Toyota will not be airing any Olympic-themed advertisements on Japanese television during the Tokyo Games, despite being one of the International Olympic Committee's top corporate sponsors.
The extraordinary decision by the country's top car maker underlines how polarising the Games have become in Japan as Covid-19 infections rise ahead of Friday's opening ceremony.
"There are many issues with these Games that are proving difficult to be understood," Toyota chief communications officer Jun Nagata told reporters.
Chief executive Akio Toyoda, the company founder's grandson, will be skipping the opening ceremony.
This is despite about 200 athletes taking part in the Olympics and Paralympics who are affiliated with Toyota, including swimmer Takeshi Kawamoto and softball player Miu Goto.
Mr Nagata said the company will continue to support its athletes.
Being a corporate sponsor for the Olympics is usually all about using the games as a platform to enhance the brand.
But being linked with a pandemic-era Games may be viewed by some as a potential marketing problem.
Toyota signed on as a worldwide Olympic sponsor in 2015, in an eight-year deal reportedly worth nearly one billion dollars (£726 million). In doing so, it became the first car company to join the IOC's top-tier marketing programme.
The sponsorship, which started globally in 2017, runs through to the 2024 Olympics, covering three consecutive Olympics in Asia, including the Tokyo Games.
The Tokyo Olympics, already delayed by a year, are going ahead despite the Japanese capital being under a state of emergency.
It is already virtually a made-for-TV Olympics with most events, including the opening ceremony, going ahead without fans in the venues.
Some dignitaries, such as IOC president Thomas Bach and Emperor Naruhito, are likely to attend.
Toyota is one of the most trusted brands in Japan. The maker of the Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models prides itself on its quality controls, with its "just in time" super-efficient production methods praised and emulated around the world.
Public opinion surveys reflect widespread concern among Japanese people about having tens of thousands of Olympic participants enter the country during a pandemic.
Motoyuki Niitsuma, a manufacturing plant worker who has taken part in a recent demonstration against the Olympics, said he did not like the idea of cheering for the national team, and the pandemic has made that message clear.
"The time to compete is over. Now is the time to cooperate," he said. "We should never have gotten the Games."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here