Tag Archives: Japan

PTJ: Post Traumatic Japan

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Japan and Travel

The question on everyone’s lips of course is, how is Japan faring, post trauma? What does its road to recovery look like? According to Tourism Australia, pretty good. It looks like the company is going to begin marketing in the country next month again since “officials claimed they were confident of a swift recovery.” Marketing in Japan was put on hold last month by Tourism Australia but that things will be speeding up, pretty much because the company’s MD Andrew McEvoy sees how it is “in the Japanese DNA to travel,” so they won’t be sitting still all that much longer.

Japan isn’t set to sit in the sidelines forever. Indeed it is thought that the country is going to recover fast and “get strong again,” leading to increased growth. There doesn’t seem to be the need to be placing any ads but there are already notable signs that people want to start traveling again.

This is especially timely since next week it is Golden Week, traditionally a very major travel season for the Japanese. As well, schoolteachers were looking at Australian tour opportunities via Tourism Australia. Clearly the Japanese are not living in the past; in fact they are heading out to the future with enthusiasm.

Japanese Industry

As well, news today in Japanese industry is that as the country recovers, demand will increase in Japan for beef, copper and iron ore. According to Melbourne’s National Australia Bank Ltd’s commodities economist Ben Westmore, building up the country again could “drive demand for steelmaking materials and metals used in construction.” Given that the local protein supply was damaged, this will probably result in an increased need for imported dairy products and beef as well.

Further, there will probably be the need for more food imports due to the possibility of radiation leaks from the nuclear plant in Japan. So it looks like in general there will be more business inside of Japan and more travel outside during the coming months as the country goes from strength to strength following its recent travesty.

Mega-Marketing Millions: SEO Style

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The way to go with marketing these days – if you want to be up with top technological techniques – is SEO. Japanese car manufacturer Honda, could learn a thing or two from this marketing method. It is using just one website for different selling points. For example, whether you were looking to buy a used car or were just thinking about maybe becoming a new customer. This made things very confusing since if you would put in a Google search for Honda, you would be sent to their primary site and then you would have to spend time roaming it before reaching your particular area of interest.

Honda Hails SEO Help

So how did the extremely successful and popular Japanese car manufacturer solve this issue? It brought in the SEO experts who developed a “one size fits all solution.” What they did was set up a section that just focused on used cars and then redirected all traffic to that. They then established a map based on the user’s location so that if someone from the Sacramento area was looking for a car, the map would provide them with a list nearby and then put that potential new customer in contact with the current owner.
Higher Hits for Honda!

Well, Honda couldn’t have been happier with the results! In just a few months following their SEO work, their search queries escalated “from tens to thousands.”

SEO, SEM and SES Success

It seems that if you want to be any kind of success in today’s Internet market, the following acronyms need to mean something more than just a few letters. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Strategies (SES) are today’s mandatory media tools.

Indeed, you just need to look at what’s been going on in India to have this theory proved. Figures for 2009-10 show that of the 785 crore* spent on online advertising market in the country, a staggering 368 crore of this was spent in the field of search advertising; this amount is expected to further increase for 460 crore for 2010-11.

So, no matter what business you are, if you want to market your product well and continue to grow, or to at least really start to put yourself out there, you could be well advised to become extremely familiar with SEO, SEM and SES.

*a unit in the Indian numbering system equalling ten million (10000000; 107), or 100 lakh.

NZ: Marketing and Markets

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It’s not always the case that the more money spent on marketing, the better your product will well.  That’s what energy-Drink Manufacturer Red Bull New Zealand just found out.  Although the company netted 7.5 percent gain in 2010 sales (its second best since it first launched more than ten years ago), other factors have been at play.  Still, the company can celebrate a tad since a staggering $30.3 million of the caffeine-infused energy drinks were purchased by New Zealanders last year, that is made with taurine (an amino acid that was originally located in bull bile; hence Red Bull).

But it didn’t come cheap.  The company paid for this with larger marketing and administration costs which “wiped out most of its net profit” that plummeted to $888,171 from $10.7 million.  It’s not always in the sales pitch.

New Zealand Market Recovers Following Japan’s Disaster

V – an energy drink produced by Frucor – is in direct competition with Red Bull.  The latter drink has a hold on around 60 percent of the market share, selling approximately $90m of the drink annually.Good news on the horizon for New Zealanders as its dollar just now jumped ahead “recovering the more than US2c lost in the last week in the wake of Japan’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, followed by a nuclear crisis in the world’s third-largest economy.”

According to HiFX Daniel Bell, “Investors have shrugged off concerns in Japan and the Middle East for now to give risk assets a boost with equities, commodities and high yielding growth currencies all benefiting.”

So things are looking up for New Zealanders and manufacturing companies like Red Bull and V are likely to continue making good profits; so long as they’re careful with their expenses and make the right marketing decisions.

Olympics 2012 at £2,012?

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You’ve got to be kidding. It can’t really be true that Olympic tickets will be sold for a staggering £2,012. Can it? Apparently so; and people are waiting for these tickets. It’s like they can’t get them quick enough. There are after all, 500 days left until the big event and sales have already begun. But no need to panic if you don’t have that kind of money; it really does depend which event you want tickets for. Even the frugal Olympic supporters can still get a ticket…the lower end ones begin at £20. And there’s no need to rush out since there are approximately 6.6 million tickets available over the next six weeks.

There are going to be no special favors on how tickets are allocated; all applicants will be treated the same with oversubscribed events being determined by a ballot. Chairman of London 2012 Lord Coe said, “”If you look at the way we have put the price points together I think we’ve done that in a really smart way. I think those prices are affordable.”

Ticket Advertising Campaign Could Fund Japan’s Recovery

It still seems somewhat over-the-top that the London ticket advertising campaign is going to be costing quite a few million pounds sterling. The campaign’s theme is “the greatest tickets on earth.” That maybe, but what about putting some of that money into helping the recent disaster of fellow Olympians, like the Japanese? Well, apparently this too may be happening. American Olympic Committee leaders have “reached out” to those in Japan, offering help following the earthquake. USCO CEO Scott Blackmun wrote to the leader of Japan’s Olympic organizing committee to offer help but has yet to receive a response.

Because of what’s been going on in the country, Tokyo has been forced to cancel the figure skating world championships scheduled for next Monday. America is an extending a helping hand by offering to move the venue there, but apparently the Japanese have not responded. In any event, ISU executives were set to go to Japan for a “relationship-building trip” next month but it just might be that the Japanese now have somewhat other larger matters with which to contend.

Locog Advertising

So maybe after all it shouldn’t be so shunned that Locog has been working so hard – with so many resources – on their campaign. To date, there have been 13 different adverts. Chris Townsend, the commercial director said “the launch of Olympic tickets is an important milestone for us, and a key part of our commercial program.” It seems like the public is getting very excited about this too which is the prime part of the advertising campaign. Seb Coe London 2012 Chairman said, “We want this to be the greatest show on earth,” so it makes sense that they are investing so much money into it.

And why not? With so many world disasters (like Japan) and personal tragedies, isn’t the Olympics just a great, fun, safe and positive way to try to escape it all for a while? It sure will make for feel-good sentiments around the London area already 500 days prior to its commencement and will invariably be good for the British economy which has to somehow impact the global economy and thus in its own indirect way, have an effect on the Japanese recovery.

Microsoft Beats Apple But Doesn’t Tweet So Good

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While Microsoft just hit the 10,000 apps milestone with their Windows Phone 7 Marketplace quicker than any other competing store, it might not yet be quite time to celebrate.  Apple took 4.7 months to hit this number while Microsoft only took 4.5 month.  This has to be good news.

Gates Overtaking Jobs?

But perhaps it might be a little too soon for Microsoft to be celebrating.  The company made a possible recent mistake with the mixed response it received from the marketing tweet it put  out following Japan’s tsunami in an effort to raise funds for the country’s victims.  The idea was that followers would “retweet a message, with every retweet meaning that an extra $1 would be donated by Microsoft, up to $100,000.”

Gates Needn’t Break Out the Champagne Yet

So even though this week did see some good news for Microsoft, it has to be taken in perspective.   Even with its fast milestone achievement, other markets still have way more apps (Android at 200,000 and Apple at 300,000).  But still, good news is good news and there is cause for recognition of their milestone.  As long as Microsoft is careful with its marketing, the products should be able to speak for themselves and any charity the company chooses to give to might not want to use the events from Japan as part of the package. The message for Mr. Gates is thus clear:  let your products do the marketing for themselves.