to make a forward move, tackling sexism and xenophobia directly. Nike’s critique about xenophobia in Japan was met with harsh criticism arguably because the discussion was presented as a thesis rather than the lived experiences of real people. Adidas and Under Armour Japan steered away from making sweeping statements about social change, and focused rather on the individual female athletes and their actual lived experience of handling stigma or other forms of unconscious bias. Criticisms are stifled when real athletes discuss real experiences. Nike Japan made themselves vulnerable to negative reactions by posing the argument as a general societal problem. The subsequent “New Girl” video received less criticism arguably because it was less aggressive in tone with a concluding message that girls can do what they want, leaving vague the necessity for societal change. In the “Own your floor” and “Nike juku” series, Nike Japan seems to have overcorrected their stance and shown further regression in their representation of the role women can play in athletics.

While femvertising has taken root in Japanese sports brand marketing, the effectiveness of this kind of advertising seems to be limited. Although this feminist advertising style is meant to “accentuate women’s talents, spread a pro-woman message and decimate stereotyping of women,” the Japanese outposts of major sports brands such as Adidas and Under Armour are falling short of meeting these goals (Varghese and Kumar 2020, p. 1). Nike Japan’s call for action through the “You can’t stop us” video was on the mark as far as global sentiments were concerned, but it was several steps too advanced for the local public discourse. Perhaps that was Nike’s strategy, perhaps it was their miscalculation, or perhaps they were playing the long game. It did indeed rally people who believe in the progressive agenda, so perhaps it can be said that it completely hit the mark for some.

Questions posed by Varghese and Kumar remain whether consumers can differentiate between genuine and faux feminism, that is whether consumers are able to tell when feminist agendas are genuinely pursued or are exploited for profit. This study did not attempt to investigate whether consumers are able to tell this difference. Instead, what this study shows is how regional advertisements sometimes attempt a genuine kind of feminism and other times negotiate with the semiotic space that they are afforded. Using the words of Varghese and Kumar (2020, p. 3), perhaps one can argue that Nike Japan’s “You can’t stop us” was in fact a “genuine” corporate investment in femvertising, whereas the subsequent YouTube series have reverted back to the faux feminism that is driven by patriarchal consumer culture.

Media scholar Tohko Tanaka argues that web advertisement has become a site for public discourse, but citing French cultural theorist Paul Virilio she reminds us that speed condenses time in media, and that while communication through media may travel instantaneously, the space that this communication occupies can evaporate just as quickly (Tanaka 2017). The civic discussion that happens on YouTube may be ephemeral, but the accumulation and cross fertilization of such discussion between manufacturers, marketers, and consumers will hopefully culminate in substantial improvement. It is in this manner that Nike Japan’s recent advertisement addressing diversity and inclusion offers insight into the discussion on Japan’s societal change.