No growth doesn’t mean no change

David Nichols reflects on Japanese women, earthquakes and ad agencies

This year I have been fortunate enough to spend quite some time in Tokyo on a series of brand strategy projects. Two and a half months to be exact. The Japanese economy is stuck in neutral with 0.7% average GDP growth since 1992 and has dropped negative for the past two years. Yet, it is still one of the biggest consumer-goods markets on the planet.

Clichés are clichés because they are based on truth – karaoke, whisky drinking and strong hierarchical structures are commonplace here. But there is a lot of change in the air and quite an appetite for it. Thinking of launching your brand in Japan? Don’t assume your marketing and positioning that works everywhere else in the world will work here – it probably won’t. You will have to have a local team who understand not just the local competition but the cultural context for your product. For once, it really is ‘different in my market’.

The role of women has undergone massive change over the past 20 years – and is still changing. In 1990, 90% of women would have been married by the time they were 30 years old, now it’s only 65%. Even more dramatically, for 20- to 24-year-olds, the figure has halved from 45% to 23%. Birth rates are also plummeting. In the same period, single and DINK households have gone from 15% of the national total to 26% (source: Japan National Institute of Population and Social Security Research). All this is leading to a powerful cohort of independent women in the workforce, unrestrained by husbands and children. Change will surely accelerate as these women inevitably take on senior management and CEO roles across all types of industry, currently male dominated.

The message for brands is clear – engage with women not just as housewives looking after the family but also as independent, successful people in their own right. One brand that has done this is Eve, a painkiller brand based on Ibuprofen (much like Nurofen). Its stylish packaging and targeting of business women has seen it attract continued growth in a market previously dominated by Pabron, with its homely ‘mom as family carer’ image.

Response to stress

‘The 2011 Great North Eastern Earthquake’ as it is known, is everywhere: you see it on little collection boxes by tills, in brand promotions, in the powerrationed air conditioning, which was set no lower than 28°C by government edict over the summer, and in the hearts of millions as they go about their daily lives. A recent study showed that stress levels are at an all-time high, and they spike significantly every time the earthquake warning pops up on mobile phones, which it does with regularity.

This stress is compounded by the economy, which has created a sense of uncertainty and lack of a clear future that is a real problem for young people. Jobs no longer offer a rosy career path, and a new phenomenon has appeared called ‘non-ambition’: young actresses no longer want to start pop careers or go for world peace, they just yearn to open a little icecream shop. The most favoured job for sons is to be a public servant – it’s predictable, steadfast, safe. Even more interesting is that public servant is also the most favoured job for a boyfriend to have. I can’t imagine that in Britain. This is showing up in brand marketing. Where once mass brands were keen to align themselves with suited young ‘salarymen’, eliciting feelings of progress, achievement and hope, they now seem to be locked into a different image – that of the josh-kai, young beautiful girls with nothing to worry about but their hair and clothes. They advertise everything from vitamins to banking.

Agencies: japan v uk Being a marketing director in Japan has another challenge – the agency. I was fortunate to be working with Dentsu, one of the world’s largest ad agencies, and by far the biggest in Japan. The difference between Dentsu and relatively small individualistic UK agencies is marked. It is so big that it frequently manages multiple brands in a category. It has a division structure in order to offer client confidentiality. It also handles media buying and packaging design. It must be tough to deal with an agency with that much power if you are a relatively small brand – especially when on the floor above they are most likely working on a strategy to steal your share with your key competitor.

The offices would put many a bank to shame – in the entrance there are rows of dark-suited execs striding grey marbled floors, taking their black briefcases past shiny steel walls up to 42 floors of desks and closed-circuit television cameras. The art in the lobby has a game of chess enshrined in antiseptic white. Very appropriate.

Tokyo is part thrilling, for the sheer efficiency and modernity of the place, and part bewildering, with its cryptic societal structures and seemingly unexitable railway stations. But it is also a dynamic and exacting place for marketers to build brands.

David Nichols is managing partner global, The brandgym

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