Celebrities personalize your digital toys

It isn’t enough these days for your mobile phone or MP3 player to use the latest technology, they should also be designed by your favorite actor or pop singer. Or at least one of the ones who have signed on to design products marketed to the growing number of consumers who are looking to express their personality through their digital toys.

Sony has released an MP3 player in collaboration with J-Pop icons Puffy Amiyumi. Both of the two designs have a retro pop look that also happens to be very fashionable among teens and young women this season.

Softbank, Japan’s fastest growing mobile phone service provider, has announced that pop star Koda Kumi is the latest celebrity to lend her name and questionable design talent to a series of handsets as part of the Fan Fun series.

The bright pink phone comes in three designs “strawberry,” “cherry,” and “candy&pumps” and is obviously targeted at the lucrative cute-obsessed teen and tween market that make up Koda’s fan base. The celebrity-designer element extends to the menus, wallpaper, call and mail indicators, and phone pouch.

Other celebrity collaborations in the 29 design strong series include Bae Yong Joon, the Korean heartthrob popular with middle-aged women, and Riyoko Ikeda, creator of the popular 1970s manga series La Rose de Versailles featuring the cross-dressing heroine Lady Oscar. Both of these examples show that those consumer wishing to express their fandom are not limited to impressionable teens.

Not only do these designer phones allow a degree of personalization, they virtually ensure that customers will need to replace their handsets often.

After all, how much longer can it be cool to carry around the DJ Ozma phone?

Tags: celebrity, design, Mobile

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

Uniqlo continues into digital territory

Surely no stranger to digital integration with shopping and branding, casual fashion (and T-Shirt innovator) Uniqlo is now working directly with web and mobile companies to further brand themselves as modern and hip.

Right now Uniqlo is offering special Google-branded goods to selected users who install the Uniqlo button for the Google Toolbar. Products range from keitai straps to special Google bags.

Japanese brand Cecile may have launched their way into Second Life, but Uniqlo has taken a practical approach to dressing up avatars in an SNS that people actually use! The mobile game-centered virtual community Mobage Town developed by DeNA has been an enormous success in Japan, and now users can dress their avatars in Uniqlo fashions with specialized backdrops. The campaign started on March 4th and continues until April 6th.

To celebrate the 50th anniversaries of the decidedly analog Shonen Sunday and Shonen Magazine mangas, Uniqlo is releasing classic character t-shirts on a gradual basis. As usual, the web interaction is engaging, and the interface quite similar to the touchscreen displays they utilize in the Harajuku UT store.

Of course, one of the best showcases of Uniqlo’s enthusiasm for the web is the “blog part” and masterful viral campaign piece Uniqlock (below).

Tags: Google, Mobage Town, Mobile, Uniqlo, Web 2.0

QR code graves give a “Memorial Window”

With all of the QR codes in Japan it takes a good concept to really make us notice it these days.

Memorial stone maker Ishinokoe (Voice of the Stone) of Yamanashi Prefecture will soon begin producing grave stones with QR codes embedded in them. They are calling the concept Kuyou no Mado, roughly meaning “Memorial Service Window”, as visitors can scan the code with their mobiles and get information on the deceased.

Contents can include pictures, video, family information, and other items. While using a QR code for this may actually seem a bit outdated in a country of burgeoning RFID technology, they are simple and will likely be readable by generations of future devices. The sample QR code below is readable if you have a capable phone, but you can also check it out with this link.

Via J-Cast

Tags: Mobile, QR code