Brands are often not aware of the ubiquitous usage of styles for messaging and their meaning in Japan. The important thing is to understand how this system works, how foreign brands are combined with domestic styles, and how much of their original brand image is stripped away and replaced by perceived images of status and ownership groups.

Which group of people wears a certain brand? Which group of people usually uses this product? These images are largely formed also by the magazines that the brands choose to advertise in.

Simply put, if a brand advertises in magazines for young “girly style” magazines then the readers will assume that the brand is for young girly Japanese consumers. These dynamics are also known in the West, but in Japan the categories are more clear cut and therefore allow a much clearer identification of styles and user groups. As W. David Marx has put it in one of his latest articles for “Neojaponisme”, Real Harajuku Girls, For Real

“In Japan, you can often judge a book by its cover. Consumers embrace a total, well-defined “taste culture” in which to consume, and once inside that group — usually defined by a specific magazine — they buy goods very faithfully to that culture. We should also remember that there is a certain predestination in which “taste culture” consumers gravitate towards.”

More important than the image it creates when a brand advertises in some magazines is the image that is created if a brand does not advertise in a certain magazine. For the readership reading that magazine, the brand will have no relevance and will not be able to change the messaging to those readers.

A typical Japanese fashion obsessed girl does not read only one magazine. They read between three and ten. Each magazine has a very different and distinctive image of its typical readership, set of models, set of brands it displays, and objective. Brands must understand that which magazines a brand uses or does not use creates highly complex messages to different consumer groups, forming the brand image of the brand. Ignoring this is to leave a huge chunk of the development of the brand image up to chance.

So where is the problem for Western brands using Japanese media? Most high end brands advertise selectively in high fashion magazines that give the brand legitimacy, but are not read by the majority of the young consumer audience. They place their brand’s products in magazines ads, where the location and style presented has nothing to do with the brand image originating from the country of origin.

Moreover, many high luxury brands advertise and select advertorials only in magazines that are perceived to have a readership of potential buying customers. As Kapferer emphasizes in his book “The Luxury Strategy”: “...don’t advertise to sell”. Luxury brands leave the complex porcess of building up a brand image among young consumers to chance. They miss out on the chance to convey the brand’s story, the narrative, to young consumers. Consequently the “akogare” (the looking up to) to the brand is constructed within networks, and does not originate from the brands themselves.

Depth and context are perceived as being minefields for Japanese brands. But foreign luxury brands operate within this context and are mixed in with the Japanese narrative. Although they do not intend to do so, Japanese magazines can readily convey messages of heritage, references to history. Popular Japanese magazines are not interested in brand building and foreign brands do not use them as brand building tools. But if used correctly, magazines in Japan are a highly sophisticated tool for building up brand images. You have only to understand clearly the dynamics.

The life of a brand or its brand image is simply not sustainable without a deep narrative that becomes embedded in the cultural landscape. The question is how to construct a narrative that goes beyond the dichotomy of East/West status markers. How are we to create narratives with depth, intimacy, and relevance that leads to sustainable outcomes?

Magazines are a reference point offering basic information. After that you need confirmation from your networks. This is how brands can reach the tipping point to becoming legitimate. When a certain threshold is reached within a group, a tipping point might be reached. What follows then is fast and thorough adoption. We advise brands to think differently, think social, in Japan. You must look for thresholds of tipping points.