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.

  • Luxxury I wanna be everything & other things

    Luxxury has released a new track I wanna be everything. Luxxury has the expansive feel of post-disco, pre-house uptempo dance music a la Shep Pettibone, the Latin Rascals and Arthur Baker. More related content here. Luxxury I wanna be everything is digital only.

    A YouTube video on the history of Unix. Now before you roll your eyes and move on to another site. Think about the ubiquity of unix. Key parts of the internet run on Unix. It’s also the reason why URLs and email addresses aren’t case sensitive. Most telecoms equipment runs on Unix or an analogue of the operating system.  I am writing this on a Mac, the core of the operating system is based on BSD – a variant of Unix. If you’re using Windows 10; it owes a lot to VMS – an operating system developed as a Unix analogue in the early and mid 1970s by Digital Equipment Corporation.

    As for Linux; it was originally developed because Linus Torvalds didn’t realise he could download a free version of BSD…. Linux now powers Android smartphones, smart televisions and all of the internet of things stuff that poses a huge security risk in your home. In terms of a written thing; Unix must be right up there with the works of Shakespeare or JRR Tolkien in terms of its importance in the modern world.

    The presentation also puts a bit of personality into what could have been quite a dry subject.

    I found this on Core 77; Nestle posted some epic videos from its Japanese Kit Kat factory. I love the enthusiasm of the presenters in their workwear as they take you through the manufacturing line: K. Kohno and H. Matsumoto are stars. Japanese Kit Kat is not the same as the sad loser biscuits that you pick up in your weekly shop. Instead they are beautifully packaged and come in a constantly changing variety of flavours like cherry blossom or green matcha tea. The process itself is beautiful to watch. In particular look at the packaging automation.

    The New York Times made a lot of allegations about Facebook and its reaction to Russian election tampering. Scott Galloway was on had to do TV interviews that poured petrol on the fire.

    Great video on Johnny Cash’s live concert At Folsom Prison. It is up there with Live at San Quentin also by Johnny Cash.

  • Walter Cronkite & things from last week

    US newsreader Walter Cronkite narrates a 1967 programme on what the future held in the 21st century. The soothing voice of Walter Cronkite makes the future look less scary

    An Unknown Enemy is a Mexican series on Amazon Prime that follows the rise of Fernando Barrientos, Head of the National Security Directorate, Mexico’s Secret Police in the late 1960s

    Panasonic helps workers create their own head space with new crowdfunded device | The Japan Times – the design looks hokey, but it mirrors the transformation of offices with hot desking and always on headphone culture to try and provide distance. More design related content here.

    The People’s Republic of Desire documents China’s online streaming culture that has developed over the past few years. The film financed by the Ford Foundation provides an inside view of the direction interaction between personalities and their audience. Young girls become online personalities funded directly by besotted fans. More interaction happens online than in real life. Of course, all this happens under the ever-seeing eye of the Chinese government.

    https://youtu.be/auHtqCJV4Rw

    Super-excited by an album of Smith & Mighty’s unreleased back catalogue from 1988 – 1994 being released this week. It is available via digital channels, double vinyl album and on compact disc. While the tracks were unreleased, there is no filler tracks in the collection, the quality is all top notch. Here is a taster.

    Have a great weekend.

  • Eco vehicles + more things

    Korea to Fight Smog with Eco Vehicles – The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition) – interesting dual electric / hydrogen strategy in their eco vehicles. Hydrogen makes sense because of its compact nature as a form of energy, that helps with range anxiety and the amount of time taken to ‘fill up’. As a use case hydrogen makes more sense than modern electric batteries, the key challenge to overcome is the current price differential.

    Japanese Mobile Phone Users Distrustful of Profit-Hungry Operators | Nippon.com – a few interesting aspects of this research. Japanese aren’t as convinced about the utility of mobile services as one would have expected and smartphone mastery is really low

    Why are millennial-obsessed marketers ignoring women over 50 – when they spend the money? – Mumbrella Asia – gen X is a smaller demographic – so their ‘control of 95% of consumer spending decisions” power of spending might be counterintuitive, youth is aspirational – which is why old age is being redefined by boomers. There is also an argument that focusing on young people is focusing on consumer lifetime spend. The last reason is hard to gel with the overall short terms approach to marketing currently employed

    Coty partners with the Cybersmile Foundation to tackle cyberbullying with Rimmel | coty.com – interesting tension between Instagram culture setting the beauty bar and cyberbullying, so I guess this is why Rimmel stepped into the fray

    TIC Brings Affordable Cell Service to Indigenous Mexico | New York magazine – interesting read and reference data on the Mexican wireless market

    Palm Is Back With a Tiny Phone That’ll Keep You Off Your Phone | Makeuseof – not convinced its the right form factor or price point, but I think that it’s an interesting attempt at innovation in the smartphone sector. More innovation related content here

    Instagram’s next cash cow: instant Promote ads for Stories | TechCrunch – stories were a massive lift for Facebook, so its stories with everything

    BBC and Sky call for EU crackdown on Saudi pirate TV service | Business | The Guardian – this story gets stranger by the day. BeoutQ started off as a way to break Qatar’s pay TV business throughout the Gulf, but has morphed into something even more difficult for Saudi Arabia and western countries

  • Zegna + more things

    Ermenegildo Zegna now looks to China for fashion’s vanguard, not the US — Quartzy – Ermenegildo Zegna, grandson of the brand’s founder and current CEO of the group, explained at the WWD Apparel + Retail CEO Summit in New York yesterday (Oct. 30). “Now we test new things in China, and then if it works, we bring them around the world.” – the problem with this approach is threefold:

    • What about the Italian heritage and expertise that one buys Zegna for?
    • Chinese sizes are considerably different to westerners
    • Chinese consumers lack the kind of soft power of Koreans or Japanese and the innovations may not travel that well

    More luxury content here.

    IBM’s Old Playbook – Stratechery by Ben Thompson – interesting analysis about the Red Hat acquisition. Red Hat is as much a culture and business model injection as an acquisition for IBM. Of course it could all go wrong if IBM internal realpolitik kicks in and smothers the transformation.

    Brandwatch presentations channel – slides from NYK London 2018 are well worth looking at from a marketing data and analytics perspective.

    Facebook: the court of King Mark | Financial Times – Facebook shareholders should be alarmed about Mr Zuckerberg’s insularity, he adds. “Zuckerberg’s absolute control can increasingly be seen as Facebook’s Achilles heel.” – Is this even news? Zuckerberg’s control has been baked in since the IPO. His poor judgement is also exceptionally well documented. Sony believes it is a manufacturer— and innovator and creator of consumer electronics. It still employs fantastically talented engineers, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. Manufacturing allows copying so fast that there is not longer an easy way to get blue water between you and your competitors

    US spies see new threats from global rivals, say it could be Cold War 2.0 – Stripes – because China

    The SONY Brands: like watching an accident happen – breaks my heart to read this as a long time Sony customer. Sony and its sub-brands do lack power,

    From Farm to Blockchain: Walmart Tracks Its Lettuce – The New York Times – overkill

  • Cartel murders + more things

    How A Cartel-Linked Murder Rocked A Wealthy Dallas Suburb | Texas Monthly – a great read on how a cartel now operates. The painstaking research of the cartel commissioned stalkers is like something out of The Wire. It also brings home how much telematics have fallen in cost and user complexity over the past two decades

    Why Yahoo Japan Needs to Be Part of Your Search Strategy for Japan – my advice would be don’t be a cheap SoB and pay for a decent SEO agency based in Japan, so that they can look at content strategies and link placement across the different sources that Yahoo! Japan Search uses. This guide just opens you up to the kind of possibilities there, but is no substitute for a local team

    Qualcomm CEO thinks Apple will eventually be a customer again, despite escalating legal battle | 9to5Mac – There’s less to these than meets the eye, beyond Qualcomm wants to make Apple it’s prison bitch

    WhatsApp Founder Speaks, EU Deception?, Facebook Ideology | Stratechery  – probably one of the best reads about founders and Facebook.  What gets me is that this is news. Eight years ago in tech circles the term zucked – a portmanteau of (Mark) Zuckerberg and fucked was already in common enough use for me to blog about it.  Facebook has demonstrated this time-and-time again to consumers, partners, acquired businesses and even government and regulatory bodies. When do they get their Judge Jackson moment a la Microsoft? The main point of interest is how closely aligned Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg in terms of their collective moral turpitude

    How China Systematically Pries Technology From U.S. Companies – WSJ – China isn’t going to change this conduct, any more than the United States were willing back when Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling were  complaining about book piracy in the New World. China is already putting in strong protection for domestic intellectual property, but unlike the US, there is no sign that they will ever support foreign IP rights as they pursue a mercantilist imperial agenda globally

    Spotify’s Big Tencent Risk [Mark Mulligan] – hypebot

    How China’s army of online trolls turned on Sweden | Abacus – I am surprised that Facebook allows groups that are organising way stations to remain on the platform. It fits into a wider narrative that Facebook is facilitating and profiting from the weaponising of the web by Russia/China etc. etc. I don’t think Sweden will be that sympathetic to Facebook lobbyists when they come complaining about EU overreach.

    “Swiped” HBO documentary – director Nancy Jo Sales explains why swiping on Tinder is addictive – Recode – great read, you could probably say similar things for scrolling through Instagram or a Facebook feed