Self Intro and Shiseido's Celebritization

大家好! (means Hey everyone !) You are definitely welcom to use this phrase to trick people if you want them know you are bilingual!

I'm Xiaoshan, one of your classmates that you possibly have met, most likely, every day in the past week.

Seriously speaking, please forgive me if you are expecting me to introduce myself again, because I need a break! The first week was very stressful... I had two auditions back to back...Fun?! The good news is that I have been accepted to both University of Illinois Phiharmonia and Illini Symphony (this is the exciting part), but my schedules only allow me to work with one of these two...

As you can see from the picture on you right hand side, I'm a cellist! Shame to say this because I gave it up twice... This is one of our promotion pictures we are (yes we are doing it now still) planning to use for our CD project!

I can hardly think of any precise words, phrases or sentences to describe my personality... Hopefully, you'll know me better as time goes by!

Successful Branding Strategy-- Shiseido's Celebritization

Celebritization plays an important role in most Shiseido's commercials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CldVULk6CsE

This Chinese version commercial features how Shiseido shines the bride's most important moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v+fLEHTMalzSA&feature=related

This Japanese version commercial features one of Shiseido's newest products--TSUBAKI, aiming to widely launch the product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUh0g5TECcY&feature=related

This English version commercial features one of Shiseido's make-up products.

Although those commercials feature different products and use different celebrities, Shiseido continuously uses the same strategy: there shall be common features between the celebrity who is the speakerperson of this product line and the product itself. In other words, the celebrity needs to be representative in terms of the feature of the product.

I said that Shiseido's celebritization is traditional because it is no longer a new strategy in branding/ advertising field; however the core values of Shiseido's products have been carrying out and are well presented by celebrities in its commercials: it could be an elegant perfume that perfectly fits the celebrity's graceful manner; it could be the newest shampoo that shines the celebrity's beautiful moment; and it could be a facial cream that moisten the celebrity's face.

Why Shiseido still maintain its brand value and image in years by simply using perhaps, the most traditional branding strategies? From my point of view, Shiseido's celebritization maximizes the degree consumers identify with the brand. Consumers want themselves look like celebrities in commercials, because they think it is COOL or IDEAL! Shiseido endorses certain celebrities to creat certain recognizations among its target audience.

When Shiseido Met Slam Dunk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sicgyd6ovA

This commercial features Rukawa, Sakuragi and Miyagi of the Shohoku High School Basketball team from Slam Dunk series, a popular Japanese anime series that well known evern in the United States.

I still consider it as celebritization, because the only difference is that celebrities are animated characters. However, it still embraces the idea that consumers want them to be the ones in commercials. In this case, it features a male product that maily produced in Japan many years ago.

The rationale behind Shiseido's celebritization is that consumers want themselves look like the celebrities that appear in commencials and have the expectation of being valued by other people in the society. This desire is not going to easily go away, thus Shiseido's celebratization branding strategy not only give consumers trangible image of the product, but bond with the brand personality to the celebrities and thus pass on to its target segments.