Superflat Monogram, connecting to the young

This is nothing short of genius. The beats are decent, the whole thing in Miyazaki style, cute enough for to hook every young girl, yet aesthetic and cool enough for older audiences. Playful and light, with a drop of fantasy here and clear references to Alice in Wonderland there. So here we get it, LV makes the Japanese version of Alice. Fantasy in this country is born through the brands on Omotesando, and in the end, all is shared over the city through your mobile phone. Symbolic exchange (yes, Baudrillard) through the screen. In the moment she has sent the pictures out to her friends, the fantasy became reality. And yet part of the dream stays only with herself. LV takes her on a trip. That young girl can now aspire to something, when she is older, she will be able to purchase into that dream...that is, if it is not damaged along the way by overexposure of Shibuya Gyaru who are not so much Murakami style.

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I wonder if someone shares my perception that the most distinct "Japanese culture" element in this clip is the moment when all her friends receive her message on their mobile phone (seeing scenes in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Suidobashi Tokyo Dome, in front of a juku/Japanese cram school with 進学 written on the window). I think this is a very accurate observation of youth culture and the way that their world revolves not only around their mobile phones but through the immediate possibility of sharing an experience and connecting to the world around them. This experience without her friends would be isolated, apart from the group, and not real. Sen to Chihiro from Miyazaki lets Chihiro experience her fantasy alone. Only her friends in the other world understand her. Very indidvidualistic, even western. But this here is different. You experience individuality through adhering to a group norm, share it with the community and get the feeling of setting yourself apart (always in the group) through staying ahead on a trend, that is again defined by group norms. It´s self-referential and presupposes changes implemented from the outside, external influences (for example in the form of a strong brand with authority, like LV).
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The sophistication of this advertisement is difficult to align with some of the customers that exhibit the brand openly. Yet, is it a contradiction? Misuse of a brand's image for subcultures not directly associated with the intended brand image, are not always bad for a brand. More thorough semiotic analysis of the media dynamic would be necessary.

Yesterday I had a talk with a university student, highly eduacted, from one of the prestigious private big names, who told me something that made me think. When she entered University, she started a part-time job, and earned her own money. It was the first time that she thought about its value, and what she would like to spend it for. It was earned, and she started to question the value of just spending all that for a handbag from LV. It was not that she had less money than before, when she aspired to own one. It was that she saw no reason to make an effort to obtain it. As long as it was easy and without emotional investment from her side, she was willing to own a LV bag. The question is now how to give the brand enough emotional value in order to give them enough reason to make that effort.

What surpised me even more were the contradictory opinions of a university student and his girlfriend. She was convinced that her boyfriend would not like girls who own a LV bag, considering them to be less individualistic. Yet his opinion, if asked seperately of course, was that girls who carry such a bag are female and sophisticated. Wouldn't be the first time that couples have different perceptions about shared values. But it starts to interest me if you can align the images of male and female consumers in Japan, even from the same social segment, even university. I was wondering if the survey that I am about to conduct at the end of the month should also include male consumers and their image on certain brands. It seems to me that girls (especially highly educated ones who have the comfort of being able to lead a more independent professional life) are much more critical about the image of LV than their male counterparts.

I dont think a normal survey with both male/female participants who answer the same questions, would account for the complexity of the issue. What about doing it differently, by asking women for their perceptions on the brand and the (perceived) image it has on the other sex, while trying to find out the real image male consumers have of different female consumer segments carrying those famous bags.