Eco movement a hit with marketers, comedians alike

The latest product to employ the “My —“ prefix (think “my chopsticks” and “my mug”) is the “my soy sauce set” from the Okayama-based Katumaru food products company.

This set of five 100ml bottles of individual sized soy sauce portions includes one of each five flavors (traditional, yuzu, rice, “purple,” and wine) and sells for ¥1,050. Though we’re not sure if this is specifically part of the “my hashi” eco movement or targeting gourmands who prefer high-end flavored soy sauces to the typical plastic-bottled stuff that comes with take away food.

With “My” showing up on everything these days, the so-named eco movement seems to be going the way of the politically correct movement in 1990s America. Unfortunately, because “my chopsticks” was a pretty good idea.

Like the then politically correct suffix “challenged,” which was added to all sorts of invented shortcomings by American comedians (think “vertically challenged” for short people) “my” has been showing up in a number of gags recently. For example someone who sings off-key at karaoke can be said to be using “my melody.”

Can the eco-boom withstand the comic hit?
Note: We are not even mentioning the solar panel bra.

Tags: Comedy, ecology, food

Weekly Blog Parts: Sekisui BlogHeim

Japanese pre-fab house builder Sekisui has created a nifty little blog part that allows you to create your own little Sims-like homestead for your blog. Of course your house is chosen from Sekisui’s digitalized collection of modern homes, and you can pick your own family, the weather, and a special message. There’s also a photo album feature that we uploaded a few to.

The marketing aspect is that you get to test out the house, kick the tires as it were, against the elements by the click of a button. Earthquakes and fires might destroy the neighboring homes, but not the Domani LX!

Build your own Sekisui digital pad here (Japanese only). However, there’s a burglar around as well, so don’t say you weren’t warned.

Tags: Blog Parts, Pre-Fab

Weekly Blog Parts: Cup Noodle Timer

Nissin, maker of the classic Cup Noodle instant ramen that has helped keep students in beer money for a few decades, has now begun a campaign to modernize in an ECO-friendly way. Gone are the old polystyrene cups, and in are the paper cups that have been dominating the low-calorie instant ramen market as of late.

Nissin has already been producing it’s Eco Cup refills for some time now, but this doesn’t seem to have caught on well with consumers who prefer a cup with their Cup Noodles.

Above is an embeddable “blog part” widget that can be your private cup noodle timer.

Pour. Click. Eat.

Tags: Blog Parts, FMCG, food

Tokyo Smart Driver encourages safe and relaxing road life

A new campaign from highway company Shutoko has debuted to promote safer driving and lowered co2 emissions in the Tokyo area. Having kicked off for Spring on April 26th, Tokyo Smart Driver (TSD) is working with multiple partners and using its logo to brand products and services that are geared towards a safer driving lifestyle.

@Aroma may be an aroma company geared towards home lifestyle, but their new TSD Aroma is supposed to help you relax in your car life as well. The tiny car accessory plugs into your cigarette lighter and allows drivers to put in essential oils to create a safer atmosphere on the road.

While not exactly the most eco-friendly car on the market (or even close for that matter), Nissan’s GT-R is also being used because of its focus on driver safety features. The 2007 Design Tide event in Tokyo added its own automotive touch as well, though in a slightly more compact manner.

Much like the Good Design Award that is given out to unique products that fit the bill, the Tokyo Smart Driver logo has the potential to become an industry standard for safe driving products and services.

Japanese consumers like to know that something is “approved for use”, whether by official decree or by consumer rankings, and a distinct qualifying logo can play a large role in promoting a product that might now otherwise get much much attention. TSD has even been promoted in artistic “design” forums as well, and came out with a CD last December with relaxing music for driving, including a “Smart Driver Theme” from Ken Ishii and Sony Records.

Other partners in the TSD project are the
Ikyu hotel room rental site, J-Wave radio, and the UOMO magazine (for men in their 30’s-40’s).

More information on the TSD project is available in Shutoko’s Smart Shinbun website.
Related Post: Inside the Tokyo Traffic Control Center.

Tags: Automotive

Camel Crush cigarettes tested in Japan?

When we first blogged about the new Kool Boost cigarettes featuring an internal “powerball” infused with menthol. Smokers can add more menthol by squeezing the filter to break the capsule, thus releasing the mentholated goodness.

Now it seems that RJ Reynolds is slowly releasing a stateside version of their Camel brand with the same capsule inside the filter. The Camel Crush are currently being tested in select markets back in the U.S.

It would be interesting to know the degree as to which this innovation was tested in Japan. The U.S. Patent application explains its origins, but Japan may just be (for better or for worse) the ideal testing ground for FMCG such as tobacco.

Back in the U.S., people will actually ask someone for a cigarette and then decline it when it’s the wrong brand, but Japanese are far more willing to switch brands for any number of reasons: Cool packaging, freebies, product modifications, limited editions, etc. Sure, the older generation of salarymen stick to their Mild Sevens, but young people treat cigarettes like they do any other FMCG. After all, who wants to drink the same brand of coffee their whole lives?

This attitude makes Japan a great testing ground for many products, but also a deceiving one. If smokers abroad aren’t open to switching brands for any type of FMCG, it’ll take more than a menthol ball to win them over.

Tags: Innovations, Marketing, Tobacco

Eco-friendly inventions for household appliances

The current mania for all things eco is producing a fair number of impressive innovations in addition to the expected gimmicks. An example of the former is “Eco Tokukun” from Kankyo Souken, a product to make your household fish grill more environmentally friendly.

These small stones, made from recycled paper sludge and silica, aluminum oxide, and calcium oxide and designed to lie in the bottom of the gas grill, promise to cut carbon emissions from the cooking process by 25%. They also increase thermal efficiency, cutting cooking time by 25% and thus your gas usage (and bill). Considering that the fish grill is a kitchen appliance common to pretty much all Japanese homes, and used on a regular basis, these are pretty significant numbers.

As if all that weren’t enough, Eco Tokukun (only ¥450 a pack) also absorbs the odor and juices from the cooking fish, which eliminates waste and the need for unpleasant cleaning, and can be used up to 30 times before needing replacement.

Meanwhile another eco-gadget, the Eco Watt (¥3,150), from Enegate, aims to educate people about their own energy consumption. While similarly named products have flitted in and out of the market for a few years now, the current eco boom has brought the Eco Watt back into the spotlight in a new sleek modern form.

Plug any of your household appliances into the Eco Watt, which then itself gets plugged into the wall outlet, and the digital screen displays the amount of electricity being used, the estimated cost of said electricity, the estimated amount of carbon emissions the power use is causing, and amount of time the power has been running.

Tags: Eco, food, gadgets

Weekly Blog Parts: Girls Girls Girls

This week’s Blog Parts are all about the ladies. Don’t worry…..they’re work safe unless you’re a truck driver. In that case, quit messing around and watch the road!

Starting from the left, Cyberclone is a widget to display your favorite idol in your sidebar and interact with her in a limited way. Most importantly, the widget gives you a link to her blog as you can do with the ever-popular Hoshino Aki below.

From ECareer, a subsidiary of Softbank Human Capital, 100 Cheer Girl is a really nice interactive flash site that features 100 girls doing random, non-sexual things on video and then advertising the ECareer job service. You can add your favorite girls into a list, check out the top girls, or get the blog parts (below) that features the girls saying ganbare (you can do it!) in more ways than I ever imagined possible. Interestingly, it’s quite difficult to tell who the site is targeted at. Men who want to see pretty girls, or women who want to see cute girls? The answer, I’m afraid, is both, and this works in Japan.

Finally, on the far right, is a little dome of flowers for the most important girl of them all: Your mom. Click the link and be taken to buy gifts for Mother’s Day.

Tags: Blog Parts, Idols

Japan’s best sellers (so far) for 2008

With 2008 already a quarter over (gasp!) the Nikkei Marketing Journal gives us a round-up of a few of the hit products so far this year. First up is the “Shower Clean Suits” from men’s apparel company Konaka. This wool suit is designed to be cleaned with just a hosing from the shower head, no detergent or ironing needed. The fabric is made from a special fiber with minute holes designed for quick evaporation, allowing it too dry quickly in a shaded corner of your room.

Not only is this suit incredibly convenient, but also cost effective, saving on pricey dry cleaning fees (which, due to the rising cost of oil, have increased 5-10% recently). Since the suit debuted in February, sales have doubled expectations and would-be Shower Clean Suit owners have been waiting listed.

Next on the list are food staples, of the non-prepackaged variety like meat and vegetables (or more specifically pork and cabbage). Following a health scare earlier this year, when a shipment of pre-packaged gyoza from China was discovered to contain unhealthy amount of pesticides, the idea of eating organic and home made food has jumped from the pages of earth mama magazines into the mass media and is making, at least for now, a real impact in what consumers are buying at major grocery chains around the country.

Compared to this time last year, the purchasing of (relatively) natural foodstuffs is up 3.7%.

We were hardly surprised by the next product, sugar-free beer, since hardly a conversation goes by without someone dropping the word “metabo,” the trendy contraction for metabolic syndrome that has become a catch-all phrase for anyone who could use a little trimming around the waste.

Kirin Zero, which was released this February sold one million cases in just 20 days, a number equivalent to a quarter of the projected sales for the whole year. Likewise Suntory Zero Nama has sold 700,000 cases in the first month since its March debut, exceeding expectations by 20%.

Rounding out the list is the NTT Docomo P905i model mobile phone, which has the capacity to stream a “One Seg” digital television signal to the handset’s three-inch screen.

From Panasonic Mobile Communications, the mobile phone wing of the company behind the popular Vieja TVs, the P905i has been Docomo’s best-selling phone for four months in a row.

Any predictions for the next three months?

Tags: beverage, Fashion, food, health, Mobile

Docomodake helps you embarass yourself on vacation

NTT DoCoMo, in a bid to get foreign visitors to Japan to use them for roaming service (a great idea with all of the tourists here now) has produced a commercial with the lovable Docomodake character that now represents the brand.

In this “Welcome to Japan” animation, Docomodake explains some helpful Japanese rules and customs so you can get by.

We won’t bother to go into what’s funny about it (besides a female mushroom hanging out naked with the guys), but any new visitor to Japan should combine Docomodake’s advice with that of the Rhamen’s (below) for maximum effect and (ahem!) cultural immersion.

Be sure to take notes, practice on the plane, and then let us know where you’ll be testing it out so we can come by and tape it.

Tags: Commercials, Docomodake, NTT Docomo

PASMO RFID Points and Coupons

Since the end of 2007, Tokyu Corporation affiliated shops have been using the PASMO RFID payment card as a substitute for the ubiquitous point card programs. Because just about every shop and restaurant has such a program, Japanese consumers are left with an array of point cards in their wallets that never seem to get filled completely.

PASMO allows Tokyu shops to put it all onto one card, allowing members to get rid of their previous magnetic-strip card from Tokyu and integrate it with a card that is becoming more purposeful every day. Keio has a similar integration program as well.

Tokyu’s shop RanKing RanQueen, well-known to Shibuya Station commuters, even has some nice digital signage out front that lets users receive coupons simply by placing their Pasmo cards to the transmitter.

However, we wonder if centralizing points from different sources onto one card is actually a good thing for either businesses or consumers. As it is now, people are carrying point cards and coupons that also serve as reminders to go to the shops in the first place. Even with special branding, such as listing affiliated shops on the card, the effect of contactless RFID means that it’s often unnecessary to even remove the card from a wallet or case to begin with.

PASMO official page here

Tags: Coupons, PASMO, Point Cards, Retail, RFID