Cool Japan. Fusion with tradition

Same campaign as on the previous year [see 2009 related post], but the so typical geishas are now replaced by the also typical Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, a distinctive landmark of the imagined Japanese cityscape, as fair a representation of real Tokyo –and by extension of Japan too– as Piccadilly Circus is of London and Britain and Times Square of New York City and the USA, this is, not really a fair representation at all.
However, most often this ‘fairness’ does not concern tourism much: tourism seems to be less about truth than about fantasy; more about dreams than about being awake. One could say that ordinary people have plenty of truth in their usual lives (although this is of course very debatable), so when they ‘dress’ as tourists they rather do it in pursue of fantasy, not truth. Maybe too broad a simplification and a generalisation, I admit, but I think the point is made. Fantasy can be packaged and sold in commercial denominations; truth is just a trickier thing, not what one’s most likely to find in the realm of advertising.

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JNTO: Cool Japan. Fusion with tradition
Leicester Square Station (LU)
London

Come on show me your cocoa beam

I confess that for some time I enjoyed looking at this ad. Maybe it was what seemed to me an unselfconscious style, a refreshingly naive and warm-hearted quality, a feel-good element.

But then I started to wonder, and so I paused my enjoyment, that maybe I was being a little bit of a victim of my own exotic gaze, that there was something a bit patronising about the ad, or at least a reasonable suspicion of being patronising.

Although not strikingly obvious, the ad is actually an ad within an ad, seemingly a picture of a roadside advertisement painted on a wall somewhere - one imagines - in Ghana, since it is there where Cadbury claims their cocoa beans are from.
So an "unselfconscious", "naive" and "warm-hearted" Ghanaian piece of advertising - an 'authentic', an 'original' - has been basically pasted on to the billboard spaces of the grey, cynical and decadent Britain, where a bit of Fairtrade chocolate will surely bring some comfort for the soul (and for the sugar-addicted metabolisms), and the joy of life of the wise African peoples will definitely do us good.

Well, am I being too ill-thinking to see a bit of the condescending myth of the noble savage there?

How not to get in a bad mood when being awaken from a sweet dream? And sweet is the Orientalist dream, I'm afraid, even more if it's Fairtrade.

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Cadbury Fairtrade: Come on show me your cocoa beam
Finsbury Park Underground Station
London

Walk Oman. The soul of Arabia

How likely would one be to find the soul of Europe by visiting the Alps?
How likely is tourism to deliver us souls of any sort?
Why might we want to chase souls in any case?

By pressing the button of the exotic spell, I know the ad probably gets what it aims to. But come on, this is the 21st century already: "The soul of Arabia"!? What's that?

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Oman Air: Walk Oman. The soul of Arabia
Russell Square Station
London

Your kettle is full of fur and...

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Yorkshire Tea: Your kettle is full of fur and...
Russell Square Station (LU)
London

German precision at 4%

Is it precision what I like of my lager?
Is it stale national stereotypes what I like from a piece of advertising?
Twice no.

But sure, I get it: Beck's is a German "vier".

Utterly uninspiring.

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Beck's: German precision at 4%
Leicester Square Station
London

Holidays are coming

Well..., Coca-cola, the no. 1 global brand. So what is in this ad? Self-reference to previous and wider campaigns (TV); the substitution of the not so all-inclusive word ‘Christmas’ by the more politically correct ‘holidays’; the iconic simplicity and cosy familiarity of the glass bottle; the Americana of the eighteen wheeler truck; the hijacking of Santa Claus; and more subjectively, the rather unsettling dark undertones of the image, that half-night setting, the truck with its headlights on, rather menacing reminding me of that evil beast of Spielberg’s “Duel”, which in its Spanish version was more explicitly titled “El Diablo sobre Ruedas” (“The Devil on Wheels”)…, yes, holidays are coming, Coca-cola is coming…

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Coca-cola: Holidays are coming
Stamford Street, SE1
1 Dec 2009

Be part of the times

Japan unusually portrayed in an ad that does not include a geisha. A bit disappointlingly, however, it features a robot

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The Times: Be part of the times
Leicester Square Station (LU)
London

Cool Japan. Fusion with tradition

The Japan National Tourism Organization, the Japanese governmental institution behind this ad, knows well how much geishas are liked over here, that’s why it’s geishas they give us.

How many tourist brochures, articles in travel magazines, guidebooks on Japan, covers of Japanese novels, souvenirs, etc., feature images of geishas! And yet, how few actual geishas will average Japanese people ever encounter in their lives these days.
But, hey, geishas are a well-established symbol, widespread, recognisable and unmistakeable; in many readers’ minds ‘geisha’ (or maiko, or for that matter any girl dressed in a fancy kimono) = Japan; quite a temptation for advertisers. At the same time, it is worth noting that the symbol ‘geisha’ renders a particularly exotic, erotic and feminising representation of its object, i.e. Japan, with all the discursive implications involved in such process (on which I won’t go about here).

This said, these geisha girls in the picture do not seem very serious geishas to me; one could think they might actually be just posing as geishas, playing at being geishas, phoney geishas; they are geishas with a twist. And I reckon such twist must be close to what this “cool Japan” brand is all about. “Fusion with tradition”, they say. Rather, I’d say, a re-invention of that tradition; recycling with a marketing agenda; ‘tradition’ reshaped to fit around the commodity mould.

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JNTO: Cool Japan. Fusion with tradition
Waterloo Station (LU)
London