Toyota Pulls Japanese Olympics Ads As Games Come Under Fire
The 2021 Summer Olympics, set to be held in Tokyo starting Friday, are proving to be quite unpopular, at least in Japan. And apparently, Toyota has taken notice and pulled the plug on its planned local advertising during the Games.
We can see why the Games might not be popular, at least with the locals. There are concerns that even without spectators, the gathering of nations to play sports could lead to the spread of the coronavirus. That’s on top of the usual reasons why the Olympics piss people off — the corruption, the crass commercialism, the congestion that usually happens when tourists descend on the host city (though who knows how many will show during a pandemic), et cetera.
“The Olympics is becoming an event that has not gained the public’s understanding,” a Toyota spokesperson said, according to Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper. Toyota senior leadership won’t attend the Opening Ceremonies.
Toyota is one of the Olympics’ biggest sponsors, and all told, Japanese industry has poured $3 billion into the Games.
The carmaker had plans to do on-site marketing, too, but those were scuttled when spectators were barred from attending the Games.
The Games are getting the side-eye from locals because despite promises to keep the Olympic Village COVID-free, there have been over two dozen positive tests so far, and at least one athlete seems to have left the Village, against regulations.
The Games were already delayed a year, and the drive for the almighty dollar kept them from being held back one more year, even if that would’ve been more prudent from a public-health perspective.
Toyota, for its part, saw which way the winds were blowing, so to speak, and decided it would rather not be associated with the Games this go-round.
[Image: Toyota]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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The L.A. Olympics in 1984 made money. How??? They used the dorms at UCLA and USC and didn’t build new ones. They used the UCLA and USC swimming facilities, As I recall they built a new diving pool and a velodrome at USC. For equestrian events, they used already built facilities at Coto de Caza. They were also run by a guy, Peter Uberoff, who knew what he was doing. He got a lot of corporate sponsors. The profit from the games was spent on sports programs for inner city youth, among other things.
Will Americans participate under official American flag? I know that American flag become controversial symbol of systemic racism. On the other hand Russians are not allowed to participate under Russian national flag we all proud of. Now waiting for Lui_BC's tirades about Russian trolls.