Ghibli Brand Identity + Project 1B
From my previous research I’ve established that Ghibli doesn’t do much outside marketing. So how, exactly, did it establish so much brand presence and identity without marketing? This blog post will pretty much explore that, and also delve a little into my project 1B.
Ghibli established brand identity through the production and creation of it’s films. While this is risky, it paid off for Ghibli as their main producer, Hayao Miyazaki is someone heavily involved in their films. So what happens is that Miyazaki’s style becomes apparent in the film AND there is consistency within the films. And when someone produces films for over two decades within the same company, the company becomes synonymous with the filmmaker and both of them establish something of a mutual co-existing brand presence. In other words, Miyazaki has a personal brand which exists under the Ghibli brand and those two names are often heard together. In this case, what happens is that when Ghibli experiences a meteoric rise to fame, Miyazaki did too.
So what I did was break down the key points of the films as they are representational of the brand and have been consistent through the films, eventually acting as brand identity. The key points I’ve picked out from the Ghibli films are -
1. Violence in Ghibli is a big no-no. Ghibli films have a way of representing action in a way which reduces the blood and violence. In a way, this also represents their political stance of which they believe in peace and more pacifism. From here their animation style can be seen as one which reduces active movement (in the sense that bloodshed is always depicted in more abstract manners - aside from the movie Princess Mononoke).
2. Ghibli films always have a dreamy, magical feeling which can be attributed to the often vibrant and very specific colours chosen for their movies. There is always great contrast in colour, which I would like to heavily feature in my advert sequence.
3. Ghibli films often have females as protagonists.
In an except from an interview with Miyazaki, a question posed was: "Why do you always choose a girl as your theme?”
Miyazaki: I don't logically plan it that way. When we compare a man in action and a girl in action, I feel girls are more gallant. If a boy is walking with a long stride, I don't think anything particular, but if a girl is walking gallantly, I feel "that's cool." Maybe that's because I'm a man, and women may think it's cool when they see a young man striding. At first, I thought "this is no longer the era of men. This is no longer the era of taigimeibun."[1] But after ten years, I grew tired of saying that. I just say "cause I like women." That has more reality.
[Kikan Iichiko, October 20, 1994. Reprinted in Shuppatsuten by Hayao Miyazaki; published by Tokuma Shoten, 1996.]
4. Ghibli films focus on the feeling.
In another except, Miyazaki mentions that:
(The story of) a man gaining independent always told though (some events) in which he defeats an opponent in a battle, or fights his way through a difficult situation. But in the case of woman, it's to feel, to accept, or to cradle, something like that... Nausicaa is not a protagonist who defeats an opponent, but a protagonist who understands, or accepts. She doesn't think about avenging her parent's death. She is someone who lives in a different dimension. Such (character) is a woman rather than a man. If it's a man, that's too weird. I feel that men (depend) more on words. I felt that, for the issues concerning nature, women deal with them by feeling.
[Young Magazine, February 20, 1984. Reprinted in Archives of Studio Ghibli Vol 1; published by Studio Ghibli, 1996.]
In other words, feelings are very important and central to the progression of Ghibli films as they explore the depth of feelings, rather than having an active, conscious plot line that develops. Ghibli often has very simple films that display a great depth in emotion and that’s because they reduce the number of things happening in a film to focus on what the character is and how the character develops. From this development, we can pinpoint several things - the character’s overall situation never completely changes. It is only one small thing that changes for the protagonist and her life continues, although the depth of her emotion towards that small thing may be extremely deep. And this gives a grounded, realistic sense of what the world is like - things still move on and life goes on, but for that one person, who experienced something, their whole world may have changed and shifted on it’s axis.
Essentially, in project 1B, what I really want to do is represent all these key points of the Ghibli identity in my work. The three images will represent the process of filmmaking, where the first image will be a line sketch and storyboarding lookalike, the second will be a inked-out clean polishing of the final frame to be animated and the third will be a coloured poster of the final frame. The frames should encapsulate a female character, displaying a certain key emotion in great detail, although the audience perception of it should be as an outsider. In other words, the audience should want to be able to step in and help the protagonist, but consciously also feel as if the cannot, and the character is trapped within her own circumstance. This helps emphasize the dream-like quality of Ghibli’s brand and also evoke the same sense of feelings audiences experience when watching their films.
