From the heart of Japan’s youth culture — Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district — Flickr user Purpin describes how Apple is advertising the iPod nano:

As part of their rather unique advertising campaign, huge iPod nano posters now adorn the platform walls of Toyoko Line Shibuya Station.

As you depart the train you’ll be faced with a stream after stream of 1:1 iPod nano cutouts, in which you can pull off and take home. Obviously, I helped myself to a few as well.

Needless to say, with its tens of thousands of people passing through Shibuya station daily, those iPod cutouts won’t last very long.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the staff furiously “refilling” the empty spaces with new cutouts in between the waves of departing passengers (I took the pictures after the evening rush. I can only imagine how busy these guys can be during rush hour!).

Much to my suprise, I later realised that these cutouts weren’t made of cardboard but of plastic, and are very rigidly built too. On the reverse side were the URL and QR Codes of a site where you can download iPod nano wallpapers for your mobile phone.

Having living somewhere way out from Tokyo, I was very lucky to be able to get my hands on these cutouts AND witness those “refillers” in action. Hats off to Apple and their wonderful advertising.

Update: Apple Japan has more pix of the nano promotion, which give a good idea of its placement in the subway.

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