Hasta La Gadget!

Those of us in Tokyo are not looking forward to the prospect of the typically humid local summer minus the air-conditioning. Energy-saving measures are so far averting any more rolling blackouts, but it’s going to be a different ballgame when the hot months come and offices and stores will have to restrict their usual methods of cooling everyone down.

UNQLO might just have the answer. Back in March 2010 it launched the Silky Dry and Sarafine range, the summer version of its bestselling Heat Tech series, designed to keep you cool and absorb moisture (=sweat). The “innerwear” collection for both men and women includes t-shirts, boxer briefs and leggings. Putting on more layers sounds like a bad idea in the summer but UNIQLO insists you won’t feel the extra clothes, since the fibers are so thin and comfortable.

The chain today opens in Ikebukuro station a special pop-up store dedicated to the range. For a limited two-month period commuters will be able to stock up on cooling clothes, and also knowing that UNIQLO is going to donate ¥100 to earthquake relief efforts with every sale.

The pop-up follows on from the brand’s success with Heat Tech stores in Tokyo last year, designed by UNIQLO collaborator favs Kashiwa Sato and Masamichi Katayama. The two shops in JR Shinjuku and Shinagawa hit their 200,000 items sales targets and, considering that Ikebukuro sees an average population of 55,000 commuters passing through daily, UNIQLO will surely replicate those achievements this sizzling summer.

Just in case you are too hot and dripping to extract the right coins from your wallet, you can even use your SUICA train pass e-money card to pay for your purchases at the pop-up store, much like other shops and kiosks located in Tokyo stations.

It’s going to be very interesting how consumers and retailers react to restrictions on electricity usage over the next few weeks. Already adverse effects of the looming energy shortfall include reports of sales for LED light bulbs jumping nearly three times and in particular convenience stores had, not surprisingly, a bumper month in March, an increase of 7.7% on last year.

We loved this short message at CScout Japan and couldn’t have put it any better or simpler ourselves, “Come to Japan”. Great sentiments from legendary clothes designer (and lover of Tokyo) Sir Paul Smith and the British Ambassador, Japan is open for business!

Read a great article about Back to Business also here on the UKTI blog.

Picture courtesy of http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/

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Those who know how humid and disgustingly sweaty Japan can get in the height of summer won’t be looking forward to the possibility of no air conditioning as the looming threat of blackouts extends into the season of three shirts a day. Various power saving efforts are being introduced and around town you can see convenience stores doing their bit with only half the store lights on, and even the iconic Shibuya TV screens were turned off until recently. Tapping into this, a university professor Inoue Akihito the author of Japanese blog Critique of Games has come up with a power saving game that is catching on on twitter called #Denkimeter”.

The basic rules are simple and involve the player locating and checking the reading on their electric meter at home or in the office. You can take a photo of the meter and the player must tweet the reading along with the time and date using the hashtag #Denkimeter. Players then update the reading periodically throughout the day and determine how much power they have used based on the change in reading from the previous tweet. Each person is encouraged to update after events such as preparing dinner or doing the laundry to get an idea of how we can cut down on our electricity usage. Your final reading on how much energy is saved is given as your “戦闘力” or “combat power”.

When players enter their power savings into the Denkimeter site they receive a motivational or amusing derogatory comment back based on how well or poor they are doing. Displayed publicly on twitter also, there is added incentive for players to up their “combat power” by dropping their electricity usage and gain social kudos while at it.

The popularity of the game has also spawned an iPhone app that allows players to enter the wattage and tweet directly from the app which calculates energy difference since your last entry.

Alternative ways that Japan could save a ton of energy however would also be to just close all the pachinko parlors, now there is an idea.

There isn’t exactly much of a need to entice Japanese to buy bottled water right now, but Vittel has another great collaboration with New Balance that pairs the sporty water with miniature versions of New Balance running shoes as mobile phone straps. Running is rather popular these days in Japan after all, and everyone loves some quality omake (giveaways).

On top, Vittel has created the Tokyo Run app that uses technology from Sekai Camera, the augmented reality app that allows for a feature called “air tagging”. This means that you can place tags in virtual spaces defined by geography, and other people can find the tags on their own devices and interact with them.

The Tokyo Run app is also a game of sorts that creates digital running paths for joggers to take, with virtual Vittel bottles marking the turns at set geographic points. By using the phone’s GPS, runners can hit the points during their run, collect points, and then be eligible for winning prizes such as limited edition shoes.

The mini shoes straps are pretty nice and quite detailed. It says a lot about Japan that such cool little gifts can be so casually attached to the bottles without being stolen.

Even the tread on the shoes is realistic!

Japan is one of the smokin’est countries in the world in a number of areas, but particularly in terms of actual smoking. Clearly we have nothing against tobacco unlike some more wimpy agencies.

Now it seems that Japan Tobacco is hurting for supplies, namely paper and filters to make their smokes, so are concentrating on a “core” 25 brands out of around 100. Perennial salaryman favorite Mild Seven is surely at the top of that list, and I’m personally hoping that Peace Infinity fits in there somehow (but I doubt it). Beyond that, cigarette shipments are going to stop for 12 days starting on March 30th in order to regroup and assess the situation.

Just last week I jokingly asked one of our tobacco clients if they planned on sending “cigarette aid” up north. Now I’m really wondering if it’s not such a crazy idea. If there were ever a time for a cigarette, it’s now.