TV commercial of the week: Shampoo UL・OS

In Japanese, UL・OS can be pronounced “uruosu,”

No, in pig English as practiced in Japan UL OS can be pronounced "uruosu".

And the companies making commercials in your home country herefornow have never used puns, misspellings, distortions of language, etc... to sell their products? Common practice.

In Japanese, UL・OS can be pronounced “uruosu,” which means to moisten.

And osu also means 'male animal'.

Ooops clicked too soon - it means 'male animal', so it's not just a shampoo that gives you nice moisturised hair, it's a shampoo that gives you nice moisturised hair in a masculine way. Having your hair washed by a pretty lady using a nice shampoo is butch.

Iken? -- sure, but they are usually "puns, misspellings, distortions of langauge" of the native langauge. Not reinforcing the inability of most of the population to properly pronounce a langauge they supposedly learned in school, but did not do so because of the prevalence of Katakana English. My point was simply that Japanese teachers can try as hard as they want to teach Japanese students proper English, to the betterment of the country by making it more global. But all that effort will be wasted so long as companies make it cool to deliberately speak it incorrectly. Why not just use the Japanese word "uruosu"? Why foster deliberate ignorence?

Greek styled music at an Italian barber shop....che bello. I wished I could go to Roma and have a nice haircut for once. Why, why, why, can't they cut women's hair here but do a great job with men's hair???? I love having my hair washed.

Why not just use the Japanese word "uruosu"? Why foster deliberate ignorence? (sic)

Because the alphabet is cool. And there's a long history of 'playing' with language in Japan: people remember phone numbers by turning the numbers into sounds and words, sounds get deliberately given the wrong kanji (and vice versa) in order to make a witty remark or a pun or a joke. Doing with the alphabet what they have always done with numbers and native writing is simply a natural extension of that. No one is fostering deliberate 'ignorence'.

zichi? you cant find that in Japan? my barber does it for 200 yen extra after a haircut. thought it was comon here heh

Some men (bald) can only dream about it.

Well said Cleo, and not just in Japan. It happens all the time in countries that use English as their first language,too.

Hilarious commercial for a Japanese product using absolutely no Japanese people or places. Great fantasy about a lovely gal wear stilettos to work etc. That is one nice looking man, too. I approve.