Japan Marketing News

Japanese convenience store chain to start carbon offset program

Lawson, Japan's second largest convenience store chain, recently announced that it will introduce a voluntary carbon offset program in April of 2009. Carbon offsetting involves companies or individuals mitigating their own carbon emissions by purchasing the market value of actual reductions made by others who've implemented pollution-cutting measures.

In the case of Lawson, the company has agreed to partner locally with Tokyo University, which is diminishing carbon emissions on its campuses by replacing equipment and lighting with energy efficient alternatives. Internationally Lawson will be purchasing offsets from an Argentine wind farm.

Apparently, Lawson will also make it possible for consumers to counter their own polluting through programs implemented at company stores. For instancethe chain plans to introduce carbon offset products as well as a system that lets customers buy back carbon emissions through accumulated loyalty program points.

Reminder: Tokyo CRM seminar approaching

If you're one of those marketers who hasn't quite gotten around to optimizing your company's approach to CRM in Japan, let me remind you that Marcus Evans will hold a related event in Tokyo later this month.

Dubbed Customer Relationship Excellence, the 2-day seminar will be held at the Hilton Tokyo in Shinjuku on April 15 and 16.

Some topics to be covered include:

- Developing customer loyalty and strengthening relationships through CSR
- Exploring marketing strategies to target wealthy consumers in the new marketplace
- Garnering support from top management to ensure proper CRM implementation
- Enhancing organizational credibility by optimizing call centers
- Improving customer retention and loyalty through point cards
- Optimizing marketing ROI

Executives from Suntory, Family Mart, Yahoo, Nikon and other leading firms will be presenting.

I have been to previous Marcus Evans events in Japan and have come away with interesting insights each time. If you speak Japanese well and you're working in marketing in Japan, you'll want to be there.

For more information, contact Esther Wong at Marcus Evans ([email protected])

Sony Pictures joins forces with Japanese cell provider for Spiderman 3 promo

au is the Japanese cell phone company with the best reputation amongst consumers for handset design. A couple of years ago they opened the spiffy four-story KDDI au Designing Studio in Tokyo to showcase each season's new models and to host special promotional events.

If it isn't already clear from the above picture, au's latest promotion involves a tie-up with Sony Pictures (Columbia) and the movie Spiderman 3. In addition to the life-size model of Spidey scaling the au building, a number of exhibits related to the film are on display inside.

The benefits to Sony are obvious, since this structure is located at the mouth of Takeshita Doori, one of Japan's most famous youth-oriented shopping streets where thousands of people pass by every hour. For au, not only does the eye-catching display lure consumers inside where they can encounter new products, thanks to special arrangements with Sony, au is also using the tie-up to promote its new auction site which has a number of original Spiderman 3 promotional items up for bidding. On the PR front, both companies win since proceeds from the auction have been promised to charity.

BTW, Spiderman 3 opens in Japan on May 1.

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New "sauce" to hit Japanese shelves

In a couple of weeks (April 3), Suntory will begin its national rollout of a new kind of alcoholic beverage in Japan. No, this is not another one of those fruit cocktail drinks that have flooded the market these past few years—it's something different.

TomaToma is a combination of white wine, spirits and. . .drumroll please. . . .tomato juice (58% tomato juice, to be exact).

Apparently Suntory invented the product in response to growing Japanese consumer interest in healthy living, so this is probably just the first drip in what will likely become a deluge of veggie booze beverages in coming years.

In fact, rumor has it that Asahi and Kagome are at this very moment working together on the production of their own alcoholic veggie concoction for salubrious sippers.

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NTT DoCoMo launches video gallery of 703i models

Just yesterday, NTT DoCoMo posted to its website a compelling 2-minute promotional video for its new 703i series of cell phones. The footage was originally shown at an event on January 16 where the new models were introduced. While I'm not crazy about the designs of some of the handsets, the video itself is worth watching for the extremely high production value. The NTT site is in Japanese, but it is easy enough to navigate. Just hit the play button on the video window that appears when you click here.

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Cool Japanese Products: ASIMO

If you haven't yet heard of ASIMO, you're in for a treat. For the past 20 years or so, Honda has been working on a humanoid robot that just gets better and better with each new model. The above clip comes from last year's Helsinki Motor Show. If you go to Honda's ASIMO website, you can see video of the latest model which—gasp—RUNS at 6 km/hr. Honda uses ASIMO as a public relations ambassador by showing him (her?) at car shows and conventions and having it (?) make special appearances on TV programs and at other venues.

ASIMO is a wonderful "weapon" to use in the battle for the hearts and minds of auto and technology enthusiasts. However, the sword sometimes cuts both ways. A few days ago someone posted a clip to Google video which showed the robot suffering an embarrassing mishap at an appearance here in Japan.

True, ASIMO is amazing technology created by amazing engineers. But the Japanese have a saying, "even monkeys can fall from trees." Let's hope they've moved past this stumble so they can deliver an even more amazing ASIMO in the future.

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