Tokyo | Japanese convenience store chain FamilyMart enlists global pop megastar Lady Gaga as it ratchets up staff recruitment efforts to offset the country’s acute labour shortage.
In a commercial that aired this week, the American singer, clad in a navy leather uniform and white platform stilettos, hands out famichiki fried chicken and mops the floor of a monochrome convenience store.
The 30-second spot is the convenience store chain’s latest effort to entice more part-time staff to join its ranks, as Japan’s corporate giants pour resources into advertising budgets and recruitment efforts to battle a nationwide labour shortage.
“Why not work at FamilyMart?” Lady Gaga asks viewers in Japanese as she struts down an aisle past two android-looking versions of herself, restocking shelves with products including cup noodles, snacks and curry packets.
“This must be the first time that a convenience store has used a famous celebrity to promote the idea of working there. Usually, the ads are for new products or discount campaigns,” Distribution Economics Institute of Japan senior researcher Masuji Ikeda said. “It’s a turning point.”
Lady Gaga is immensely popular in Japan, respectfully dubbed “Gaga-sama” by fans and selling out all six January dates of her Mayhem Ball tour in the country.
Convenience stores and their franchisees, which rely on part-time labour, are struggling to attract staff, for whom 24/7 operations, low wages and gruelling work offer little appeal. At the same time, a shrinking workforce is beginning to give workers more leverage and inflation is eating into profit margins.
“Lady Gaga campaign is the latest in a series of efforts to make its workplace more appealing, fun and exciting to potential jobseekers.”
Advertising professionals said the Lady Gaga tie-in reflected a broader shift within corporate Japan.
“More and more [clients] are telling us that the only point of marketing for us is now recruitment,” said an executive at Hakuhodo, one of Japan’s major advertising agencies. “What they need above everything is for people to know their company name so that they will think about working for them.”
They added: “This is advertising for people because that is what they need most.”
A spokesperson for FamilyMart, which is currently advertising 10,481 part-time jobs across 16,455 stores in Japan, told the Financial Times that the Lady Gaga campaign was the latest in a series of efforts to make its workplace more appealing, fun and exciting to potential jobseekers.
The convenience store chain has refreshed its uniform for the first time in a decade, debuting a more modern, casual style and colour scheme at a catwalk show at Tokyo’s premier sumo venue in August.
Convenience chains have also led the charge on accepting more foreign workers to fill staffing gaps — one solution to Japan’s demographic crisis that traditional industries have resisted. They have also introduced more technology, necessitating a more tech-savvy workforce.
FamilyMart in particular has come under pressure from a sales slowdown over the past year as customer traffic has fallen, which could hamper franchises’ ability to pay higher wages and attract and retain staff.
FamilyMart is the second-biggest Japanese convenience store chain, with ¥3.3 trillion ($29.9 billion) annual revenue.
This year, 7-Eleven, the sector’s largest player, announced the first comprehensive overhaul in fifty years of its franchise agreements, lowering the royalties paid to head office and allowing franchisees to increase part-time wages.
FamilyMart said it was not working on any such plans. The company declined to comment on the cost of the Lady Gaga campaign.
Extracted in full from: https://www.afr.com/world/asia/convenience-store-woman-lady-gaga-urges-japanese-to-work-at-familymart-20260929-p611gs
