Shortcut to Japan

Before I begin I would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to read my blog. Three weeks, three blog posts and three HUNDRED (and forty four) views, needless to say I feel inspired.

After a discussion with my lecturer last week about my last blog post she displayed her disdain for people who keep saying we should look to Europe for all our solutions.This got the cogs turning and I thought about looking on the other side of the world for this weeks topic and challenging myself a bit. Well Self, challenge accepted.

Japan has gotten a lot of things right. They have the highest life expectancy from birth, a rich and thriving cultural heritage, awesome anime, really ahem..interesting adult cinema, blah blah blah basically they are quite cool. I decided to see what they were doing in terms of advertising and how it differed from the Western way we are so familiar with. After days of searching for suitable ads I realised that the reason they made little (read no) sense to me is because I lacked the INSIGHT into Japanese culture that would serve as the key to this very discombobulating subject (this could have something to do with my disgust toward sushi). That set me off on a mission to try and understand the culture and then showcase an ad that reflected what I had learnt.

Traditional western marketing does not generally translate well to the Japanese market and vice versa. This is because Japanese consumers are the most demanding in the world forcing international brands to change their ways of advertising specifically for their Japanese audiences.

The Japanese are a nation that communicate a lot with symbols. The idea that a product is being advertised for its functionality is not really as popular as it is in the west. It is all about creating an emotional connection with the consumer. This can be done with using Japanese and western celebrities  that embody what the product is trying to put forward. There was a big trend of using international celebrities such as Tommy Lee Jones in the BOSS campaign and Softbank TV advert . The Japanese know him for his role in Alien and use the role he played and his celebrity status to sell a product.It is a visual shortcut and a very lame cop out if you ask me. For a "smart" nation they are too easily pleased.

There is one thing that everybody desperately craves in Japan. No, it's not money nor power. Not even fame. All those things are just means to an end and that end is kawaii. Being "kawaii" (cute and beautiful) is a highly valued aesthetic quality in Japanese society and mostly Japanese pop culture which means it features a lot in advertising

Another use of symbols in Japan comes in the form of mascots. Large corporations will use kawaii mascots in order to show a sense of humanity to consumers who would otherwise be intimidated by them. One example of this is the Tokyo Metropolitan Police department who came up with a mascot lovingly dubbed Pipo-Kun who is an orange mouse-like creature with big ears to listen to people and an antennae to stay "in tune" with what is happening out on the street. This is a huge public relations tool and I doubt they will stop using it in advertising as it is deeply ingrained in Japanese culture.

 Pipo-Kun the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department mascot

Hello Kitty, the epitome of kawaii, actually started out as a mascot for the silk bedding company Sanrio. Kitty was used in ads until her popularity snowballed and an empire was formed around her image. Sanrio ditched the silk and became 100% kitty orientated which made them more successful than the silk ever could have. These days Kitty adorns thousands of products from aeroplanes and diet pills to red wine! In fact the only products that Sanrio has rejected are sharp objects, hard alcohol, guns and cigarettes. I hope the guy who came up with that concept got a FAT raise.

After a week of searching through ads that  made less sense to me than buying a pair of Jimmy Choo's to clean a chicken coop, I finally found a print ad from an extremely successful ad campaign that I will attempt to explain.

I can only imagine how this concept came about and the best I can come up with is that the creators were either very stoned and/or drunk or I guess just Japanese.

Meet the White family, a strange name for an Asian family. At first I thought it had to do with the Easts fascination with the West but I was wrong (damn). It is in reference to the service that they are advertising.

Some background on the product: The White mobile plan is Japans cheapest and simplest (white symbolising simple) service plan provided  by the mobile service provider Softbank and it has been rated the most successful ad campaign in recent years. The plan allows you to speak to your family members for free (is anyone else thinking "NO THANKS"?) and thus is marketed as a family brand by using, you guessed it, a family as their symbolism.

The White family is no normal family. There are five family members spanning three generations (another translucent advertising ploy used to target different age groups).There is a grandmother, a mother and a daughter, an older brother and a father. The first two are both famous actresses and the daughter Aya, is the most famous of all being a teen pop sensation. They all stand for specific values that Softbank wanted to cash in on.

The most controversial, OK maybe controversial is not the right word, the strangest character of the family is the older brother Dante Carver who plays Aya's older brother. He is an African American actor in Japan who has become very popular as a result of his role in the ads. Can anyone say token black guy? If you thought your dear old dad was strange then you haven't met Mr White...who is a dog. A cute dog, but a dog none the less. This is the point where I realise that lost in translation is not just referring to a movie title.

The White Family series of commercials have been so popular that many famous Japanese celebrities have begged to be in the commercials. They have become so large that they are nearly their own entity within Softbank itself, even having a softball team named after them. Ootosan (Japanese word for father) has become a national icon and has made a lot of money through merchandise featuring his image. This reminds me of the Hello Kitty story I told you earlier.

Statistics show that television and print is actually the most effective forms of advertising and most Japanese clients are looking for a combination. They use more traditional media to grab consumers’ attention based around some social media platform or television campaign. In this case they use print ads that  remind you of the message conveyed in their TV adverts.

The TV ads are like short sitcoms that use a VERY different brand of humour than I am used to. I have included two with English subtitles for your own viewing pleasure and to give you an idea of what the print ad is about. Click "view on You Tube" and then "turn on captions" to get the subtitles.

                                          Shoto Matsuda Softbank part 1

                                          Shoto Matsuda Softbank part 2

                                (I love the use of the potato as a romantic gesture!)

Back to my print ad review. It is a very simple family portrait showing all he family members on their cellphones the first shows the women in kimonos except and the grandmother is holding a dog shaped device used to talk to the father while he is out on one of his adventures. The second just shows them in normal dress, very simple. In short this ad uses symbolism, visual shortcuts and emotional attachment to characters that work well in Japanese culture. Without the TV ad this would mean very little. The brand relies heavily on the actors past career successes and how the world view them in order to sell the brand. This coupled with their use of the father as their mascot is what makes this one of the most successful ad campaigns in Japan today.

Thanks for reading, I leave you with: Ootosan in a bowler hat and bowtie on a billboard
and a couple of facts that I found while researching this topic that  prove that Japan is a very very different place.

In Japan, trains are so punctual that any delay over 5 minutes usually incurs an apology over the tanoy and a "delay certificate" for passengers on their way to work. When trains are delayed for an hour it may even make the news (Metro Fail could learn a thing or two from the East).

There are blowjob bars in Japan (if my boyfriend is reading this- no).

In japan, "Jersey Shore" is aired under the name "Macaroni Rascals"(waaaay more accurate).

It is a common prank in Japan to shove your fingers into someones ass, it is called Kancho (I TOLD you their sense of humour is different!).

When Space Invaders was released in Japan it caused a nation wide coin shortage because people just couldn't stop (obsessive much?).

A baseball team in Japan is said to be cursed by KFC founder Colonel Saunders (yum).