Recently in Trends Category

Kirin Beverage has scored big time with yet another sales record breaking marketing campaign combining three Japanese passions: The every day: Green tea, the cute: A panda bear, and the mechanical: Vending machines.

Green tea is to the Japanese what carbonated drinks are to the Americans, only with a long history dating back hundreds of years. It is also no secret that cute things sell like hot cakes in Japan, Hello Kitty probably being the most recognised cute character coming out of these parts. And there are just as many vending machines in Japan as there are people if not more. Just about anything can be sold in machines here: From snacks and drinks to eggs, rice and even socks, underwear and adult literature. Yes, you heard right.

To promote yet another green tea brand (most beverage makers here have a full line up of them), Kirin beverage designed a Panda bear that comes in a recyclable plastic bottle. Yes, the stuffed cutie is stuffed in a see-through bottle, the same container in which the beverage is sold. The ultimate objective is for consumers to buy tea, of course, not the doll itself, so the doll has been made purposely unavailable to further fuel the Namacha Panda Sensei (Green Tea Panda Master) frenzy.

At the launching event in the young shopper's district of Shibuya in March, hundreds of people lined up to get a free sample. There was more interest in the bottle stuffed Panda (or Panda stuffed in bottle) than the tea itself. The "doll in a bottle" is available at selected vending machines from one end of the archipelago to the other, but, wait a minute, the company will not disclose the locations! This has sent hordes of collectors scrambling to find the little thing.

Why the name Namacha Panda Sensei (master)? Well, along with the equally cute flesh and bone TV personality that also endorses the tea, the Panda educates the public about the benefits of drinking green tea on a daily basis. At a time when more and more young Japanese are getting hooked on sugary carbonated drinks (mostly promoted via cool advertising campaigns), beverage manufacturers are making efforts to emphasize the pluses of the millenary drink: No calories, loads of vitamin C, no sugar, cheaper to produce and simply healthier and good for the body.

Will you become as cute as a green panda if you drink tea daily? Why not just chew on tea leaves? Why would someone put a doll in a bottle? If the doll is in a bottle, how can you play with it? Do you just stare at it? I asked my 11-year-old daughter the same questions and she just replied: "Who cares? The doll is sooooo cute!!"

There you have it. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBCoUdJoJu8

Image courtesy of: ajGAZMEN GucciBeaR

Do you tweet? Like MyFace, Spacebook and LinkedIn before it, Twitter is the new 'micro-blogging', social-networking phenomenon that has taken on a life of its own over the past few months.

Millions of people worldwide are literally falling over themselves to tell anyone who cares (people rather poignantly called 'followers') what they are having for dinner, why they prefer Coke over Pepsi and all about their overseas trips planned for 2022, all within 140 characters. What is perhaps more surprising is that there appears to be many people out there who are interested in the fact that you're having Crème Brulée for dessert.

Not me though.

But enough about me (you can read all about ME on my Twitter feed). The reality is that, from Oprah Winfrey and that other 'celebrity' Ashton Kutcher, to mainstream media outlets, Twitter is attracting a wide and diverse audience and is 'so hot right now'.

But will it last? An interesting study has just been released by Nielsen Online suggesting that, contrary to all the hype surrounding Twitter, the service's retention rates are not as high as one might think and that perhaps peoples' lives just aren't that interesting to warrant regular, on-the-hour, often trivial updates. The Nielsen Online study suggests that more than 60 per cent of US Twitter users fail to return month-on-month and that Twitter's retention rate is approximately 40 per cent, compared to retention rates of 50-60 per cent for Facebook and MySpace when they were in their early stages of growth.

I once had a Myspace page, and it was fun ... for a little while. Then I grew tired of people spamming me with invites to parties on the other side of the world and strangers extending their hand of 'friendship' only for me to be a mere number to whom they could send their junk. Before I knew it, months had passed since I had logged in. Now I can't even remember my password.

All social networking services need to evolve in order to hold their users' attention. The trouble is that Twitter can't, in its present form, really evolve much more without becoming something completely different and thus losing the appeal that attracted so many people to it in the first place. Remember the uproar when Facebook redesigned its user interface a few months ago? Feedback was so scathing that the powers that be were forced to release several statements, including this one:

'The new Facebook home page is one step in the continued evolution of the site, designed to give people more ways to share and filter all types of content, such as status updates, photos, videos, notes and more. We are grateful to have 175 million people worldwide using Facebook to connect with the people and things they care about most, and we take their feedback very seriously.'

Facebook didn't take its users' feedback so seriously, however, to backdown completely and revert to its original layout. The whole debacle did demonstrate that Facebook, in contrast to Twitter, has more nous to hold its users, regardless of what changes it makes to its Terms Of Service (which previously included questions over who actually owns your content once it is uploaded to Facebook, just one of many reasons why I don't have a Facebook profile). Then again, it might be a little unfair to compare a glorified online short message service (SMS) like Twitter to Facebook, which allows your friends, colleagues and peers to see just how many pints you downed at the local on the weekend, and the rather unfortunate events that followed.

Time will tell whether Twitter can hold its new bevy of devotees but any uncertainty doesn't appear to have dampened Apple's spirits, who have reportedly entered into talks to purchase Twitter for a rumoured US$700 million; not a bad price to learn what people like to have on their sandwiches.

What do you think? Are you a fan or foe of Twitter? And what might be the next big thing in social time-wasting? Leave a comment below; 140 characters only please!

Image courtesy of: dayglowill

According to Wikipedia Casual Friday is an American and Canadian custom which has spread to other parts of the world, where some offices celebrate a "semi-reprieve" from the constrictions of a formal dress code. Whereas, during the rest of the week, business shirts, suits, ties, trousers, and dress shoes are the norm, on Casual Friday workers are allowed to wear more casual dress.

But what about those companies where suits and ties are not the expected business attire from Monday to Thursday? Should four days of business casual then be topped off by a dress down Friday? For some this could mean coming in to work in a tracksuit or pyjamas! Believe me coming into work on a Friday there's some very strange choices of attire on show.

Personally (and bring on the controversy!) I am of the opinion that if you are casually dressed, then your approach and motivation to work is dramatically reduced and, worse still, for those meeting with clients or suppliers, you come across as less professional if you are too casually dressed. If you are "dressed down" for 20% of the week (one day out of five), then does this mean you are really only productive for 80% of the week? That's how I think about it anyway!

If you are off to the movies ... dress accordingly. If you are going out clubbing ... dress accordingly. If you are off to chop wood ... dress accordingly. Any in my opinion (for what it's worth), if you are off work ... dress accordingly.

Image courtesy of: slworking2

Do you listen to music during work hours? For many workplaces, having the radio on in the background is just another subtle way of fostering a relaxed yet focused atmosphere during the daily grind. For other workplaces though, the only sound that should emanate from your desk is the sound of toil; it should be all blood, sweat, and the occasional tear for good measure.

Whether it's the torturous sound of commercial radio playing its A list for the fifth time that day, or the comfort and unpredictability of a random playlist on your I-Pod, music in the workplace can both unite and divide. It can bond employees together through shared tastes ... "Greta, I had no idea you loved Wham! Let's do lunch and swap stories of our groupie days!" ... or can divide equally ... "Frank you gronk, Wagner's Overture in C major is far superior than his Symphony in C major. I thought everyone knew that!"

What is interesting is the number of songs written with particular days of the week in mind. It's perhaps not surprising that Mondays and, to a lesser extent, Sundays, get a really, really bad wrap.

Whether it's the Boomtown Rats' 'I Don't Like Mondays', The Bangles 'Manic Monday', Fats Domino's 'Blue Monday', the Carpenters' 'Rainy Days And Mondays' or Dolly Parton's seminal 'Nine to Five', it seems we're easily talked into the Monday blues and commercial radio stations seem to take some sadistic pleasure in subjecting us to the above songs on Monday mornings.

To be fair though, Fridays are a different story and many stations who take this perverse delight in reminding us it's Monday do in turn like to remind us when the weekend is upon us, on the off chance it slips our minds. So The Cure's 'Friday, I'm in Love', the Easybeats' 'Friday On My Mind' and Loverboy's 'Friday Night' are all essential fodder for Fridays.

What about mid-week though? Sunday/Monday and Friday/Saturday - the respective agony and ecstasy of the week - get regular lyrical love, but Tuesday to Thursday don't get much of a look in. So where am I going with this? I'm not quite sure myself, but I guess you can learn a lot from people's musical tastes and it's always a good conversation starter. As they say, music is the 'universal language'.

Whether it's rock'n'roll, country and western, banging Chicago house, smooth jazz, top 40, dubstep, dancehall or R&B, we all have our favourites we're happy to admit to, and some we'd rather keep to ourselves (I've always been a big fan of Chris De Burgh's 'Lady In Red', for example; no judgement please).

What music do you listen to at work, and what gets you in the spirit for the daily slog? Do you sit next to Sheena Easton's beau on the morning train on a weepy Wednesday, or do you jump out of bed each morning to the sounds of a good old-fashioned power ballad (Poison's 'Every Rose Has it's Thorn' perhaps?), swinging a lighter in the air as you board your bus?

On second thoughts, shouldn't we all be working right now instead of fluffing about on blogs? In the words of Roy Orbison, 'We got a lot of lot of lot of lot of work to do'!

Image courtesy of: cokeeorg

What would Asia be without them? A quick bowl of "ramen," as they are called here in Japan, can bring you back to life on chilly winter nights or make you sweat like a hog in the summer. The busy Japanese businessman or university student can pick up the instant type for a few yen at the corner convenience store, make them and wolf them down in a matter of minutes.

Such is the love for ramen in Japan, that, ramen lovers, young and old, sometimes line up outside restaurants and even whip out their own fantasy noodle recipes! Well, lo and behold, the digital world has caught up to the world of cooking. The smart folks at Yahoo! Japan noticed "fantasy ramen" soup and garnish recipes floating around in blogs, as well as actual blogs and entire websites dedicated to noodle appreciation, tasting, making and just about anything about them. There is even a ramen museum here in Tokyo.

Those smart marketing guys then asked bloggers to come up with a winning noodle soup concoction and believe me, they received thousands. What to do next? Well, why not talk to Acecook, an instant noodle soup manufacturer, and get their product managers to develop a Yahoo! branded consumer originated line of products? They not only came up with one recipe, but many consumer originated variations including non-traditional ingredients like bacon and eggs.

The idea has been so successful that social networks like Mixi, the Japanese version of Facebook with more than 15 million members, have partnered with yoghurt manufacturer Calpis to get their members to contribute recipes. The project started late last year and 4 Mixi Juice mix products have been released to date. The online community was involved in everything from the recipe, catch phrases, right through to the bottle design. What a great way to get consumers involved in product development and marketing. The instant food and drinks market in Japan is a jungle, yet these innovative efforts do put brands ahead of the competition.

If you'll excuse me, I'm getting the munchies, so let me go for my Yahoo! Noodles and a bottle of Mixi Juice Mix for lunch.

Image courtesy of: moriza

One thing I have noticed in the last few months during the economic downturn has been the dramatic increase in the number of businesses requesting for (existing or potential) suppliers to re-pitch or re-tender for their business. More often than not a tender process is simply an opportunity for any businesses to lock in cheaper rates, better pricing and other potential financial discounts associated with any procurement process.

I have been writing tenders and responses to expressions of interest and preferred supplier agreements for many years and what used to be an enjoyable task and an opportunity to really demonstrate one's ability to service the client has now become a chore where one downloads a 64 page document containing 17 different password embedded spreadsheets where the submitter is restricted to character counts, drop-down menus of yes or no answers, and naturally a detailed multi-tiered pricing compliance grid.

What I find quite amusing is that the 64 page mega submission is now often being referred to as an "audit" with successful bidders ["those meeting the stringent criteria outlined in the documents"] only then being invited to formally tender for the business!

A colleague of mine recently coined the term for this process as pre-tending ... which we then jokingly took a step further and referred to simply as pretending ... as the real work only comes later.

Before simply launching into a major submission (which can take days and days to complete), perhaps you should consider some of the following points.

• Is the business being tendered for part of your core business?
• What is the margin that you are willing to accept for the business? Is it really worth your while?
• What is the prospective client's view of your business? Do you have an existing working relationship with them?
• Do you understand the client's motivation? What do they want from a supplier? Are they doing this as a benchmarking exercise only?
• How many other competitors are involved?

Then rank your answers in terms of whether:

(a) The prospective client's business is not part of your core business;
(b) The prospective client's business is part of your core business; or
(c) The prospective client's business is an essential part of your core business.

Now decide whether it's worth all the effort ... oh ... and happy tender writing!

Image courtesy of: lotyloty

Imagine this ... you've just been to the movies and seen ... either the best spine tingling, edge-of-your-seat, popcorn spilling cinematic block bluster, or the worst and most painful sleep inducing insult to the silver screen ever!

As an avid tweeter the first thing you do is reach for your mobile phone and update your status on Twitter. Good or bad you want to let the world know!

For any bird brains in the dark, Twitter is, according to the ever trusty Wikipedia a free "social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them".

Comments range from the mundane to the downright topical and even controversial and everyone from the chap next door to Richard Branson is tweeting.

Directly or indirectly Twitter is increasingly being seen as an invaluable resource for Market Research, Marketing and PR professionals. With millions of consumers every day talking about what makes them happy and what makes them sad you can bet your bottom dollar someone somewhere is talking about the brand/product/service of interest. By listening in on these tweets, marketers are able to get real time market intelligence on what consumers are thinking and feeling.

Twitter has a search function that allows you to search by key words and phrases and there are an ever-increasing number of applications (Tweetdeck, Tweetbeep, and NearbyTweets) that are designed to help you managing the morning chorus of bird song coming from the Twitter community.

But Twitter isn't the only source of Consumer Generated Media (media consumers create and share amongst themselves) that those within Market Research, Marketing and PR are listening too. There are a whole host of other online venues including message boards, forums, ratings and review sites, group, social networking sites like face book and of course blogs. And with companies like Nielsen Online producing products like BuzzMetrics, which are designed to give their clients a competitive advantage by uncovering and integrating data driven insights culled from millions of these places you can be guaranteed that big industry is listening.

So if you want to get your consumer voice heard - go on, get out there and start tweeting!

Image courtesy of: obLiterated

I recently came across an interesting debate online around whether or not outsourcing can be a positive force for innovation.

The conversation went something like this:

"Offshoring takes jobs from country A and places them, as low wage jobs, in country B, causing unemployment in country A, which further hurts the economy in country A ..."

To which the response was:

"That answer lumps all types of outsourcing into the same bucket. More accurately, some types of low wage, low skill jobs are sent off shore leaving those people from Country A to find new work. However, the bulk of Outsourcing actually supplements unavailable skills in Country A, increasing shareholder value and promoting global trade. (note: these are good things when done right.)"

Your own answer will probably be shaped by where you sit and if and how outsourcing or offshoring has affected you ... if ever. Given we are seeing an increasing number of marketing and creative organisations reaching out to potential vendors to explore this very topic, I also would like to table this question:

Is outsourcing a positive or negative thing for your industry?

Image courtesy of: pete-pick

If the bad economy is dragging you down, pick yourself up by snacking! Anything from chocolates, bubble gum, candy, potato chips to sugared French bread (why would someone eat bread with sugar on it?) are selling like hot cakes at Japanese supermarkets, department stores and convenience stores. They are being consumed, shared and even given away at company pantries, meetings and outings. Believe me, I have been living here in Japan for 12 years and swear the Japanese do not have anything resembling a sweet tooth.

The Nikkei Weekly reports in this week's edition that, despite the sour sales figures in the apparel and accessories departments, consumers end up heading for the basements, where food and confectionary departments are usually located, to buy their favorites sweets! Couldn't quite justify that LVMH bag of your dreams? How about you compensate with a bunch of chocolate dipped cherries instead? What a treat!

It is reported that sales of sweets at Japanese convenience stores has increased for 24 months in a row!! Isetan Mitsukoshi, a high-end department store, reports a 4% increase in sweets sales from October to January while Lotte's Ghana liquor filled chocolate sales shot up 20% from a year ago.

Snacking on sweets has always been a girlie thing in Japan. However, manufacturers and retailers report that more and more young and middle aged Japanese men now buy them to eat at home (or when nobody's watching)! It is also reported that embarrassed male office staffers sometimes ask female colleagues to pick up a box of chocolate sticks and "something to share" with staff if they step out to the convenience store. Sharing snacks is also said to improve communication among peers!

Why now? With a recent hike in the price of cigarettes and high the cost of "real food", indulging in sweets has become the solution for a quick pick me up. Plus, with the economy sagging, nobody says 'no' to a juicy caramel on a gloomy office floor. Snack away I say!

Image courtesy of: sushina

As friend of mine recently pointed out that the oldest viral marketing meme was a "yawn". A yawn is an expression, transmitting itself, that is contagious in spreading and does so with great rapidity.

Marketers true to their profession immediately caught on to this "virus" ... and thus emerged "viral marketing". In the marketing world we therefore speak of ideas "going viral", infecting a host, or many hosts and then being transmitted to others. Viral marketing is a strategy by which a marketer creates a campaign focused around the goal of causing viewers of that promotion to spontaneously spread it by sending it to friends. Some examples of viral marketing include: chain letters, viral video campaigns (the popularity of YouTube is incredible), and on line opinion polls.

All the above examples of viral marketing are quite simple and relatively easy to understand. People not only participate in the above but also talk about it to others urging them, and influencing them to participate which is the success of viral marketing.
While the original marketer has sent forth the virus of the idea or the theme, the spreading really begins when unrelated people across the globe, start talking about it and using this theme for coffee conversations.

Image courtesy of: Tambako the Jaguar