Hasta La Gadget!

Every year in Japan many retail shops offer “Fukubukuro” (lucky bags) filled with unknown, quality contents sold at a discount price. It’s quite a sight to behold in major shopping areas as folks line up hours beforehand just to get a fukubukuro from a specific shop.

In a clever play on words, the appropriately-named online electronics retailer Clevery put together a “Fukyoubako“, meaning “recession box”, filled with all sorts of depressing products that just couldn’t be sold in these cash-strapped times. In this case, instead of getting a discount on products you probably would like, most buyers of the box end up with random stuff that Cleverly has lying in stock. However, by making it possible to randomly receive higher-value items such as PCs there’s an aspect of gambling that made the campaign a success.

Despite not having much of an idea as to what’s going to be in the recession boxes, within 22 hours of going on sale, all 200 fukyoubako were sold out!

Shoppers passing by Shinjuku’s Isetan department store cannot have failed to notice the two festive fairy tale-themed window displays. People standing in front of the display see their own image on the TV screen behind the glass, but with all sorts of colorful additions – green trees, animal faces, candles…The augmented reality animation superimposes around the person’s face and moves in real-time with them.

Called, in glorious Jinglish ‘How to Make a Wonder Christmas’, on the homepage there are also down-loadable screensavers, widgets (below) and even mobile phone graphics: follow the story on the interactive website (below right) to get the QR code to download the latter.

Continuing Japan’s love of all things Scandinavian, the illustrations are by Finnish designer Klaus Haapaniemi. Head to Shinjuku to try it out first hand, but only until December 25th. Spot the hordes of kids in front of the window and wait your turn!

Major Japanese companies are continuing to use Twitter as a promotional social tool.

Rohto Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. previously launched its “hada rabu” (ハダラブ, skin love) campaign with a large-scale Web CM (below) involving footage of fifty people showing off their love for their skin.

And now they have a sister site called “Marumaru Rabu” (まるまるラブ, constant love) which displays Twitter posts in animated galleries (below). Users comment by clicking 投稿 (”post”) at the top and log onto their Twitter account through the application. Depending on the monthly theme (December’s is of course Christmas) and the category you chose (family, work etc), you can Tweet what you are doing and how you are showing your love.

Tweeter blackpeel (above) says how he is going to take his dog to a canine cafe for Christmas because the curry is delicious.

SONY has launched a campaign to get us all singing in our cars.

“Singing in your car” takes an activity that we all do (often to the annoyance of fellow passengers) and turns it into an interactive TV and online contest. You can send in your auditions (posted to YouTube) and some of the best (what is the criteria?!) get featured in the TV CM! Susan Boyle eat your heart out!

The first group of auditions has already been selected and their entries are up for all to see. The second wave of entries, where drivers and passengers sing “Easy Rider” (by Tamio Okuno) for a TV CM/music video, will be closing soon. On December 1 one of the auditions will be awarded a prize of “ten years’ vacation”. This means that, given the government-estimated average that Japanese people go on domestic trips 2.77 times a year and it costs 30,390 yen each time, the winner gets 842,000 yen ($9,500). Not bad.

The TV CM and music video will start broadcasting from mid-December, with a special 60 second TV ad on December 20 featuring all the auditions and entries so far. Finally, another winner from an additional round of auditions will be announced in January, the award being again the super “ten years’ vacation” cash.

Wait a minute. Why Sony? Why cars? Well, Sony is promoting the na-vu, a vehicle navigation system.

The na-vu has all the usual map and GPS functions, plus live updates on traffic and congestion. Design is important too; it comes in three sizes and many colors (including pink!). But perhaps most interestingly, it is a mobile navigation system: it can be taken in and out of the vehicle, and has pedestrian and cyclist modes to guide you when you are on the move (but not in a car). Further, the wansegu (ワンセグ) digital TV functionality means that your vehicle becomes your living room (or it doubles-up as a portable TV), and you can play music and videos, and even send recorded data from your Sony Blue Ray to watch on the na-vu.

We all loved (and continue to love) the UniQlock. And the UT Loop widget let you customize your own t-shirt collection advert.

Now, as part of its HEAT TECH range, Uniqlo has released a new blog part for the adoring public. UNIQLO TUNES is, as the name suggests, musical. You can upload the blog part onto your website to play UNIQLO’s music. Or, if you’ve got your own MP3 files uploaded you can even get the widget to play those.

HEAT TECH has been a runaway sales phenomenon in Japan. The clothes are meant to absorb body moisture to keep the body warm. No one likes to bundle up in thick clothing in the winter and now you don’t have to! Their online store also means you don’t even need to go out into the cold outside to buy your clothes.

The movie changes with the music. Here’s what it looks like: