It’s edgy, it’s innovative, it’s in your face. It’s also super sexy. But could it be… too sexy? Japan’s latest advertising fad is sweeping the nation, offending, arousing, and selling product faster than you can say, “Damn, baby – you want fries with that shake?”
The Science of Absolute Territory
The premise behind this new advertising scheme is taking advantage of something known as zettai ryouiki or “absolute territory”. Zettai ryouiki is the exposed area of skin between the hem of a woman’s shorts or skirt and their leg wear. Often, a woman’s zettai ryouiki will garner more attention than any cleavage she might be sporting.
Since zettai ryouiki is defined by the length of the stockings, socks, or boots she’s wearing (I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring), Japan has developed a ranking system to define the grade of zettai ryouiki on a girl. It’s as obvious to me as it is to anyone that only grades A and B are to be considered true zettai ryouiki.
Zettai ryouiki focuses on young and innocent sexuality and is most often worn by girls who are somewhat aware of their attractiveness but not so much that they’re going over the top with it. Fun fact: many tsundere characters find themselves sporting zettai ryouiki. Had you noticed?
The Advertising
Of course someone would find a way to monetize this leggy phenomenon. A company calling themselves Absolute Territory has started to hire girls to sport ads on their zettai ryouiki, earning up to $125 a day. Over 1,300 girls are already participating in this new marketing fad and the only requirements apart from being a female (sorry Koichi) is that you must be over 18, and have at least 20 social media contacts.
The girls have to wear the ad for at least eight hours during the day, taking pictures and uploading them to social media periodically to prove they’re keeping to their end of the bargain. Since men’s eyes would naturally wander to the girl’s milky white thighs anyway, Absolute Territory is taking advantage of this by placing an ad there.
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Everybody from RocketNews24 to Green Day has been hopping on this advertising bandwagon. Not everyone, however, is keen on the idea. The Okinawa Convention and Visitors Bureau along with their prefectural government put the kibosh on any plans to make use of this new advertising stating that placing ads on the thighs of young women to advertise Okinawa is not in line with the prefecture’s brand image.
When they were still toying around with the idea, the offices received numerous complaints bashing the sexy plan as “undignified” and “not an appropriate use of taxpayer money”.
Since this sex advertising would be funded with government money taken from the people, it’s obvious that some would be outraged at the thought. Fortunately the government decided to kill the plan before it went into action. Even though they knew the campaign would definitely be effective in getting the attention of young people and males, they didn’t want to do anything to harm the overall image of Okinawa.
So tell me, what are your thoughts on this new advertising trend? Is it too sexy for use? Does it ruin the image of the people and companies who use it for advertising? Do you think this trend would ever catch on in your home country? Let us know in the comments!