When I was in Japan, I had often used the public transportation to go to school, cities, and trips. As you know, Japan is a small country-America is about twenty five times as large as Japan-therefore it developed so that people can go everywhere. I had lived in country side since I was born, so it took about one hours and half one way to go to junior college by using a train and a bus every day. My uncle who lives in the suburbs of Tokyo spends two hours and half to go to his workplace every morning. The first thing that hits me when I ride on such a transportation is colorful and lively advertisement posters hung in a train and a bus. As I mentioned above, a lot of Japanese people like me and my uncle spend long times in public transportations, so it is important to make advertisements impressive and memorable in order to differentiate from others. This time, I want to introduce a unique and interesting transit advertisements.

Do you know this character? He is called “Duffy” which is a official character of Disney. This is an advertisement hung in women only train of Toukyuu Toyoko line. It looks like the real stuffed animal rather than advertisement, isn’t it ? This is obviously targetting women to increase the number ofvisitors of Tokyo Disney Resort.

What do you think when you see this transit ad?

A lot of people may think that this is an advertisement of kitchen wares such as a turner, ladle, kitchen ｋnife and so on. However, it is not. This is for the fiftieth anniversary of the cooking TV program in Japan. Also, it looks like a real kitchen ware but it is just a paper. The train runs Yamanote line.

This is called “Ema” in Japanese, which is a kind of wish board. We usually write a wish on it and hung it in temples. Also it is famous for the symbol of taking an examination to enter the university. This is advertimenet of the company to provide educational matterial for mainly from junior to high school students in Japan. And the train is Keisei Electoric Railawy in Kyoto. Kyoto is famous for academic city because there are a lot of famous and high revel univrsities.  

How about this? This is an advertisement of “Pretz” which is Japanese snack made by Ezaki Glico corporation in 2014. And this man who holds the stick in his mouth are a very popular actor in Japan. This was set on a subway in Chiyoda line in Tokyo.

From now on, I want to introduce transit ad which I saw it for real.

This is an ad of medicine for stomach. Depends on the degree to see it, it looks Skelton or just the actor. By the way, I really like him so whenever I found it on the train to go to my junior college, I stared it.

Sadako on the truck

　This is an advertisement of new horror movie in Japan. This movie series are very famous among Japanese. When I saw this in scramble intersection at the Fukuoka City, I was really surprised because the car played the music of its movie. I remembered that everyone who was in there looked surprised.

I think it is interesting to think about who are targeting by these unique transit advertisement. For instance, the second one which is the cerebration of the commemorates of the cookery TV program were put on subway line of Yamanote, in Tokyo. From that fact, we can consider that there are a lot of women who feed their family or husband lives near from Yamanote line and use it. Likewise, from the third one, we can guess that there are many students live in Kyoto and use train for going to their school or college. So the company see them as potential customers so appeal them by using Ema. When I notice this possibility, my way to see the advertisement were changed. I want to pay attention to these ad as who they are targeting when I have opportunities to ride on in America.  

Fairy tale in Japan and TV commercial

When we watch TV programs, also we watch tons of TV commercial at the same time. When I was in Japan, I used to watch TV almost every day since I was a child. From now on, I want to introduce some of my favorite broadcasting advertisements and its trend and tendency in Japan. For the first, just take a look this promotional video.

Pepsi×Momotaro

This is an advertisement of Pepsi, one of the most famous brand of carbonated drink all over the world. It’s just like a movie of Hollywood, isn’t it? That is quite natural - this commercial movie won the first prize of ACC which is the abbreviation of all Japan radio and television commercial confederation. Actually, the story based on a famous fairy tale of Japan which is “Momo-taro” (Peach Boy). It is very familiar for us because a lot of Japanese were brought up by being read this story by parents when they were a small child. Also, I think this commercial movie is very unique because it is just the last few seconds which appear the product, Pepsi. Whenever it is broadcasted on TV, I end up looking without thinking. Like me, a lot of people especially for young generations, became fans of this commercial because it is cool.

The concept of the new promotion is, “Compete someone who is stronger than you.” This phrase calls up the suggestion of Coca-Cola which is the strong competitive of them in the market.

It is interesting, but these days in Japanese advertising, many companies use Momotaro and other characters who are the hero of Japanese fairy tales with such a good impression of Pepsi’s CM for public as a start. Let me give some examples.  

Au×Momotaro, Kintaro and Urashimataro

This is the advertisement movie of KDDI which is known as one of the three best companies in cellphone industry in Japan. There are not only Momotaro but also other major characters of fairy tale such as a princess, devil, and animals. This is composed as one series of the story, so audience are curious to know the next story which is as same as Pepsi’s although the impression are very comical than that. I like the way of the characters of fairy tale talking because it is sounds like the modern and young people in Japan, it is funny. And this advertisement come in a slamming first place in the ranking of positive feeling for public in TV commercial in Japan, 2015.

Then, why these companies use the characters of fairy tale for their TV commercials?
For the first reason, it is because of the effect of bad times in Japan. They want to save money as much as possible. If they use major characters such as famous animation characters, it cause a royalty of patent right. In Japan, the average cost to make TV commercials are about thirty million yen and most of them do not have money to use for it.

As for second, this may the primary reason about this, Momotaro and other characters of old fairy tale are very popular amongst many people regardless of age and gender. Especially for Momotaro, he appeals all tastes because we are familiar with him since our childhood as I mentioned before. Also it means that we all know the story of Momotaro without explain, so we have an image for him as a hero of justice and most of Japanese like that kind of poetic justice story. Therefore, the company can give a good impression to public easily. (To put explanation about the story simply, he was born from momo which means peach in Japanese and kill the evil giant with a dog, monkey, and bird.) Hence, it is easy for the company to make a story regard to the original story of Momotaro.

By the way, there are more movies which use characters of fairy tale except for these. Check out when you get a chance and find the difference with the commercials as I mentioned above. They use same characters but the impression are difference from each advertisement, and I think it is interesting.

Insurance company and Urashimataro

Softbank and Momotaro...this looks like a provocation for KDDI?

 

Nakanishi, M. (2015, August 22). CMによく桃太郎が登場するのは何故？　広告業界のとある「事情」. Retrieved March 13, 2016, from http://www.jprime.jp/tv_net/tv/17216

 As you know, in a field of marketing, it is very important to know and research about the generation well to increase the profits. In Japan, my generation are called “Satori Sedai.” The word Sedai means generation and Satori which is originally the word from Buddhism, means to be spiritual awakened or attain higher perception. So, how the meaning will be if these two words put together? Although this word is newly coined word so there are no particular meaning, we mainly uses it for describe Japanese young people who tend to lack in ambition and desire. As the example of the fact which this word attract high interests, it was nominated in the annual buzzwords of the year contest at 2013 in Japan.

 

By the way, a quarter of the total population is millennials in America. I did not know the word “millennials”, so I searched it on the internet. It is defined as the young people who was born in 1980 to 1990 and became adults after 2000. Their age is about 20 to 35 years old.

 

Interestingly, there are a lot of something in common between millennial generation in America and satori sedai in Japan although the country is different. For instance, it is often said in Japan that Japanese young people turn away from driving. Similarly, young people in America who called millennials, the rate of people who have the license to drive a car are declining. Not only about the car, the steady declining trend of consuming become the social problem in both Japan and America. Why they do not want to buy products? Each of them have their own reason by the effect of the domestic economy. Satori sedai feel themselves as poor because of the Heisei great recession which was a reaction to the bubble economy. As for me, I have a memory that I have been said we are now in an economic crisis by adults such as a teacher, my parents, and news casters since I was a child. We were raised in such a severe economic situation, so I think that is make sense as one of the person of Satori sedai. On the other hand, millennials in America, they were also took a serious damage by the collapse of Lehman brothers. Their employment and incomes are still not stabilized, same as Satori sedai.

 

 However, it is not always a bad thing. Based on these information, I can say that it is becoming efficient period for Japanese companies because…

 ・North America’s market is enormous, so targeting the millennials is very important

・Japanese companies can use the marketing strategy for Satori sedai, as well as for the millennials in America for the similarity of the two parties

 Unfortunately, it is not easy to catch attentions of the millennials. Why not? There are mainly two reasons about this. For the first, they are the generation who are familiar with digital devise and Internet since they were born. As for second, they are living in multiracial society unlike any other period in America ever. Many people from another generations are see them as “a stranger.” On the other hand, at the same time, a lot of companies, business persons and even the politicians are trying to get attention of them because it means they can get the mass powers.

 

 Now I am going to introduce the example of the advertisement which is targeting millennials.

 

 

 This is a press release of General Motors. As you can see, this was written by a lot of emoji instead of using alphabet. This is clearly conscious millennials who use emoji every day for their texting. I think this is very unique.

 From now on, it will be more demanded how to make difference of the products and get attention of millennials who are the key of the economics not only in America, as well as Japan.

 

Y., Harada, & M., Sherry. (2015, October 19).

米国版さとり世代「ミレニアルズ」の破壊力.

Retrieved March 6, 2016, from http://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/87338