Japan Agricultural Cooperative in Kumamoto (JA Kumamoto) will run a 30-second television advertisement starting on Tuesday, July 30, to inform audience of the adverse impacts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks.
Local TV personality Koichi Otaguro appears in JA Kumamoto’s TV commercial expressing strong opposition to the TPP talks.
The new ad, the seventh version of JA Kumamoto’s anti-TPP campaign advertisement, is scheduled to be aired a total of more than 130 times until the end of October on four commercial TV channels which can be viewed in Kumamoto.
The ad, which comes in 30-second and 15-second versions, features a local TV personality Koichi Otaguro whose Kumamoto accent is familiar to viewers in the region. “What is TPP after all? I hear it is not just a matter of agriculture,” says Otaguro in the ad, surrounded by superimposed captions expressing various concerns regarding the TPP talks. “Doctors, mothers with small children, small business owners – everyone is very much (“taigya”) worried,” Otaguro says.
JA Kumamoto has been actively broadcasting anti-TPP ads on local TV channels since November 2011, and has increased the frequency of advertising spots since April, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on Friday, March 15, his intention to join the TPP talks. It revised the contents of the ads to appeal to all kinds of audiences in Kumamoto and made sure that they will be aired every day at all times.
It plans to continue expressing opposition to the TPP talks and calling for protection of the people’s lives and food safety through the ads and other measures such as appeals by its top executives, street campaigns and social media.
(July 27, 2013)