In the heart of downtown Tokyo stands the iconic SHIBUYA109, a shopping center that has long served as a beacon of youth culture and fashion trends. Ayumi Ishikawa, the President and CEO of SHIBUYA109 Entertainment Co., Ltd., which manages the building, graduated from Nagoya University in 2000.
Nagoya University is often stereotyped as a place for serious and unassuming students, so the fact that a graduate from the university is leading SHIBUYA109 may be surprising to the general public. Eager to hear how she felt about this perception gap, we braved the crowds of Shibuya to talk with Ishikawa.
SHIBUYA109, located in the center of Shibuya, stands directly in front of the famous scramble crossing that is frequently seen on television.
How did you come to be the president of SHIBUYA109 Entertainment after graduating from Nagoya University?
It is a bit unexpected, isn't it? (laughs) I did not join SHIBUYA109 straight out of graduation. I ended up in my current position after a few career changes and internal transfers among companies under the umbrella of the Tokyu Group, including SHIBUYA109.
I graduated from Nagoya University in 2000, and I first joined a telecommunications carrier, where I worked in corporate sales as well as in content production that took advantage of mobile internet communications, which was pioneering at the time. Seven years later, I switched jobs and briefly worked at a publishing company, where I focused on book digitization projects. After that, I joined the Tokyu Corporation because I felt that the company culture was a good fit for me.
At Tokyu, I leveraged my previous experiences and skills as I worked on projects related to marketing and digital transformation. In April 2021, while serving as a department manager, I was appointed as the president of SHIBUYA109 Entertainment, a subsidiary of the company.
Ayumi Ishikawa, President and CEO of SHIBUYA109 Entertainment (Nagoya University, Department of Economics, Class of 2000).
A promotion from department manager to president must have stirred up quite a reaction within the company!
Even I was surprised! Prior to joining SHIBUYA109 Entertainment, I was involved in formulating mid-to-long-term strategies for the Tokyu Group's retail businesses, which span supermarkets and department stores. Most of the projects dealt with IT-based marketing and customer engagement platforms, such as creating point-card systems and implementing store automation.
The Tokyu Group engages in various development projects around the Shibuya area, and there was a realization that marketing and digital technologies were essential for operating commercial facilities in such a youth-centric district. I believe that upper management hoped I would be able to take advantage of my experiences for the role.
The walls of SHIBUYA109's meeting room are filled with signatures and comments from visitors.
In this era of booming e-commerce, selling products in physical stores must be increasingly challenging.
That is a good point. The key is to create a sense of emotional connection with consumers. For example, simply knowing that a product is selling well is not enough; sales data alone cannot explain why it is popular. Is it the brand itself that people like? Is it the design of the products? Looking only at the best-selling items does not reveal the full picture.
Lately, you may have heard terms like "empathetic consumption" or "support-driven shopping." These concepts matter a lot to today's youth. Instead of valuing products based solely on their intrinsic qualities, young consumers tend to spend money on things they want to experience, support, or that they relate to on a personal level. The same mindset applies when choosing schools or companies. Many young people want to be part of institutions that they can genuinely identify with.
Keeping these trends in mind, SHIBUYA109 aims to be more than just a commercial facility. We want to be a hub for the co-creation of youth culture, engaging with young people as equals and working to build something together. We are also trying to transform the company into an organization that uncovers and responds to the needs of young consumers.
In addition to applying the know-how we have accumulated over the years, we are developing new initiatives to support youth-focused marketing and promotion, not just at our own facilities but also at other companies. Every month we conduct surveys with approximately 200 participants between the ages of 15 and 24, whom we call the "around-20" demographic, to track the latest trends through our "SHUBUYA109 lab." initiative.
Meetings with staff are always lively, with new ideas emerging one after another.
The word "kaiwai" 界隈, meaning "scene" or "community," has been trending recently among young people on social media. Can you tell us why?
In the past, there were a lot of young people who used social media to send out messages to a broad, undefined audience. Recently, however, they have shifted toward forming loose-knit circles based on shared interests, hobbies, or their favorite topics, and these clusters are referred to as "kaiwai." The latest trends are now emerging from these micro-communities.
As one example, in 2024, a trend started where people took photos in locations with beautiful natural scenery such as mountains, rivers, and botanical gardens, tagging the posts with "shizen kaiwai" (nature community) on social media. According to research by SHIBUYA109 lab., this rends was influenced by changes in post-COVID-19-pandemic social behaviors. While people enjoyed being able to gather again and celebrated their newfound freedom, some began to feel fatigued and sought out more tranquil settings, leading to increased interest in detoxing, nature, and relaxation.
Our mission at SHIBUYA109 is to understand these evolving youth trends and bring them to life within our space. We want to work closely together with young people of today to create a place where their dreams and aspirations can take shape.
The top trends for young people in 2025! (Reposted from the SHIBUYA109 lab. website:
https://www.shibuya109lab.jp/article/241205.html)
Creating culture together with young people sounds like an incredible job. What were you like in your youth?
Given my job, people often assume I had a really glamorous campus life, but I was just an ordinary student. I spent my time doing part-time jobs and participating in club activities.
I grew up in the city of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, and I honestly did not have any particular dreams or academic ambitions as a high school student. I chose Nagoya University because Tokyo felt too overwhelming and I wanted to stay closer to home. I am sorry to say that I picked economics simply because I thought it would be useful for getting a job! (laughs)
Although I was not the most academically engaged student, one particularly memorable experience was a course on German, which I took as a foreign language elective. Professor Koichi Kosaka [now Professor Emeritus] offered a program where second-year students could spend a month traveling throughout Germany and Europe.
For the first two weeks, we attended language training in Germany, but the latter half of the trip was independent travel. Each of us explored different parts of Europe and reconvened in Switzerland on a designated date.
This was all still in the era before mobile phones! My friends and I decided on the countries we wanted to visit and traveled around France and Italy with nothing but a travel guidebook and a timetable for public transportation. Our teacher told us, "Even a three-star hotel off the Champs-Élysées can be booked for 3,000 yen if you negotiate on the spot," so we followed that advice. It was the kind of trip that would be hard to imagine today. It was my first time abroad, yet the professor made it seem so natural that I was not scared at all.
I developed a sense that things would work out somehow and that there was no need to fear the unknown, which greatly expanded my options in life. In that sense, Professor Kosaka's study trip might be the most memorable experience of my student days.
Do you have any words of wisdom for students?
If I had to sum it up in one sentence: Continue to challenge yourself whenever you have the chance.
The world today is very different from when I was a student, but some things never change. You will be asked to do things you have never done before and confronted with intimidating obstacles, especially in the workplace. Having the ability to push past personal limitations is crucial. That is why I encourage students to build up their confidence by taking on challenges and creating a record of successful experiences.
More specifically, internships are a great opportunity. At SHIBUYA109 lab., we work with interns to conduct marketing research and create social media content. Their fresh perspectives are valuable to companies, and internships offer students insights into corporate culture that job fairs cannot.
As a student, it is up to you to plan your time, so it is easy to let it pass by without much thought. However, once you graduate, factors outside your control like work or family make it harder to carve out time for yourself. Even if it is not through study, please take this chance to challenge yourself. You have the freedom to choose from a wide range of experiences since you do not have to worry about being restrained by a company or a job. I am sure that doing so will greatly expand the possibilities for your future.
This article was originally written in Japanese by Tatsuyuki Fukui for the "Public Relations Meidai" web magazine and published on January 22, 2025. Unless otherwise stated, photos were taken by the author. The Nagoya University International Communications Office has translated and edited it for clarity while preserving the original content's intent. Certain information might be outdated. For the original Japanese version, please see here.