Twisted View of Marketing in Japan

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.”

I do not eat much between meals, and when I was a salary-man, I rarely stayed late in the office, so I don’t have habit of eating supli-food (or energy bar).  Fortunately (at least as of now), I don’t have to be cautious about my weight and thus am not sensitive to calories of what I eat.

Therefore, I am not sure if I have a license to discuss “Why SOYJOY sells so well?” but let me discuss that today, as it looks obvious to me that it sells.

Putting conclusion first, I suppose it is simply because the brand does very basic thing very right, which is “People buy food/snack because it looks/feels delicious.”

If you visit convenience stores to look for supli-food (energy bar) for your slight hunger, you would be stunned with its wide range of kinds and number of brands.  At least, it surprised me, non-user of the category.  And of course, many of them, or all the brands scream out on their package that how low the calorie is, how less it impacts to your weight (or seems to), how less you take excess things, or how much and easy you can intake required vitamins and fibers.  I just remember the category is called “function food”

Among them, shinning is SOYJOY.

While it is largely due to its big space/good position on shelf as a leading brand, there is another fact grabbing your eyes.

That is, it looks delicious.

They try to tell you how effective in functions they are, as the entire category is for minimizing bad influence to health or taking something good to health.

Differentiation.

In the world of Marketing, you always and repeatedly get taught how important it is.  It can roughly be defined as “I am different (from anyone else) in this aspect, and I am better, so that you should choose me (over others)”  Maybe too easy/rough, though.

Often due to legal/regulations, direct and specific expression of “how and where I am better” cannot be made.  Then, they instead utilize superiority of raw materials and ingredients, image of superiority of them, comparison to XX number of Lemon, XX thousands of pieces of peas, etc.  Some say it is endorsed (or seems endorsed) by some professional figure, organization, or celebrity, which has health-oriented images.

As they try way too hard to be distinctive/different, they often forget the very important thing.

Differentiation/distinctiveness is after all an “excuse” for users to buy, not necessarily “the reason to buy”.  People buy food as it looks tasty.

SOYJOY’s package design is very very well crafted, that is why it sells.  It always puts tasty photo of ingredient fruit, and it always has a picture of what is inside, nicely baked and quite inviting.  Choice of colors for different flavors is also well considered.  The design may look a bit ordinary, but it is crafted right.

Of course, they do not forget to put important “excuse” as supli/function-food by telling you it is made of soy beans and use of fruit that has “good-to-health” images.

I believe SOYJOY is very good success case for in-the-store marketing.

(I recently saw their completely new TV commercial, but) I do not believe they needed the TV campaign using a lot of big celebs.  The campaign certainly has contributed a lot to building awareness/popularity, but it does not justify dumping so much bucks…  Well, they are such a big Company and it is selling that well, the waste cannot hurt them anyway, I guess.  At least, I can tell you that they made Ad Agency, TV stations, and celeb offices very happy.

People buy food/drinks because it looks delicious.

People buy cosmetics because it looks making them beautiful.

People buy detergent because it looks washing dirt out.

That is truth, I guess.

Aren’t you in the maze of differentiation to forget the truth?

“O.”