Food for thought

In 2018, the movie Ready Player One piqued Chinese consumers’ curiosity about the Metaverse. In one scene, a particularly stark transition between dreary everyday life and fantastic cyberworld showed a fantastic vision of where this all may take us one day.

Since then, many prototypes have been made in speculative works, immersing audiences in wild journeys. Yet, as Ready Player One cautions, the Metaverse is “a place where the limits of reality are your own imagination” – and these limits still appear quite narrow.

Take a walk through the shopping districts and subways of Shanghai, and one face stands out.

An actor with over 4.6mn Twitter followers, Eddie Peng is plastered all over advertisements: from Adidas to Hugo Boss, from Vivo to the Yili dairy drink, from Shiseido’s male skincare range to Wrigley’s chewing gum, and from Longines watches to Bluemoon anti-bacterial handwash.

His ubiquity as a brand ambassador is seemingly endless.

Going, going, not quite gone: the “man’s man”

Showa Man is the embodiment of residual masculinity. He personifies the Showa era of high growth where company life and hard work was everything: the fiercely loyal, hard-working, cigarette-smoking, whiskey-drinking, golf-playing, hostess bar-frequenting, monosyllabic personification of a man’s man. As a modern incarnation, this mixture of the Marlboro cowboy, Samurai legacy and physical prowess is now fairly niche, and largely confined to older generations. The image has even sunk enough in repute to be occasionally equated with an oyaji or ossan: a cantankerous, grumpy old man.

Nevertheless, residual does not mean dead, and many products and services still cater to those who identify with its tropes.

In the previous article, we have seen that it is women who have driven appreciation of a new androgynous aesthetic. As a result, intensive grooming and beautification are now the norm for countless younger men. They feel free to express themselves outwardly in a way that generations before them would never dare. It is an evolution in masculinity that is far beyond anything in the West: Chinese men in the largest cities can, without fear of any judgement, openly buy and wear make-up in public.

To the very young, earlier generations’ lives must seem redolent of ancient history; and hearing too many details of pre-meme days either engenders a horrified shudder or absolute boredom. This is of course matched by their parents’ utter mystification at how they spend their time. For the corporates trying to reach these consumers, however, the messaging service LINE’s regular surveys on the ‘hottest’ interests of Japan’s youth (15-24yo) offer valuable insights. And for much of 2020, both the girl band NiziU and the anime Demon Slayer (鬼滅の刃, Kimetsu no Yaiba) have dominated every ranking.

As in many countries, marriage rates in China have been declining sharply. In a recent attempt to raise awareness of this, a hashtag was started by older users of the country’s main social media platform, Weibo: #结婚率创近10年来新低# or ‘marriage rate hits a new ten year low’. The idea was to inform their younger counterparts of the situation, in the hope of encouraging them to reverse the trend and marry.
However, the message quickly backfired, and was transformed into the ironic meme ‘why get married?’

It doesn’t take a pandemic to make Tokyo a challenging place to live in the summer months. But when the trials of two people working from a tiny apartment in stifling heat got too much, I decamped to Okinawa and six weeks later am still here. If this sounds sybaritic, I am of course working no less than usual: I have merely joined the digital nomads who long ago understood how positive a move to Okinawa can be.

We are starting to see brands succeeding – and trends originating – in ‘lower tier’ China before they then sweep across the wider country. To realise fully the potential of these regions, underestimated regularly by outsiders, Beijing and Shanghai’s realities must cease to be the default definition of China.

A couple of years ago, I sat behind the ‘magic mirror’ of a Japanese focus group as they went through a conventional round of concept testing. A confectionary company was assuaging consumers’ guilt at indulging in sweets by emphasising that they used only free range eggs, milk from ‘happy cows,’ and fair-trade vanilla beans. This quirky messaging jarred spectacularly with the Japanese audience. This brand has been a rip-roaring success around the world for its stance on taking social action, and yet in Japan it hit a wall: hard. What could have gone so wrong?

To shape conversations – or to engage people – businesses need to address notions of creativity, innovation, purpose and empathy. These motifs have been at the very core of the artistic process ever since. How can art help to master today’s challenges in branding?

Shibuya continues to rejuvenate at breakneck speed. Recent developments are part of the effort to safeguard its position as Japan’s top shopping destination, including Shibuya Stream, Shibuya Scramble and the new PARCO department store. Each of them is trying hard to differentiate themselves. Nevertheless, there are some unifying elements.

During a visit to Daikin’s Innovation Centre in Osaka, I came across a beautiful air-conditioning unit from the 1960s or 70s. My suggestion that a relaunch could turn it into a hit product, was dismissed: “It’s old-fashioned, no one wants that ‘70s stuff over a sleek new white one”. But that was my point: old-fashioned nowadays can be good.

For us, the yuzu is everything we love about Japan. Tangy yet mellow, the yuzu’s subtlety and nuance are a revelation: when you first taste it, it is both oddly familiar and yet an unforgettable surprise.

Standing before the magazine rack of a kombini , anyone would marvel at the sheer number of titles catering to every interest. Some, like Classy, have hundreds of thousands of readers; others, like Oggi, will be more niche. But what is even more remarkable is something not immediately obvious: the power that all these magazines exert.