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Nissan’s Bridge to Embarrassment

By Marty Padgett
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"Ignorance is no excuse" is the old adage about, say, being nailed for exceeding a speed limit you didn't know existed. But it's hard to figure how U. S. Nissan marketing executives and the advertising agency for the Titan pickup truck ever came up with the "Col. Bogey March" musical background for a recent TV commercial that has just been yanked as the ultimate in bad taste.

Sure, hardly anyone under the age of 70 has first-hand memories of World War II. However, the 1957 movie, about Japanese mistreatment of British prisoners of war, The Bridge Over the River Kwai is still frequently shown on TV. The movie opens with bedraggled but indomitable Brit POWs marching into a jungle prison camp, keeping cadence while they whistle the Col. Bogey March. More than the film itself, the melody came to symbolize resistance to Japanese inhumanity.

Nissan said they only received ten complaints about the music in the commercial, running since mid-September and featuring a boat-towing Titan leading a parade of (non-Nissan) pickup trucks around American streets. Still, it’s puzzling how Nissan could have been so thoughtless as to bring up memories of wartime Japanese atrocities.-- Mike Davis

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Comments (4)

  1. Michael Posted: 10/21/2005 8:13am PDT

    I hope you where being sarcastic with this line:

    "Still, it’s puzzling how Nissan could have been so THOUGHTLESS as to bring up memories of wartime Japanese atrocities.– "
     
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  2. Felonious Monk Posted: 10/21/2005 1:46pm PDT

    “Still, it’s puzzling how Nissan could have been so THOUGHTLESS as to bring up memories of wartime Japanese atrocities.– “

    Still, it's puzzling how some people never learn to move on from past events or find time for more important things.
     
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  3. Tenchi Masaki Posted: 10/21/2005 6:12pm PDT

    Nissan is showing their true colors now, those of the French!
     
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  4. Buzzo Posted: 4/11/2010 12:49am PDT

    To Felonious Monk:
    YOU HIT A NERVE BUDDY, YOU HAVEN'T A CLUE ABOUT REAL LIFE!!!!
    From the very proud son of a WWII vet and ex-POW; member of the Texas Lost Battalion (the most decorated unit from Texas in any war); starved, tortured, and forced into slave labor for 3 1/2 years on the Burma-Siam 'Death Railway'/River Kwai where over 100,000 men died building a 280 mile railroad; one man died for every 15 ft. of track!

    Link To Texas Lost Battalion History:
    http://www.texasmilitaryforcesmuseum.org/lostbattalion/index.htm
    Link To USS Houston History:
    http://usshouston.net/indexback.htm
     
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