The Mega Marketing Of Depression Analysis

In the past few decades, the spread of American culture has reached every continent, filling countries with new fast food chains and music genres. Along with globalizing fashion, movies and food, American culture has also imposed new health treatments in less medically advanced countries in order to mitigate and purge the effects of various illnesses. In the essay “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan”, Ethan Watters provides insight into how GlaxoSmithKline (a pharmaceutical company) took a relatively rare metal illness in Japan and morphed it into one of the country’s most common health issues through amplifying the symptoms of depression. Thus making depression a disease in Japan regardless of whether it was medically. After reading “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan”,
GlaxoSmithKline in particular wanted to understand why exactly the Japanese had such different views on depression and psychological impairments. They managed conferences with scholars of Japanese culture and various business moguls to plan their marketing strategy and to hone in on their expected problems. During their informative sessions, GlaxoSmithKline also weeded out future ideas for marketing. One in particular had to do with the Japanese suicide rates. The pharmaceutical company found that it’s quite easy to change the public’s view. During a time of high suicides rates, highlighting cases of suicide and connecting them with depression as a motive (even if it was not) gained their product and ideas more attention. After publishing studies on this, “Japan Times [stated that] ‘90%of those who commit suicide are considered to suffer from one kind of mental illness…70% of suicides are attributed to depression’” (526). Media coverage and false studies were the sort of tactics that preceding in changing the Japanese’s mindset about