Tsutaya | Brand Magazine
Magazine B is an advertising-free Brand Documentary Magazine.
It publishes single-issue books about select brands that its editors choose based on their ability to "develop a way of life they want to introduce to the world, rather than to utilize marketing techniques".
This issue is about Tsutaya, the Japanese bookstore brand.
Tsutaya is far more than a bookstore. It is a culture experience, powered by a customer database (Tsutaya is owned by CCC, the parent company of the ubiquitous T-Point card).
Tsutaya's grand experiment with real estate and experiential architecture, called T-Site, is very close to my apartment in Daikanyama.
When I visit, I think "this feels like a corporate social responsibility project more than a bookstore".
But I know from the crowd that it is also a profit machine.
New T-Sites have sprung up in Tokyo in Ginza and Tokyo Midtown, and around the country in Hakodate, Umeda and Shotan.
And of course, you can buy Magazine B at all locations.
