In recent years, the constant friction between Japan and South Korea has led to very tense economic and trade relations between the two countries. Recently, Uniqlo's advertisement was suspected of insulting South Korea, but Uniqlo said it was unintentional.
According to Korean media reports, in an advertisement of Uniqlo, a teenage girl asked her 90-year-old grandmother, "How did you dress when you were my age?" She said, "I don't remember a long time ago." The controversial point of this advertisement is that the English Korean subtitles are translated into "How can I remember things more than 80 years ago?" More than 80 years ago, under the rule of Japanese colonists, many Korean women unfortunately became comfort women of the Japanese army. This sentence just shows that Japan is satirizing South Korea.
But Uniqlo said that this advertisement has no political intention. However, since the Korean people launched a boycott of Japanese goods in July, the voice of continuing to boycott Uniqlo has been rising again. A Korean college student also made a video imitating this advertisement, emphasizing that the painful history has not been forgotten.
Finally, under the pressure of public opinion, Uniqlo stopped broadcasting the above-mentioned problematic advertisements. It is worth mentioning that due to the deterioration of Japan-Korea relations, Uniqlo's income and profits in the Korean market have fallen sharply, and stores have closed down from time to time. This will have a great impact on the performance of the company.
The consequences of foreign companies offending Koreans are very serious. For example, before the conflict between Japan and South Korea, Koreans frantically boycotted Japanese goods, and many Japanese companies suffered heavy losses, and Koreans did not relax their boycott.