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.

  • Bradley Horowitz + more news

    Bradley Horowitz

    On Leaving Yahoo… : Elatable | Bradley Horowitz – Bradley Horowitz leaving Yahoo!, on its own a bit of a sad day for the big Y! as Bradley is probably the smartest guy I have ever stuck in front of a journalist. Bradley Horowitz had come to Yahoo! as part of the surge on search under then CEO Terry Semel. He was one of a senior management team that reported into Jeff Weiner

    Design

    NASA Workmanship Technical Committee – handy hardware hacking reference guide

    The Manga Bible – Pages – Japanese artists have done the story of Buddha and text books in manga, so I guess this is the logical extension. Its not really drawn in a manga style but has a good pedigree with one of the artists having worked for 2000AD

    Economics

    The dark reality – interesting realistic economic analysis on India that could apply to China just as well

    How to

    Developing Intelligence : Caffeine: A User’s Guide to Getting Optimally Wired

    Innovation

    Popgadget Personal Technology for Women: Socket Sense: “Adjustable surge strip to fit your adapters – OMG this is such a duh why didnt I think of this idea

    Japan

    The Green Lantern – green and quality concerns kick in on Japanese restaurant offerings

    Marketing

    SMS Text News » Archives » Text a Mars Bar!  – UK agency copies Korean idea for Mars / Masterfoods. Nate.com has had this on a social network-wide level for a good while. It just goes to show you that there is no such thing as a new idea

    Media

    Half Of All Clicks On Display Ads Are Worthless  – A study put out yesterday by comScore, Starcom Media, and Tacoda suggests that half of all clicks on display ads (as opposed to clicks on paid search links) are generated by only 6 percent of Web surfers.

    Victrola Favorites book and CD – interesting mix of stuff, expect to hear some of it on an Orb album soon

    Online

    The Game – WSJ.com – For Facebook, GeoCities Offers a Cautionary Tale Can Rise and Fall of Once-Hot Site Sway Decisions on Funding, IPO?

    Xiaonei – chinese social network similar to Facebook

    Stats: Facebook and MySpace lose their draw

    Retailing

    Overkill Shop Berlin | Streetwear, Graffiti, Sneaker Shop – achingly cool shop in Germany

    Software

    Theme Garden | Drupal 5 Themes – handy themes and ideas for the open source CMS

    Yahoo’s socially integrated messaging service, oneConnect

  • Akiba-kei

    Akiba-kei – A Japanese word meaning related to Akihabara. Akihabara or ‘Electric Town’ was the place in Tokyo where you could go to get everything from electronic components to new and vintage devices. The electronic component shops inspired generations of budding engineers that went on to work for the likes of Sony and Panasonic. Think of it as Shenzhen’s SEG electronics market (in the SEG Plaza building located in the Huaqiangbei neighbourhood of Futian district, Shenzhen). 

    akihabara
    Akiba-kei or Akihabara in December 2006

    Vintage gadgets were available from high end hi-fi to games consoles. All are very Akiba-kei.

    In more recent times it has also evolved to cater for fans of Japanese technology with a raft of computer stores and service providers.

    It is also becoming known for catering to other geek consumer tastes including anime, manga and cosplay – think a cuter version of a Star Trek convention. Whether you like anime, manga or dressing up as your favourite character Akiba-kei has something to offer.

    Finally there is the maid culture, which is kind of like a fancy dress tea house, often with a specific theme related to anime or manga related culture.

    Akiba-kei transcends geography. It now represents a mindset, a culture that has gone around the world, but whose spiritual home in Akiba-kei continues to evolve over time. The exportation of Akiba-kei culture started in the 1960s and70s when Japanese manufacturers products were seen to be technological wonders, from hi-fis and watches to cameras. 

    Sailors, servicemen and ex-pat business people took (often superior) Japan-only models of the latest hifi home together with a step up transformer if needed. With TV syndication and video recorders interest in anime rose as well. The 1980s brought long term interest in games consoles. These cultural provided a bridge over time for the wholesale export of Japanese popular culture through and influenced by Akiba-kei. 

    Thanks to Peter Payne and the J-Box newsletter. More Japan related topics here.

  • PSP + more news

    PSP

    The PSP has fired the imagination of grass roots developers already, which bodes well for its competition from Gizmondo – the Tiger and Microsoft-backed alternative. Nintendo’s DS doesn’t make claims to be any form of ‘convergence device’, but an honest mobile games console which focuses on playability rather than speeds and feeds. iPSP allows you to synch music with iTunes, carry your iPhoto library around with you and back up game data on to your Macintosh. Whilst Sony would probably not approve of this close linkage between the PSP and Apple’s iLife suite, it will not harm sales of the device amongst generation iPod.

    Expect sales of PSP movies and Sony Connect sales to be on the low side as PSP early adopters rip from their DVD and MP3 collections instead. Sony’s best option as with games is to go for exclusive movie and music content for the PSP.

    Folksonomy

    Folksonomy seems to have caught the imagination of both News.com and Charles Arthur’s contribution of netimperative. Yahoo’s purchase of Flickr is seen not only as a way of getting hold of a great info-imaging service, but also of harnessing a grassroots approach to creating true contextual searching.

    Mobile TV

    According to the Global Telecoms Business top five stories newsletter that NTL and O2 have announced which TV channels will be available to the 350 test subjects during their six month-long trial in Oxford. The 16 channels involved come from BSkyB, Chart Show TV, Discovery Networks Europe, Shorts International and Turner Broadcasting.

    Customised Nike sneakers

    In New York, Nike has extended their design your own trainer programme to billboard signs that you can manipulate via phoning a free phone number. Your specification can be shared via an SMS message. There is still no option to allow people like Jonah Peretti have Sweat Shop sewn on his set of trainers.

    8vo: On The Outside

    Finally ‘8vo: On the Outside’ is going to be launched. Written and designed by Mark Holt and Hamish Muir, based on their work designing for the likes of the famous Hacienda nightclub and changing and its influence in the emergent typographically-led design movement in the UK during the late 80s and through the 90s.

  • Marketing crisis

    Marketing crisis in competence and capability: Creative Business has a great leading article based on research conducted by The Marketing Society and McKinsey called Marketing in Crisis.

    When you think about the marketing crisis, you also need to think about the people providing the feedback. Other board colleagues might have a stilted or inaccurate view of what marketing does. But at the very least there seems to be a marketing crisis in miscommunication.

    A second aspect of this marketing crisis report is to ask what’s in it for The Marketing Society and McKinsey. The Marketing Society would be looking to professionalise marketing and differentiate from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. McKinsey would look to deposition marketing teams so that it can sell additional services.

    Key takeaways from the report include:

    • Marketers are seen as creative but undisciplined
    • Marketers don’t understand their own businesses
    • In marketing led businesses such as FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), marketing is too important to be left to the marketers
    • Marketing attracts the wrong kind of people
    • Marketers are undisciplined
    • Marketers are not interested in the P&L

    So this also might explain many of the client horror stories that I hear from agency veterans in PR, advertising, design and branding.

    The Buy Buy Generation

    Young Japanese women are consumers with a high disposable income, publishers target them with ‘product porn’ style magazines focusing on luxury handbags, shoes and clothing. UK publishers are now looking to copy this format. What surprised me about this article is that it did not draw comparisions with the product porn gadget magazines targeted at young men in the UK like Stuff and T3.

    Anybody walking the streets of London will have realised young Japanese are the most stylish people on the planet and avid collectors of the latest thing. On a related note the British boutique with a Japanese name Oki Ni have teamed up with the Adidas vintage connection to do two cool exclusive versions of Adidas’ ‘Torsion Special lo’ trainers here and here. These were the ultimate ravers trainer when they originally came out in the early 1990’s, they fit like a glove, are light, good cushioning, came in a multitude of colours (my originals were predominantly purple) and have a sole that will grip to any warehouse floor.

  • Jarhead by Anthony Swofford & other books

    I have been reading a number of books over the past few weeks, first up is Jarhead. This is the memoir of a marine sniper turned English teacher and his recollections from serving during the first Gulf War. Jarhead is well written and painfully honest.

    Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead exposes the tedium and the base attraction of war from viewpoint of an educated grunt. Highlights include Swofford’s disgust and realisation at being billeted in barracks that were built years before in preparation for American soldiers to fight for Saudi oil and then lain empty waiting for him.

    Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn is a classic chambara tale of honour, love, duty, retribution, sacrifice and revenge with a side dish of court politics. Hearn’s academic background and love of Japanese culture shines through the copy on every page. Part one of a trilogy, I will be certainly looking out for the next two books.

    The nightingale floor of the title is a specially constructed timber floor common in medieval Japanese castles that were designed so that it could not be walked on without creating some noise. Providing the castle dwellers with a type of zoned burglar alarm whilst they slept. Getting to an important person in the castle would require a Mission Impossible type plan, hence the almost supernatural skills and training afforded the ninja clans.

    I was attracted on a whim to the title of Bangkok 8 because of a colleague of mine Lucy was leaving to go travelling in Thailand. That choice was serendipitous. John Burdett’s book was a pleasant surprise, part murder mystery, part travel guide and reflection on Buddhism. The story centres around the death of a policeman and a foreigner in Bangkok. It unfolds in front of you, in an intelligent yet light read. Burdett has a good understanding of East and Southeast Asia, having worked as a lawyer based out of Hong Kong for a number of years. His knowledge and love for the region shines through in his prose.  More book reviews here.