“What does ”abundance” mean to you? Is it in terms of materials? Or is it bigger?… Like a collective imagination pushing an agenda for the greater good of society.” Not your average catch lines for a new product aimed at the mass market, however Motorola’s newest marketing move in Japan, for their new smartphone Photon, is far from your average comercial. The global mobile maker released the first of three short films that, as well as being incredibly well made, look to explore Japan’s consumerist standpoint and societies shift toward something new.
Featuring a masked Naohiro Ukawa, the man behind the online nightclub DOMMUNE that streams to thousands each night, the film uses the same platform idea. Different people around Tokyo are drawn into a DOMMUNE style broadcast (on the Motorola device, naturally), where Ukawa asks us to question how we associate our lives in terms of wealth. The narrative comes from the actor and writer Shimoda Kageki, considered a leading commentator of Japanese culture, and the piece features more than 20 of the countries most interesting figures right now across all areas including fashion, music, architecture and design. The short documentary style piece is shot and directed by Shouda Yukihero, who we introduced you to earlier last month with his post apocalyptic film Blind.
The concept of the film is certainly an interesting take on the average marketing ploys out there for smartphones right now. There are subtle advertising aspects to the piece though, for example the DOMMUNE style broadcast idea of the film subtly pushes the phones ability to become a tethering device, turning it into an instant WiFi hotspot for your computer and up to 8 other devices. At the same time by promoting an anti consumerist narrative, or at the very least asking us to question our ideals, it also cleverly taps into a non-mainstream “cool” image, offering that owners of this device are choosing something edgier than the ubiquitous smartphone out there now, and that used to be considered the alternative choice.
As part of the marketing push for the campaignMotorola have teamed up with Japanese select shop Urban Research where the new device is actually on display at seven of it’s stores, as well as producing a 60 page magazine featuring interviews with the cast and others, looking at the themes the film plays on. There will also be a DOMUNE event held on Nov 23rd, SOCIAL0.0LAB x DOMMUNE presented by Motorola PHOTON.
Parts 2 and 3 are due to be released in the next few weeks so I recommend checking their site to find out how the film will progress.
Darrell is a native of the U.K. and has been in Japan since 2002. He consults on innovation and strategy at the 
In USA, LEVIS and CHRYSLER made it somehow and now in Japan MOTOROLA. All that, like Sarah Banet-Weiser claims is just RE-BRANDING CAPITALISM. Make appear economic structure’s collapse as inevitable and demanding individual social efforts to restart voracious capitalism never-ending “grow”