Marketing:
Mickey Mouse is unquestionably the world’s
most famous character, but Japan’s
Hello Kitty is growing popular even in the U.S., the home country of Mickey
Mouse. Sanrio, the creator of Kitty, reportedly renewed the highest operating
profit in fiscal ended March 2013 and will supposedly renew it again in fiscal
ending March 2014. Likewise, Japan’s
two mobile game developers, DeNA and Gree, are growing very fast these days.
Cool Japan is a national policy to
dispatch Japanese culture to the world. However, Japan has to overcome several
headaches. One of them is unauthorized copies. In the world, underground
websites get data on the latest issues of Japanese comics one week before they
are sold at Japanese booksellers and put their unauthorized English versions on
the Internet in just two days. That is, foreign readers read the latest
contents free well before Japanese readers buy their favorite comics at a
bookseller. Several Japanese publishers started to distribute e-books in
alliance with foreign Internet companies, and publish a new issue
simultaneously both at home and abroad. For example, an American venture,
Crunchyroll, has been offering the charge system since 2009. The company has
now 200,000 members who can read all comics at a flat rate of 6.55 dollars per
month. As far as comics are concerned, the strategy to publish e-books and
offer them to members all over the world simultaneously at a flat rate in
alliance foreign Internet service companies has become vital.
The Japanese government is trying hard to
keep foreign people informed of Japanese culture. Actually, Japanese contents
successfully got fans called “Otaku (Fanatics)” worldwide. In fact, there are
lots of people enchanted with Japanese culture, and it seems that the Japanese
content industry is doing well in the export business. The fact remains that it
exports only 5% of its total sales of 12 trillion yen. One of the reasons for
the stagnant export value is the lack of efforts to increase fans. Japanese
contents companies have been increasing fans with a focus on Otaku (fanatics).
However, it is time to shift the focus from Otaku to non Otaku, who can be
called people in general, to spread Japanese culture worldwide. Think about
Nintendo’s strategy. Nintendo recorded a remarkable sales increase by taking in
people uninterested in video games.
The above story can apply not only to a
country but also to a company. It is vital for every company to increase
customers by strengthening its technology and service, responding to the change
of market situation. In the case of the content industry, creativity matters
most. Companies successful in trying to keep people excited with new contents
will survive. As Peter Drucker taught us, “The purpose of business is to create
and keep a customer.”
Is Japan cool?
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