Twisted View of Marketing in Japan

The other day, I have asked you to give me some feedback, comments, or some topics that you would want to hear what I have to say.  Despite the selfish request, there came some response already.  Thanks you very much.

Today, let me pick up a question from PO-san.

“That is a very nice piece of commercial.  I like it.”

“Me, too.  That touches my heart.  But which Company’s is that?”

“What?  Well…  I don’t remember.  Maybe an insurance company or some sort?”

Typical conversation that you would hear often or you may often be a part of.

For example, that popular advertising in which you see slide-show of nice pictures of family (and especially kids) one after another with a heart-warming song by Kazumasa Oda, a famous Japanese singer-song-writer.

Which Company/Brand is that for?

No clue.

Topic today is about the one that you must have viewed various versions on TV.  The one that “Cat and Duck work together”.

I like the advertising.

Before anything, that lovable song.

The cat somehow makes me smile with its strange movement and expression.

There are lots of good things in that.

Among others, if I have to pick up a few essentials, they are:  1) The fact that it coveys lots of things with exact balance within the limited time/space (while one could argue it is covered by its high media spending).  And 2) the fact that it is almost only one that is establishing a “Brand” in the industry or category, life-insurance, where being distinctive is of a tough job.

Given tough economy, commercial communication tends to be loaded with lots of tasks.  It is almost a thing of the past that being popular is everything, all you need is to get awareness, or just to improve images of the brand.  Recession forces TV advertising, of which media is losing it power day by day, to be multi-tasked.

It is always the best to focus only one thing to communicate to be a great advertising.

This may already have become a dream of naïve creators from 20^th century.

I don’t know.  But at least, I can say that it is a dilemma, and it is not easy to communicate lots of things at one time.

This campaign of “Aflac’s Cat and Duck” succeeds to communicate or at least leave an impression of its new service to cover super-advanced medical treatments, while TV is a media of emotion and senses.  And it has done it in a way that is not heavy, and is light and casual (without being too much so), through its lovely song.  Good Job #1.

Each piece of the campaign features insightful life moments/events to make you think, or re-consider your life insurance package.  Good Job #2.

This leads to eye-opening paradigm shift from “insurance being a fall back option to be ready to happenings” to “insurance blessing your life”.  In general, advertising of life insurance tends to use “threat”, like “what if you suddenly pass away or get seriously injured”.  (Even that commercial with gentle voice of Oda-san uses this “threat” approach behind the nice pictures.)  On the contrary, this Aflac’s campaign is blessing you/your life.  (No wonder they have Christmas and New Year versions as well.)  Good Job #3.

Their previous campaign, featuring true stories of cancer patients, contributed to wiping out too funny an image of “Why a duck?  Are you trying to fool me around?”, and it was certainly distinctive in the category.  Yet, it was within an arena of “threat”.  This new campaign elevated the brand to the level of “blessing” by re-defining “what is life insurance for”.  As a result, in the category where every (Japanese) company has been trying hard to be nice, not specific/tangible, not impressive, or when it is impressive, look like government/public advertising, Aflac became a “Brand”, only one in the market.  Good Job #4.

Aflac, please hung in there, be persistent about what you are doing.

Japanese friends in the life insurance, get out of the box otherwise you will be left alone.

Well, after talking this much, at the end of the day, what’s too good is that song.  It goes on and on in my mind, and cannot be stopped.

“O.”

“Dad, this chicken is good.”
“See?  Tweetie should be happy to be on your dish.”

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

That peaceful and heartless story should not be anything but a joke.  But there is a lesson hidden in this for marketing, particularly for Brand Marketing.

People give pet a name.

Like any dogs, my dog has a great name, “Mozuku”.  “Natto” was the previous one’s name.

Horse, when it is for riding or load-carrying, has its own name, and it’s been that way for long.

On the other hand, people do not usually give names to those animals, livestock for food.

Some special stud bulls have names, but they are marks rather than names.  When livestock animals are given names, it is often the case that those who raise them are different from those who process them for meat.

It’s been like that for long, and I heard it is also true outside of Japan.

It is because “Naming brings it to personality”.

Then, you cannot kill it easily, or can hardly eat it.  It is the same thing that it is hard to throw away a stuffed toy which you gave a name and spent time with.

“Naming it → Giving it a personality”.

This is, indeed, the fundamental concept of what Brand Marketing is.

(The other day, I ran a work session at livedoor about “Brand Marketing”.  Just one scroll down on this blog.  There, I did not get into this, so this is about “What is Brand?”, a kind of “Supplemental Lesson” to the workshop.

That reminded me of livedoor’s Sasaki-san’s question when we meet first time, “O.-san, so what is Brand, by the way?”  In a sense, this has been my homework left for 6 months.”)

People give a name to their company, product, or service.

A birth of Brand.

Putting a question aside if they are conscious or not, at the very moment, it conceives a personality.  At this point, it is still very young, premature, like a baby, though.

Parents have their own hope or wish to it, “I want my kid to be this kind of person”.  Sometime, it could be just taking over granddad’s name.  Or, it could be given by a fortune teller.  Yet, it is another way of putting parents hope/wish into it, and nothing less.

The baby, to begin with, has its own talent or characteristics, role or mission in the world it belongs to, and premise or request of the times.

And, it gets a sign board of parents’ wish, or package design.  Flyer or advertising is produced for it.  A start of its life as the personality.

Soon or later, the personality would get influenced by communications/interactions with customers as well, and, character, attitude, behavior, value, and philosophy become clearer and clearer.

There is no longer a room for parents to selfishly change its image.  They must respect it as one personality, or it can fall out of right path.  Only thing that parents or adults around can do is to help its growth.

In the world of marketing, this is called Brand Character, Brand Equity, or Brand Philosophy.

A shampoo called “Pantene”, because it was named after the active of medicine for burnt victims, cannot abandon its role of “cure/improvement”.  It does not “fit”, when it says “Don’t get bothered.  Be beautiful today, and forget tomorrow.”

On the other hand, a shampoo, with its family crest on her chest, named after the name of the flower of the crest, cannot be persuasive by saying “I can improve hair damage”.  It is a destiny to keep manifesting “It is all women’s joy to be beautiful, nothing else.”

Each one’s blood/fate, and character/attitude.

(Excuse me using shampoo story always.  I had been in the business way too long.)

NIKE has its given mission, birth, personal history, character, and attitude.  Ozeki has its own.  Google, too.  Toraya as well.  TOYOTA has his, Haagen-Dazs has hers, SHARP, KissMint, KOBE City, each has its own.  If you discard it, your brand goes to one-coin commodity shop.

It is my definition of Brand Marketing that, at the end of the day, it is about systemic thinking and tools to sell a product/service and get customer to choose it based upon personality of the brand, which marketers define right and help to grow.

Well, to the very big title of the topic, a very light answer, maybe.

This is not it, but this is very fundamental starting point.

“O.”

Unfortunately, it is not a story about a man and woman or sex.  I do not stop you trying to read between the lines but I did not put anything in between.

It is about Marketing.

For 18 years out of 21 years of services in the previous company, I had worked on various things in Hair Care category.  This is my own rule of thumb that I have developed over the years based on my personal observations/experiences, there is no research data backing it up.

That is, “Because I like the smell” is NOT “Because I like the smell”.

When you interview the users of the long selling leading Hair Care brand, and ask them “Why do you continue using the product?” you often encounter this answer of “Well, because I like the smell, I think.”

Heard a hardworking marketer (I once used to be one of them, you would not believe, though.), s/he thinks,

“OK, I now understand that they like the fragrance.”

An even harder-working marketer thinks, “OK, I now understand they are using it for the reason that is not its primary benefit, so they understand very vaguely about the brand.  It should be a chance for us.”

A stupidly hardworking marketer may even say “OK, so it means that we would win if we develop a fragrance that is superior to theirs.  Go for it!” and establish a big fragrance improvement project to develop a blind test winning fragrance.

An even more literally stupid hardworking marketer might write up a concept to test with consumers, “Aren’t you choosing a shampoo brand based on its fragrance?”

But, (fortunately its product acceptance would improve because fragrance is an important product characteristic) efforts end up…

After all, they continue using that brand.

“What’s wrong?  My product tested better than it in the consumer test.”  And s/he goes to consumer research again.

“What makes you keep using the brand?”

“Well, because I like the smell, I think.”

“Can you tell me reason why you do not use my product?” (By the way, this is the worst question you could ever ask.)

“Well.  I cannot tell till I sniff its smell.”

(OK, mom, here you go.) “How do you like it?”

“Good fragrance.  But I do not know, I need to hear what my friends who used it have to say.”

End of story.

A sad story.

In a nut shell, she is not selecting a product for good fragrance.

(She never uses it if she does not like the smell, though.)

Then, what makes her to answer “Because I like the smell.”?

Let’s here take a look at consumer research from panelist’s view point.  (While she gets paid for her time in research) I suppose it is an intense experience for her, it is like a test at school.  Marketers think they themselves are the ones on the test, but in fact panelist thinks it is a test for her, too.

When a question comes to her, just like a teacher points you in a classroom, her mind goes to “how not to make wrong answer”.  It is not that she wants to say the right thing or tell her real feeling/thinking, in reality.  It is very similar to a typical answer in a classroom, “I am in the same place as XX-chan”.  (It’s always like this in Japan.)

“Because I like the smell” is an almost perfect answer to serve for this purpose.  Talking about any specific function of the product, because you know there must be something else out there that is better than what you like, you would not want to be accused “Hey, then you should like the other one, right?”  Or, when a question of “Why?” follows, you can always say “It is simply my personal taste” to escape from any more pursuit of question.  It is the best excuse to escape from secondhand car salesman.

Then, natural question here would be what is she telling you behind it.

After number of failures, I come to a conclusion that “Because I like the smell” = “Because I sort of like it as a whole for some reason or other”.

When a Hair Care customer tells you “Because I like the smell”, it means “Somehow, I like it overall, I cannot tell you what in specific ‘cause I do not think very hard about it, but I like it, I tell you.” In her mind.

Off course, this does not always apply to any case, as there are products of fragrance sell in the category.  And as fragrance is a very important product characteristic, I am not telling you it is unimportant.

My point is that it is pointless to literally react to “I like the smell” comments.

Even in the category where fragrance is one of the selection standards, though this is very personal opinion, you should not “sell” fragrance benefit, probably never.  It’ll be a hard and bitter lesson for you later.  This topic could go very long, so I’ll keep it for someday later.  (A reference for some clue, click and go to the related topic.)

I guess there should be an equivalent of “I like the smell” in categories other than Hair Care.

Something that you should not literally pursue or you get trash or nothing.

Can you tell me if you have anything similar in your area of product or service?  I want to learn more.

“So, what do you like about me, darling?”

“Everything, sweetie.”

I tell you again, it is not about such a silly story of a boy and a girl.

“O.”

 Japanese people, most of whom do not use religious principles for their daily life, are not good at deciding/defining the way of life and behaviors according to principles, while they are very good at following rules or are quick in changing decision depending on context or situations.  Obviously, I am one of them, too, letting everything go is my way of living…

(Well, it begins with something not really about the Marketing, but bear with me for a moment.)

One day, say, you go to supermarket to buy coffee beans.

Then, you remember coffee sugar is running short so you are to buy that, too.

Question.

Where, which isle/shelf, do you think you can find coffee sugar?

(Maybe easy question for those who often go shopping and know the store very well.)

Answer:  Next to Miso and Salt, in most stores.  (Just in case, I went to 5 big supermarkets around.  No exception, all had it there.)

In general, you cannot find it on coffee/tea/cocoa shelf.

Baby diapers are sitting in the corner with menstrual pads, paper towels, and tissue papers, and baby food is located in the canned food isle.

If you shout at yourself, “OK, today, I will fix very nice pasta!” and go shopping, you will end up having to grab spaghetti next to dried Ramen noodles, pick up anchovies and olives sitting with canned Saba (fish) in Miso soup, select olive oil next to Japanese sesame oil, put dried pepper into your basket in front of Hidaka Konbu…  Off course, get fresh garlic from veges section.  Ah!  I need some cooking wine!  But you cannot locate it between cooking Sake and Mirin.  So you timidly ask store clerk, and he says “It is at the liquor section, (off course, don’t you know?)”  What?  I was there two seconds ago to buy some beer…  You would walk good hundreds of meters even in a small store.  If you are in big suburban store, you would have an intensive exercise.

By the way, many stores have “Store Percepts” or some sort, often found on the wall in the office in backyard, maybe above fax machine or next to a switchboard.  It says “We strive for customer centric management.  We always do our best to provide fun and convenient shopping for customers.”

And, dear customers are enjoying good exercise everyday.

What is it that makes this happen?  It is for efficient stock management for stores and wholesalers.  Store clerk is assigned to each section, so that one person looking after coffee section is not always same as one for sugar shelf.

It is not “customer centric” at all.  They design isles/shelves for shelf stock management, “store centric” thinking.

If their Store Principles say something, they should decide how they behave accordingly, otherwise it does not make sense.  Or, they should decide to put “Provide the lowest possible price through strict management of stock on shelf and backyard” or “Pursue profit improvement as a priority”, instead.

Excuse me, it gets very preachy.

Many companies and stores have statement/percept of purpose or principles, or some may have statement/story of founder’s wisdom/tips.  And in the world of brand marketing, they have Brand Equity, Brand Philosophy, or Brand Story.

Many successful brands with consistent brand images and sustained business indeed implement behaviors=marketing plans that are surprisingly faithful to their equity.  Louis Vuitton in any point in time keeps themselves very Louis Vuitton, yet always fashionable.  Haagen-Dazs has always been “indulgence of ice cream for matured” yet you can always find fun seasonal flavors.

But, like the story of supermarket in the beginning, a lot of brand philosophy have been put on the wall to get sun faded, left unused.  There are managers who think it is for sometime when they have time and money, but they have a lot more than that to coop with changes of the market and severe competition.  Or, some go after what customer says in research, swaying here and there.

At the same time, they always say they suffer from the lack of distinctive positioning, “Hey, all look the same!” just like many super market chains suffer.

There must be some good wisdom or intent in or behind the statement of company principles, founder’s words, brand equity, philosophy, or history.  Some lessons or laws that hold true still today.

So, put it off the wall and clean the dust, time to time.

There must be something good about applying “define what you do according to principles” not just to how you live but to how you manage your company or brand marketing.

Oh, any tips to do better shopping in supermarket?

Think about which wholesale industry is the product from, then you can find it quick.  Paper products are from paper wholesaler.  Dried food is from dried food wholesalers.  Cooking oil is coming from cooking oil wholesaler.

Phew…

“O.”