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LINK FOR 7-11 DOLL ON SALE NOW:
http://www.pcstore.com.tw/immark/M07273286.htm

LINKS TO DOLL MAKER/SELLER. created by ''LIGHT-FORCE'' in Japan or Taiwan
www.wretch.cc/blog/markleeblog

http://www.immark.tw/




New Hitler lookalike dolls are for sale at 7-ELEVEn convenience stores in Taiwan today. Seems as if images of Adolph Hitler, the German Nazi
dictator, have a special place in the marketing hearts of Asian advertising agencies and PR mavens. From Japan to India, from Taiwan to Vietnam, images of Hitler make the news at least once a way, and not in a good way.

Ten years ago, for example, in Taiwan, a promotional campaign for German-made space heaters featuring an image of Hitler sparked outrage from both German and Israeli trade and culture officials in Taipei. The ads were quickly taken down and apologies were made by the marketing people involved. It was a big mistake they said, sorry sorry.

The resulting news story made headlines for Reuters and the Associated Press in 1999. Could this happen again?

Fast forward to 2011. A new Hitler doll has surfaced, this time being sold by someone calling himself Mark Lee and apparently

designed by a doll firm in Japan.

The doll is a UCB and sells for US$15 at local 7-ELEVEn convenience stores in Taiwan now. The "cute" Hitler lookalike sports an unmistakable Hitler moustache, a Hitler right hand "salute," a Hitler combover for hair, and a red Nazi-looking armband on the doll's arm. Ouch.

Will this doll be for sale in 7-ELEVENs in Taiwan next week after the news gets out that another Hitlet lookalike doll is being merchandised
online and in stores now? Are the 7-ELEVEns in Japan also selling this cute UCB doll?

Will Asians ever understand what Hitler did during World War II or is that "story" just too far away for Asians to grasp? It happened in 1999
and it happens from time to time all over Asia, from India to Japan. Now it's happening in Taiwan, again. Laugh or cry? Your call.


Back in 1999, to recap in older news story, a Taiwanese company provoked an angry response because of an advertising campaign using large subway billboards featuring a cartoon figure of a smiling Adolf Hitler. The advertisements are for German-made electric space heaters.

Israeli and German culture and trade officials in Taipei said they were appalled by the ad.

The maker of the space heaters, DBK, based in the southwest German city of Kandel, said it would of course order an immediate halt to the ad campaign.

The ad showed Hitler in a khaki uniform and black jackboots, his right arm raised high in a Nazi salute. Above him is a slogan that said "Declare war on the cold front!"

There were no swastikas in the ad, but the Hitler figure wears a red arm band on his left arm with a white circle bearing the German manufacturer's name.

"We decided to use Hitler because as soon as you see him, you think of Germany. It leaves a deep impression," said a Taiwanese PR man who worked in the company's planning and design department. He had not inkling of what was going on, but after learning more about history, he said sorry sorry, too.

He said the company had not been worried that the public would have a negative reaction to an ad that features a man who oversaw the killing of millions of Jews during World War II.

"Most people in Taiwan are not that sensitive about Hitler," he said during the 1999 gaffe.

Uri Gutman of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei in 1999 said the advertisement was "unbelievable."

He feared using Hitler's image in such ads would make Nazi atrocities during World War II seem less real.

"It supports the denial of the Holocaust," said Gutman, referring to fringe theories that the Nazis did not kill Jews.

German officials in Taiwan also objected to the ad in 1999.

"We are not happy about this, this is not an appropriate way to make an advertisement," said Hilmar Kaht, then-director general of the German Trade Office in Taipei in 1999.

Kaht said while the intention of the ad back in 1999 was to tell consumers that the space heater is a German product, which he does not object to, he added that: "They should not use any political advertisement, especially not from Nazi times ... It creates a negative image of Germany and legitimizes the crimes of the Nazi regime by playing it down."

"Such an ad would be forbidden in Germany," Kaht said.

German officials in Taipei back in 1999 told the Taipei Times that the advertisement didn't surprise them because they often encounter Taiwanese who admire Hitler and lack a deep understanding of European history.

"Taxi drivers will often tell me Hitler was a great man, very strong," one German embassy official in Taipei said.