Hasta La Gadget!

Quick, get your shoes on. There’s only a few days left to take part in the KDDI au campaign 5min. WALK (ファイブミニッツ・ウォーク). The idea is to walk with your mobile for at least five minutes a day for over three hundred and fifty meters, measuring your activity on a pedometer. More than just individual health, au is trying to create a sense of community here: users register and log on to qualify for the exercise rankings. Every day on the PC and mobile site au displays the amount of calories burnt off by users every five minutes and crowns the top walker the “5min. KING”.

Also on offer are blog parts and various satellite events in Tokyo and Osaka. Registered members, upon completing their five minute jaunt, can head to their nearest au outlet to pick up a Soyjoy. KDDI decked out the walkway between JR Ebisu Station and Ebisu Garden Plaza (below) for two weeks in September to get commuters and shoppers in the right mood.

We recently reported on the brand omake trend now commonplace amongst Japanese fashion magazines. This is when you received an extra free incentive with your purchase, but to the extent that the purchase of the original product becomes merely the “little bit extra” and the motivation for the consumers is the high profile freebie (i.e. you feel like you are getting a brand item cheap). Now, here’s another example in the tobacco industry.

Virginia Slims, the definitive ladies’ brand, has launched a collaboration with Cecil McBee. With your purchase of VS Rose cigarettes you get a typically ornate and “fabulous” lighter in a pink furry case. Other packs include pouches in different colors. When you consider that a two-pack is only 640 yen ($7), it’s quite a bargain for fans of the brand.

Virginia Slims have also been collaborating with fashion brand Sly for a omake campaign, offering with the Duo cigarette range lighters in the shape of Sly lipstick in seven different colors. What’s more, buying a two-pack gives you a bag or a pouch (three types), and a five-pack rewards you with a fold-up umbrella. Clearly they are catering to completionist fans here and seeking return customers eager to collect more of this unique set. There’s even a QR code to along with the campaign.

These products, though promoted as unique and collectible (e.g. by limiting their sale period), are actually available at convenience stores across Japan (sometimes exclusively to just one chain, such as Seven Eleven). But could bringing these high-profile brands into outlets at the bottom of the market pyramid have the knock-on effect of reducing their luxury image? It’s clearly a fine line that these brands have to tread when they agree to collaborate with tobacco companies.

The tobacco industry is one of the most proactive and innovative users of these brand omake campaigns. We reported on Lark and Virginia Slims again co-branding in the past. Less brand omake and more just an unusual example of collaboration was the Marlboro and Georgia Coffee campaign we blogged about last year.

Everyone loves convenience stores in Japan, unless you have to live right next to one with its pulsing fluorescent glow 24/7. In addition to doing about a million other things (even doing your laundry), they’re great for getting caffeine-infused drinks with occasional fun free stuff called omake. Here are a few we’ve found recently.

Japan loves both RTD coffee and super-localized versions of things, so this coffee from Mitsumoto Coffee is nice in that it combines both. M.M.C is based in Yokohama, and has made its Yokohama Ko-hi Monogatari (Yokohama Coffee Story) bagged bean brand available in a can. This is basically like taking the famous Lion Coffee from Hawaii, putting it in a can, and then selling it in Honolulu. Perhaps a turn-off for coffee lovers elsewhere, but it works in Japan.

Come to think of it…why can’t we get Lion Coffee in a can here? That stuff is great.

These Mario Cart racers came with a special version of Boss Coffee, and didn’t last long. In fact, I only saw them at once convenience store, and then they were all snatched up!

We wrote about Namacha Panda Sensei before, but convenience store shoppers were recently able to get their own stuffed panda in the PET bottle just as in the original promotion, but it wasn’t free ($8, including two bottles of tea). Needless to say, this limited edition set sold out quickly.

Giveaways abound in convenience stores, especially with drinks and cigarettes. One month of smoking in Japan and you’ll never need to buy another lighter for the rest of your life.

Going through our nearly daily rounds at various Tokyo drugstores, we started seeing a sudden influx of displays and ads for Shiseido’s UNO brand’s new FOG BAR hair-styling spray, a new take on personal care for men that comes in three different strengths denoted by their color.

The package/container, which kind of reminds us of the minimalist cereal we talked about before, is simple, but relies heavily on marketing to make sure consumers actually know what it is. I assumed there would be something inside, but it’s actually a spray bottle with a removable top.

Right now the campaign is decidedly retro, featuring known actors (not a boy band, mind you) in energetic, Beatles-inspired commercials that take place in London. We’re assuming that this has to do with the fog, though Mad Men did away with that idea in my head.

On the digital front, the Shiseido website has meticulous instruction for how to use the Fog Bar and achieve certain looks. It also notes a companion item, sold separately, called the “Fog Tool”, which can be used to make the perfect style. This is a great product to sell on the side, but if given away as an added-value would also make a great consumption ritual to encourage continued use.

Marketing-wise, I’m a fan of the use of the word シュツ (shu) which is the sound of spraying the bottle. They repeat it often verbally and in print, and I’m already having trouble not thinking of the Fog Bar when I hear the word. Of course, I’m not the average consumer, but it fits well.

This season’s Tokyo Girls Collection took place last Saturday at Yoyogi Stadium in Harajuku, attracting around 23,100 followers of fashion. See our Spring 2009 and 2008 coverage to get catch up on the concept of the TGC.

Despite the Tokyo in the name, we discovered by chatting with the girls waiting to get in that many had come from regional areas around Japan. Nor is the word “girls” in the title entirely accurate either; now in its 9th season, the original TGC crowd is growing up, meaning with regulars and newbies together the age demographic is broadening to include kids and full-fledged adults. This year’s theme was “The Hunting,” a recession-friendly message that suggests zeroing in on the object of one’s desire (as opposed to unbridled consumerism or ceasing to shop altogether).

Girls who shop in Shinjuku (left); girls who came in from Osaka (right).

Over the years we’ve watched the TGC move from an event that showcases popular fashion brands to a platform for launching new brands in Japan—both Kitson and Nicky Hilton have given preview shows on the TGC runway. Now the event is becoming a brand in its own right. The most recent edition was as much about promoting new TGC collaboration items as it was about setting new fashion trends for the season. Said collaborations include branded stockings and beverages for Lawson convenience stores, a faux leather jacket for Uniqlo, and new cup noodle flavors for Knorr.

Tokyo Girls Collection collaboration items now on sale at Uniqlo.

When it comes to fashion the TGC has an obvious authority—being a trend-setting event about fashion—and it is now looking to parlay that authority into the ever-blurring industries of health, beauty, food, and beverage. With the Knorr noodle campaign, the TGC is playing up the concept of “bishoku” (beautiful food), which encourages girls to select healthier food and beverage options as a means to enhance inner, and thus outer, beauty. While cup-noodles might not be the healthiest staple food in the world, consumers can expect that the TGC-branded cup noodles will be at least less figure-damaging than other similar products on the market (ditto the coffee drinks). All TGC-branded goods are low calorie, stylishly packaged, and designed to suit the lifestyle of the modern urban girl (who needs coffee and a spare pair of tights to go, naturally).

Innovative cross-industry campaigns have overshadowed the TGC’s original claim to fame—that audience members can buy items off the runway with their mobile phones. Rest-assured there was still plenty of mobile fun to be had: this season featured a number of free samples, contests, and games to be experienced by swiping one’s phone on IC card readers at points around the venue. We particularly liked the promotion for the Tokyo Girls Parade, which we reported on earlier here. Event guests could pull up the site on their mobiles by scanning an IC card reader or a QR code and create their own dolled-up avatars.

Once uploaded, the fashion-forward doppelgangers could hit the runway in proper, larger-than-life TGC style on a large TV screen set up for the promotion.