Articles
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Aug 05 2020
Japanese Marketing Translation - Best Practices, Pitfalls, and Tips for How to Avoid Embarrassment
One of the first and most challenging obstacles organizations face when expanding into the Japanese market is the language and cultural barrier. You may have a winning brand and promotional strategy for your home territory, but connecting with your new audience will require much more than simple translations from one language to another. To truly succeed, a great deal of commitment and creativity should be applied to finding the best way to convey your important messages. In this post, we explore some best practices, pitfalls, and tips for avoiding embarrassment when it comes to Japanese marketing translation, brand localization, and transcreation. Why Is Japanese Marketing Translation So Important? A full understanding of the local context and consumer expectations is paramount when trying to break into Japan, regardless of your product type or sector. Low English Proficiency Despite the English language being taught to all children in junior high and high school, Japan has one
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Aug 05 2020
A Guide to Digital Marketing Agencies in Japan - Understanding a Changing Landscape
Japan’s marketing and advertising arena is evolving fast. Even here where the shift towards digital has been slower than in other nations, companies, and the marketers that serve them, must now coordinate highly fragmented audiences across several different channels. Also, with the growing need to foster communities and build two-way conversations with consumers using new technologies, the reliable agency-client relationships of the past, largely relying on old media, have undergone a transformation. We’ve seen a great number of agencies die out over the years, while new, more digitally capable ones have sprung up in their place. Meanwhile, skills have been learned, talent imported or trained, and internal teams restructured – all to handle the changing demands of our times. In this blog we explore what the current landscape looks like for digital agencies in Japan, with some present and predicted trends to watch out for. Bringing Your Brand to Japan?
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Jul 06 2020
Why Sell on Amazon Japan? Pros, Cons, and Tips for Western Brands
If you’ve looked into entering the Japanese ecommerce market for more than five minutes, you’ll know there are quite a few different platforms available for sellers. And in addition to a few names you might not be so familiar with, such as Rakuten or ZozoTown, you’ll find one that is: Amazon. But before going with Amazon Japan as an easy platform of choice, it’s worth considering what actually makes it such a great option for Western brands. We explore the major reasons why you should sell on Amazon Japan, as well as a few for why you potentially shouldn't. Learn How Amazon Compares with Other Japan Ecommerce Platforms Millions of Potential Customers One of the hardest things about setting up in Japan for the first time is trying to find customers. For some businesses, this process of identifying and capturing specific markets in the right sector can take years, especially in a country with such high customer loyalty levels making it difficult for new entries into the m
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Jun 30 2020
Facebook Advertising in Japan - A Crash Course in Converting Users
A few things make the Japanese market different to the rest of the world. Sometimes, these are simply cultural quirks. At others, these differences can have a real impact on your business and commercial success. For instance, the differences in Japan’s SNS landscape, while seemingly subtle at first glance, can seriously impact the way you reach potential customers. Aspects ranging from key platform characteristics; demographic trends; user behavior, and overall popularity, are all things you need to study up on before defaulting to your standard PPC tricks. With this in mind, we offer you a crash course on how Facebook advertising in Japan (one of the world’s primary go-to advertising platforms), should be approached as part of your digital marketing activities here. Facebook’s Place in the Japanese SNS Landscape It’s true that Japanese consumers spend a great deal of time on globally popular SNS platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but there are also other
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Jun 30 2020
How to Sell on Rakuten Japan - Top 10 FAQs Answered
Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant, has expanded its international presence in recent years through various acquisitions and joint ventures. A deal for global sponsorship of FC Barcelona for example, one of the world’s most famous football clubs, has prompted much intrigue from Western nations about the brand and it’s offerings. While its presence is indeed growing outside of their home territory, exactly how to sell on Rakuten Japan is still unclear for many international merchants and sellers. And this is partly due to Amazon’s overwhelming success in the world of online commerce globally, essentially moulding our expectations about what an ecommerce platform should look like, and how it should function. Nevertheless, despite Amazon’s strong and growing presence in Japan, the homegrown brand Rakuten and it’s different style of online selling is still one of the nation’s favourite places to shop. With over 49,000 merchants, 111 million members, and sales of $37 b
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May 30 2020
Japanese PPC - 10 Principles of a Strong Campaign
Unfortunately, many Japanese PPC campaigns fail to achieve their intended results. And while it’s easy to blame this on the inherent challenges of operating in Japan for the first time, failure often stems from how brands and marketers plan and execute their campaigns. Those who don’t combine core PPC marketing principles with best practices for reaching Japanese users, risk suffering from low-converting and high cost PPC ads. So to help you make sure your marketing budget is well spent, and that you're effectively targeting the right audiences (with the right messages), we’ve broken down the 10 most crucial principles of a strong Japanese PPC campaign. A Robust (but Flexible) PPC Plan Many make the mistake of thinking their Japanese PPC plans need to be perfect from day one. We believe it’s much better to have a robust, yet flexible, plan in place that allows you to sufficiently test and adapt your process as you go. Having a well thought-through framework from the beg
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May 26 2020
How to Build a Winning Japanese PPC Strategy
As Japan’s national advertising expenditure for TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers has decreased year-on-year for five consecutive years, spend for Internet advertising has increased significantly over this same period. Although many businesses operating here are still learning how digital marketing, and specifically PPC, can empower their brand and improve their effectiveness at targeting their desired markets, others have already made huge headway — mastering the ability to harness the inherent data-driven, higher yield, and measurable characteristics of digital marketing. Today, among those benefiting from a robust PPC strategy are a fleet of international businesses who have combined global PPC best practices, with a comprehensive understanding of local consumer culture. In this article, we aim to show you exactly how you can do this with your own winning Japanese PPC strategy. Digital Marketing in Japan - Key Facts Total advertising expenditure for the Digital Ad
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May 16 2020
Japan Ecommerce - Amazon, Rakuten or Yahoo!?
Expanding into the Japanese ecommerce market is a dream for many businesses. Key attributes such as a huge internet penetration level, highly urbanized population, and developed economy, make it one of the most rewarding arenas for online sellers today. Its compact size, well-established infrastructure, and the almost universal ownership of digital devices also means businesses operating here are well placed to connect with a large (and growing) pool of online consumers — increasingly moving away from a long love affair with ‘brick and mortar’. As a result of many of these key drivers, Japan is now the third largest ecommerce market behind only China and the U.S according to Statista, with market volume projected to grow through 2024. But before you’re able to jump in, understanding which ecommerce platform to invest your time and money into is critical for reaching Japanese online shoppers. If you haven’t decided already, or are considering switching from your curre
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Jan 23 2020
Japan's Top Social Media Networks for 2020
We are happy to present to you our fifth annual report about social media in Japan. In this article, we dive deep into the Japanese social media landscape, looking at how it developed across 2019 and where it is heading in 2020. The analysis and insights here are based on years of experience in tracking social media trends, executing social strategy for a number of Clients, and leveraging our multicultural team to Japan. We hope you can apply some of our learnings to your strategies. Japan's Top Social Media Networks for 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS Japan's Socio-Demographic Overview Japan’s Social Media Overview LINE Japan YouTube Japan Twitter Japan Instagram Japan Facebook Japan TikTok Japan Japan's Niche SNS Platforms Japanese Culture and Social Media Japan's Socio-Demographic Overview Here are some hard facts: Japan is the 3rd richest and 11th most populous country on the planet. On top of that, almost every person in Japan has interne
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Mar 08 2019
Japanese Advertising: Crucial Factors to Consider for Effective Japanese SEM
After the United States and China, Japan falls within the top three largest advertising markets in the world. The notion of Japanese advertisements to an outsider often sparks peculiar images of people dressed in flamboyant costumes, or ridiculous narratives that are very left-field to the product they are selling. Although these traditional forms of advertising are still dominant, their equally extravagant digital counterparts are increasing at a significant rate. This is mainly due to the rise in ownership of mobile phones, allowing for greater access to the internet and prominent social media platforms. The digital realm of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) allows businesses (small or large) to reach a wider audience and to have complete control over their ad spend and creative outputs. Instead of spending millions of yen on a print or television commercial, where key metrics such as conversion rates are almost unobtainable, SEM can provide real-time data on campaigns that have
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