Louis Vuitton Fashion and Business

Since beginning this column last fall, I’ve attempted to point to trends, analysis and reports that gauge the development of digital signage and identify the strengths and opportunities for this emerging medium.

I’m not alone on this mission. An excellent white paper from Profitable Channels makes a strong case for digital signage networks as an effective advertising medium with the ability to compensate for deficiencies in television advertising manifested in increasingly fragmented audiences, digital video recording and its accompanying commercial zapping, and the lack of certainty in measuring audience metrics.

The Shanghai Girls is a term for a particular style of advertising from the 1920s and 1930s that depicted very modern, beautiful women from Shanghai, China. These posters advertised a wide variety of products, including cigarettes, gum, batteries, perfume, medicine and many others. Shanghai experienced a population boom in the 1920s, when thousands of Russians and Jewish immigrants fled the Soviet Union after World War I. By the early 1930s, Shanghai had become the worlds fifth largest city, and was the residence of approximately 100,000 foreigners. The eyes of the world were on the city, and Shanghai became known as the news capital of China due to an increased world interest in the Far East and mounting concern regarding the Wests relations with Japan. The intrigue regarding this distant land may have influenced the incredible popularity of the Shanghai Girls ads of the early 20th century. Shanghai was also known to be a pioneer in the fashion industry, and the Shanghai Girls were considered to be glamorous fashion icons.

Though Shanghai is almost as far east as one could travel, the city boasted cutting-edge technology and a decidedly Western appearance. Around 1900, there was an immense push in Shanghai to modernize everything. Amenities and advancements born in the West such as elevators, air conditioning, neon lighting and department stores, popped up in Shanghai almost immediately. In 1882, Shanghai was the first city in China to install electric street lighting. The Easts fascination with the West (and vice versa) was perfectly complemented in the Shanghai Girls advertisements. The Shanghai Girls flawlessly melded the delicate, painstaking beauty of the East with the trendy, progressive advancements and desires of the West.