Have you ever seen this face? I guess that most of all people have seen her before at least once somewhere. Yes, her name is “Hello Kitty”. She was born in Japan at 1974, and now she has become very famous not only in Japan but also all over the world.

 

For example, Lady gaga and Avril Lavigne are very famous as fans of Hello Kitty among Japanese.

 

 

This is just an aside, but in the late 1990 in Japan, there was a big boom of Hello kitty. As you can see, a lot of young women such as teenagers and OL (which is the abbreviation of Office Lady, we call women who work as an office clerk so) had such a fancy general merchandises. They are called “Kittler.”

　Sanrio, which is one of the major company in Japan, is the true mother of Hello Kitty. They are producing fancy character goods by targeting mainly teen ager, young women and children to promote and sell their products. Beside Hello Kitty, there are plenty of unique and adorable characters in Sanrio such as “My melody”, “Cinnamoroll”, “Little Twin Stars” and so on.

 

 

As for me, goods of Sanrio have been very familiar since I was a child. I had been used a lunch box of Hello Kitty and that was my favorite. Also, their characters are used for the image of a lot of companies. Sometimes they do collaboration with an apparel company to produce Hello Kitty in their clothes, accessories, and shoes etc.

 However, these days they are developing their strategy to a brand new field. As I said in the article of this blog before, Otaku- this time, I would like to define them as people who especially like the characters of an animation or comics- have a big potentials that can be the customer who buy the goods constantly. And now Sanrio have a view to target them on. The typical example of it is this.

 They are the new characters of Sanrio who is named “Sanrio danshi.” (Danshi means young boys in Japanese.) I will give the outline about them. They are consisted by five high school students of boys, and each of them has their favorite characters of Sanrio. It is interesting that their setting of the personality are well organized.

 For instance, this character likes “pom pom purine” because his grandmother send the staffed toy when he was a little child. And since then, he have been collected goods of pom pom purine. Likewise, other boys have a realistic background that why they became the big fans of characters of Sanrio. As for the promotion of them, Twitter have an important role.

 

Now let’s take a look their account.

As you can see, it looks like they tweet by themselves and a lot of people reply to them as if they are existing for real. This is why “Sanrio Danshi” became a topic especially on the internet in Japan. In terms of figures, there are an access on their official Twitter page about 6 million times at the first time to open.

What is the purpose of Sanrio to make this kind of new characters? One of the certain thing is to attain and expand the new customers. Recently, Sanrio have been struggled the limited kind of customers. It is almost particular type of young women. However, by making these animation-like characters, they succeeded to get customers of “Otaku” women. They will what find one favorite boy from “Sanrio Danshi” and also interested in the character which is liked by him.

In comparison with the Sanrio’s fancy and cute characters up till now, “Sanrio Danshi” are totally different but they are not just the ordinary boys. They are, so to speak, made to promote the products of Sanrio. I think this new idea is very unique. To be honest, I followed their account of Twitter. Maybe I am already the one who is stuck in their strategy.

 One of the famous fashion brands in the world, LOUIS VUITTON is now using a unique model to advertise its new products for spring and summer 2016. Can you guess who is it? I will give you a hint. Actually, She is not a human who is living in the three dimensional world although she is surely exist. Her name is “Lightning”, who is the main character of the Japanese video game. It is “Final Fantasy”, one of the best-selling role-playing video games not only in Japan but also all over the world. By the way, I have never played it but heard the name before.

  In this collaboration of LOUIS VUITTON and Final Fantasy, they embodied something in common which is to pursue an innovation while maintain a tradition and be materialized the world highest class of quality. They also want to disseminate a brand new value and an experience to the world via the collaboration.

Now let’s take a look how Lightning promote the products of LOUIS VUITTON.

https://youtu.be/ImWljqM8kG8

 As you can see, Lightning has been appeared in promotion videos and advertisement of magazines which is sold all around the world as a model of “SERIES 4” of the brand from January, 2016. Indeed, I bought the February number of the VOGUE and found her in a fold out and two spread of it in a big way. Actually I did not know that so I was surprised when I open the first page because there she is...

 “Lightning is the perfect avatar for a global, heroic woman and for a world where social networks and communications are now seamlessly woven into our life. Also she is a symbol of new pictorial processes. How can you create an image that goes the classic principals of photography and design? Lightning heralds a new era of expression.” said Nicolas Ghesquière who is the ladies collection artistic director of Vuitton.

 In regard to this, also Lightning commented like this. “I have never thought about dressing up because my clothing are armaments to stay alive. Nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps that makes me unnecessary choice as an ambassador. But this experience has opened my eyes. Fashion is not something you are taught or given, it comes from your own choices. It displays the essence of who you are to the people around you. It makes me feel excited, a feeling similar to when I venture to unknown lands. It is a thrill that I, who has faced my share of danger, have never experienced before. LV is a new adventure-a new fantasy-that I will enjoy from the bottom of my heart.”

 
  I think this novel collaboration is very successful and there are mainly two reason about this. For the first, of course, this advertisement is very interesting because Lightning is not a real human and “unusual” in compare to the normal models such as famous celebrities, artists, or athletes and so on. Probably, a lot of people do not know about her, and they might be surprised if they see such a big advertise pillar in a town. It will draw their attention, and connect to increase their eagerness to buy.

As for second, it has a big sales potential that develop new customers who have been not interested in fashion. Who are they? Of course, it is a fans of Final Fantasy and video games especially in Japan. As stated above, Final Fantasy is one of the most popular and famous video games in Japan. In general, it is said that many of them are male and female is the minority who really like to play video games. However, a customer layer of Final Fantasy is very range regardless of age and sex and it means that many of them, especially women will also pay attention to the products of LOUIS VUITTON because Lightning wear it. I saw a picture on Twitter, there is a woman who takes selfie in a subway with an advertise poster and there is Lightning. Of course men can be the new customers of LOUIS VUITTON.

From now, I want to keep my eyes on how they improve their sales by using Lightning as a model of their promotion.

 

 

Source: http://www.famitsu.com/news/201601/05096655.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/final-fantasy-character-lightning-on- starring-in-louis-vuitton-c/

 Have you ever heard this word, “Otaku”? Do you know or can you guess what does the word mean? Well, it is a Japanese word and almost as same as “nerd.” Actually it is very difficult to define it exactly, but I think the definition is the people who like particular kinds of subculture enthusiastically such as TV animations, comics, games, music and so on. Once they are into it, most of those are willing to spend a lot of money to buy the related productions if it is expensive or not. Therefore, they are often became targets as the potential consumer in Japan. This time, I want to introduce such a unique and strategic business method which is targeting “Otaku”.

 Here is a great example of it. Few years ago, an idol group gained much popularity in Japan. The member of the group is composed of 48 young girls and the name of them is “AKB48.” AKB is an abbreviation for Akihabara, which is one of the name of places in Tokyo, Japan. So the meaning is 48 girls who mainly based their activity in Akihabara. By the way, Akihabara is very famous as “a holy place” of Otaku.

There is some certain reasons why they became so popular and sold millions of CDs in the times which is very hard to sell CDs because of the improvement of new music mediums. To tell this topic, Yasushi Akimoto is the essential person who is the manager and producer of AKB48. He is the leader of great success by targeting Otaku.

1.     Differentiation and concentration strategy

When AKB48 debuted in a small theater in Akihabara at 2005, the main stream of music in Japan is materially different from what is called Japanese idol songs. There were a lot of men’s bands, talented singers who were popular for wide generations in Japan. In such a times, AKB48 could be the remarkably existence just because of they are a group of young and ordinary girls. In addition, Yasushi Akimoto narrowed a targets to Otaku in Akihabara, not all over Japan.

2.     “Direct” marketing and breaking a stereo type of CD

As you can read, there are 48 girls in AKB48. Such a big group, isn’t it? Also there are a general election once in a year to decide who can be the center person when they performance to sing and dance. So most of all their fans choose their most favorite girl and support them by buying their CDs, Albums, or goods such as posters or pictures and visiting the concert frequently. By doing these things, Otaku feels like as if they dedicate to their favorite girl directly. As for the second reason that their CDs are selling well, is related to the handshake event. Usually, the CDs of AKB48 comes with a handshake event coupon. So, if you buy the CD, at the same time you can get the right to meet with your favorite member and handshake with her. I think this idea is the most innovative because no one had never do these kind of sales marketing in Japan as far as I know. As a result of sales of this CD with a coupon, numerous people especially men buy it to meet and handshake with AKB48.

 

 

 

 

 

3.     Franchise and international strategy

As stated above, AKB means Akihabara which is the part of city of Tokyo. After the big hit of AKB48 not only in Akihabara but as well as throughout Japan, Yasushi Akimoto made sister group all around in cities of Japan and Asian countries. For example, HKT48 mainly active in Hakata where is the biggest city in the south side of Japan. JKT48 and SNH48 active in Jakarta, Indonesia and Shanghai, China. Therefore we can say that he found and developed a niche market very well.

 

 For these reasons, he got the music economy in Japan moving by his carefully drawn-up plan to promote AKB48 to Otaku. On the other hand, he is criticized that he broke the value of the CD because AKB48’s fans just want the coupons so after they got it, they throw away mass CDs. That’s might be true, but anyway one thing is certain without doubt that he is a great strategist of marketing.

 

Source: http://ameblo.jp/kit-revo/entry-11461340233.html

 As you know, in order to stimulate consumer’s buying motivation and arise new consumptions, we need a strong brand message that touch consumer’s heart. Therefore, there are so many unique products and the commercial which produced by numerous companies all over the world. This time, I want to focus on some success examples of products which use television commercial and a campaign connected with it effectively in Japan.

First, I want to introduce this company, Ezaki Glico Company, limited. It is one of the most eminent confectionary company in Japan which established at 1919. They originally manufacture candies, snacks, and dairy products. If you have seen these products ever, it is made by this company

This is “Pocky”, and the key commodities of them. Because of the excellence of these high qualities, they are selling it not only in Japan, but in overseas market.

By the way, these days they launched a new and unique campaign. It is called “share happy project” which had been started since September of last year and attracts great attention of people especially in social media such as Twitter and Facebook. It is a dance competition. They feature a famous dance group of men in Japan who are particularly popular among young people as a campaign character and looked for participants by posting the dancing movie. The only requirement is to dance by imitating the dance of artist’s performance which was broadcasted on television commercial. Here it is. This is the URL of the TV commercial.

https://youtu.be/neRF0Fy9Acw

It gave big impression to the people. The view counts of uploaded commercial in YouTube achieved over three million and twenty times. In particular, the specialized movie which is the longer version of the original commercial was viewed by one thousand and one million times. I have a twitter account and, in the timeline, I saw many retweets of dancing movie which was performed by all sort of people. And now, let’s try to take a look what people said about this commercial.

 

https://youtu.be/xyj_IKmMQ-k

“I saw small children were dancing share happy in the park and it was so cute!”

“I had practiced share happy dance with my friends after school until now”.

“My mother bother me dancing share happy while I was doing my homework, it was so annoying”.

When I searched the word “share happy” in Twitter, I can see like these a lot of comments and dance. As you can see, a lot of people tweeted about it and uploaded their dancing video. They dance with their friends, teammates of a sport club, teachers, or by themselves. Although the time passed already five month after this project had started and even the competition is closed, it seems like that the fever will not stop.

 I think there are two general reason why this become the big interests by the people. One certain thing is that a factor of its entertainment. The dance is very unique, catchy and easy to imitate. Also the artist who perform the dance in the commercial is originally very popular among the teenager these days before the CM was made. The second reason is that the spread of handy videos such as the function of movie camera of cellphone and social networking services. Recently, people can easily take video by themselves than ever with the development and innovation of the digital instrument. After people take movies, then they share it by uploading on the social media such as YouTube, vine, Facebook and Twitter to show it to their friends or a large number of the general public. This cycle is completely made by a man of today and it give such a big effect on the economy and IMC as a result. Using social media effectively is an important way to survive in the society which have a lot of diversified products and promote it.

Hence, Glico’s unique CM and dance competition connect to the great promotion of their products. I think this is very interesting. I also want to pay attention to other rival company’s moving direction based on this consequence.

Source:http://adwords-ja.blogspot.com/2015/12/YouTube-video-ads-2nd-half-of-2015.html

 Inside ad-words Japan

Restoration of Adastria

Before I came here, I had been doing a part time job at a clothing shop as a customer service and casher for about ten month. The name of the shop is “GLOBAL WORK”, which is one of the popular brands of “Adastria”. It is a joint-stock clothing company in Japan and they develop more than 1,300 stores throughout Japan. The target for these articles is men and women between twenties to thirties and children between about two to six years old. The price of products is upper middle. A lot of people visited our shop and it had been so busy every day, however it is only recently that they boosted the sales. Actually “Adastria” had been struggled of less sales of their products. This time I want to introduce about how “Adastria” improved their sales and the unique strategy of marketing.

 

 

First, originally they sold the imported clothes but they managed to raise a ratio of in-house production. Selling imported things was good for a short term for trend circle of clothes, however, it made their products same as another clothes of competing companies. So it was being a lack of individually, and it led the poor business achievements. After this, they decided to change the plan of production to own it in domestic and it was 2010. They called this changing as “declaration of innovation”.

As for second, at 2013, they also acquitted two companies. One is a company which has a strong power to sale general merchandise, and the other is an apparel company which had business connection with Adastria originally. These two changes made their products difference from other competing companies. They got originally products which has good quality of material of the clothes.

As a result, the ratio of domestic production increased to about 40%. They also established the section of sales promotion to strengthen the sales activities in each shops. This purpose is, also to make the strong affiliation between headquarters, segments and each stores in Japan. The chairperson of Adastria, Mr. Fukuda says that they wanted to improve their ability of management by putting advertisement and production together.

After all, they made rapid progress. They produced V-shaped turnaround. Consolidated financial statement at the first half of the fiscal year says that the operating income is eight billion one hundred dollars. That sum is four times bigger than the previous year and achieved the best sales result during the last six years. Also the number of customers and average customer spend due exceeded the year before.

 

I felt these change recently after I had started to work at GLOBAL WORK. Before that, I did not know the brand and never hear about it. However, the media exposure in Japan is increased obviously these days. For example, TV commercial, sponsoring for TV program, and tie-up advertising with a movie. Many people asked me to buy clothes which is the same one as a famous actress wears in the TV commercial. When I was in Japan, it was six month before, I often saw the brand name in everywhere of social media at that time. I am sure that the name value is increasing incredibly.

As for the next step, they are trying to expand the business in the fields beyond Japan. That is the problem which now confront of them. Although they succeed to reduce the budget in the red by restructuring this term, all of the stores in Singapore is now already closed and left from there. Now they are going to encourage two of their brand to be accepted by the market in another countries and one is specialized to provide house hold goods to customers and the other is GLOBAL WORK because last year they achieved thirty billion of the whole sales. It was a first prize in the group and a splendid achievement. As you can read, the name of GLOBAL WORK means the products and the name is world class. It is noteworthy for me whether Adastria can grow as a “global” company or not. I will keep watching how they are going to develop their marketing in a brand new field.

 

Source: Touyo Keizai Online

http://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/86840