Storytelling is a universal human experience, though various cultures offer their own approaches and styles. It also can be deeply effective in advertising, because by telling a compelling story, brands can enchant, entice, entertain, and enthrall customers, leaving them with positive impressions and even a desire to join the story.

The Japanese style of anime is renowned for its capacity to draw in readers, for whom the stylized drawings and distinctive stories provide vast appeal. The characters and plots in anime tend to be unique and uncommon, often weaving in aspects of the mystical or magical. For Western consumers, anime also provides novel stories that might not have been part of their early childhood. Today’s youngest consumers embrace anime as entertainment, accounting for its growing popularity in various film, television, and publishing channels.

Now anime is being used to tell stories about brands as well. By leveraging the style and themes of anime art, different brands seek to appeal to young, Gen Z consumers and meet them where they are in terms of artistic preferences. For example, to convince university-bound students to snap up some organizational furnishings, IKEA released a series of four “Slice of Life” stories, showing how the anime-styled characters rely on IKEA desks, cabinets, and shelving units to make their transition into communal living easier. With simple storylines that emphasize “the beauty and complexity of normalcy,” they give potentially apprehensive students a sense of comfort.

Acura’s anime-linked advertising campaign goes less for comfort and more for speed, harkening back to 1970s-era televised cartoons like Speed Racer. With a series of four episodes, Acura tells the exciting story of the aspiring race car driver Chiaki, including her competition with other drivers and her relationship with her mentor. Each of the episodes is scored by a popular Japanese metal band, and in addition, in each episode, Chiaki drives a different model of Acura race car. The thrilling sights, sounds, and stories are designed to get young drivers’ pulses racing, driving them to consider buying their own car to get that same feeling behind the wheel.

These multimodal campaigns also receive support in online manga, which provide more details about the characters and their lives. The IKEA manga thus describes the college students featured in the anime series; the Acura version gives in-depth insights into Chiaki and her life. Consumers can become further engrossed in the storytelling, leaving them more likely to imagine themselves in similar situations—and also more convinced that the same brands might help them tell their own life stories.

Discussion Questions

1. Why is anime uniquely well suited to appealing to Gen Z consumers?
2. How might brands add to these marketing campaigns, beyond the anime series and manga online content? What other marketing elements would match well?

Sources: Sara Karlovitch, “IKEA Gives a Peek into College Life with TikTok Anime Series,” The Marketing Dive, July 18, 2023; Peter Adams, “Acura’s Racing Anime Series Aims to Draw Young Premium Drivers,” Marketing Dive, January 21, 2022