Prostrate Yourself Before It
Uncle Andrew
I’m really sorry that my postings have been so anemic. I just got off of two weeks’ vacation, which I spent hanging out with Margaret and playing entirely too much Need For Speed: Most Wanted. (A fine old game, that, though with the harsh yellow lighting and HDR-styled gamma blowouts so reminiscent of Half-Life 2, I had to wonder if Valve Software plans on suing Electronic Arts for, oh, Theft of Atmospherics or something.) All that lazing around really sapped my creative energy….though not nearly as much as the subsequent return to work. I have no, repeat no grounds for whining, though: I know full well that I have it a hell of a lot easier this time of year than anyone else at my company. I don’t answer phones, I don’t take orders and I don’t ship packages. I just make sure all our product literature and packaging is up to date and hang the cute little xmas lights from the logo on our home page. I am a lucky, lucky man.
Now, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, a blog entry….
Our housemate Shawn went to the downtown Uwajimaya a couple of weeks ago to see what kind of cool wierd new Japanese stuff they had. (I like Uwajimaya; it reminds me of a very popular store in Hawaii called Shirokiya, where my friends and I used to go to buy cool import Micromen you couldn’t get at the “domestic” toy stores.
Anywho, Shawn came back with a couple of cans of Boss Coffee.
This isn’t a Food Fright segment. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this product as a foodstuff; it’s decent coffee, though I personally prefer Pokka brand myself.
No, what I really enjoyed about this product was the packaging. It is often asserted here in the West that the Japanese use English in their advertising in a sort of whimsical, amusingly clueless fashion, presumably more for the sound of various words than for their actual English definitions. That may or may not be true—the existence of such fine products as Collon Cream and Pocari Sweat might support this theory—but in the case of Boss Coffee, I get the feeling that the designers knew exactly what they were doing with the language.
I’m not at all sure why, but I simply adore the Soviet-esque Progressivist styling of the label. Just look at that there boss: pictured from the subservient viewing angle of 40 degrees off center and ten or so down, gazing upward into his craggy, impassive boss-like face as he looks to the future….or quite possibly stares the future down. He looks a bit like Lenin in an early Soviet propanganda poster:
In fact, the very name of the product seems to lend credence to the Soviet propaganda tie-in. “Boss” as in “Party Boss”.
And let us not fail to notice that his steaming cup of Vladivostokian Supremo is being poured for, rather than by him, further driving the point home. This is a man at the top of his game, a leader, a true visionary in his field. As such, he has no time for such frivolities as pouring his own coffee, or even turning his head slightly to tell you to get back to work. He has people for this sort of thing! Do the pipe and suspenders tell you nothing??
The whole effect is very over-the-top, and in that way very Japanese (whose firms’ marketing divisions so often seem to delight in out-Westerning the West). But it is also very perceptive and to the point. The label is not just a hash of words that someone thought would sound pleasing to their customers’ ear. It appears to be a fun little poke at the whole concept of commerce and leadership, and the stereotyped role coffee plays in both. Would that American firms like, oh, say, Wolfgang Puck might pay so much attention to the power of packaging. Or, for that matter, make such a decent cup of coffee.
All portions of this site are © Andrew Lenzer, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
November 29th, 2005 at 2:10 am
Lenin was the first person that I thought of when I saw the pictured label. However, on second viewing I decided that the image lacked the angularity to truly be in the Social Realist style. Besides, apart from supporting the cult of personality of the Soviet leaders, most propaganda in the Social Realist style focuses on the “heroic” work effort of the proletariat and not their Party supervisors. A more classic image would be of an Ukrainian woman with the physique of a brick outhouse astride an art-deco tractor.
Instead of Lenin the image reminded me of John Astin, the actor who originally portrayed Gomez Adams on TV, during the latter years of his life.
Note: This image is being hosted on another site at http://www.wolverton-mountain.com and I have linked to it without the site owners permission. Please do not abuse this cross link.
November 29th, 2005 at 7:10 am
“I like Uwajimaya; it reminds me of a very popular store in Hawaii called Shirokiya, where my friends and I used to go to buy cool import Micromen you couldn’t get at the “domestic” toy stores.”
Wow, thanks for the ride in the Wayback Machine. Now I have to go to Toys R Us at lunch and pick up a couple of micromen for my kids.
(by the way, does your blog really get enough traffic for a cross linked image to matter? That would be cool. Let’s test it shall we?)
Jessica Simpson
Charlize Theron
Kim Possible
National Rifle Association
John Birch Society
That’s make for some interesting server log reading…
November 29th, 2005 at 8:10 am
That’s part of the playful tweaking of the theme; this is a different era, where people strive to become the boss rather than the proles who toil beneath him.
As for Gomez….well, I just don’t see it, myself. He may look more like the Boss Coffee figure than, say, I do, but that’s about as far as I’ll go. 😉
November 29th, 2005 at 8:21 am
Gavin, you’re damned lucky I was home to read my Spam Karma report and rescue your post; it had (rightly) assumed you were a comment spammer and ashcanned it. 😀
Did you hear that Charlize Theron complained that her outfit for Aeon Flux was too slutty? Imagine my disappointment when I saw the trailer. Did she never see the original animation festival/MTV show?
November 29th, 2005 at 12:48 pm
“Did she never see the original animation festival/MTV show?”
Apparently that was one of her concerns in doing the movie. I saw an interview where she talks about one of the biggest differences in the film is that she’s wearing clothes…
November 29th, 2005 at 5:51 pm
And as my chances of ever seeing the film sink slowly in the west….
Not that I planned on seeing it anyway, but ever since I got suckered into seeing The Avengers because of that one shot in the trailer of Uma Thurman wearing what looked like a latex leotard designed by a Goodyear Aquatread fetishist, I’ve refused to let my weenie drag me into any more movies.
Oh, except for that horrible movie Entrapment, where I was drawn in by that one shot of Catherine Zeta-Jones’ butt. What the hell is wrong with me? It’s not like I don’t have a rewarding sex life or nothing….
November 30th, 2005 at 1:34 am
That’s what, a triple negative? Yeesh… my head was hurting already.
November 30th, 2005 at 6:41 am
Save your money, just go to Google Image search, turn off SafeSearch, and enter this in the search: charlize theron devils advocate
Everything you ever wanted to know about Charlize Theron.
About that “rewarding” sex life, um, interesting choice of words. Does this mean you are now getting paid for it? Do you win a prize for a particularly good performance? On second thought, I don’t really want to know.
Goodness me, I seem to have gone way off topic again…
November 30th, 2005 at 8:13 am
Ain’t not no such thang neither!
Far as I can tell, men always win a prize. 😀