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NBC News
4 hours ago
- NBC News
Why a 'mini Trump' is breaking through in Japan
TOKYO — As President Donald Trump's tariffs add to a sense of uncertainty in Japan, more voters here are embracing an idea inspired by their longtime ally the United States: 'Japanese first.' The nationalist slogan helped the right-wing populist party Sanseito make big gains in Japan's parliamentary elections on Sunday, as it capitalized on economic malaise and concerns about immigration and overtourism. Party leader Sohei Kamiya, who since 2022 had held Sanseito's only seat in the upper house of Japan's parliament, will now be joined by 14 others in the 248-seat chamber. It's a far cry from the party's origin as a fringe anti-vaccination group on YouTube during the Covid-19 pandemic. Though Japan has long had a complex relationship with foreigners and its cultural identity, experts say Sanseito's rise is another indication of the global shift to the right embodied and partly fueled by Trump, with populist figures gaining ground in Europe, Britain, Latin America and elsewhere. Kamiya 'fancies himself a mini-Trump' and 'is one of those who Trump has put wind in his sails,' said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies and history at Temple University's Japan campus. Speaking at a rally on Saturday at Tokyo's Shiba Park, Kamiya said his calls for greater restrictions on foreign workers and investment were driven not by xenophobia but by 'the workings of globalization.' He criticized mainstream parties' support for boosting immigration in an effort to address the labor shortage facing Japan's aging and shrinking population. 'Japan is still the fourth-largest economy in the world. We have 120 million people. Why do we have to rely on foreign capital?' Kamiya told an enthusiastic crowd. The election results were disastrous for Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is facing calls to resign now that his conservative Liberal Democratic Party — which has ruled almost uninterrupted since the end of World War II — has lost its majority in both houses of parliament. The Japanese leader had also been under pressure to reach a trade deal with the Trump administration, which said Tuesday that the two sides had agreed to a 15% U.S. tariff on Japanese goods. On Wednesday, Ishiba denied reports that he planned to step down by the end of August. The message from his party's string of election losses is that 'people are unhappy,' Kingston said. 'A lot of people feel that the status quo is biased against their interests and it advantages the elderly over the young, and the young feel sort of resentful that they're having to carry the heavy burden of the growing aging population on their back,' he said. Kamiya, 47, an energetic speaker with social media savvy, is also a strong contrast to leaders such as Ishiba and the Constitutional Democrats' Yoshihiko Noda, both 68, who 'look like yesterday's men' and the faces of the establishment, Kingston said. With voters concerned about stagnating wages, surging prices and bleak employment prospects, 'the change-makers got a lot of protest votes from people who feel disenfranchised,' he said. Sanseito's platform resonated with voters such as Yuta Kato. 'The number of [foreign immigrants] who don't obey rules is increasing. People don't voice it, but I think they feel that,' the 38-year-old hairdresser told Reuters in Tokyo. 'Also, the burden on citizens including taxes is getting bigger and bigger, so life is getting more difficult.' The biggest reason Sanseito did well in the election, he said, 'is that they are speaking on behalf of us.' Kamiya's party was not the only upstart to benefit from voter discontent, with the center-right Democratic Party for the People increasing its number of seats in the upper house from five to 16. Sanseito, whose name means 'Participate in Politics,' originated in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, attracting conservatives with YouTube videos promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines and pushing back against mask mandates. Its YouTube channel now has almost 480,000 subscribers. The party has also warned about a 'silent invasion' of foreigners in Japan, where the number of foreign residents rose more than 10% last year to a record of almost 3.8 million, according to the Immigration Services Agency. It remains far lower as a proportion of the population than in the U.S. or Europe, however. Critics say such rhetoric has fueled hate speech and growing hostility toward foreigners in Japan, citing a survey last month by Japanese broadcaster NHK and others in which almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that foreigners received 'preferential treatment.' At the Sanseito rally on Saturday, protesters held up signs that said 'No Hate' and 'Racists Go Home.' Kamiya denies that his party is hostile to foreigners in Japan. 'We have no intention of discriminating against foreigners, nor do we have any intention of inciting division,' he said Monday. 'We're just aiming to firmly rebuild the lives of Japanese people who are currently in trouble.' Despite its electoral advances, Sanseito doesn't have enough members in the upper house to make much impact on its own and has only three seats in the more powerful lower house. The challenge, Kingston said, is whether Kamiya can 'take this anger, the malaise, and bring his show nationwide.'
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
3 stats from Google's Q2 show how it is weathering advertising turmoil
This story was originally published on Marketing Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Marketing Dive newsletter. Digital advertising is sitting at a point of uncertainty as tariffs roil the economy and artificial intelligence (AI) disrupts the ecosystem. Those threats didn't ding Google's performance in Q2 2025. Search and other, the company's largest segment, increased revenue nearly 12% year over year to $54.2 billion while YouTube notched a 13% YoY gain to $9.8 billion. Overall Q2 ad revenue came in at $71.3 billion, up 10.4% over the year-ago period, according to an earnings report from parent Alphabet. Search experienced growth 'across all verticals,' CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on a call discussing the results with analysts, led by the retail and financial services industries. Google also continued to see consumer traction for its efforts to inject more generative AI features into the search experience. By the numbers $54.2B Q2 ad revenue for Google's key search and other segment, which saw growth "across all verticals." AI Overviews have yet to dent monetization 2M The number of advertisers using Google's generative AI tools to run ads. That base is up 50% over the same period last year 40B Hours of YouTube sports content now watched annually. Google is making live sports a bigger priority for the video platform AI Overviews, text boxes that streamline answers to queries using generative AI, are drawing over 2 billion monthly active users (MAUs). A separate AI Mode for delving into longer-form, complex searches has over 100 million MAUs in the U.S. and India, where it is currently available. 'We see monetization at approximately the same rate, which gives us actually a really strong base on which we can then innovate and drive actually more innovative and new and next-generation ad formats,' said Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler when asked by an analyst about the impact of AI Overviews on search advertising. Google has worked to put more AI tools in the hands of advertisers as well, including an AI Max for search suite of solutions that launched in May. Executives claim the features typically drive 14% more conversions for brands. Beyond campaign optimization, more companies are adopting Google's generative AI products for advertising creative. The number of advertisers using Google's AI-powered asset generation tools is up 50% over last year to 2 million, according to Schindler. 'Google's AI-powered products for advertisers, including AI Max for Search campaigns, Smart Bidding Exploration, Demand Gen, and Asset Studio are performing as expected, though they force advertisers to cede control and transparency in exchange for performance,' said Forrester Senior Analyst Nikhil Lai in emailed comments. 'Nonetheless, they'll continue being adopted by agencies and brands seeking more yield from crunched budgets.' YouTube was also cited as a point of strength in Q2 as the video platform becomes a more serious player in TV and as its TikTok lookalike, called Shorts, advances its approach to monetization and generates over 200 billion daily views. Shorts in the U.S. are now earning as much ad revenue per hour watched as traditional in-stream video on YouTube, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said. Executives referenced Nielsen data that show YouTube has become the top player in streaming, momentum that Google is trying to extend into areas like live sports. YouTube will broadcast its first exclusive NFL game in September following season kick-off (its connected TV service, YouTube TV, also carries NFL Sunday Ticket). Consumers watch over 40 billion hours of sports content via YouTube annually, per Pichai. Many questions still hang over Google's business, which is contending with an antitrust crackdown, rising competition from AI rivals like ChatGPT and the potential for more concrete impacts from the trade war, should it dent advertiser appetites. Google is also heading into a period where it will lap a deluge of political ad spending from 2024, which could lead to unfavorable comparables. 'I think it's really too early to comment on anything [happening] in the second half of the year,' said Schindler. Recommended Reading Google's ad business remains robust despite macro, regulatory threats Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz on the NFT resurgence everyone is missing
Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz on the NFT resurgence everyone is missing originally appeared on TheStreet. It might be early, and it might be hard to believe, but excitement around NFTs is starting to return. Just don't make the mistake of thinking this time around will look anything like last time, says Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz. "The floodgates are open, and you're going to really see the best of what crypto entrepreneurs are going to bring within these next couple of years," Netz recently told Coinage, highlighting a new creative shift happening in crypto now that the industry is no longer as on high alert as it was under the reign of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. "I think it is game-on for the next two to three years, and I think you're going to see the best that crypto has to offer here shortly." For Pudgy Penguins, one of the leading NFT projects, Netz says the goal has been to establish their lovable penguins as the new characters of the internet and to potentially rival Disney's Mickey Mouse. To do so, the project has leaned heavily on measuring and promoting its virality, including tracking how many people use their GIFs, how often people view thier YouTube shorts, and eventually looking for ways to unlock that attention. "I think at the end of the day, an NFT project's goal is to proliferate the IP, right? Like, if your mission as an NFT project is to not proliferate the IP, I would argue that you shouldn't be an NFT project," Netz explained. And if there was one thing Pudgy Penguins did extremely well last cycle, it was selling people on the idea of getting the brand out there and monetizing the attention better than others. Their plush toys made it into Walmart, and then the project rolled out their PENGU token on Solana, unleashing a wave of other NFT projects attempting the same thing, each doing so to less and less fanfare. Pudgy's token slipped from around $0.03 in its December debut to a low of $0.003 this April. But since then, the token has rallied more than 500%. Some of that is tied to new entrants to the ecosystem, and some of it seems to be the project doubling down on buying its own token and committing to disinflationary elements that began with burning $150 million in unclaimed tokens after the launch. The trend set the playbook that plenty of other memecoin projects, including Coinage's own PLYBTN memecoin, soon followed with. "We're doing more buys and burns," Netz said. "We're projected to do $40 to $50 million in revenue this year. I want to take a huge portion of that and buy our token, and if we can just keep doing that over the course of years, it's not if Pudgy Penguins and PENGU will be bigger than Doge and some of the incumbents, it's when." Actions like that may have attracted the attention of the SEC under the prior administration, but now Netz says that like Coinage, he's also educating policy makers in Washington about the positives community ownership and NFTs may be able to unlock for holders. During the summer, Netz estimated he'd been in and out of Washington D.C. six times to discuss updates with decision makers in government. That eventually culminated in a Canary Capital ETF filing to establish a fund that would hold Pudgy Penguins NFTs and PENGU tokens — the first of its kind. But as much as the NFT game has evolved, Netz credits the success of Pudgy Penguins to its simplicity. As much as other projects might want to over complicate things, he's tried to keep things simple: Build a loveable brand, and get people to want to share it. "The beauty about Pudgy Penguins and PENGU is how easily digestible it is to the regular person," he said. As momentum around Ethereum and Solana continue to mount, Pudgy Penguins straddling both ecosystems with an NFT and memecoin sets them up well no matter who leads who in the cycle. As the project leads NFTs again in the recent uptick, Netz sees a strong 2025 ahead. "I think we will go further than we've been in the past in terms of our NFT ecosystem," he said, declining to share partnership specifics at this time. "I'm going to keep that one close to the chest. But if you thought Walmart was big, I think I got something bigger." Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz on the NFT resurgence everyone is missing first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 25, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 25, 2025, where it first appeared. Sign in to access your portfolio
