Although the systematic hierarchy seems very strict in most companies in Japan, decisions are somewhat made from bottom-up. If you are putting efforts to strengthen the awareness and convincing some C-level executives, expecting them to forcibly proceed within their companies -- NO,that doesn’t happen in Japan. Usually, the C-level asks the GM, and the GM asks the manager, and so on.The fundamental information for the decision making comes from the employees in the frontline.
Nobody wants to be the “First Penguin”
I would say the brand familiarity is the most important. Unlike an investment to some startup, deciding the implementation of some new service/product for the company needs tons of explanations and most of all, whether everybody knows about it and thinks it’s good or not is the final piece for convincing.
The first penguin to jump into the sea from an iceberg for the hunting is thought to be the bravest hero. As sea lions and other predators are waiting to catch them underwater. The possibility of survival of the first penguin is exceptionally low but is necessary for the colony’s survival. In business, I should say the majority in the global economy, taking the risk and challenging is thought to be good rather than evil. While in Japan, it seems most of the companies overstate the risks.
Conquering the Internal Fortress
If there are no predecessors, the penetration becomes extremely difficult. Other way around, they love to follow predecessors. So, having plenty of case studies of famous companies are another key factor. They need an “Osumi-tsuki”, a saying in Japanese that is promoted by some reliable source.
Even if the brand is well-known and have good reputation, switching to another brand is also not that easy. There is a high intention of “safe driving” in Japanese companies. Where they think there are so many hurdles and negative incidents ahead for the new installation.
“What if someone says NO? I don’t want to put extra effort in convincing them…”
“Would there be no security issues? Who’s going to check it?”
“Would the customer service be full of hospitality?”
“Imagine all that fuss during the internal process…”
“Who will be responsible? Me? Hell no…”
To overcome these hurdles, first, you would need to gain awareness with a good reputation, widely across the general audience. Second, to do so, the effective way is by introducing real use cases and facts. Ideally, collaborating with domestic corporations which have familiarity and reliability. Lastly, as you can imagine, those promotions would need to be done on an effective platform, where good engagement can be created with your target audiences.
Promotion for Brand Lift
Understanding these internal business processes and culture is very much important in planning the marketing strategies and running an effective approach.
Evaluating the effectiveness of the promotion campaign is also important. It is ideal to run before and after the promotion, but both may not be done always. Nikkei Research has been continuously conducting promotion development and evaluation studies(ad effectiveness surveys) ,and because we have a norm knowledge，we can estimate the performance even from single short surveys.
Beyond awareness and further discovery of the target audiences' impressions and intentions are another key aspect to explore,especially for some non-domestic brand to penetrate the Japanese market.
- How well did it create a deep understanding of the brand/service/product?
- Was it successful to establish reliability with the delivered content?
- Were the case studies in the Japanese market convincible enough?
Insights from the research would be a valuable information and effectively used for the next steps.
