Twisted View of Marketing in Japan

Was a question from White Knight-san, in Sapporo City.

It is not at all easy question for me.  But the question came at the right timing, as I have just started teaching a few classes, staring on last Friday, in Advanced Copy Writing Seminar by Senden Kaigi in Osaka:  What is a role of Copy Writer/Creator from Client’s view point.”

Thus, I anyway had to throw some thoughts on this topic.

I do not have any license, knowledge, and experiences to tell you either “All clients view this way” or “Copy Writer must act that way.”  This is just my own perspective.  I will try not to make argument too abrupt, but please bear with me.

I (when I was working as a member of client) think I often had the following three roles/expectations to Copy Writers or Creative Directors who used to be CW.

“Talk like Brand does. ‘Shall We Haagen-Dazs?’”

Of course, it’s the job #1 for “Copy Writer”.

If it is a matter of simply translating strategy into set of words, we do not need Copt Writer.  Writing copy is not simple math with theory and process, so that client people like me, left-brain-heavy people, cannot do the job.

If there is any difference for my opinion/perspective versus “commonly understood role of Copy Writer”, I would expect Copy Writer writes/talks as if the brand talks.  Copy is to me an expression of who the Brand is.

“Shall We Haagen-dazs?”, when it is written in Japanese, does not stand.  You go “Then who are you?”

To large extent, I often look for “Character of the Brand in words/choice of words” than “unique set of words”.

In one of my previous write-up, I defined “Brand” as “giving a name and respect to its character”.  Words/choice of words are the place where character/belief come out most.  Therefore, copy writing is of key essence to “grow Brand”.  (It includes attitude of not “talking”.)

“Translator between Creative and Client.  ‘In this useless and wonderful world.’”

As Copy Writer is primarily deals with words, compared to those Creative people speak visuals and sounds, s/he could be the closest friend among Creative people for left-brain-heavy client people.

Why the submitted idea conveys strategy best, and how?  What is “interesting” about it?  Where is key point or source of inspiration for Creative?  It is in fact quite difficult for client people.

So, if Copy Writer put them in simple structure using words I can understand, it is always very helpful.

Or, easier example is that scripted style of storyboard is very often much simpler to understand than usual storyboard with pictures.

I need 100 years to understand and appreciate why the campaign of “Alien Jones’s Diary – Living in Japan” can sell canned coffee, if I just got storyboards.

I believe Creative people already have complete picture of advertising when it is presented first.  But, when it is not produced yet, it is hell of a work for client to understand it and feel it.  Copy Writer can bridge the gap.

On the other hand, in the mind of client people, there are clear vision/results of achieving the objective and strategy.  However, they are usually data or numbers that most Creative people cannot feel how good they are.  Copy Writer can bridge the gap, too.  (One could argue it is a job of Planners, though.)

“Giving it a Name.  ‘Impossible is Nothing.’”

This role might be bigger than other two, at least to me.

Copy Writer can give a name to something that is too conceptual or that you need to “explain”.  Once it has a name, it stands on its own.  It is no longer abstract concept, it now has a life, and has nuance of thoughts and belief.

It is not “Nothing is Impossible”, nor “Anything is Possible”.  It is “Impossible if Nothing”.

Some of these go out as “Copy”, and others may stay internally.  Establishing Team’s slogan/manifesto is a copy writing of goal of the project, vision, or attitude.  Or, like TSUBAKI, name of project can be “copy writing” to start with.

Well, maybe I am trying too hard to “categorize” its role into 3, and telling you the same thing three times.

Excuse me that this may have been half cooked.

Net, I wanted to say Copy Writer has 3 roles:  Storyteller for Brand to Consumer.  Storyteller for Creative and Client.  Storyteller for Conceptual to Tangible.

Even worse?

Sorry.  This topic is way too big for me.

“O.”

On January 22, I went to the “livedoor” office to throw 2 events of seminar, workshop, or say, discussions.

It was for bloggers when I did this last time in livedoor, but it somehow impressed people from livedoor in the room.  They gave me another opportunity to do it for those in livedoor.

To this end, I ran one session about “What is Brand?” for those who missed it last time, and the other session about “What is Vision/Visioning” for all.

2 sessions in a row in the afternoon, 4.5 hours in total.  It must be hard work for them.  Thanks for active participation and discussions.

It was honor, but clearly pressure to me.  You see CEO and all the board members in the room before you, actively joining discussions and case studies.  (Was livedoor running business all right?  At least, the board room was empty then.)  Again, thank you.

First half was about “What makes brand a brand”, my original speech/case discussion that “You can understand essence of brand marketing in one hour”.  In it, I often use two Japanese word of “Kakun and Noren” (which I cannot translate well, let’s say “company principle/philosophy” and “signboard”) to understand conceptual building blocks of brand equity.  In the party after the session, I heard many livedoor people already using the concept/term like “It must be your Noren” or “I would not think it is the best way to put it as Kakun”.

Second half was in fact not exactly about brand marketing.  It was about “Vision”.  The word is used very often and casually.  But many do not know what it really is.  So, the session was to re-define what Vision is, and use it as a skill to think and communicate.  Discussion was heated than I expected.  It seemed timely topic for the company.  The word “Vision” was also popular word in the party.

These words were popular in the party, but can “Kakun”, “Noren”, and “Vision” be on everyone’s lips in livedoor next week onward?  I hope them to be.

(For those who attended the seminar, when you have a few minutes, please visit this topic in this blog.  It must be nice follow-up reading to things we discussed in the seminars.)

“O.”

Unlike the previous topic, it is about a campaign (or marketing) that does not interest me very much.

Why about the one that I am “NOT” interested in?

It is because I’ve got quite a few inquiries.  Since its start, from various people.  “How do you interpret this?”, “What do you think they want to achieve?”, or “It’s been talk in town, but how effective is it?”

As it has been out there for sometime that it does not have a kind of momentum it used to have once, and that many professionals have already put their argument or evaluation, I do not think I can add any new perspective here.  Just wanted to respond to those questions came to me.

It is about Softbank’s CM featuring SMAP.  Just in case, here are links from YouTube for the very first one of this campaign and the recent one about color variation of phone.

 
How come this does not intrigue me much?  I do not dislike the other campaign featuring a dog, instead.

It is probably because I somehow do not see/feel what they are doing as “marketing”, but as “rich man’s fight/scuffle”, firing bundles of buck out from a big cannon.  Well, in a sense, you can say it is dead on Softbank’s character, so it may be very good “Brand building”, though.

Structure of campaign, at its beginning, was a “set-up documentary” with flood of TV media:  A big group of talents representing Japan, who used to be a CM character of docomo, a competitive company representing Japan, is “transferring” to Softbank.  Obviously fake movement.

It is indeed a kind of thing that only rich man can think of.

The second series featuring color variation of phone and iPhone is what they have been doing even before this campaign using Hollywood stars.  Films of this campaign feel like “set-up documentary or fake making-film” as well.

But I kinda like its idea.  I may tell you “If SMAP was not there, it should not have been bad advertising”.  The world can become better place with full of fun and joy if the world is filled with many vivid colors.  Not bad.  Visuals are very beautiful.

In any case, as it is “rich man’s scuffle”, amount of media is horrendous.  Or said differently, huge amount of media transforms the obvious “set-up documentary” to “obviously fake but entertaining movement”.

In net, to people like me, there is not much to learn.  As consistency is power, I hope they continue this.

If I have to find any lesson here, it is that, unless you are trying hard to dump your money, do not take this approach of making so-so idea into “societal movement”.

Rather, work hard to develop strong idea.  It is not easy, but I would suggest this way.  When an idea is outstanding, you do not have to stir up it to make it “societal movement”.  It will be.

“O.”

*”Buttery-smell” or “Bata-kusai” is a Japanese expression to describe a thing or a person that has Western/Caucasian touch/feel/look.  Butter, and its taste, feel, and smell, must have been quite an experience for Japanese people 100-150 years ago when they started encountering lots of new things from US/Europe.

A few people have sent me questions.  Here are a direct answer, and some marketing talks related to it, to one of them.

“When I watch CM’s from docomo’s Google Keita, Windows 7, or Apple iPhone, I see some consistent feel among them, “buttery-smell”.  Is it effective?  … The taste of film, which I do not see many Japanese companies use but lots of non-Japanese firms use, what is behind it?”

Was the question, from Sasaki-san.

Very good observation.  Others like FRISK, NIKE, and XEROX, also have similar “buttery-smell”.  (A lot of people do notice that they are different, vaguely though.  A message to marketers is “Hey, guys, people know what you are doing or not doing.”)

There are several questions in it, so let me sort them out:

1. Where does CM’s “buttery-smell” come from?

2. Is there any intent or aim behind CM’s “buttery-smell”?

(3. Why Japanese companies do not do it?)

As for #1, I may not be a right person to answer technical matters, so I have asked Mr. Abe, a veteran producer from Sound By S, commercial production company.  But, as I expected, his answer was very long (as long as his talk), contains a lot of technical terms and codes, and complaints with some real names, so that I had to sum it up anyway.

Upon that, let me answer to question #2.  Will touch on #3, too.

Making the long story short, maybe too short, though, CM’s “buttery-smell” comes from the fact that it is produced by Western/Caucasian director, cameraman, and their crews.   That’s why it has “buttery-smell”/Western feel.  Excuse me giving you such a stupid answer.  The difference is a product of difference of shooting method, choice of lenses, way of lighting, and policy or philosophy behind all of them.

Let’s dig in a bit more, of course Abe-san’s telling, though.

Caucasian’s eyes are very sensitive to intense lighting/luminosity, especially UV rays, compared to non-white guys like us, so they do not like direct lighting.  They tend to use in-direct lighting like using a wall to reflect it.

On the other hand, people like direct lighting to its object in Japan.

As a result, just like a movie film from Hollywood does, oversea CM features only an object that you want to see/show, versus that of Japan shows everything bright in the frame.

Accordingly, type of lens also becomes different.  In Western industry, they prefer longer lenses = narrower depth of focus = an object just on the focus point shows right but a bit off gives off-focused visual.  In Japan, they use short lenses to capture everything under the light.  To a layman like me, it may be easier to understand it as a difference between a tele-photo lens and a wide-angle lens.

In addition to these two biggest reasons, there are other smaller differences.  And they add up to this difference of taste of films.

And somehow, it cannot be done in Japan. Though Japanese is known to have skillful hands for anything, they can hardly copy this.  It is because it’s a product of totality of industry structure, techniques/skills, knowledge, experiences, people, apprenticeship behind, and their value/philosophy, I guess.

Net, if you want that “buttery-smell” CM, you have to go abroad and shoot with oversea stuff.  No wonder you do not see it from Japanese companies.

Let’s move to its Marketing intent/aim/effect.

The film above is a good old Haagen Dazs ice cream commercial from 1990’s.　I still remember this.  In 1990’s, these high quality “buttery-smell” visuals came on TV, not as a movie but as a CM spot, and made us say “Cool!”.  Vidal Sassoon, which I used to be responsible for, was introduced with very “buttery-smell” CM, too.  In fact, we produced it in Hollywood.

While Haagen Dazs is of course an oversea brand, truth was that this TV commercial was made first in Japan.  This “buttery-smell” CM was made by Haagen Dazs Japan, for Japanese consumers, to be aired only in Japan.

I believe there must have been clear intent for marketing for this “buttery-smell”.

And it was achieved, splendidly.

It is not a cheap ice cream for kids around, but is a high quality ice cream for adults (must-be made in Europe).  The image was brilliantly engraved in our heart and mind with this one film alone.  Later, they started using TV with similar film outside of Japan, I heard.

Same for Vidal Sassoon.  Back then, Japan was only country in the world where the brand was spending major marketing dollars.  In UK, its origin, it was one of those minor salon shampoo brands.  That film established clear image that it is landing on Japan from Western world, in the middle of the Bubble economy days, as an oversea premium quality hair care brand.

Esthetic sense, feel, and image, which people watching TV get from visual and sound, are often more important than literal/word-oriented information.  In this sense, Haagen Dazs is one of the best examples of effective use of “buttery-smell”.

Besides, there are other cases that they do not have any aim or intent.  Some are simply using the same films used in US or Europe.  And reason why Japanese firms do not produce those films could simply be that they do not have any particular reason to do so.

If there is any marketing challenge to this, it should be if you are making up two “different personalities with different sense/images” other than just a difference of touch of film, when you are producing films in Japan at one time and go abroad at some other times.  Shooting oversea, especially in US, is not easy task.  It costs more, eats longer time, puts harder schedule management for talents and stuff, etc.  OK, so let’s do it in Japan this time.  I think it is a reasonable choice.  However, the question remains.  If those two different types of communication show at the same time or back to back, are people watching them recognizing and remembering them as the same “personality”?

Or, simply, they may watch you saying “Somewhat cheap, this company is trying cutting corners these days.”  At least, I can say, many of them notice the difference.

“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.”