To most of us Westerners, Japan truly is a country of which we know nothing. It is as exotic as the Amazonian forest, andoften harder to understand too. One only needs to look at their advertisementsto see what I mean.
Now I don’t know about you, but I have noidea what I just saw. This is an example of how different Japan really is. As aculture, it has been isolated for as many centuries as there are recorded. Onlyin the 21st century did they really have ‘intruding foreigners’coming into the country, as part of the first World War. Children that wereborn into a Korean family in the country don’t get a passport, leaving themnationless. With this, I can safely conclude that they don’t take to foreigners(that aren’t tourists) well.
On top of that, Japanese producers oftenalready have their own version of whatever product you’re offering, adapted totheir society and everything.
The Japanese are as different from theChinese as people in the UK from those in the US. So don’t ever make themistake of translating your successful advertisement from Chinese to Japanese.It won’t work.
A good example of this is ‘Cakeron’, a cakemix for your average Japanese family, which can be made in an electrical ricecooker. The cake ended up having a sponge-like texture and a taste thatappealed to the Japanese public. However, the product never really becamepopular. Why?
In Japan, rice is almost sacred. So thefocus groups were able to explain to Cakeron’s producers that Japanese womenwere afraid the lingering vanilla or chocolate flavours would taint the rice.This means that either they needed to buy a new electrical rice cooker just tomake the cake, or decide not to make the cake at all. Of course they weresensible enough not to buy a new appliance just to make cakes.
Sources:
http://adage.com/article/global-news/field-communication-shifting-marketing-japan/235260/
http://www.culturalsavvy.com/marketing_in_japan.htm
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