Forum - View topicINTEREST: English Textbook Character Ellen Baker Gets Unauthorized Hug Pillow
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Haterater
 Posts: 1727 |
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It all started out as some meme about her pose with a baseball bat and snowballed from there. Still surprised its still going strong. I bet higher ups wish more merchandise was of the first pillow and not the second.
Never knew of the Erin Esurance thing. Always wondered what happened to the character and to know it was gone due to too much porn is kind of disturbing. Its the internet so I shouldn't be surprised. |
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Afezeria
 Posts: 817 Location: Malaysia, Kuantan. |
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Interesting read about Erin Esurance. I'll also wanted to punch the one responsible for this in the face. (refer to this link below.)
http://priceonomics.com/how-esurance-lost-its-mascot-to-the-internet/ |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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^
It's totally disheartening how Erin Esurance's time on the public airwaves was cut so short so fast. A chilling demonstration of how Rule 34 can end a mascot's TV career without any sort of warning... |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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That's only because that happened in the US, popularity of Erin's porn was becoming mainstream due to that fact. Ellen doesn't have a chance of this happening since she's still niche everywhere else but Japan. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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The reason I brought Erin Esurance up in the first place, however, is that the fan response to Ellen Baker is paralleling Erin's a bit too closely, and there's a real chance that the textbook company will have to retire Ellen as a character too if porn of Ellen gets out of hand.
(Was Erin truly mainstream internationally though? Company mascots for use in TV commercials tend not to be, and auto insurance are almost never international in scope. I figured the entire phenomenon of Erin porn was based in the United States.) |
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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I really doubt they would discontinue the character. There's millions of Pretty Cure unofficial hentai merchandise and doujinshi and not only does Toei not care they encourage it. Same with Pokemon and virtually every other childrens franchise in Japan. The average convention booth looks something like http://i.imgur.com/HpLW0ebl.jpg
It's only the United States that seems to have an issue with it like that esurance thing. There's also other creators who get upset or companies that send out DMCAs like Bkizzard Entertainment. Japanese companies usually take advantage of the popularity |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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The thing with IPs like Pretty Cure and Pokémon, though, are that they are very big and very popular, and thus their brand images are not easily damaged. It's why I mentioned earlier about IPs from American companies like Hasbro and Disney getting lots of porn and these companies not caring--the same reason applies in these cases.
Esurance was an also-ran in the auto insurance business until Erin, but porn of her proliferated when she was still relatively obscure. Because this character's brand image was still new and small, it's more vulnerable to damage accidentally caused by family-unfriendly fan material to the point where Esurance was losing online popularity to the porn. (In other words, Erin Esurance was not retired due to morality reasons, but because the porn was financially hurting the company by drowning it out on search engines.) Same goes with Ellen Baker. Unlike most other IPs with strong otaku appeal, Ellen did not come from an anime, manga, or video game, but a teaching tool for minors and had just debuted last year. Hence, not only is the Ellen character new and with an easily malleable brand image outside of the textbook company's control, she is a character more affected by approval from parents than usual. I don't think there's going to be any major harm done to the textbook company or to Ellen's brand image, however, as long as the textbook makers are careful. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13590 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Japanese equivalent of fair use aside, if this was an American property, then there might be more aggressiveness. Heck, Disney likely would be ready to take people to court for this.
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