Hasta La Gadget!

Earlier this year, Pioneer, known for its wide array of electronics ranging from car navigation systems to home theaters, opened a showcase plaza in a fascinating looking building located in the heart of Ginza, one of the more upscale, luxurious shopping districts in Japan. We took a trip to Ginza to find out the latest technology that Pioneer has to offer to the public. The shop’s tagline, “Wanna See The Future?” clearly demonstrates Pioneer’s aim at establishing the newest hi-tech product innovations aimed at enhancing consumers’ lifestyles. Rather than merely showcasing their newest technology, visitors are encouraged to fully experience and interact with the digital products on display.

The Pioneer Plaza is spread out over three floors, each dedicated to a specific theme. As we walked into the first floor, out of the vast lineup of home electronics, the first thing that immediately grasped our attention was the Sound Cocoon. With beautiful alternating color lighting and an extremely cozy sofa, this intimate egg-shaped sound enhancement space was designed to provide ultimate comfort and relaxation for its users. It uses Pioneer’s Acco built-in amp system that can play music from any portable audio device, as well as online radio. With three speakers placed in strategic locations inside the cocoon, the intention was for a “peaceful environment in which the music blended in with the air and embraced the user.”

Our eyes then led us to the Floating Vision, which is an AR hologram monitor that allows users to encounter a 3D experience with their naked eye. What was particularly cool about this product was that it used an infrared sensor that allowed users to interact with the various characters displayed on the screen, introducing a new type of user interface programming. The screen is surrounded by a sensor-embedded frame that extends out about 10cm. It’s possible to virtually touch and manipulate objects, draw pictures, and interact with characters inside the screen just by making the actions in the field of the sensors.

The Floating Vision was made for personal home entertainment allowing users to connect a computer to the unit through a USB cable which then turns the product into a second display, offering a variety of applications. With a downloadable software program called FV_Tool, users can easily create their own hologram display by using visual files of their choice. Going one step further from digital photo frames, the technology makes it possible to upload any personal photos which can then be displayed in holographic 3D and interacted with, such as poking the hologram would “frighten it” and cause it to duck.

Pioneer also integrated the use of Felica with this technology to provide visitors with information about the store and their newest products. Deviating from the existing Felica information providers that merely generate a sound when applied, this particular device offers users with a variety of 3D visuals, adding a little “extra touch.”

Although still in production and not yet for commercial use, the Cycling Computer, attachable to bicycles and other motor vehicles such as mopeds, uses its built-in GPS system to collaborate with Pioneer’s audio and navigation technology. Shaped like a smaller version of an iPhone, the Cycling Computer was not only intended for navigation purposes but for entertainment as well. With a unique sensor that calculates the speed and amount of revolution of the wheel, the user is notified of the distance that they have traveled, their heart rate, and how many calories have been burnt off. Music and animations are played accordingly to different speeds and cycling style. Pioneer is planning to release applications for this device as soon as it hits the market, which would enhance the users’ experience, such as a navigating app that displays the most scenic routes to their destination.

The rest of the 1st floor was decorated with a number of other products that demonstrated product innovations aimed at space conservation, such as an ultra thin speaker, and a new type of thin LED lighting device that further reduces the use of electricity and has features such as its ability to bend, making it easily adjustable to any sort of placement.

As we reached the second floor, we were greeted with a beautiful arrangement of earphones and headsets which visitors could plug into their own portable audio player and try on, each with a unique concept and feature.

The rest of the floor was dedicated to Pioneer’s Carrozzeria car navigation series, which fully utilizes AR as well as the idea of using smartphones as navigators. Its AR Scouter Mode uses a built in camera to display front and rear view images that provides drivers with route and road information onto the actual navigation screen. Landmarks like gasoline stations and convenient stores, distance between cars, directions, and other information are displayed in real time above the front view image, providing drivers with a much easily visible guidance. With the newest UI (user interface) technology it acts as an iPod and DVD player, television, and built-in bluetooth system. This touch-panel navigator has other cool features such as a voice command search system and an added “Eco Navigator” that takes displays a route in which the driver would use the least amount of gas, calculating the weight and size of the car.

With similar brand spaces such as Shiseido’s Total Beauty Facility, there seems to be a general move towards a more effective utilization of store space, deviating from the traditional shop-and-go stores seen throughout Japan. Brands are leaning towards a more interactive orientation by providing customers with product demonstrations and allowing them to fully experience their products and services themselves.

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The Best Surprise, a Japan based “proposal support” company, has come up with their own product aimed at twisting the arm of a reluctant boyfriend into marriage. The “Proposal Pressure Kit” inverts the traditional idea of men proposing to women and is taking a new turn as women in Japan are becoming impatient of simply waiting and decide to take the initiative themselves. Marriages are perhaps one of the most exciting moments in a person’s life, as well being the most difficult and time consuming, but for some men, it’s on the bottom of their priority list. We have recently talked about the emergence of “soushoku-kei danshi” (herbivore males), who are more passive in their approach to women, and with that, the term “nikushoku-kei jyoshi” (carnivorous females) was derived. These type of girls are more likely to be more active on their “konkatsu” (hunting for marriage) and are much more aggressive than their male counterparts.

The kit combines a clever range of marriage support goods including a temporary engagement ring, a marriage promise form, and a cute piggy bank that stores up to a hundred 500 yen coins (equivalent to US $5), symbolizing the patience that the girlfriend has gone through and the money being saved for their wedding. Aimed on making the reluctant boyfriend more aware of the idea of marriage and bringing the proposal to the front of his conscience, this set is delivered to his house and is disguised as a special gift that he has “won” through a random prize selection system.

There are obviously a number of flaws with this concept, such as what would happen when the boyfriend finds out that he’s just been slyly maneuvered by his girlfriend to propose to her, or that the engagement ring has already been bought by her. (I can imagine a horrible scenario where he seizes this opportunity and uses the ring to propose to a different woman) Nonetheless, this idea of women almost “forcing” their boyfriends to pop the question is quite fascinating and definitely a new concept in Japan, where tradition plays a huge role in the culture.

Given its fair amount of recognition and success, The Best Surprise has recently released a second product, the “Forced Engagement Kit,” intended for those who have reached their peak of patience and feel the need to “put a ring on it” as soon as they can. This second version includes all the features of the previous product, but adds an actual legal marriage registration form, signet stamp (the recognizable form of signing official documents in Japan), and even a count down clock, signifying that “this relationship is running out of time.”

These products illustrate the pressure to get married that Japanese women are experiencing in this age of gender equality. Typically females in Japan receive an increasing amount of pressure to get married and start a family as they approach their 30s. Although the tradition of men proposing is not necessarily broken, it is definitely being bent and creative ways of putting pressure on passive boyfriends are being thought up.

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The winning designs from the Japan Package Design Awards 2011 have been on display to the public in the upmarket Matsuya department store in Ginza. Ranging from minimal and clean, to retro and functional, the display showcased the best of Japan’s designers. Running since 1985 the contest judges around 1,000 entries for the competition, with the judges evaluating design based on core topics of; aesthetics, manufacturing, physical distribution and environmental impact.

Looking straight out of the 60s the retro, classic design of the yoghurt from Meiji above, won a Gold Award, aimed at appealing to children and evoking a wholesome Japanese family brand. Whilst we loved the simple beauty of the Japanese confectionary packaging below which picked up a Judges Favorite.

Packaging is an extension of the product in Japan and focus has always been as heavily placed on the design of what the item is contained in as the product itself. Often with numerous layers encasing small items it can come across as unnecessary when we look at them from today’s attitude’s towards waste. However the intricacies and beauty of the packaging greatly enhance the brand as they can be as visually pleasing as they are often practical in their design. From complicated folding patterns that open in a certain way reveling an encased sweet, to form that reflects the contents of the package itself, Japanese packaging has what designer Kenji Ekuan has termed “furoshikibility“. A Japanese design principle, this means, “inventing various modifications of a simple tool or technique in order to adapt it for as many different forms of usage as possible – complexity created by simplicity or ‘complex simpleness.’”

Another retro theme the chocolate packaging below was awarded a Bronze Award, and the “Soysh” sparkling soy drink, although not sounding particularly delicious in description, is a beautiful example of clean, smooth lines making an appealing product and was a Judge’s Favorite. The other product below from Gatsby is a hairwax and was awarded the Golden Award, with clear functionality and playful colors in a modern design.

The portable dispenser from Ajinomoto which was awarded the Gold Award is designed to be attached to a mobile phone or keychain and with the panda image really is a particularly Japanese designed product! Whilst Elecom’s headphones picked up a Silver Award with the packages playful colors.

In the drinks section there were more old school designs with this Ultraman designed soda can picking up the Bronze Award, and the classic bottle of cider awarded a Judges Favorite. The Silver Award to the colorful, yet subtle bottle of Sake with a very traditionally designed bag.

Shiseido picked up a SIlver Award with an intricately designed rose motif compact mirror in a wooden case, reflecting the brand’s more luxurious side. The bars of soap from Pola, designed around a modern, traditional Japan with warm colors and origami like folds along the packaging, were awarded a Golden Award.

The Grand Prix prize however was awarded to “Zenkashoin”, a pastry store in Kyoto shown below. A fantastic example of the “complex simplicity” the designs capture the essence of the brand and its traditional roots.

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

2011 First Quarter Results for SNS Ad Sales

The numbers are in for the first quarter of 2011 and, although there were some effects from the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, sales and profits were up for the main social media players compared with the previous period. Mixi alone experienced a slight drop, perhaps suggesting that local users prefer games on GREE (who had a jump of 14%) and Mobage in these evolving times.

ARPU for SNS like mixi and Ameba is stronger due to their solid PC base. However, unlike gaming portals like Mobage and GREE the amount they can get from membership charges is very low (or zero), and INterRIDE speculates that as Ameba particularly develops its own games it will be able to turn these into cash.

All 4 major SNS (mixi, Mobage, GREE and Ameba) are seeing a decline in their feature phones membership and, predictably, an increase in smartphone users. This does not surprise given that some estimates show that smartphones make up 47% of all units currently shipped in the country.

Future Prospects for Japanese SNS

Of all the main players, mixi is distinct in that it is essentially only aiming for a domestic member base, and that on paper it’s most obvious competition is not even GREE, Mobage and Ameba — but Facebook. It currently has a strong female and student user base but INterRIDE believes that forthcoming services will focus more on businesses.

GREE’s success has overtaken Mobage and part of the reason may be down to its quicker response to smartphone opportunities. It now offers full data portability and, by partnering with OpenFeint overseas and its 75 million users, it is also aiming to be the world’s largest smartphone platform.

DeNA’s Mobage has invested in lots of TV advertising and its own games to generate revenue, as well as working with subsidiary ngmoco to push itself overseas. Meanwhile CyberAgent’s Ameba should start to concentrate on its iPhone platform GameWave as a way to catch up with the other gaming sites.

Mobile Suica for Android

JR East announced on May 23rd that train smartcard service Suica would become available on Android phones from July for models from all three carriers, NTT DoCoMo, au KDDI and Softbank.

The Suica of course is the transport-focused e-money service that can be used as a physical IC card to charge up and pass through ticket barriers in stations, as well as make payments at vending machines and normal stores (especially kiosks and convenience stores inside the stations).

We’ve talked about this so much over the years but it really is true: Japan led the world with integrating Suica (and other e-money) into mobile devices, with osaifu keitai (literally “wallet phone”) services meaning you could scan your cellphone on the barriers or reader at the shop counter.

With some 24 million users across Japan already using Mobile Suica, this not unexpected development means that even those with swanky new phones will still have access to this lifestyle tool so integral to local commuters.

Smartphones are for Girls

CyberAgent subsidiary CyberCasting & Pr have launched a smartphone app review site for girls. Girls Appli Navi makes use of 150 dokusha models (literally “reader models”: ordinary girls moonlighting as models) who give assessments on iPhone and Android. The models represent major fashion magazines like CanCam, AneCan and ViVi.

As the smartphone market expands in Japan it also morphs more and more with local fashion trends, and the key drivers are of course female consumers. Already we saw a “mook” magazine guide released this spring, WE Love SmartPhone, clearly intended for uber-kawaii fans, complete with a free Hello Kitty iPhone4 cover and produced by the fashion magazine S Cawaii!

Androidoll went online a month before Girls Appli Navi and seems more ambitious (despite only being for Android). It too offers reviews of apps and rankings based on the views of female models, but you can also create your own origin apps (photo albums, clock gadgets etc). These sites will no doubt prove valuable resources for market researchers like us when playing detective re. female mobile needs!

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This is the latest in the series of blogs based on the newsletters supplied by our research partner INterRIDE Inc.

Post-Earthquake SNS Trends

In an online survey of 1,891 social media users 1.9% answered that they started using Twitter due to the March 11th earthquake. Combined with those who already were using the service the total rises to 42.1%, almost double that of Facebook and not far from mixi’s 50.8%.

The same survey also asked users which SNS they found helpful following the catastrophe, and 63.9% said Twitter, against Facebook’s 34.7% and mixi’s low 26%. As Asiajin blogger Akky Akimoto wrote in a recent Japan Times column:

As mobile phone networks went down after the quake, people turned elsewhere to contact each other, and Japanese TV and newspapers suggested that social media, which by then basically meant Twitter, was a good alternative when disaster cut off other communication channels.

Figures show that the number of tweets on March 11th was 1.8 times higher than usual, and continued to be 20% higher than average in the weeks following the disaster.

Of course most people still got their information immediately after the quake from TV, not least because internet was not available at many places such as refugee shelters. However, the survey also revealed that television is still the most trusted medium overall and SNS and blogs are the least, even though their usage is very high among people in their teens and twenties.

These results are not surprising but it’s good to have some confirmation of how users were searching for information in the wake of the disaster. Though much in the media has been made of the population’s stoicism, attitudes will be affected, not only as regards social media but also in terms of general consumer behavior, as we researched in our new in-depth video report on “Japan’s new normal”.

Japan carriers unlock SIMs

It got sidelined understandably following the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, but a minor mobile revolution occurred when on the same day NTT DoCoMo officially announced it would allow SIM unlocking on its new phones, for a small fee.

For the first time in Japan we see the possibility of a separation between the phone and the payment plan. Despite leading in so much of its mobile technology Japan has arguably lagged in its services (or at least, their flexibility) compared to the rest of the world. It wasn’t just the carriers’ fault since the manufacturers were also reluctant to take the leap, worrying about the additional customer service costs it would incur.

Of course we still seem to be some time away from Softbank unlocking their iPhones and iPads, though ironically government pressure on the carriers to deactivate SIM locking was likely motivated by the arrival of the iPhone. In 2008 overall mobile phone unit shipments dropped by 18.7%; clearly something had to be done to stimulate growth again. The introduction of a wave of foreign and domestically manufactured smartphones is one step but this new development will likely be positive for sales too.

INterRIDE speculates that the influence on mobile marketing and advertising could be big, but at first we will have to see what kinds of users opt to unlock their phones and go free.

BitCash and mobage

In an interesting example of a tie-up between an e-money tool and online platform, gaming portal mobage was offering users the chance to exchange their BitCash for the site’s own points. BitCash is a “web money” that if purchased at Seven Eleven, could then be changed into “moba-coin”, mobage’s internal points, and 10,000 further users received 200 coins by lottery.

Quite a lot of this point-exchange goes on in Japan and it’s a great example of how services work together to offer loyalty deals to the widest possible number of consumers. Portals like G-Point or ChobiRichi allow people with points from Yahoo! or Rakuten to switch them to others either more specific (ANA miles) or general (T-Point, Edy, Suica etc.).

BitCash is used for online gaming, betting on the horses (one of the few cases of legal gambling in Japan), paying for digital music, or e-commerce.

KDDI opens book store

The shop in question is of course a digital one and ties into KDDI’s other entertainment services. Lismo Book Store is hoping to rival foreign e-book and digital publishing providers, and is specifically for KDDI au’s Android smartphone (much like the Lismo music services are for au users).

KDDI first started offering e-book services last December for its bible Leaf SP02 model but in April expanded it for the Android IS03, also adding SNS-style functionality such as user reviews. In the kind of analog touch that I personally love your downloaded texts are displayed on a “bookshelf” interface. Currently Lismo Book Store has around 30,000 titles for users, to increase to around 100,000 through 2011.

Japanese publishing is famously highly diverse. Whenever local bestseller rankings are compared with America or Europe, the proportion of fiction is quite a bit lower, with a much broader range of hits, including manga, self-help books, idol photo books and so on. It will be interesting to see if the digital book stores mimic this trend and if it affects the established keitai shosetsu (mobile phone novel) phenomenon, which accounted for around half of bestsellers at its peak in 2007.

Green-Fingerer Tweets

Finally, we all know that local users love anything cute.

Hakuhodo has got together with researchers from Keio University’s media design faculty to create fulife, a Twitter iPhone app that lets you grow flowers with your tweets. When you write messages you can plant seeds and rain then falls, making your garden come to life. This “flower communication” tool also allows you to pick your sproutings and send them as presents to your Twitter chums.

Twitter has seen success in Japan (even not taking into account its role in post-3.11 communication) but Hakuhodo is worried about its longevity, it seems, so this app is part of the Sustainble User Generated Media Project: How can we ensure that people continue using the platforms and contribute, especially in the Japanese market where typically users are highly reluctant to get personal?

Presumably making a cute environment that gets cuter the more you tweet is one solution. Revealing the target is supposed to be anyone from ages 5 and up to adult — quite a range!

You can do a quick search for who is using this app by looking at the Twitter tag #fulife.