17 March, 2005

No logo - from BBC Magazine

I found a perfect article, in BBC Magazine, which represents what I've thinking of for a long time. It's collision between cultural identity of each city and corporate strategy. In another words, every city is full of chain stores and consequently looks alike, resulting in losing its identity.

The article itself is about the situation in Britain, but I think it's applied to Japan. And Japanese situation is much worse, I believe.

The same brands dominate: Starbucks, McDonald's, WHSmith, Carphone Warehouse, HMV, Currys, Marks and Spencer, Waterstones, River Island... such names are fixtures the length and breadth of the country.

Tesco, which recently accelerated its opening of small stores in High Streets, says it is prepared to be flexible.

"We have a corporate image and a corporate look and we need to retain some consistency around that," says Tesco's Richard Anderson. "We are also willing to speak to local people and authorities to adapt that."

Brockenhurst in the New Forest, Hampshire, was a case in point, he says. The signage was "deemed a bit too much" by locals so Tesco is changing the white face to off-white, with less window stickers.

NEF policy director Andrew Simms says the signs are part of a deeper problem.

"The aesthetic impact really does matter to people if you live in an identikit environment, because people draw their own identity from their environment and it's rather depressing to travel from town to town and find they're all the same."

» BBC News | Magazine | Signs of the times
16 March 2005
By Tom Geoghegan