Twisted View of Marketing in Japan

 (Originally written on Nov. 2, after the second game in Sapporo.)

“Not too long ago, I was working on projects in 6 months advance, and got praised if I do anything for 9 months ahead.  It is completely different now.”

Said Mr. T-Ura over lunch the other day, my ex-colleague who left the Company approximately same time with me, sort of “same batch”.  Unlike me doing nothing but housekeeping work as house-husband, he has been actively engaged to his new job for already 6 months, so it should be worth hearing what he has to say.

“Nippon Ham Fighters will go to the Nippon Championship Series (Japanese ‘World’ Series).  But Darvish may not be able to pitch for his damage.  They say, OK, then let’s cheer him up.  Do something for the series.  Well, it’s only a week away.  One week from a start of planning to implementing the plan…”

Now, I understand.  That is tough.

After all, he told me that NIKE decided to throw an event in a week, preparing a big 1.8m ball, putting it on a truck load, and driving from Tokyo to Sapporo.  (In addition, they put big photos onto the walls of their soon-to-open retail shop in Harajuku.)  The series has just started, and the ball with full of support messages arrived Sapporo.  It made it for the second game when Dravish made solid starting pitch.

Don’t know if this support worked or not, my Tokyo Giants lost the second game to him.  I don’t worry, I know Giants will win 3 straight games from tomorrow.

But why?

(Not why Giants lost the game, but) why did they have to do this event hurriedly in this short period?

That is because the sport is an entertainment to get excitement of “Witness the moment”.

Excitement of sport (watching) gets its highest peak exactly at the moment, and people are dying to witness it before them, or at least, to watch it live on TV.

Immediately after the peak “Moment”, the “Excitement” starts rapidly losing its freshness.

Fans love to watch evening sports news on the day (despite that they already knew the results), to remind them of the excitement, or to feel bad to miss the moment on live yet dreaming “How great the excitement was”.  It is not very fresh anymore, but it is still before expiration to feel the excitement.

Probably, last chance of smelling the excitement is morning papers.  They can talk about how good it was with their friends, and sharing is another event for them.  (The best is of course to drink beer or two over it at the night, though, they cannot always do so.)

By the time of lunch, it finally expires.

Some TV programs and magazines talk about player’s story behind the scene later, but it is no longer an “Excitement happened before your eyes”.

Sports marketing, marketing products or services related to sports, must capture this “Excitement of Witness the Moment”, or effects get much weakened.

“Darvish may not be able to pitch, but may be able to make it, people want him to.”

Then, NIKE had to invest despite the fact that there left only one week before the moment that may not happen.

I heard that NIKE in the past aired a TV spot to congrats a Major League team making it to the world series after years.  They developed the film from the last game and aired it within the same day of the final.

T-Ura-san taught me that they call it “Sports Moment” in NIKE.  They know it is a golden rule to make their marketing plans work hardest.  It looks like a very different dynamics from the categories where we two used to work.

But I believe there should be “Moment” unique to each category of product/service, although they might not be as sharp as sport’s.  Those brands who capture it should succeed to capture customer’s heart, I suppose.

It must be interesting exercise if you look for unique “XX Moment” in your category/brand.

The Series move to Tokyo Dome tomorrow.  Go for 3 straight wins and get Mr. Hara tossed in the air, before Darvish shows up again.

“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.”