Ged Carroll

Category: japan |日本 | 일본

Yōkoso – welcome to the Japan category of this blog. This blog was inspired by my love of Japanese culture and their consumer trends. I was introduced to chambara films thanks to being a fan of Sergio Leone’s dollars trilogy. A Fistful of Dollars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.

Getting to watch Akira and Ghost In The Shell for the first time were seminal moments in my life. I was fortunate to have lived in Liverpool when the 051 was an arthouse cinema and later on going to the BFI in London on a regular basis.

Today this is where I share anything that relates to Japan, business issues, the Japanese people or culture. Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Lawson launched a new brand collaboration with Nissan to sell a special edition Nissan Skyline GT-R. And that I thought was particularly interesting or noteworthy, that might appear in branding as well as Japan.

There is a lot of Japan-related content here. Japanese culture was one of odd the original inspirations for this blog hence my reference to chambara films in the blog name.

I don’t tend to comment on local politics because I don’t understand it that well, but I am interested when it intersects with business. An example of this would be legal issues affecting the media sector for instance.

If there are any Japanese related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • Uniqlo IQ + more things

    あなた専用のお買い物アシスタントが、ついに登場！UNIQLO IQ – UNIQLO ユニクロ – voice enabled digital shopping assistant Uniqlo IQ, more information here: How Uniqlo developed its ‘digital concierge’ voice service | Analysis | Campaign Asia – the initiative was developed through a collaboration between Party and Inamoto & Co. Campaign asked the people behind the project to explain how they did it. Rei Inamoto, founder of Inamoto & Co, said his company first presented the idea of an “AI-powered customer service engagement platform” two years ago. He said the main aim was to help Uniqlo manage inventory more efficiently, which is deceptively difficult in the retail business. “It’s a question of how you manage expectations and predict what kinds of products will be popular and sell more,” he said. IQ sits within Uniqlo’s mobile application and is also integrated into Google Assistant. It is connected to real-time store inventory data and uses text and voice interaction to help would-be customers find products to buy via the app or in the outlets closest to them. It is also designed to be used during the physical shopping process, and recommends new products based on individual searches, hourly product rankings, occasions and personal specifications such as daily horoscopes – Uniqlo IQ is a fascinating development that is Alexa before Alexa. Uniqlo has been a technology innovator in terms of consumer facing experiences and Uniqlo IQ builds on this work. It is a shame that Uniqlo IQ didn’t make it beyond the Japanese market though. More related content here.

    China Properties Group Limited (PDF) via Google Drive – the money quote – 10 years ago, the U.S. printed money like crazy and exported U.S. dollars all over the world. Now, the U.S. has become a global enemy, trying to bring back the exported U.S. dollars (the U.S. dollar debt of the emerging market in the first quarter was close to 3.7 trillion) and supply chains, as well as to undermine the asset markets of other countries and the global supply chain order. No wonder the U.S. has made a lot of enemies. Fortunately, Trump does not have the same wisdom as Mao Zedong in making alliance with one while fighting another. He wants to fight the world. But to defeat the U.S. hegemony is not an easy task. The history told us that those who wanted to kick out the big brother would run the risk of being wiped out. Nevertheless, Chinese are savvy and resourceful. Deng Xiaoping said, “we should grope our way across the river, going one step at a time”. Jiang Zemin said, “keep a low profile to make a big fortune”. Han Xin demonstrated his immense ability to endure humility in order to preserve his existence for future accomplishments. Such wisdoms contributed to the creation of incredible historical achievements one after the other. Today, the U.S. is pushing the trade war to the limit. Yet, it is not easy to cripple the China model, even with Trump’s wisdom. With a looming war, there are risks as well as opportunities. Therefore, the Group’s established policies will remain unchanged. While some projects are delayed pending for the government’s new plan, the Group will always ensure that Shareholders’ benefits are well taken care of.

    With Goals, FAST Beats SMART – MIT Sloan Management Review – I need to read this properly, skimmed it and thought it was worthy of a further read

    How the wheels came off Ford | Business | The Sunday Times – not so sure that Jaguar Land Rover will be as good a deal in the longer term

    Branded in the 80s | Remembering what it was like to be a kid!  – A couple of quotes from this piece that got me:

    What I’m realizing as I try and look at this trend from outside of my own nostalgia is that this is a sign of the end of the golden era for my own generation. I can’t count how many times I sat and listened to my father talk about how different the world seemed in the first 40 years of his life. How much seemed to change during the 70s and 80s that obliterated the world that he was accustomed to growing up in the 40s and 50s. Institutions that he imagined would be around forever that had disappeared almost overnight. Soda fountains, local pharmacies, 5 & Dimes, seasonal burger or fry stands, car hops, diners, drive-ins…

    Amazon is basically a virtual Toys R Us. And probably one of the biggest realizations that we as adults have to come to grips with? Kids just don’t play with toys the same way that we did 20 and 30 years ago. Video games, television and Youtube have superseded toys in a lot of households. Sure, we still buy a lot of toys for kids, but I’ve watched first-hand has nieces and nephews receive the kind of toys that I had as a kid and they just sit in their rooms collecting dust.

    PHD retains Unilever business across Greater China region | Media | Campaign Asia – great news for Phd and lost opportunity for Mindshare who cleaned up on last years global pitch

    Publicis, VCCP named winners in Cathay Pacific’s first pitch in 25 years | Advertising | Campaign Asia – big loss for McCann who were unassailable just a few years ago and major lost opportunity for WPP

    The Ecological Impact of Browser Diversity | CSS-Tricks – a little disappointed that KDE’s work that would go into Konqueror didn’t get credit as the starting point for WebKit . Otherwise a great read

    FCC to invest $1.5 billion over 10 years in expansion of rural broadband – will US carriers just trouser the cash like they did last time?

    Farmland (@farmlandfoods) • Instagram photos and videos – love the way that they put their farmers in Supreme; though the gains will be marginal at best

    Starbucks’ Frappuccino Gets a Sugar Makeover – WSJ – makes complete sense given regulatory push back on sugar (paywall)

    Philip Kotler’s influence in the Soviet Union and Russia | European Business Review | Vol 20, No 2 – pay walled but just reading the abstract about marketing coming to Russia in 1980 via a highly censored bootleg translation of Philip Kotler’s Marketing Management is nuts

    Apple buys startup focused on lenses for AR glasses | Reuters – also interesting for cameras

    Old ads come back to haunt Didi Hitch following rape-murder cases | PR | Campaign Asia – The past ads are suggestive, always showing a male driver and a female passenger and using romantic analogies between car-pooling, movie-watching or trying out clothes in private fitting rooms. “Such obvious sexual hints,” remarked one online commenter. The copywriting follows suit with the images. One ad reads [translation by Campaign]: Is it really a coincidence? Oh, we met again. It’s [the Didi system] so smart. In fact, I already knew your little secret, your car is actually not on the way. But this is such a sweet show, I want to continue acting with you. – you can see why netizens think that the ads promoted instances of rape and murder

    Unbowed by Brexit, Swiss Bank Seeks Clients in `Red Hot’ North – Bloomberg – capital flight opportunity? Footballers (and their WAGs) looking to hedge against a post-Brexit pound?

    What The Hell Was The Microsoft Network? – early online service a la CompuServe or Aol

  • KAWS + more news

    KAWS’s Dark Take on Mickey Mouse | Anatomy of an Artwork | Sotheby’s – I have been a big fan of KAWS work – in particular the stuff by KAWS done under the OriginalFake name. KAWS OriginalFake was where art and streetwear met. KAWS did some great collaborations under the OriginalFake name. I wore my Porter Tokyo x OriginalFake wallet to death in the end. KAWS has abandoned the label and is now focusing on his art pieces. Great collection of stuff here going on auction in Hong Kong. More luxury related content here.

    “Become the leader in our industry” is not a strategy | Quartz – how many times have I seen this on briefs….

    New Balance is finding trendsetters with AI and giving them shoes | Fast Company – interesting seeding campaign

    The economy is booming, your salary is not: Blame the decline of unions | FastCompany – interesting that this appearing in Fast Company whereas in the past these ideas would have been considered the work of a left wing crank

    US airlines are struggling to make money from China’s travel boom-Sino-US – looks like an ideal opportunity for Trump’s trade war

    Don’t Pretend Facebook and Twitter’s CEOs Can’t Fix This Mess | WIRED – the interesting this is that this is written by Ellen Pao; who went through hell when she did this at Reddit. Good read. It could be a slippery slope however, what happens when whats fine in the US isn’t fine in Europe, or the middle east or Asia?

    Saudi Arabia banned from advertising reform agenda on British TV | World news | The Guardian – how would this affect other country ads. Could Mexican Tourism Board ads be seen to be masking the issue of narco-violence? This feels like a slippery slope in many respects

    If you have a Yahoo account your emails have probably been scanned to figure out what you buy — and they may have been read by employees of the company – so lots of viagra and other spam email products in the vast majority of seldom opened accounts

    Luxury’s Unofficial Poster Boys | The Daily | Gartner L2 – You don’t need a brand ambassador to reap the rewards of influencers. In China, TFBoys’ wholesome act has become a cultural and marketing juggernaut, though not always via official partnerships.

    The ugly truth about why I left BBDO China after just a year | Advertising | Campaign Asia – not terribly surprised, even in a tier one city like Beijing

    The convergence of AI and nanotechnology — Nano Magazine – machine learning work on image processing has improved microscopy. Machine learning is also being used in chemical modelling which is an important part of modern chemistry

    Facebook, Twitter and violence are linked | The Japan Times – correlation certainly, though less convinced about causality. Technology certainly facilitates, communication and organisation but there are other substitute real world comms platforms like BBM, email etc

    One yen camera: we bought an extremely cheap camera off Yahoo! Auctions and tested it out【Pics】 | SoraNews24 – really interesting article on his experiences, particularly how the smartphone camera metaphor threw him off on his first shots

    FACT CHECK: Did Vladimir Putin Rescue an Injured Donald Trump from the Viet Cong During the Vietnam War? – No. But its hilarious to think that this even got on to the internet

    Vietnamese website taunts Chinese drama fans with South China Sea quiz | Reuters – clever trolling, though it does remind me of the way Saudis were trying to undermine Qatari sports channels through rampant piracy

    The truth about ‘Snapchat dysmorphia’ | Dazed – is Snapchat really driving cosmetic surgery?

    Norte :: Itaú – Kidsbook Collection – great use of Canvas mobile content format

  • The Conveni & things from last week

    The Conveni

    Its hard to understand The Conveni without understanding Japanese retail. In Japan, 24/7 convenience stores play a similar role to what supermarkets have in the west. They do groceries, allow utility and mobile payments and provide other services like faxing or photocopying. They offer free wi-fi and air conditioning in hot weather. There are an essential part of of Japanese life and there is a ‘combini-culture’ around them. Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Fragment Design has taken a good deal of influence from combini culture for ‘The Conveni’ retail concept. It includes processed food, bandanas in sandwich packs, towels packaged like onigiri rice balls and sweat shirts in snack packets.

    conveni

    If you can’t get to Tokyo, you can still look at their e-store.

    Michael Gove famously said that with regards to Brexit people were tired of experts. Obviously discussions between men in a pub is the antithesis of expert discussions. So here is a podcast with a couple of knowledgeable people in a pub

    https://youtu.be/Sx4AF-3Rd44

    https://youtu.be/sju9laLqeCo

    Lippincott were working on a Toys R Us rebrand that the company couldn’t implement. I don’t know if design could have saved Toys R Us, but the work is really nice.

    Aphex Twin launched a new EP; there were posters around the world and a fantastic video by Weirdcore. Warning the video will affect people with epilepsy

    Egyptian Lover picks his favourite Roland TR-808 songs – amazing listening. Some of this brought me back to my early teenage years.

  • Quantum computing & other things this week

    Quantum computing explained for different skill levels. The explanations of quantum computing are amazing. The simplicity of the quantum computing explanations should be must watch content.

    A video on Sony‘s old school copy protection for the original PlayStation. It is the height of ingenuity. I had a couple of CDs with black faces like a PlayStation disc. They were a Sisters of Mercy Japanese import disc and a limited edition disc by Yello that I picked up secondhand. I have got no idea where they are now.

    The black coating was a ruse from a copy protection point of view; except that it may have concealed the real copy protection system (if you had a microscope good enough to see it). The technology is down to the way wavy data lines were put down on the PlayStation disks rather than a copy management style encryption.

    An amazing video of Hong Kong’s tram system. Get Lost in Hong Kong on a 3-Minute Trolley Adventure

    My friend Stephen is travelling at the moment and passed through Bozeman, Montana. I tried to explain who Mystery Ranch and Dana Gleason was, and how they came to make the best backpacks in the world. But in the end, I sent this link to him as it explains it all so much better: Interview with Mystery Ranch Founder Dana Gleason – Dana Design Founder Returns to Outdoor Industry | The Field

    Sailor Moon’s Moonlight Densetsu as played on traditional Japanese instruments | Sora News 24 – and yes it is as good as it sounds. The mix of modern and older Japanese culture is fascinating.

  • Seventeen by Hideo Yokohama

    Seventeen by Hideo Yokohama

    Seventeen follows Yokohama’s first break out book translated into English; Sixty Four, but it isn’t a sequel or a prequel.

    Hideo Yokohama is a former journalist. he used to write for the Jomo Shimbun, a regional paper in Japan. It was obviously easy for him to write about life as a journalist. Yokohama-san captures the atmosphere in a news room. The egos and tensions. Perhaps the biggest tension being the solitary nature of being a writer, whilst participating in the team effort of a daily miracle of creating a newspaper.

    It describes a pre-internet world, where pagers were hot items, cellular phones were starting to make an appearance but outrageously expensive. Two-way radio sets were commonly used by taxi-companies, field services organisations (utility vans) and possibly media who couldn’t afford cellphones.

    Seventeen isn’t a straightforward book to read, it has parallel narratives that wind together. One narrative is that of a senior journalist in a local paper in 1985 in the aftermath of Japan Airlines Flight 123; the world’s largest loss of life in a single aircraft accident. The second strand is the journalist some 15 years older; preparing to climb a rock face with the now adult son of a friend who died at the same time as the air crash.

    The book mixes the existential crises of the journalist in both home and professional life; with the emotion involved in reporting such a horrific event. Yokohama  captures the politics and internal pettiness of his office colleagues and the perverse nature of the company chairman.

    Seventeen is a great read, which I can highly recommend as a summer holiday read. More book reviews can be found here.

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