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Toyota Motor Corp., one of the major commercial sponsors of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, has decided to withdraw all of its Olympics-related TV commercials in Japan.
Japanese media speculated on Monday that the decision was made because the automaker feared association with the troubled Summer Games, which are deeply unpopular in Japan, would tarnish its brand rather than polish it.
“The Olympics are becoming an event that has not gained public understanding,” Toyota’s public relations manager Nagata told the Japanese daily. Yomiuri Monday newspaper. The executive added that Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda and other senior executives would not attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Summer Olympics on July 23.
Toyota planned to air a series of television commercials in Japan featuring the Olympic athletes the company is sponsoring.
Now media analysts will be watching whether the move by Toyota, a Japanese business titan, causes other local sponsors and advertisers to distance themselves from the Games. Collectively, some five dozen Japanese companies spent more than $ 3 billion to sponsor the Tokyo Olympics, the largest contribution ever made by companies from an Olympic host country.
The possibility of Japanese brands pulling out of the Games has been a matter of speculation for weeks due to the bitter feelings many Japanese residents have towards the event.
With Tokyo under its fourth state of emergency amid an increase in Delta variant COVID-19 cases, public concern remains high that hosting an event involving tens of thousands of athletes, officials and journalists entering the country from all over the world will endanger the lives of the resident inhabitants.
Olympic organizers reported more than 25 positive coronavirus tests over the weekend among people who traveled to Japan for the Games – including two athletes and an organizer staying in the Olympic Village, where thousands of participants gathered. will gather soon. Meanwhile, a Ugandan weightlifter has reportedly disappeared from his hotel and is on the run somewhere in Osaka Prefecture, despite pledges by organizers to keep athletes and guests in an Olympic ‘bubble’ throughout the Games.
In a poll released on Monday by the Asahi newspaper, 68% of those polled said they doubted the ability of Olympic organizers to control coronavirus infections, while 55% said they were against the Games going as planned.
With the Games set to start in four days, just over 20% of the Japanese public is fully vaccinated against the new coronavirus.
In addition to TV advertising, many of Japan’s major Olympic sponsors were planning to hold large-scale marketing activities on the pitch to build enthusiasm for their brands amid the excitement of the event. Those plans were messed up two weeks ago, however, when Olympic organizers announced that spectators would be banned from nearly all Olympic venues.
Fifteen Japanese companies, including Asahi Breweries – the official beer of the Tokyo Olympics – paid around $ 135 million each to become Tokyo 2020 Gold Partners, the most expensive level of sponsorship available to local businesses for a single Games.
Meanwhile, Japan and its taxpayers have reportedly spent more than $ 26 billion to host the Games, including additional cost overruns due to the one-year postponement.
When Tokyo won the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2013, organizers predicted that spectators, mostly incoming foreign tourists, would spend around $ 2 billion on tickets, hotels, meals, and merchandise; and that the word-of-mouth effect of the influx and attention of foreigners, what economists have called “legacy effects”, would generate an additional $ 10 billion in inbound tourism spending over the next decade . Under the current restrictions, however, almost all of the expected economic benefits for Japan are long gone.
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