(Credit:
Symantec Inc.)
Back in October, I wrote about the Norton Fighter, a Kamen Rider-inspired mascot for Symantec in Japan to help the company sell Norton 360 to the denizens of the Floating Kingdom. Did I say sell? I meant, "fight honorably and do great battle to protect from evil." Or something.
Anyway, whoever's marketing Norton 360 sure knows its audience. The company has now put out a series of long commercials, filmed on grainy stock and in the Technicolor style of the '70s, showing the Fighter doing his best to not only defeat the evil Botlas, but also to prevent him (it?) from corrupting impressionable youngsters. "A boy your age should be hacking firewalls, not building them," Botlas' subtitles tell us, while the Norton Fighter struggles to protect a young computer geek who could be anywhere from 12 to 32 years old.
Since nearly all commercials in Japan are English-subtitle free, it's more likely that Symantec subtitled these in the hope that they would find an audience outside Japan. For more Norton Fighter action, this Web site has more vids and a comic strip for your viewing pleasure.
I can't remember the last time I saw a TV ad for a piece of software. Not watching much TV doesn't really play into this. TV ads are just too expensive for the average software publisher to purchase. The market in Japan is different, though. It'll support just about anything with folks in weird costumes doing even weirder things.
So it's my pleasure--no, really, I feel good about this--to introduce you to Symantec's Norton 360 ads. Called CM's in the local parlance, they feature a yellow Power Ranger-style superhero called Norton Fighter getting attacked by a gang of mostly black-clad ninja-type characters who're supposed to resemble viruses and other malware.
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