I tried creating a poster for this historic department store using the approach of the Shopping Street Poster Exhibition.

To celebrate Daimaru's 300th anniversary, Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Store created a poster featuring 100 staff members in collaboration with local creators. Keita Kusaka, the mastermind behind the "Shopping Street Poster Exhibition," was responsible for this poster. Kusaka shared how the "Daimaru Matsuzakaya: 100 Shining Staff Posters" came to be.

A Daimaru/Matsuzakaya representative was a fan of the "Shopping District Poster Exhibition"...

One day, I got a call from an unfamiliar salesperson at the company. A representative from Daimaru Matsuzakaya wanted to talk to me. Could I come to Tokyo? My only connection to Daimaru was buying clothes there, and to Matsuzakaya was eating hitsumabushi at their Nagoya store. When I went to hear what they wanted, it turned out they wanted to create posters featuring 300 employees to celebrate Daimaru's 300th anniversary. Ms. Mayuko Hidushima, the representative from Daimaru/Matsuzakaya, was a fan of the "Shopping District Poster Exhibition." She reached out, thinking this 300th anniversary was the perfect, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There was nothing more honorable than being entrusted with the 300th anniversary of a venerable company like Daimaru.

However, the number 300 proved challenging. After much discussion, we settled on 100 people, and the project began. First, 100 individuals were selected from Daimaru and Matsuzakaya stores nationwide. The group included department store staples like women's wear, men's shoes, and sales representatives, alongside many behind-the-scenes staff like telephone operators, security guards, and even legal department personnel from headquarters. A diverse group of 100 professionals was assembled.

All that remained was to create the posters. But two hurdles remained. One was the client's request: since Daimaru and Matsuzakaya stores are deeply rooted in their respective regions, they wanted local creators from each area to design the posters. Daimaru and Matsuzakaya stores are scattered across locations like Sapporo, Tokyo, Shizuoka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. While Kansai might be manageable, other areas had to be outsourced. We traveled nationwide, visiting Dentsu Group companies to make requests. Ultimately, Dentsu Headquarters, Dentsu Chubu Branch, Dentsu Hokkaido Inc., and Dentsu East Japan Shizuoka Branch agreed to cooperate.

The second issue concerned the workflow process. The Shopping District Poster Exhibition operates under a strict rule: creators are given complete creative freedom. They conduct initial research, then simply deliver the final product. There are no presentations to review drafts. All intermediate confirmation steps are eliminated. This very process yielded powerful expressions. However, these were posters for Daimaru and Matsuzakaya. Daimaru has a 300-year history, Matsuzakaya over 400 years. Would that be acceptable? This became the key point. If we went through multiple rounds of confirmation like a standard job, the expression risked becoming bland. Above all, it would undermine the very foundation of the Shopping District Poster Exhibition. While the client understood the merits of the exhibition, they hesitated about granting completely free rein for production. Ultimately, we decided to confirm everything up to the thumbnails (hand-drawn roughs).

Beyond that, they were given free rein. Sometimes the thumbnails were approved immediately, while other times they required multiple revisions. However, once the thumbnails were finalized, there were almost no further corrections. Each creator could focus entirely on refining their work until the very end, resulting in truly excellent pieces.

Posters created through 300 years of fieldwork and ethnographic methods

The finished posters were presented to each store. A splendid presentation ceremony was prepared, and the posters were handed over personally by the creators themselves in the presence of store managers and others. Reactions included: "I'm so moved—I'll probably never have a poster made for me again in my lifetime," "I'll work hard to live up to this poster," and "I wish they'd ironed out more wrinkles (laughs)." Everyone was delighted.

Attending the presentation ceremony made me realize once again: the staff members featured on the posters are the all-stars of Daimaru and Matsuzakaya. If any company were to select 100 representatives, they would likely choose individuals of comparable caliber. It was perhaps fortunate that we could feature such outstanding, distinctive people on the posters.

Now, let's take a look at the finished posters.

At the presentation ceremony for Daimaru Umeda Store, Store Manager Masato Koyama stated, "Brands are built by each individual. This project vividly demonstrated precisely that." Coming from a company with 300 years of history, these words carry significant weight.

For department stores, brands are the key to success. Typically, brand management is decided at headquarters and then disseminated and permeated throughout each branch and store. However, this project shaped the brand through the cumulative efforts of individuals working in each region. If conventional branding is deductive, this was inductive. It wasn't top-down. It was bottom-up. This is how Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores celebrated Daimaru's 300th anniversary.

Rather than endlessly debating the brand through back-and-forth exchanges of proposals, what if we simply created posters as we saw fit, made some kind of video, produced content—even if we didn't fully grasp the brand? Then, from that collective output, we could re-examine the brand. A brilliant senior colleague, F, remarked, "The poster exhibition is ethnocreative." In cultural anthropology and sociology, "ethnography" refers to the method of investigating and documenting the behavioral patterns of groups or societies through fieldwork. Recently, it has gained attention as an effective research method in marketing too. We conducted fieldwork on 300 years of history and creatively produced posters using ethnographic methods.

You can see all the works on the website. We're also holding a popularity vote, so please take a look. Furthermore, all 100 posters are on display at Daimaru Shinsaibashi until the end of 2017. We highly recommend seeing the actual pieces.