The case of Japanese otona ‘adult’: Mediatized gender as a marketing device

Abstract

This study considers food commercials featuring the term otona, meaning ‘adult, mature person’. Although the term is not explicitly gendered, this study demonstrates that food advertising using otona becomes a conduit for the construction of gendered lifestyle formulations via consumption practices offering consumers entrance into a range of gendered adult life stage practices. Unlike the socially aspirational consumption practices described by Agha, the consumption of inexpensive otona-marked products, which cost the same as their non-otona-marked counterparts but are intended by commercial producers to be viewed by prospective consumers as more mature, is linked to the process of entering adulthood. However, whereas male performance of otona masculinity is shown in the commercials to be based on psychological maturity and economic and social independence, female performance of otona femininity is determined by the commercial producers and the product manufacturers to be based on successful performance of external beauty, sexuality and support of male social sphere members. This article shows how otona becomes a catch-all for aspirational gendered performance, arguing that terms like otona are particularly suited for normative gendered performance presentations.

Keywords

Advertising commodity critical discourse analysis femininity gender ideology Japanese lifestyle practices masculinity mass media

Introduction

In recent years, the Japanese term otona, whose original dictionary definition is simply ‘adult’ or ‘grownup’, has become a popular marketing resource applied to diverse products ranging from chocolate to beer to houses and vacations. In its original use, otona might be used in contexts such as otona ni nattara kagakusha ni naritai ‘I want to be a scientist when I grow up’, where otona ‘adulthood’ is contrasted with being a child. On the other hand, as a marketing term otona is frequently applied to everyday products that also have an adult version. In Figure 1, for example, buying an SUV, as opposed to another type of car, becomes a means of expression for an adult’s yuuetsu-kan ‘sense of superiority’. Similarly, in Figure 2, a parent/adult–child trip to Disneyland, which is usually portrayed as a childhood oriented social practice, becomes reconfigured in the context of mother/adult–daughter bonding.

Figure 1.

SUV car commercial (Goo World, n.d.).

Figure 2.

Disneyland advertisement (BS Asahi, 2012).

Otona as a marketing resource has been applied to a wide variety of products and has been used in many contexts apart from those depicted in Figures 1 and 2, including fashion guides and prescriptive language-use manuals (Figure 3), the latter of which claim to provide adults with tools and strategies for appropriately using codified Japanese politeness forms in various social contexts.

Figure 3.

Otona Phrase Book cover (Murakami, 2015).

Thus, otona does not refer to a particular biological age or life stage so much as it indexes qualitative properties associated with broadly defined social constructs of adulthood. Crucially, these constructs encompass a range of social practices, including those associated with participation in the economic sphere, performance of social persona and so on. Notably, while there are otona ways of dressing and otona ways of speaking, these different practices are not discrete but are intersectional, both of themselves and of broader social discourses, including discourses of age and gender.

Describing the social structures navigated by Japanese youth, critics such as Yamada (2015), Furuichi (2011) and Ushikubo (2015) have detailed fundamental changes to the Japanese social and economic landscape that have put normative social expectations, including university education, a regular full-time job, marriage and children, out of reach for many young people. These studies have described conditions of long-term economic stagnation and changes to employment laws that have made it easier for corporations to hire hi-seishain ‘non-regular employees’ who are excluded from social benefits and protections, including health benefits and yearly bonuses, and who constantly face the possibility of contract termination.

Furthermore, the roughly 40% of the Japanese workforce that is classified as hi-seishain can face significant stigma especially if they are males since they are considered unsuitable marriage partners (Semuels, 2017). As this suggests, economic and social practice participation cannot be disentangled from gender considerations – female hi-seishain participation is not so negatively viewed since married women might forgo economic participation altogether. As Yamada (2015) and Ushikubo (2015) have emphasized, the impact of economic and social changes on private relationships among contemporary youth has been profound. While Japanese youth are often depicted in the popular press as uninterested in pursuing romantic relationships, these commentators argue that it is rather the case that they do not have the economic flexibility to do so.

The indexicality of otona – lifestyle formulation

We argue that as a marketing resource otona is not something that can be directly consumed, but rather indexes a lifestyle that is experienced and expressed through patterns of product consumption. In this way, it can be understood as a lifestyle formulation (Agha, 2011) where commodities become ‘personified’ through processes that ‘link individual products to many other diacritics, including other products’ (p. 33).

This interpretation of the way in which consumable products become part of larger consumption-practice-based lifestyles emphasizes that commodities such as linguistic variables, can take part in enregisterment processes, that is, historically and socially specific processes of indexical meaning formation (Agha, 2005).

Furthermore, advertising discourse frequently groups products together so that they form seemingly coherent and contained consumption packages, thus, recruiting consumable products into the presentation of complex lifestyle formulations. Such lifestyle packages can, as Callier (2014) pointed out, be personified via social actors whose participation in a range of semiotic practices becomes itself emblematic of a kind of lifestyle.

Callier’s analysis focuses on how advertising for Ford trucks takes on different forms depending on the social group to which the truck is being marketed, constructing divergent groups of idealized truck users corresponding to different social classes, specifically working class versus middle class. What Callier’s analysis demonstrates is that the indexical values attached to commodities are not singular – that the consumption of a Ford truck, for example, can be part of both a middle-class and a working-class lifestyle, but that in each case the use of the product will be differently described – with towing, for example campers or boats, emphasized for middle-class consumption, and hauling, for example tools or materials, emphasized for working-class consumption.

Indeed, the commodity enregisterment processes described by Agha, as well as the way in which these commodities are implicated in a range of social or socio-economic discourses as in Callier’s account, emphasize that commodities can be modeled like other socially salient semiotic resources, including linguistic resources. In this way, the study of commodity formulations is closely aligned with analyses of linguistic social meaning (e.g. Eckert, 2008; Podesva, 2007, 2011) that similarly focus on the way in which linguistic variables are recruited in the performance of a range of social identities, including those that contain a gendered component.

Looking at the use of California English identified variables by non-Californian male speakers, Podesva (2011) argued that speakers were recruiting the social-indexical values associated with California, that is, ‘fun’ and ‘laid-back’, and repurposing California English variables as part of the construction of a gendered ‘gay partier’ persona.

Like Podesva’s finding that variables associated with geography (e.g. California English) can be recruited for the performance of social persona (e.g. partier), Eckert (2008) has argued that the indexical possibilities available to variables are best modeled as a constellation of meanings or indexical field. Modeling the indexical field of socially salient variables, Eckert describes how the potentially, but not necessarily, delimited range of indexical meanings associated with particular variables are differentially activated depending on a range of factors, including interlocutor, conversational context and the presence of other variables, which themselves are associated with a range of indexical possibilities. Homing in on the processes by which linguistic variables interact with each other forming complex persona that speakers recruit in their own social-linguistic and social-semiotic performances, these studies demonstrate how linguistic variables become, like consumed commodities, part of larger social identity performance discourses.

Drawing on Eckert’s understanding of the indexical field, we emphasize the multiplex, higher order indexicality (Silverstein, 2003) of semiotically rich sites of meaning-making such as otona. The images, practices and so on that are called up in invoking otona are numerous and variable, but this is not to say that otona can mean anything. Rather, otona keys into broad, taken-for-granted metalinguistic discourses of what counts as desirable or standard adulthood in contemporary Japan. The success of the images in the mass media marketplace depends on consumers accepting the images as representations of adulthood. Thus, examining the marketized use of otona can offer insight into how commercial advertisers presume otona to be interpreted by consumers.

Use of otona as a marketing strategy

With this background, this study will consider a range of advertising in which the Japanese term otona is recruited as part of marketing strategies that turn an everyday product into part of a gendered, attractive ‘adult’ lifestyle. The study will demonstrate how otona ‘adulthood’ lifestyle formulations, as constructed through these commercials, become differently gendered and conform to socially normative expectations of feminine-marked and masculine-marked adulthood (Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith, 2016).

The current project concentrates on analysis of food commercials, specifically those for chocolate and beer. Food was chosen as the focus of analysis since food is a necessity for all individuals and experiences of food consumption and advertising are ubiquitous experiences for most individuals. Furthermore, food is a particularly rich site of semiotic meaning since taste so directly accesses social discourses related to the habitus of consumers (Bourdieu, 1984). Food advertising appeals to taste-associated meanings by drawing on its strong social-semiotic indexical values. Since taste cannot be directly represented in advertising, food commercials represent particular tastes via the indexical values linked to those tastes.

Furthermore, for Bourdieu (1984), taste includes both the taste of food that is directly and literally consumed and the broader set of material consumption practices ‘taste, a class culture turned into nature, that is embodied … is an incorporated principle of classification which governs all forms of incorporation, choosing and modifying everything that the body ingests and digests and assimilates, physiologically and psychologically’ (p. 190). In this vein, food commercials are unique in that the physical taste of food is literally linked to the social taste – the assimilation of particular kinds of tastes is described in terms of social discourses that are perceived to be indirect indices of that taste. For otona, these tastes are frequently perceived to be ‘deeper’ or ‘richer’, dark chocolate, for example, as opposed to milk chocolate, where darkness and deepness are seen to be indexical of being ‘older’ as compared to the sweeter, lighter flavors associated with ‘youth’.

In the rapidly altering social landscape, the social practices that accompany entry into adulthood, including practices of consumption, are likewise open to reinterpretation and become, we would argue, highly salient loci of social meaning-making. The mediatized imagery, including gendered imagery, associated with otona are, as we will show, integral to these meaning-making processes as the purchase of an otona-labeled bittersweet KitKat bar, a box of otona Glico chocolate covered almonds or otona-marketed Sapporo beer marked with a black star becomes implicated in the social practices of gendered ‘grownup-ness’.

Media-mediated otona lifestyles are frequently depicted by actors, musicians and other Japanese celebrity figures via performances that are keyed to some salient elements of the celebrity’s publicly visible persona. In depicting an otona lifestyle in advertising performances, these celebrities are thus engaged in what we will call mediated double performance. As part of their endorsement of a particular product, and externally mediated by industry-directed editors, script writers, stylists and so on, these celebrities perform a version of themselves, a version that depicts otona lifestyles. Such mediated double performances are of course also common in reality TV programming. In commercials that recruit otona as a marketing device, the celebrities are not, then, uncomplicatedly performing otona; they are rather being directed to perform themselves performing otona. In this way, the mediated depictions of otona lifestyles performed in the commercials considered here are keyed to elements of celebrities’ publicly performed persona while also being mediated (via editing, styling, scriptwriting and so on) as part of larger economic market structures.

We noted before that the range of otona-advertised products is broad, encompassing everything from chocolate to cars to vacations, and that this study centers on readily available, that is, non-gourmet, food commercials. As we discussed above, the strong social meanings attached to these products, their widespread obtainability and the availability of both non-otona- and otona-marked versions of the products mean that they are highly desirable sites for social meaning analyses, including gendered meaning analyses. All the products considered here can be purchased at Japanese grocery stores: KitKat bars cost approximately $1 for one single-serving packet, a single can of Sapporo beer costs roughly $1.60 and a single serving box of Glico chocolates costs $1.80. As noted above, when applied to food products otona often suggests that the products in question are less sweet or even bitter and have a deeper, richer flavor than their non-otona-marked counterparts – otona chocolate is most often dark chocolate, as opposed to milk chocolate.

This study

Our analysis focuses on print and video advertising for KitKat chocolate, Sapporo beer, Glico chocolate and Heinz pastas. Using Google search, we looked for products that used otona marketing, including products that did not have corresponding non-otona versions, and examined those for which we could find online print and/or TV ads.

Our search for otona-marked products yielded a highly diverse range of commodities, including hair care products directed at young men entering the job market (Otona Uno), railways trips marketed at older females (Japan Rail Otona no tabi ‘Adult trips’), and a range of advertising materials for various lines of the makeup brand Esprique (Otona no baby hada ‘Baby skin of adults’ and Otona. But Kawaii. Hadairo puremiamu ‘Otona. But Cute. Skin-colored Premium’). As the Japan Rail otona marketing shows, otona can also be used as a euphemism for old age in marketing.

Focusing on the kinds of gendered discourses that emerge in these advertising narratives, we narrowed our study to food products due to space considerations, and concentrated on products that included the widest range of print and video advertisements as opposed to a single print image or a single instance of advertising copy using otona. Of course, there may be other products that have both otona and non-otona versions, but to our knowledge, these products are those with the most prevalent online presence as otona products.

While we do not know the age group targeted by these ads, the depiction of characters along with the double performances by actors associated with youth suggests that the commercials’ narratives are meant to appeal to consumers for whom successful participation in practices associated with adulthood is a pressing issue. For example, Tsumabuki Satoshi, who has appeared in the Japanese coming-of-age drama Orenji Deizu ‘Orange Days’ (Ueda, 2004), which was popular among younger audiences, also appears in the Otona Sapporo commercials.

This analysis examines the narratives that are associated with otona advertising. Our case studies demonstrate the mediatization of otona, the social discourses that otona indexes, and the differently gendered performances that emerge as a narrative thread in the commercials and print advertisements of this study.

Specifically, KitKat and Heinz commercials broadly depict social personae associated with otona femininity, while Sapporo beer commercials focus on otona masculinity. Glico commercials, meanwhile, depict both masculine- and feminine-gendered otona. The difference in masculine- and feminine-gendered otona in these commercials is stark. Masculine-gendered otona personae emphasize participation in the public sphere and fulfillment through complete self-actualization. On the other hand, the depiction of feminine-gendered otona performances in these advertisements centers on ‘mature’ sexuality as well as traditional, normative femininity including gentleness and deference to male interlocutors. Feminine-gendered performances of this kind have been described as normative in previous work, notably Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith (2016).

It is important to stress that although these are the kinds of the gendered images that are being ‘sold’ to consumers, this does not mean that consumers will accept such gendered representations uncontested. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that these depictions of normative gendered performances are consonant with accounts of increasing conservativism among contemporary Japanese youth (Yamada, 2015). Such accounts stress that normative social practices such as marriage and (for women) becoming a sengyoo shufu ‘housewife’ are becoming more desirable as they fall out of reach for more individuals.

This introduction has emphasized that otona is not merely contrastive with youth, but is rather multiply indexical. Indeed, the indexical values associated with social meaning rich items are never singular. Thus, in examining the use of otona in advertising we are examining the cluster of meanings, keyed to contemporary discourses of Japanese adulthood, that are recruited in advertising materials. ‘Depiction of feminine otona lifestyles’ discusses the depiction of feminine-marked otona social persona including otona as indexical of mature sexuality (Otona KitKat and Otona Heinz Pasta in ‘“Let’s enjoy being otona”: KitKat’ and ‘Traditional roles and sensual consumption: Heinz pastas’, respectively) and normative social roles including support of males (Otona Glico in ‘Normative feminine roles: Otona Glico’) and marriage (Otona Heinz Pasta in ‘Traditional roles and sensual consumption: Heinz pastas’). ‘Depiction of masculine otona lifestyles’, meanwhile, focuses on depictions of masculine-marked otona performances including success in the public sphere (Otona Sapporo Beer in ‘Haji o osorenai “Not being afraid of shame”: Sapporo Beer’) and support of the household (Otona Glico in ‘Normative masculine roles: Otona Glico’). ‘Conclusion: Constructing lifestyle markets’ presents our discussion and conclusion.

Depiction of feminine otona lifestyles

‘Let’s enjoy being otona’: KitKat

Despite its overseas origin, among chocolate brands popular in Japan perhaps none holds as much cultural significance as KitKat. Apart from internationally popularized Japanese-style flavors and packaging such as green tea and cherry blossom, there are also flavors sold only in specific tourist cities. KitKat also has associations with social rites of passage, including entrance exams for high school and university, and marriage announcements. This is due to a Japanese pun – the Japanese pronunciation of KitKat, that is, kittokatto, is a near homonym for the phrase ‘(we) will definitely win’. Indeed, KitKat is available in most Japanese postal offices in a special ready-to-mail format that includes printed formulaic messages suited toward exam season, New Years and so on.

The prominent role that KitKat plays in Japanese socio-cultural practices also means that commercials associated with the brand acquire a secondary social significance – much as Coca Cola’s annual Christmas commercials are about more than soda, KitKat’s commercials can be read as a way for KitKat to position itself as more than just chocolate and maintain and expand its role within the Japanese social practices (exam taking, marriage) of which it is a part. Along these lines, KitKat’s commercials in Japan include mini movies posted onto KitKat’s Nestle Theater International YouTube channel. With names such as Life is … and The Color of Us, these mini movies reinforce KitKat’s role as a core socio-cultural product, the consumption of which, following Agha (2011), becomes part of the construction of a middle-class lifestyle.

The link between ‘adult’ sexuality and feminine otona performance is emphasized in the commercial transcribed below in excerpt (1). The commercial depicts a scene in which a young female office worker, who seems to have had a failure at work, is consoled by a male junior colleague, who gives her a packet of otona black KitKat (117cmVol4, 2012). In some ways, the otona female character in excerpt (1) departs from traditional feminine norms – for example, she has enough seniority to be treated with respect by the young male character. At the same time, her response to the male colleague’s question asking whether she is fine (dame kamo ‘not sure’) imparts helplessness, and the commercial appeals to sexuality in depicting the consumption of black KitKat as in excerpt (1) and Figure 4. After having a bite of the otona black KitKat given to her by the male junior colleague, the female character grabs hold of the male figure’s coat-tails as he is about to walk away, and her voiceover states that she wants to be ‘indulged in an otona way’ otona rashiku amaetai.

(1)

Otona female walks out of a conference room with a defeated expression. Male boss speaks to her.

1. Male Boss: Mata ganbar-eba ii yo

‘You could just try again sometime’.

2. Otona female: Hai

‘Yes’

Otona female stands alone in the corridor looking sad. Younger male colleague comes up to her.

3. Junior male colleague: Senpai, daijoobu desu ka?

‘Senpai/Senior, are you okay?’ ¹

4. Otona female: Dame kamo

‘Not sure’.

Younger male colleague hands otona female a package of otona black KitKat.

5. Junior male colleague: Dame ssu ne

‘You are not OK, are you’

Otona female eats otona black KitKat and begins to smile.

6. Otona female (voiceover): Otona da-tte, amae-tai. Otona rashi-ku amae-tai.

‘Even an adult wants to be indulged; wants to be indulged in an adult way’.

Otona female suggestively hangs onto the coattail of younger male colleague while smiling. Younger male colleague looks back at her.

7. Narrator (male voice): Kittokatto, otona=no amasa.

‘Kitkat. Otona/Adult sweetness’. (117cmVol4, 2012)

Figure 4.

KitKat Commercial Still Image (Rakuten, 2012).

We argue that the appeal to sexuality here comes from both the visual narrative depicted in the commercial and from the language employed by the female speaker and her junior male colleague. The female character diverges from her role as a senpai ‘senior’ colleague to that of an otona person who wants to be ‘indulged like an adult’, otona rashiku amaetai (line 6), inviting her male colleague’s attention and care (line 3). Consonant with KitKat’s marketing tagline urging consumers to ‘have a break, have a KitKat’, the female senpai momentarily finds freedom from the various social rules and assumptions governing behavior in the workplace and becomes a woman in a heterosexual world.

Similarly, in line 3, prior to giving the female character otona KitKat, the younger male character uses the more formal –MASU form of the copula, that is, desu, toward his female senior colleague. –MASU/non-MASU is commonly described as associated with the construction of different formality levels (e.g. Okamoto, 1999) where –MASU is more formal and appropriate for non-personal, office situations. However, in line 5 the junior male switches from this form to the more informal –ssu form of the copula, that is, dame ssu ne ‘you are not OK, aren’t you’.

Although the –ssu form is not explicitly associated with masculine gender performance, studies such as Kaneshiro (2009) have linked use of this more informal form to wakamono kotoba ‘youth language’, broadly defined to include speakers in their 20s and 30s, as well as to speakers who are described as taiikukaikei ‘sports-oriented’ and who perform more normative, physical masculine persona. Thus, while we do not claim that the younger male character’s use of –ssu explicitly indexes masculinity, his switch from the –MASU form to –ssu suggests that he is performing a persona that includes a more personal relationship with the female character.

In excerpt (1) then we can interpret the move from the –MASU form in line 3 to the –ssu form in line 5 as a shift from the formal space of the office to a space that is one step closer to the intimate sphere. The male junior colleague here diverges from his official subservient koohai ‘junior’ persona, which would require using polite language to his senior, and gestures toward a more friendly, playful male persona.

The KitKat commercials’ depiction of the social persona associated with feminine otona-ness is not simplistic and in some ways deviates from traditional gender norms. Nonetheless, these performances remain largely intended by the commercial producers to be restricted to dependence and sexuality. What makes the persona performed by the otona female in excerpt (1), otona is her sexual maturity.

Normative feminine roles: Otona Glico

The gendered depictions of otona maturity also allude to normative, traditional gendered social roles. These kinds of performances stress feminine-marked qualities, including docility, quietness and gentleness that are associated with broader normative feminine constructs including those subsumed under the discursive umbrella of ryoosai kenbo ‘good wife and wise mother’ as analyzed in studies such as Okamoto and Shibamoto-Smith (2016). This section focuses on a series of Glico commercials that show both male and female figures in highly contrastive, gendered ways (depiction of male figures will be discussed in ‘Normative masculine roles: Otona Glico’).

The series of Glico commercials considered here are performed by well-known actors and are offshoots of the popular anime Sazae san,² which has portrayed for decades the life of ordinary Japanese children, their families and their close social network. In the original story the characters never aged, but the Otona Glico marketing campaign created imagined scenes that were set 25 years later to appeal to the everyday struggles of life in contemporary Japan and, as a marketing tactic from the perspective of commercial producers, locate Glico chocolate as an essential part of ordinary, everyday contemporary Japanese experience.

Like many stories about childhood, the endlessly un-aging children of Sazae san are symbols of quintessential ordinary Japanese youth. Yet, in the Glico commercials the tagline is a, otona ni natteru ‘ah, they’ve become otona’. Indeed, what makes watching the Otona Glico Sazae san commercials entertaining is to see how these representatives of Japanese youth experience adulthood, especially work life. Tellingly, the commercials forgo fairytale stories and rather focus on the contemporary economic struggles of growing up including the loss of one’s job and the difficulty of realizing one’s dreams. They further feature culturally identifiable actors (Figure 5), indicative of their relevance in the marketing landscape.

Figure 5.

Otona Glico Print Advertisement (Brunch and Banana, 2008).

The choice of Sazae san as the backdrop for the commercials was apt since it carries deep social significance within Japan, akin to the Peanuts comics in the United States. In particular, and also like the Peanuts characters, all of the characters in Sazae san have clearly defined, broad-stroke personalities.

Two main child characters from the original Sazae san series, Katsuo and Wakame, the young brother and young sister, respectively, of Sazae, appear in the Otona Glico commercial. In the original manga Wakame was 9 years old and was depicted as outspoken and mischievous – later in the anime, her portrayal also emphasized her kindness and sincerity. Katsuo, meanwhile, was 11 years old in the original manga and anime. He was shown to be not good at studying and dreamed of becoming a baseball player.

In the commercial Wakame lives at home with her elder brother Katsuo, in the same home that serves as the setting for the manga and anime. She has a job working as an erebeeta gaaru ‘elevator girl’ at a department store. This employment practice is, along with her brother’s dream of becoming a baseball player, closely identified with traditional Japan and explicitly gendered – while there are men who work as elevator attendants, the image of an elevator attendant continues to be strongly associated with femininity and subservience, just as being a baseball player, a very popular dream job for male children, is closely associated with masculinity. Sitting on the porch of the Sazae san home after overhearing that she will soon lose her job, Wakame looks discouraged, but her brother Katsuo encourages her in excerpt (2) (Kochikun, 2008).

(2)

Context: Wakame is sitting on the porch of the Isono home, while Katsuo practices his baseball swing.

1. Wakame: Katsuo nii.chan, watashi=wa ne

‘Katsuo, older brother, y’know, I…’

2. Katsuo: Suki=ni iki-te ii n da zo, Wakame

‘You should live as you want, Wakame’. (Kochikun, 2008)

In the paragraph prior to excerpt (2), Wakame is shown in her role as an erebeeta gaaru ‘elevator girl’ and overhears other department store workers discussing the elimination of her job. However, the visual framing of excerpt (2) and Katsuo’s comment to her suggests a more complex relationship to the economic sphere. Wakame sits on the porch watching her brother practice sport – visually, Wakame’s role is fixed in the home, an observer of the physical masculine practices of her brother. This scene can be interpreted as consonant with Eckert’s (1996) analysis of young female students watching males compete in the public (sports) space without taking part in the sport itself.

Furthermore, even though the framing of Wakame’s relationship to the economic sphere is not one-dimensional, Katsuo’s advice to Wakame, that ‘you should live as you want’ suki ni ikite ii n da zo in line 2, suggests that, for Wakame at any rate, becoming an otona does not necessarily involve participation in the economic sphere.

While another version of the commercial depicts Katsuo telling Wakame not to give up working, Wakame’s participation in the economic sphere is always depicted as a choice – she can choose to live as she wants even if she should not give up working. Tellingly, an erebeeta gaaru is a low-salary non-professional job. Indeed, it fits the profile of the kinds of jobs that Suzuki et al. (2010) identified as linked to female participation in the pre-economic slump Japan of the 1970s and 1980s, where women sometimes worked even after marriage but made sure to earn less than 1.02 million yen (roughly $10,000) per year because to earn more would mean that the household, including their husband, would no longer be able to take advantage of certain tax benefits. The work that Wakame is shown to be doing cannot provide for her fully, and thus she is economically dependent even as she ostensibly participates in the economic sphere.

Wakame’s language also conforms very closely to the stereotypes of contemporary female language. She uses the feminine associated first person pronoun watashi and likewise her pattern of pragmatic particle use conforms to gendered expectations – across the commercials she uses the soft, consensus-building pragmatic particle yonee (Najima, 2013) and her voice is low and soft.

This traditional feminine role is further enhanced by the placement of the Glico chocolate in the commercials. While watching Katsuo practice baseball, Wakame sits and eats Glico chocolate. In another commercial in the series, Wakame serves Glico chocolate along with cups of tea to her former childhood friends Tarao and Ikura (KessakuCMshiriizumatome, 2014) – a common role that women play while entertaining guests.

Traditional roles and sensual consumption: Heinz pastas

These representations of feminine otona-ness as marked by either mature sexuality or traditional femininity are combined in print advertisements for Heinz pastas, labeled as otona muke no pasuta ‘pasta for adults’. The depictions of gendered performances in these advertisements include appeals to both normative feminine-gendered practices and adult sensuality or sexuality where the consumption of the pasta is linked to a private, sexualized space apart from the heterosexual relationships through which female otona are defined. One of these ads is given in Figure 6.

Figure 6.

Heinz Pasta Print Advertisement 1 (Heinz, 2015).

The advertisement shown in Figure 6 depicts a woman standing by a window curtain – the woman is facing the window and her face is not visible except as an outline. The woman wears a blouse and long skirt, and the image is overlaid with the words: suki, suki, suki (repeated nine times) danna yori suki ‘I like it, I like it […] I like it more than my husband’. Here, the imagery, including the conservative clothing of a married woman, the mention of a husband and the domestic interior, appeal to normative feminine-gendered roles, whereas the language hints that the female depicted is emotionally unfaithful to her husband. Another version of the commercial shows a sensual close-up of the female figure’s mouth eating the pasta accompanied by the suggestive tagline hitori dake kossori tanoshinde ‘I enjoy it in secret alone’ (Rainbow Pro, 2015).

Across the Heinz advertisements, female figures are depicted as sensual and removed from the public world. The images are not only of private places but of private moments where the female figures’ faces are partially obscured. The female figures’ performance of otona-ness thus posits ‘adult’-hood as defined by normative feminine-gendered roles such as a married woman. The copy language of the advertisements is suggestive, insinuating an affair outside marriage, since the figure loves the pasta danna yori ‘more than my husband’.

Depiction of masculine otona lifestyles

Haji o osorenai ‘not being afraid of shame’: Sapporo beer

If the performance of social persona associated with otona femininity is related to adult sexuality or traditional feminine-marked social roles, then what does it mean to perform otona masculinity? An examination of a long-running series of commercials for otona-marked Sapporo beer provides some insight. The otona Sapporo beer commercials, featuring the popular Japanese male actor, Tsumabuki Satoshi, follow a defined format: Tsumabuki Satoshi gets on an otona erebeeta ‘otona elevator’, which stops at different floors corresponding to different ages and speaks with a famous male Japanese arts-world figure about the meaning of life and what it means to be otona, thus learning how to become otona himself. The commercials also all include the same tagline: Otona no nama. Sapporo nama biiru ‘Otona draft. Sapporo draft beer’.

Known for his appearances in coming-of-age dramas (e.g. Orenji Deizu ‘Orange Days’), Tsumabuki Satoshi’s media image is that of the ideal boy next door, a masculine presentation style that is favored in Japan over performances that are deemed excessively sexually attractive (Darling-Wolf, 2004). Tsumabuki Satoshi’s successful performance of this kind of masculine persona becomes an ideal conduit for the Sapporo commercials to present an otona lifestyle associated with the product. A print advertisement of Tsumabuki Satoshi drinking beer with the Japanese singer Yamaguchi Ichiro is shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7.

Otona Sapporo beer (Sapporo Beer, 2016).

Excerpt (3) (117cmVol1, 2011) gives a sense of the way in which otona masculinity is characterized in the Sapporo beer commercials. In this commercial, Tsumabuki Satoshi gets out of elevator at the 77th floor and wonders 77 kai kara wa donna keshiki ga mieru ‘what kind of view can be seen from the 77th floor’. Here, he meets Nakadai Tatsuya, one of the great classic actors of Japanese stage and cinema, who is known for having worked with many of Japan’s most renowned film makers. Getting off the elevator, Tsumabuki Satoshi steps out onto a seaside landscape and greets Nakadai Tatsuya, who is staged wearing artistically designed loose robes in natural colors. The scene then cuts to Nakadai Tatsuya and Tsumabuki Satoshi sitting across from each other grilling wagyu steak, expensive Japanese beefsteak. Through their staged conversation, the commercial depicts the two actors discussing the meaning of life while enjoying the steak and drinking Sapporo beer. In this commercial the choice of clothing, setting and physical props collude to support Nakadai Tatsuya’s double performance of a wise elderly sage persona, which is further reinforced by Tsumabuki Satoshi’s double performance of a young acolyte.

In contrast to the private and sexual tone given to otona femininity as depicted in the KitKat commercials discussed in ‘“Let’s enjoy being otona”: KitKat’, otona masculinity portrayed in the Sapporo beer commercials is much more philosophical. In line 2, it is linked to ikizama ‘attitude to life, way of life’ and in line 4 it becomes part of one’s stance toward ningen ‘people/humanity’. In both cases, we can say that otona-ness is an attitude and a stance toward public and moral discourses:

(3)

Nakadai Tatsuya on Floor 77

1. Tsumabuki: Ikiru to=wa nan desu ka?

‘What is living?’

2. Nakadai: Haji=o osore-nai koto kana. haji=o kai-te mo shooganai to omo-tte kore=wa ikizama da to omoi-masu.

‘I guess it’s not being afraid of shame. Even if I lose face, I think, it can’t be helped. I think this is a way of life’.

3. Tsumabuki: Ningen tte doo omoi-MASU ka?

‘What do you think about humanity?’

4. Nakadai: Ningen=o kyohi=suru-to yo.no.naka tsumara-naku naru deshoo ne

‘If you reject humanity, I guess, the world becomes uninteresting/worthless’. (117cmVol1, 2011)

The emphasis on successful accomplishments in the world is also fundamental to the Sapporo otona elevator commercial series. The featured participants (interviewees) are all prominent public figures who have attained success in their profession. Accordingly, the conversations focus on the character formation of the participants, so that a younger person, such as the interviewer Tsumabuki, would presumably be able to learn from their words and achieve maturity as well as professional success as an otona in the future.

Consider Tsumabuki Satoshi’s encounter with the singer/song writer Suga Shikao on floor 44 in excerpt (4) (117cmVol1, 2011). As with Lily Franky and Nakadai Tatsuya, Suga Shikao’s otona-ness is contextualized as part of his work, that is, his life as a musician. Indeed, the process of becoming an otona for Suga Shikao is the process by which he achieves kyoozon ‘coexistence’ (line 2) and peace with the part of himself, that is, his music and the songs that he has written, that is, with his public self. Becoming an otona, then, for male speakers like Suga Shikao is about successfully navigating their public self – the kagami no naka ni iru moo hitori no jibun ‘the second self in the mirror’ (line 3):

(4)

Suga Shikao on Floor 44

1. Tsumabuki: Wakai koro tte iu to

‘Speaking of youth’,

2. Suga Shikao: Kyoozon dekinakatta desu yo. Uta to. Koo, ongaku to, kenka shi-teru

‘I wasn’t able to coexist with songs. You know, I was fighting against music’.

3. Tsumabuki: Kagami=no naka=ni iru moo hitori=no jibun mitai-na

‘Like another one of yourself in the mirror’.

4. Suga Shikao: Soo soo soo

‘Right, right, right’.

5. Tsumabuki: Suga.san ni.totte, deai tte

‘For you, Suga-san, encounters are…’.

6. Suga Shikao: Deai-nai to, ippo=ga koo de-nai desu yone.

‘If you don’t have encounters, you can’t quite go out [into the world] one step’. (117cmVol1, 2011)

Related to the emphasis on kyoozon ‘coexistence’ with the public self, Suga Shikao’s mediated double performance of otona masculinity also places importance on deai ‘encounters’. The term deai can be used across a broad range of contexts, for example, shin’yuu to no deai ‘encounter with one’s best friend’, aidia to no deai ‘encounter with an idea’ and so on. While it is quite vague and has a broad range of uses, we can think of deai as experiences and encounters accumulated over the course of a lifetime. For Suga Shikao, the relationship between deai and the world is fundamentally intertwined – without deai, going out into the world and achieving moral maturity become impossible (line 6). Like kyoozon, deai fundamentally focuses on the character building necessary for success in the public sphere.

It is important to note that no female character is featured in this series of otona Sapporo beer commercials. No female is present even in the background. The commercials thus focus very narrowly on the performance of Japanese otona masculinity.

Overall, then, we argue that the Sapporo black label commercials are constructed as a large-scale coming-of-age story. Since the commercials are presented through a relatively young³ Tsumabuki Satoshi’s interviews with older Japanese male artists, it is fair to assume that the audience and target market for the commercials are younger beer consumers, that is, consumers similar in age to Tsumabuki Satoshi. For these younger consumers, the prospect of becoming an office worker at a large Japanese corporation no longer holds any appeal (Furuichi, 2011) and the art world luminaries who appear in the Sapporo Beer commercials can be understood as emblematic of a different kind of success. Like the Sapporo tagline maruku-naru na, ★hoshi ni nare ‘don’t become rounded, be a ★star’, they stand out and might be read by potential Sapporo consumers as a model for ‘new man’ masculinity (Darling-Wolf, 2003). Maruku naru, literally meaning ‘become round’, also metaphorically refers to the state of becoming mellow (in old age). These ‘new men’ are not afraid to be emotionally expressive and sensitive, just as Suga Shikao’s double performance of otona masculinity focuses on the emotional struggles he has with his music as a professional musician.

The differently gendered otona performances considered here can also be understood as consonant with previous findings about the gender differentiated entrance of youth into a heterosexual social order (Eckert, 1996). The otona masculinity presented via Nakadai Tatsuya’s performance is focused on his accomplishments in and stance toward yo no naka, that is, ‘the world’ broadly defined, a focus that is consistent across the commercials in the otona no erebeeta ‘otona elevator’ Sapporo series. Tsumabuki Satoshi acts out the role of the youth entering the otona life stage – his double performance is one of being socialized into a differently gendered otona world.

As we have seen then, the contrasting visions of masculine and feminine-marked otona-ness presented in these commercials emphasize the extent to which the process of entering adulthood via adult-marked practices is highly gendered. To be an otona man requires successful engagement with the public sphere, but successful performance of otona femininity relies on appeals to sexuality or domesticity.

Normative masculine roles: Otona Glico

Even when otona male figures are depicted in home or family-centered performances, the focus is on normative masculine practices associated with participation in the economic sphere and in maintenance of the family home. Returning to the Otona Glico commercials discussed in ‘Depiction of feminine otona lifestyles’, the depiction of Katsuo, Wakame’s older brother, further illustrates the media representation of otona masculinity as marked by economic social practices and social responsibilities.

The way in which Katsuo is linked to traditional Japanese gendered discourses is alluded to across several commercials as in the example in excerpt (5) (Kochikun, 2008) where Wakame and Katsuo sit on the porch of their traditional Japanese home and Wakame asks how long Katsuo intends to live in the family home. In choosing to live in the family’s home, Katsuo takes on the responsibilities traditionally associated with the role of choonan ‘eldest son’ further cementing the relationship between Katsuo’s otona-ness and traditional Japanese masculine gender roles. Fulfilling the role of choonan is both a social and economic responsibility since without sufficient economic means, one cannot support a household.

Furthermore, although Wakame has also chosen to live in the traditional family home, the commercials do not depict her role as central to maintaining the house of Isono. As in the example discussed in ‘Normative feminine roles: Otona Glico’, in excerpt (5) Wakame’s role is that of a supporter or observer as she is once again sitting on the porch while Katsuo practices his baseball swing:

(5)

1. Wakame: Katsuo nii.chan itsu made kono uchi=ni iru no?

‘Katsuo older brother, how long are you going to stay in this house?’

2. Katsuo: Ore=wa, zutto iru yo. Isono.ke=no choonan dakara na

‘I will always stay here, because I am the eldest son of the Isono family’. (Kochikun, 2008)

In the example above, Katsuo’s character is linguistically depicted using the masculine gender performance associated pragmatic particle na and the similarly masculine gender performance associated first person pronoun ore. While use of such lexical items in media materials continues to conform closely to stereotypical gendered representations, patterns of actual use of such lexical items are much more complex and do not conform to one to one mappings of gender performance and use/non-use of such items (Sturtz Sreetharan, 2004).

As we saw with KitKat, Heinz and Sapporo beer, the depictions of otona-ness in the Sazae-san Glico commercials conform to gendered norms. As grownup otona, Wakame and Katsuo’s performances of otona masculinity and femininity as shown in the Otona Glico commercials are keyed to specific normative gendered discourses that are not questioned, for example, support of the family by the eldest male son. Indeed, the tone of the commercials casts these highly normative discourses as attractive and desirable, rather than restrictive or stifling.

Conclusion: Constructing lifestyle markets

Over the course of this article, we have illustrated different ways in which otona as a marketing term is recruited in the presentation of gendered adult lifestyles. We have argued that the otona lifestyles depicted in these commercials are keyed to social practices that are highly salient for contemporary Japanese consumers and shown that these issues are presented in differently gendered and appealingly stylized ways.

Otona KitKat, which uses the tagline otona no amasa ‘adult sweetness’, encourages mature femininity where ‘mature’ is keyed to sexuality. Similarly, Heinz otona pasta advertisements emphasize the link between feminine otona performances and normative social roles, especially marriage. Sapporo’s otona no nama ‘adult draft’ beer, on the other hand, encourages (male) consumers to be ‘inspiring’ leading figures, where such inspirational figures are defined in terms of successful participation in the public sphere. Commercials for Otona Glico chocolates, which included both female and male figures, depicted performances of highly normative, traditional masculinity and femininity. In each case, ordinary products that cost only a few dollars – a bar of chocolate, a packet of instant pasta or a can of beer – are transformed into symbols of gendered adulthood and gendered experiences.

In the preceding discussion, we have described otona advertising as ‘lifestyle advertising’ following Agha (2011). However, in one way, our findings regarding the use of otona as a marketing resource depart from Agha’s discussion of lifestyle advertising. Agha has argued that

the fact that many other buyers have identical tokens makes all buyers indistinguishable from each other […] Lifestyle advertising typifies the activity of constructing these token constellations as emblematic of the forms of individual freedom and uniqueness prized in liberal society. (Agha, 2011: 41–43, emphasis in the original)

For Agha, the essential ‘sameness’ of all objects of a certain type is in direct contradiction to consumers’ desire to experience individuality through product consumption. ‘Lifestyle advertising’, then, speaks to the consumption of collections of objects, where the collection is unique to the individual and where the individual products are sold as aspirational. Agha’s point is that product consumption is part of identity construction with the goal of such consumption being the construction of a unique identity.

However, crucial to the presentation of otona-ness in the commercials considered here is the way in which the experience of being otona becomes something shared among consumers. All the otona-marked products examined in this article are readily available, inexpensive and come in price undifferentiated non-otona versions. The consumption of otona products thus indicates the superiority of consumers not through the economic power or social capital attached to the products themselves but because their consumption signals the readiness and capacity of consumers to participate in adult-identified practices as mature social actors. This message further enables youth expecting to enter the so-called ‘adult’ life stage to separate themselves from non-adults.

The otona commercials discussed here can be said to offer images of advertisers’ depictions of feminine- and masculine-marked Japanese adulthood or otona-ness. In this sense, they present narratives of individuated identity, while concurrently offering consumers access to emotional solidarity with other young people who are at the same stage. This feeling of solidarity, of entering the otona life stage together with one’s peers is arguably attractive, especially considering the unstable economic environment. It also speaks to what has been described by critics (Yamada, 2015) as an increase in conservativism among contemporary Japanese youth, marked by greater positive alignment with normatively gendered social roles and practices.

We mentioned that there is no price difference between otona and non-otona versions of the products analyzed here. In fact, Black Label Sapporo Beer, the beer advertised as the otona beer with elaborate otona-elevator commercials, is the most basic line of beer among many other varieties of Sapporo beer products. This may be explained by the fact that alcohol consumption is only limited to otona and that itself qualifies the basic beer to be marketed as an otona product. But what it further emphasizes is the extent to which the otona labeled products considered here are not aspirational in the sense of climbing the economic class ladder. Like Sapporo beer, the Heinz pastas are instant pasta packets – they are not gourmet products. However, like Sapporo they too are nonetheless aspirational in the sense that consumers are aspiring to enter adulthood, and this process is achieved through gender differentiated consumer practices. Life stage, in these commercials is thus a vehicle for particular ways of engaging in consumer practice.

This shared aspiration is suggested, for example, in the otona KitKat commercials where the underlying message is that otona KitKat is for everyone. Similarly, the Heinz otona pasta advertisements depict marriage, a once taken-for-granted social practice that is falling out of reach for many young Japanese, as attractive and desirable. Meanwhile, in the Sapporo Beer commercials Tsumabuki Satoshi takes on the role of an ordinary, common Japanese young otona who seeks the advice of older, wiser Japanese art luminaries. Finally, the otona Glico commercials recruit the nostalgia associated with Sazae san to present normatively gendered social roles in an attractive way.

In all these instances, the recruitment of otona in advertising becomes a way to index recognizable and accessible ‘adult’ gender roles. It is a lifestyle marker that keys into standard or desirable gendered practices at a time when those practices, including full-time, regular jobs (men) and marriage (women) are no longer easily obtainable.

As a marketing discourse, otona is compelling in that, even though it is a single lexical item, it can link to a wide range of discourses related to maturity. In this article, we have focused on gendered discourse that intersects with socio-economic discourse. Embodied in easily attainable everyday products, otona becomes a lens through which salient social and economic discourses are focused, depicting normative Japanese gendered experience as aspirational.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the audiences at the 18th Annual Conference of the Pragmatics Society of Japan and the 9th International Gender and Language Association Conference for their insightful feedback as well as the two reviewers for their perceptive and discerning comments, all of which greatly improved the analysis of this paper. All remaining errors are of course the authors’ own.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biographies

Judit Kroo is a Japanese Society of the Promotion of Science Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yokohama City University. She received her doctorate in Japanese from Stanford University. Her dissertation project, ‘Alternative Masculinities in Japan: The Construction and Re-construction of Normative Gender Ideologies’ investigated the diversity of styles used by young male undergraduate Japanese speakers. Her research focuses the relationship between youth linguistic styles and processes of entering adulthood in Japan and Korea. Other research interests include the relationship between media consumption practices and gendered styles, and the mediatization of social types in Japan and Korea.

Yoshiko Matsumoto is the Yamato Ichihashi Chair in Japanese History and Civilization, Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature and, by courtesy, Linguistics at Stanford University. Her research focuses on pragmatics of linguistic constructions and socio-cultural aspects of discourse. One of her research topics is the relationship of age, gender and language. Relevant publications include ‘Beyond Stereotypes of Old Age: Discourse of Elderly Japanese Women’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language (2009) and ‘Painful to Playful: Quotidian frames in the conversational discourse of older Japanese speakers’, Language in Society (2011).

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