Hasta La Gadget!

Japanese mobile users have long had all manner of health apps and functions on their phones. From pedometers to services tracking their sleeping patterns, diet, calories and more, the keitai has been a trusted and personal device for analyzing and counseling on wellness anxieties. It is natural to build up a personal relationship with your phone, and you end up inputting hygiene and personal care data and information that you would be too embarrassed to tell anyone else outside the medical profession.

It’s big business too; even in 2007 the health market generated 80 billion yen through mobile phone services, and it can only go up and up as the population ages and devices proliferate. With smartphones we’re also seeing a logical shift from services provided by the network (iMode et al), to lots of single, individual apps that the user picks and chooses.

It is often said they’ve got an app for that but surely some things just aren’t possible? Take constipation. Hardly seems there could be much scope digitally. We all know there is medication available but perhaps only in Japan would someone come up with such an inventive way to promote pharmaceuticals through an interactive app.

Targeting young working women in their twenties and thirties, Yoru Suru (Do it at night!) is part virtual dating app, part personal care assistant. The free app is meant to help you remember to take anti-constipation drug Surulacs-S, made by SSP.

Three so-called “ikemen” (hot guys) talk to you and make sure you are taking a dose at the right time. You can choose which man you want — each has his own profile and personality — and then record when you, ahem, manage to relieve yourself. The app then acts as a health management tool, with your virtual boyfriend reminding you to take Surulacs-S at the set time. You can use Yoru Suru as an alarm clock too, and touching and stroking the ikemen character will elicit playful audio responses. Flirting with a constipation medicine marketing app? Yes, they’ve got an app for that.

This is a very Japanese attitude towards wellness and it is reflected in the tongue-in-cheek tone of the health products, even — or perhaps more so — in digital versions. In the recent past we’ve seen similarly colorful and lighthearted apps, assisting consumers with their health problems, but in a way that is very approachable and helping to take away the potential shame.

For example, there was a whole online campaign getting men to talk about their baldness and directing them to clinics, fronted by a popular comedy duo. And there are also funny apps for if you’re a young, stressed student desperate to find a toilet. (As way of a simple contrast, here’s a rather dour and unappealing American app for people with digestive issues.)

I’m now eagerly waiting on an app for itchy groins?

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It’s not often that fabric softener is made to appeal specifically to single women who want romance, but here we are.

“Which Romeo would you want to fall in love with?” is the latest advertisement slogan for a new Aroma Rich Juliette campaign that, quite frankly, made us fall out of our chairs in the office. The campaign for the aromatic fabric softener was running for about a month aimed at Japanese women who fantasize of being “Juliette” for a night and spending it with the Romeo of their choice. The Romeos, in this case, being mostly foreign guys with dreams of being famous in Japan.

These charming fellows were competing for the romantic title of The Next Romeo. It’s interesting that, among them all, the only Japanese guy in the bunch came in first!

Each one of the candidates did his best romantic performance in a short video presentation where he introduced himself, his skills, passions and dreams, while the final message was to convince the audience to choose him and become their Romeo for one night. This was the most surreal part of the video where he shows his affection – supposedly to Juliette- while cradling the Aroma Rich fabric softener bottle in his arms.

It was a hard decision, I must say. Choosing between French Vincent who whispers romantic French words to Juliette, the tall British model who divides his time with volunteer work in Tohoku…Or rather the sweet Hawaiian surfer who wants to take the next Juliette to round-the- world trip… hmmm…

Kasey Cummings, the surfer, has a blog if you want to check it out. The line when he introduces himself in the video is mindblowing in any language: “My name is Kasey. Please remember, it’s ‘Kasey’ like ‘keshi-gomu.’”

For those wondering, ‘keshi-gomu’ is Japanese for eraser, but you don’t have to snap your fingers and point when you say it.

The campaign is nicely wrapped in the fairy tale, dreamy atmosphere, piano and violin background music and French titles- something that seemingly appeals to the woman wanting romance and a Western-style courtship and wedding.

The prize, as promised, was to make this dream come true, for only one night. Two winning Juliettes will be escorted by the chosen Romeo to a production of the real ‘Romeo and Juliette’ and a romantic dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant. Runners up will be forced to live out their dreams through free bottles of fabric softener.

The chosen first place Romeo, surprisingly enough, was the only Japanese- Onuki San from Kanagawa prefecture, who humbly introduced himself with a short, but convincing, performance, as a dancer, with a simple dream of becoming a man of his words. His fun and playful final message represents probably the most of what is the ideal Romeo in Japanese women’s eyes. After all, French romances are just for dreaming, and Japanese girls remain with their reality and cultural priorities.

Aroma Rich, a Soflan brand from Lion, has other scents of happy- fruity Scarlett and elegant-floral Violetta fragrances. Juliette is the scent for love, but be careful at the airport:

The popular Japanese social commerce recycle shop and website Pass The Baton has come up with another great concept of turning the old and used into design desirables. The new idea will see the staff uniforms from Tokyo’s popular cafe Soup Stock, recycled as new t-shirts featuring exclusive designs.

Both Soup Stock and Pass the Baton are the brain child of the Masamichi Toyama, who also runs the neck tie clothes range Giraffe. Pass the Baton works as a kind of vintage flea market, where members can sell there items which they have become attached to but no longer need, putting a note with a story of why they loved the product being sold. Mostly a social web commerce site they also have two stores in the fashionable districts of Omotesando and Marunouchi (both designed by Wonderwall’s Masamichi Katayama).

Toyama is well known for his design and artistic flair having designed all 35 of the Soup Stock cafe interiors himself. The t-shirts, which would normally go to waste as used items, have been redesigned and given a new lease of life by designer Tetsuya Chihara, who has worked on a number of fashion designs in the past. There are 4 different designs to choose form including “Tokyo Borscht”, my personal favourite t-shirt name!

The idea of taking iconic old uniforms and redesigning them into limited edition items is a great idea. This could easily be expanded into other areas such as the delivery companies uniforms or convenience store shirts. Collaborating with famous designers this wouldn’t just be a nice bit of CSR for the companies but actually a decent source of revenue from what would normally just go to waste.

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Smart Girls Choose Smartphones

A lot has been made of the popularity of smartphones among local female consumers but what’s the reality?

According to data quoted by INterRIDE and drawn from multiple sources, smartphones are actually preferred by gadget-loving men, not women. Some 26.3% of men have a smartphone as of August 2011, against 18.3% of women. The regular Japanese feature phone is still the device of choice for 67.2% of women, compared to for 51.9% of men.

A much-discussed local trend has seen consumers using both a regular Japanese keitai and a fashionable new smartphone, allowing them to maintain their familiar phone lifestyle while also playing with the latest popular toy. 10.4% of Japanese women are dual-users like this, but actually it’s even higher for men, 17.1%.

Though a lot of the marketing clamor has been targeted at girls, it’s the boys then who for the most part are the reigning smartphonistas. However, compared to figures six months ago, the proportion of women with smartphones (single device or dual usage) is now just under 30%, which is actually a three-fold increase, indicating the ladies might just catch up with the lads before long.

Demographically, as things stand, female smartphones users are mostly in their twenties (22.4%), followed by women in their thirties (16.9%). Interesting, male users are also mostly in the same two age groups, though it’s a much tighter split: twenties (35.2%) vs. thirties (35.1%).

What are they actually using these smartphones to do, though? According to NHN Japan data from April, there is almost no significant change between male and female users here in both their twenties or thirties, though curiously girls are playing games quite a lot more it seems, contradicting apparent stereotypes.

User Backlash?

After being seduced by blanket ad campaigns and mountains of hype, people can often feel a bit disappointed by their shiny new purchases once the novelty goes away. In a survey of 500 female smartphone users aged 20 to 39, people were thus asked to rank their biggest complaints with the devices.

Drawing a joint “winning” place were gripes about the reception being bad and that you cannot use infrared transmission (a common function among local phone users to exchange telephone numbers and email addresses), both with 35%. These were ahead of the next complaints by quite a margin: glitches (21%) and the inability to view Flash sites (19%).

This summer we have seen new smartphone releases for specific female users. These include phones like Sharp’s 007SH J, with a customized keypad interface to make it easier to operate for women with long nails, along with a bundle of models in girl-friendly pinks and reds. Panasonic have even created a special “My First Smart Phone” [sic] site to help educate females about the new lifestyle they can enjoy with the devices.

The question to be answered in the next quarter is whether all this effort by marketers et al leads to strong sales.

Smartphones and E-Commerce

The extent to which the introduction of smartphones may change the e-commerce market in Japan is something we are watching.

In a June survey of 446 iPhone users and 423 Android users, it was asked whether they used their phones for performing practical functions like shopping. 59% of iPhone users had participated in e-commerce (i.e. online shopping for books, clothes, DVDs, tickets etc — not apps) with their device, against 44% for Android. Regular shoppers percentages (10 times or over) are much lower, though — just 16.8% for the iPhone and only 5.4% for Android.

Though users really enjoy browsing the internet with their smartphones, it seems that their usage centers on mostly “surface”-level actions, such as interacting via social media, as opposed to shopping, working and so on. In terms of SNS, at least, Twitter is the clear leader of the pack, claiming 54.5% of users (the service now has 12.5 million members). Mixi is second with only 46.4%, hinting that Twitter’s success here has been greatly boosted by the mass release of smartphones.

This is the latest in a series of blogs based on newsletters provided by our local research partner, INterRIDE Inc.

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This post was written in collaboration with Ronald Jin Chu.

The grand opening of “The Terminal” in Harajuku was definitely a site of interest for those associated with the art-design scene in Tokyo. Young, hip and stylish atmosphere filled three spaces on different floors with mixing DJ’s, Brooklyn lager beers, food-art, retro-hip interior design, Vintage Chic-Geek look artists and 6 iMacs.

The concept of The Terminal can be deemed as creative recreation, which they express as “work+study+eat+drink+play+24H”. The board members of The Terminal are not your average stern looking businessmen dressed in pinstriped suits: a stylist, fashion, graphic, and product designers, and architect are the masterminds behind this creation.

Respected designer, Masato Sekiguchi – the President of “Think Green Produce”, was the creative director in charge of the overall facelift of the place. His works (such as Tabloid) are known for revamping old locations with art, food, fashion and music. And this is exactly what he did at the opening event of “The Terminal”; by emphasizing the artistic atmosphere, Sekiguchi turned food into a showpiece with “Takibi Bakery”, book shelves into art installations, and a new concept of creative open working space into fashionable cultural hub.

On the opening night, people were rooming between the three floors which consist of an open space gallery, the internet lounge and a roof top floor for smoke and air brake. The main crowd consisted of young designers and creative freelancers, wearing 50’s vintage black framed glasses, striped button shirts, casually combined with a pair of suspenders, while browsing through the web pages of the installed iMacs or the recent issue of Monocle, placed among other magazines that would capture the interest of creative designers.

General manager Yusuke Kawamata said that the space name was derived from the idea to provide a “terminal” and community for people with various needs, with their main audience being those who worked or were interested in the creative sector, including nomad workers. Hence, the location of Harajuku makes sense given that it is one of the most unique fashion capitals of the world. Kawamata intends for The Terminal to be a welcoming space where visitors can “relieve the tenseness off their shoulders” (a common Japanese expression for relaxing) and will “become what it will become,” meaning that the customers are going to be the key shapers of this new development.

What we could call a Third Space, the Terminal is truly a depiction of a new “lifestyle,” as telecommuting allows people not to be confined to offices, WiFi has brought the internet to the streets, and social gatherings are slowly moving away from meeting rooms and “izakayas” (Japanese bar restaurants). It acts as an anchor of community life and fosters creative interaction; deviating from your normal internet or manga cafes, found all around Japan. Absent of individual rooms and cubicles, here, the open space allows people to feel comfortable with each other, whether they are using the internet, lounging on the sofa and reading magazines or just exchanging inspirations while consuming beer.

Visiting the Terminal once again following its opening party, the atmosphere was much different from our previous visit. Interesting enough, most of the customers brought their own laptops or iPads, demonstrating that the provided 6 iMacs were sufficient enough.

The second you enter the Terminal (on its normal business hours), you are engulfed by a whole different atmosphere, with soothing background music selected by musicians from CUBISMO GRAFICO FIVE, a popular Japanese solo unit. A relaxing internet cafe would be an understatement: with four staff members catering to your every need from computer questions to the food/drink services, customers are provided with excellent service at a place similar to home, but with a more sociable crowd. With 2 semi-private meeting rooms that accommodate up to six people, it can be used for business purposes as well.

The ground floor is set to be used as rental space for approximately 2000 US dollars for one full day. Although the floor could be used for anything ranging from a live studio to a film set, given the whole theme of the Terminal and its surrounding market, we expect it to act as an exhibition gallery displaying the work of Tokyo’s finest creative artists and designers.

Third spaces like The Terminal are simply rental spaces like karaoke boxes, love hotels, and izakayas, all of which the following activities can be done from home but chosen to be carried out in a more social and unique setting. Access to the Terminal requires membership, which can be acquired for approximately US $3. The $2 per half hour rates include unlimited refills at the drink bar (besides beer), access to their WiFi network, and a place to spend your productive creative time.

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