Finally, one week after docomo and Softbank, au, Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier, unleashed their summer line up 2009. All together Japan’s summer trend phones consist of 55 new handsets in over 60 different colors. Beside updates for existing lines, some outstanding models shall be introduced and put into trends in the following.
Trend 1: ECO & Outdoor Health
The biggest trend for Japan’s next generation of mobile phones is definately eco-friendliness. Besides the recent regulation of standardized rechargers for each charrier and other ECO projects like the ‘Green Road Project‘ from au, handset makers do all effort to produce low power consuming devices that are designed for outdoor use and sport activities.
With the introduction of the waterproofed solar phones, the SOLAR HYBRID 936SH for Softbank and the SOLAR PHONE SH002 for au KDDI, Sharp takes the first step to wireless charging. Both phones claim to deliver one minute of talk time for every 10 minutes of solar charge time. Up to 80% of the battery is said to be chargable only by solar sensors. I guess not only all iPhone users, but travellers and business men wished that feature would have been implemented in their battery consuming devices as well.
Trend 2: Study and Read
Toshiba, who just announced they would quite the cell phone business in Japan due to high competition, released ‘biblio’, a special phone optimized to read ebooks and mangas from au’s bookstore in astionishing quality. Not only the 3.5 inch LCD display with the world highest mobile phone resolution of 960 x 480 (Japanese media refers to as Full WVGA++) is a highlight, it’s also the first Japanese phone with a slide out full QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode and a big internal memory of 7gb. Additional up to 8gb can be adjusted via SD card. WLAN functionality and 19 pre-installed dictionaries make biblio a perfect study device.
Trend 3: X-media
Another highlight is the Mobile Hi-Vision CAM WOOO by Hitachi. Japan’s first mobile phone with HD-camera (5 megapixel; 720p @ 30fps) claims to to be the perfect bridge between TV, mobile phone and PC. Movie content can be watched and transfered directly (HDMI-on board) from the phone to any supported device. There’s no reason to buy a camorder in temporary Japan any more!
Trend4: Connecting Family
Another innovative product is the mobile email enabled 7inch digital photo frame produced by Huawei for Softbank. The so called Photo Vision HW001 is available with a flat-rate monthly fee of about $5 (incl. device) and has its own telephone number. Pictures from mobile phones can be send via mail directly to the frame, which displays the latest photo or slidshows of family members. Grandparents will never have to wait for pictures of their beloved ones from now on!
And again Japan sets mobile lifestyle trends: ECO, HEALTH, STUDY, CROSSMEDIA and CONNECTIVITY.
As a pioneer Japan implements the first generation of solar powered mobile phones. Waterproofed devices together with mobile fitness services like au’s ‘Run & Walk‘ enforce people to be body and health conscious. In an aging society it’s very important to keep on track, work out, study and stay connected with family and friends. Mobile phones around the world improved a lot due to the spread of 3G and smartphones, but in Japan mobile lifestyle is the highest in the world and touches all that important fields of aging societies. The new generation of phones in Japan proved again that not only the quality of the devices is the crucial factor, but rich content and services provided by the mobile carriers. Even in recession these latest phones, which started selling from today, will spread very quickly and enhance the mobile lifstyle once again.
In cooperation with Japans biggest advertising company Dentsu, Nintendo just released a new revolutionary TV service for their game console Wii.
Background
The wide spread of internet and mobile phone culture led to a big lifestyle change in Japan. Traditionally the family life was centered in the ‘お茶の間’ (Ocha-no-Ma), the Japanese-style living room (see picture above). In the second half of the 20th century the TV was placed in the ‘Ocha-no-Ma’ and the family gathered in front of the screen or had TV dinners on weekends. With the beginning of the 20th century Japan entered an area of singularisation and individualization. Despite the lack of space in Japanese houses, it got common that most family members have their own room – a place to be alone. From that time on watching TV was no longer a central part of family life; family members watched their own TV shows on their own TVs or mobile phones. The family TV sessions in the ‘Ocha-no-Ma’ belonged to the past.
Bring the family back together in the living room
is Nintendo’s approach for the future. As Nintendo researchers found out 87% of Wii users use it on the biggest screen in the house, which is still the one in the living room. With the introduction of new game types like Wii fit and Wii sports, as much as the Nintendo DS, Nintento could expand the gaming population worldwide. Both devices are used by both sex and by a wide range of age groups. In average more family members use the the same Wii as other consoles are shared. Now Nintendo tries to widen up the variety of things you can do with a single gaming device by establishing one machine that satisfies all kinds of users in all posible ways.
During the development of the ‘TV-no-Tomo‘ channel, a TV program listing service for the wii console, Nintendo worked together with ‘Interactive Program Guide Inc.‘, a subsidiary of Dentsu. The success of this cooperation led to the development of Nintendo’s new TV service ‘Wiiの間‘ (‘Wii-no-Ma’).
As consoles are already connected to the internet, video streaming possibilities and online payment systems have been established through Nintendo’s videogame businesses, ‘Wii-no-Ma’ is, in a broader sense, a ‘video broadcasting service’ which utilizes advertising businesses.
Personalized content
In the beginning there will be only original video content, but already five ‘key’ TV stations in Tokyo have agreed to provide ‘Wii-no-Ma’ with some of their programs. One of the great features of this new service is that videos can be watched regardless of timing and times. While existing services for PCs or cell phones are mainly focused on personal use, ‘Wii-no-Ma’ will specialize on programs and services for groups of people that watch together and communicate with each other.
Up to eight family members can register at one ‘Wii-no-Ma’, build each others’ avatars and interact with each other like in online roll play games. Recommendations of programs can be send to other family members and friends; messages can be send and received in pop-up menus. Additionally the so called ‘Concierge Mii’, a Mii-Avatar of a Japanese celebrity (the avatar of famous Actor Saburo Tokito is preinstalled) appears on screen and introduces shows fitting to the user’s or group’s profile. Every time users finish watching, they are asked to evaluate the program in order to optimize content for specific gender and age groups. The results will be sent as a feedback to the developers of the program and to the sponsors of advertisements.
New advertising system
‘Wii no ma’ is free-of-charge but has an implemented advertisement system. In order not to bother watchers with colorful, blinking pop-up ads like on PC or mobile sites Nintendo created a new form of advertisement. No advertisement is shown on the screen unless the user actively chooses so. After watching video programs on ‘Wii-no-Ma’, users are guided to ‘会社の間’ (‘Kaisha no Ma’ – ‘The Companies’ Room’) an advertising platform from sponsor companies. There are twelve screens in ‘Kaisha no ma’, Each of them can be utilized by companies to communicate with the customers in ways like casting videos, asking questionnaires, giving out vouchers or delivering free samples to the household.
Advertisement doesn’t have any limitation in length, like 15 or 30 seconds on other platforms. As the user actively chooses to watch the ad content of his interest, the companies can communicate deeply and personally with users about their products or services.’Kaisha-no-Ma’ has been designed as a stage of direct communication between customers and companies and to verify hypothesis. Utilizing this system, Nintendo is anticipating an unprecedented form of advertisement: from ‘what users avoid to watch’ to ‘what users are eager to watch’. Avertising will get a form of entertainment. Benefit will be on both sides: the users who get personalized programs and advertising, and the sponsors who can promote and adjust their products to the real needs of their customers.
Mobalized ‘wii no ma’
Owners of Nintendo DSi can transfer their favorite programs directly to their DSi and watch the content on the go.
The exclusive software called ‘どこでもwiiの間’(‘Dokodemo-Wii-no-Ma’ – lit. ‘Everywhere Wii-no-Ma’) can be downloaded via the internet at Nintendo DSi Shop free of charge. Videos can be stored on the built-in memory of the DSi or on a SD Memory Card. Video vouchers from sponsores can be downloaded to the DSi to show them at stores and receive a variety of special services or discounts.
A console which puts smiles on everyone’s faces
With this approach Nintendo aims to go forward steadily in a long term and change the relationship between family, TV and internet. The new ‘Wii-no-ma’ is definately a service will spread in Japan as it’s interface is very Japanese, doesn’t bring extra costs for wii users and increases the features of the gaming console. ‘Wii-no-Ma’ is currently only available in Japan, but overseas deployment is under planning in the near future. All the services are free of charge at the beginning, special content will be charged in the future.
The official introduction from of ‘Wii-no-Ma’ by Dr. Iwata can be seen here (Japanese).
Official ‘Wii-no-Ma’ TV commercial follows:
Social Network Services are huge in Japan. About 45 million Japanese use at least one of the more than 102 available SNS. However Social Network Services in Japan are still one of the fastest growing online services in Japan and new niche SNS are emerging on a regular base.
Recently so called ‘Oegaki-Chats‘ gain a lot of attention and popularity. ‘Oegaki’ is a Japanese term for “to draw” or “to scribble” and ‘Oegaki-Chat‘ stands for communities where users can share their artwork or communicate through paintings.
The most popular drawing community is ‘pixiv’. Launched in September 2007, ‘pixiv’ now has more than 600,000 registered members, 3 million submissions and about 500 million page views per month (February 2009). Users can share their illustrations and get feedback through ratings or user comments. Most of the illustrations are anime, manga or video game related. Drawings can be uploaded in 3 groups: 2D (e.g. Photoshop creations), 3D (e.g. Poser creations) and analog (e.g. writing brushes). Therefore ‘pixiv’ promotes ‘ComicStudio’, a professional manga drawing software with a special pen tablet. Additionally all uploaded images are organized in an extensive tag structure.
The ‘pixiv’ community grew very fast and top-rated artists even receive a cult like status be fans. Meanwhile there are several live events with competitions throughout the year and exhibitions are held and famous artists give demonstrations. Between February 27th and March 1st 2009, Pixiv held their first convention, ‘Pixiv Festa’, at the East Design Festa Gallery in Tokyo’s Omotesando with exhibitions of 145 different artists.
In October 2008 ‘pixiv’ launched a new community called ‘drawr’. This flash-based system enables users to draw directly in a web application via mouse or pen tablet. This new service is very simple to use, has no search function or tagging system at all and targets a younger user group than ‘pixiv’. Former users of ‘pixiv’ can log in with their existing accounts, but all images and comments can also be viewed without sign-up on both mobile and PC browsers. The interesting feature is that comments can only be made through handwriting or paintings.
Very similar to this community is ‘tegaki blog’. ‘tegaki’ stands for “handwriting”, therefore all images and also comments are also in handwriting. The default widescreen comment field can be changed to picture size in order to reply in whole images. Some artists also use the comment field to write complete manga short stories or continue picture series of other users. There is no real search function except of through tags in this page. All tags are user generated graphics and are managed by users themselfes. In September 2008 ‘tegaki blog’ had 126.000 registered users and 90 million page views per month. Registered users’ age group ranges from early 10s to later 20s.
In early 2008 the Flash Engineer Munehara remembered that when he was in school every student used to write and paint on the blackboards during holidays. Just for fun, he programmed a simple page, now known as ‘kokuban.in’, where you could just write on a blackboard (Japanese: “kokuban”) and save your painting.
By accident some schoolboys found his page on the internet and spread the word. In the next holidays season his page got stormed by thousands of high school students. Today there are more than 100.000 registered users. While in the beginning more than half of the users were Junior High students, today there is a wide range of users. Women in their 40s and man over 65 are the biggest user groups behind school children. The success of ‘Kokuban.in’ can be seen under nostalgic aspects for elderly, but is mostly in its anonymity and tolerance for users who are not good at painting. Everybody can post everything, share it and get a feedback.
Conclusion
SNS drawing is a recent phenomenon that is still at an early stage but already attracts hundreds of thousands of users. We expect this movement to grow much stronger in the next months to come. It is likely that big SNS service like mixi and Gree will start to add these drawing features in the near future. With the latest touch enabled handsets, mobile drawing clients will also start to appear soon. Crowdsourced designs, drawings and idea sketches could open up a new field of opportunities for brands and future business.
In the late 80s Japan had seen one of its worst economic events in its postwar history: the burst of the asset price bubble which threw the country into a recession which latest over 10 years. And now a new bubble is ready to burst: the classic media advertising bubble
Now in 2009 Japan is facing again a time of turmoil. Everybody talks about the global recession hitting Japan, the strong Yen killing exports, bank and loan crisis forcing a down-sizing in Japanese companies. All this results in less money available to spent on purchases and less money available for companies to invest in marketing and advertising. Companies have to spent their budgets more efficient. In reality this means a move away from classic media (print, TV, radio) towards new media (web, mobile) offering a better ROI for the money spent. While this is also true for many other countries in the world, this development in Japan is like a ticking time bomb which will explode real soon
Three agencies to bind them all
Dentsu, Hakuhodo and ADK are regarded as Japans biggest ad agencies with an estimated combined market share of over 70% (rough estimate). Print and TV ads and media connections are what turned these agencies into media giants and personal connections with the clients helped to feed these giants over the years. In fact a big part of the success can be attributed to these “personal connection” approach: wining and dining its clients, entertaining them at nightclubs or even offering their offspring a job at their agency. Working together with the same agency for years including sweet bonuses like free golf trips, nice presents and pretty girls can be tempting. And it seems to work, as many of Japans biggest companies still rely on these agencies for most of their advertising needs. These “needs” are channeled by the way the big agencies do their business: buy ad space on TV and in Magazines/Newspapers and sell this space including the ads to the client. Miraculously this system has been working now for over 30 years. This gives the impression that Japanese consumers still live in a world of classic mass media consumption and that the internet just plays a minor role. At least this is what the agencies want to believe and maybe also their clients. But reality is quite different:
Japan already is a digital society
In 2006 the average Japanese consumer for the first time spent more time online than reading magazines or newspapers. Japanese are the most active bloggers on this planet, turning Japanese into one of the most frequently used language for blog entries worldwide. Japan also has one of th e highest mobile broadband saturation as well as the cheapest high speed broadband connections globally. In fact Japan is one of the top 5 leading digital societies in the world today. Mobile SNS platforms like Mobage have over 10 million users and access to popular websites can reach billions of pageviews.
Big agencies seem to live in a different century
It looks like most agencies turn a blind eye on reality and keep pushing most of their clients money into TV and magazine ads while Japanese consumers already moved on to the new media world. The idea of the family gathering around the TV set to watch their favorite show or a Saturday main event together is a blast from the past. Today very often the TV is nothing more than a white noise in a Japanese household which gets turned on in the morning and gets turned off after midnight. But TV commercials are still big business in Japan. The reason why the agencies and clients are still pushing for the same old thing? Because it worked so well in the past and as long as nobody outside finds out about the truth its all right. And who makes sure nobody finds out about it? The company who provides the measurement data of the campaigns:
Media control is no longer “king”
One of Japans biggest institution for measuring the reach of TV and print ads (and in the end the overall success of a media campaign) is far from being a neutral institution. In fact it is “owned” by one of the three big agencies! Unlike ad agencies in other countries the strong skill of the big Japanese agencies is control and not creativity. Now with Japanese companies facing an overall economic crisis, clients need to rethink how to spend their advertising money. The trend clearly goes towards online advertisement/promotion, offering one of the best cost/performance ratios. So instead of pushing through another expensive TV commercial Japanese marketers have to move their budgets to online. This even goes beyond classic display advertisement: Car makers launch their own SNS services, food manufacturers let internet users create their next cup ramen soup product for them and beverage makers start to offer mobile multiplayer game portals. Marketers are more and more looking for digital creativity combined with measurability. This is one reason why the big ad agencies in Japan are so afraid. No more fiddling around with the numbers or some wild guessing. The internet was born out of numbers and it can offer numbers better than any other media. It provides a detailed performance record of media activities ranging from simple eyeballs to detailed purchase conversion ratios.
Real data is the new king
For example IPTV makes it possible to track and trace the viewing behavior of every single user. This provides much more valuable and valid data than a -perhaps biased- research panel of a few hundred viewers. Now with services like KDDI Hikari TV, JoostTV, Yahoo BB TV or even YouTube this is possible. What users are watching for how long and when can be measured without any problems. The performance/value of actors, shows and ads could even be measured in real-time when users start to “opt-out” by switching channels or turning off the system/application. (Intra-broadcast performance, chapter performance) Providing personalized ads/special offers or recommendations based on individual viewing patterns is already being tested by several companies. All in all (real) data is the new king and the new currency. There is no way to “pretend” or “assume” anymore. What counts are just facts and these facts have the power to disrupt a whole industry.
The big players are left in the cold
The internet is -in a way- the antithesis of “media control”. You cannot “own” the internet, unlike classic media. And this sends shivers down the spine of the big ad agencies in Japan who were used to “own” the media (or at least the space in the media), make a fortune out of their “possessions” and worst case spin-doctor data about viewer/reader consumption.
Lights are on “red alert”
Of course it needs to be mentioned that the big agencies are aware of this shift and in the last years some departments tried to acquire small and mid sized online agencies, online portals, create spin-off or weave partnerships with other global partners. But still there seems to be a big majority living in a state of denial. Only a very little percentage of the big agencies business and overall revenues are generated through online communication activities (roughly less than 10%).
A revolution is knocking at the door
Given the economic downturn Japan is facing right now, the classic advertising bubble burst will happen much sooner than expected: In April the new fiscal year starts and companies report their annual profit. Around the same time also advertising strategies and media budgets get fixed. And classic mass media might not be a top priority anymore!
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The eBook market in Japan keeps growing. Japanese who were famous for their high consumption of printed media use more and more digital media. Today 82% of all eBook are read on mobile phones. According to the ‘Keitai Hakusho 2009’ (impress R & D) the mobile e-Book market was 290 million dollars in 2008. 65% of all eBooks were mobile mangas (comic books) and mostly consumed by young men. For Japanese women mobile novels are really popular now.
The latest surveys conducted by Japan Internet.com K.K. and Research Plus show that the mobile novel market is changing very quickly. Two surveys, the first in October 2008 and the second in March 2009, focused on mobile novel and Japanese women in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Compared to half year ago the usage of mobile novels went up 9%. Today 24.3% read mobile novels on a regular base, compared to 15.3% in late 2008. The most popular mobile novel site is still ‘Mahou no island’ with a market share of 38%. But that’s a big loss compared to a half year ago. Many new novel sites appeared in late 2008 and now have a combined market share of 35%.
Most content of ‘Mahou no island’ and other ‘mobile novel’ sites is produced user-created content. The satisfaction with this content deceased a little bit (-2%) but is still very high (58.9%). By far the most popular mobile novel genre is still ‘romance and love’ with 61%, followed by ‘mystery’ and ‘fantasy’ with only 8%. Research Plus even calls the new media ‘mobile novels’ the new ‘Harlequin’, referring to Harlequin Enterprises Limited, the world leading publisher of series romance and women’s fiction.
