Social media and social CRM ahead of ad:tech Tokyo 2011. A conversation with two international agencies.

As ad:tech approaches the topic of social media in Japan per se and its relationship with CRM programs are picking up steam. While immersed in the market it is difficult to notice the particular aspects of the two and how they relate to the local industry. More importantly how they differ and at the same time overlap with international trends. In search of answers I went out and knocked the doors of two international agencies with offices in Japan and spoke with two industry colleagues. Jeff Lippold, Digital Strategy Director with Euro RSCG Japan and Satoko Ozeki, Digital Strategist with Ogilvy One. In my search I was expecting an industry pulse checkup, but was greeted with extreme passion and excitement about what is happening now and what is likely to happen in our local industry.

On my quest I approached my guests with a 1st basic question to start the dialogue. What’s the state of the communication industry in Japan in lieu of the latest social growth and developments in the country?

Jeff tells me that we have seen a major shift this year. People are now much more open towards the idea of using their real names when joining social sites and participating in on-line conversations. This has created a major case in favor of Facebook which is now poised to dominate the Japanese market with its long-standing model of networking. He wonders “How many friends in Mixi add others?” The answer is perhaps an easy guess for a platform notorious for promoting interests over individuals.

Satoko shares the excitement by saying that finally the foreign social players have come into play changing the Galapagos reality that has not only characterized the mobile-phone market for many years, but also impacted the local social media and kept it isolated from global trends. In her words “The black boat carrying the media has arrived.” and I must say, it is obviously here to say.

My dialogue continued with a 2nd important question. What excites marketers in Japan these days?

Influence. The ability to influence people via social media and to gain traction through the social power appears as a clearly defined trend. Of course this is not new and the same applies to pretty much every market these days. However Jeff tells us that relevancy is amplified in Japan by the power of corporations participating in the social media and that the current status of the space has created opportunities for B2B activities of social nature that in a recent past did not exist. “if you don’t have well-known institutions participating in your dialogue, you don’t have a share of voice” adds Jeff while I think that his statement in hand with a changing perception in the role of corporations and their regained credibility in recent years is nothing but a key to succeed for marketers in Japan today. I confirm my perception when Jeff adds “if you think about it, podcasts never took off because there was no real participation validated by big names.” His closing remark ” As business get involved in platforms like Facebook, there’s more legitimacy and this is what is going to continue to drive growth in Japan.”

Satoko gives a different view in line with the economic reality of Japan. Today, while challenges exist in the global economy, we still retain the 2nd largest buying power in the world mainly powered by demand of luxury goods. This together with the well-established technological platform we enjoy these days means that we don’t have to educate consumers to do a particular thing. They already know and in some cases they have already known certain things for a while even though they did not have a particular reason to learn them. All things considered, and added to this reality the fact that we are in a homogeneous society with widely adopted standards in terms of education an behavior, we can market faster and perhaps more effectively than in other markets. In other words, or in her words, “marketing can be planned more effectively with better expected results than in other markets.”

Looking ahead I asked a 3rd question. Perhaps one, if not the, main question everyone who has read this far wants to know. What is the immediate future of our industry as seen by you and your agency? Yes, this the typical question many people are likely to ask this time of the year. What happens in Japan in 2012?

A re-rationalization of overall spend that allocates more budgets and activities to the digital side of the communication strategies clients plan or ask the agency to plan for them is something that pops to Jeff’s mind. This will likely be followed by the allocation of discretionary budgets to digital. Budgets that in previous years were allocated to other activities.

Satoko expects further growth in the channels of influence and sees more clear chances to influence audiences building upon the maturity acquired by the social media so far. While all platforms, especially the foreign ones will continue to gain ground, there is already a big, diverse audience that can be marketed to. This alone can be characterized as a big trend and is something that will bring more growth and expanded maturity to all digital communication efforts with more carefully thought-out campaigns and better digital/social planning.

My dialogue concluded with one final big question. What’s your take on social CRM? Big question with a few takes and possible answers. In a country that has been collecting data for a number of years I was particularly curious to learn the view of the two agencies.

Jeff sees that the whole key to running a successful CRM program in Japan resides on having the right ways to integrate social in it. As we stand now, many CRM programs in Japan are in a nice box, but they need to be socialized. What this means is that people who have given their names and are participating in a CRM program have to be communicated in specific ways that enable them to participate in certain social activities. In other words Jeff says “We should expect a social connection from CRM out to social.” This in his view is the first step towards integrating CRM with social media and actually creating social CRM programs.

Social platforms are established and they already carry a CRM capability asserts Satoko and in today’s Japan market and especially when it comes to building and/or converting CRM efforts into social engagement, “we must look at the nature of the social platform” she adds. We know what people are doing in certain networks, we can clearly target them, we can figure out what they’re talking about and can actually listen to some conversations so, we can therefore target individuals much more effectively and these are individuals that are likely to be interested in giving us their names to participate in a one-to-one engagement mechanism. CRM from her perspective is about creating, developing and converting users with the power of the self-segmentation characteristics the social media already offers.

Fascinating topics that are most definitely going to be part of many physical and social-media conversations in the days ahead prior, during and after ad:tech Tokyo 2011. We should expect the event to help us delve into the views of agencies and participants and deeply explore many views that along the lines of Jeff’s and Satoko’s are crafting the digital-communication reality of Japan as we speak.

Living in Tokyo

Living in Tokyo must not be a fearful experience full of hard rules attached. I must admit however and before anything that I go about life in a way that has raised eyebrows to say the least. Eyebrows raised perhaps by the way I defy the social rules most people consider written in stone. In any case though, my personal take at the core of the experience is that the more freedom you add to your life, the more you get to have the kind of life you want to have here.

As a foreigner in Tokyo I used to agree with the belief that one must be better than anyone else, behave better than anyone else and go by the rules of the locals better than anyone else in order to succeed. OK, I do for once agree with one thing, I think I have something to offer that is better than anyone else's and in fact this is what has granted me the right to live in Japan permanently. Beyond this point however, I don't believe in that I must live by the local rules in a much stricter way than anyone else's. Nor do I believe that a certain expected behavior should prevent me, or anyone else for this matter, from doing things in a special way.

I work my ass off for the most part doing 6-day weeks and spending some 10 to 12 hours at work, but don't get me wrong, work has nothing to do with having my ass glued to a chair and looking at a screen for that amount of time. Nor does it have to do with taking a train to work and doing 9:00 to 6:00 at a particular location. Working my ass off and defying the rules has to do with the new world; a new world that incidentally is proving my behavior right after the East-Japan earthquake of 2011 and its nuclear aftermath.

I wake up at about 7:30 or earlier, much earlier sometimes to find myself checking E-mail and working at home, coffee shop, park or wherever I feel like doing so. Get to work to my clients and do work on site and/or off site while using my cloud tools. At any given time whatever I do from wherever I do it goes to the cloud and I'm always in synch with my work no matter where I am or whatever happens in between tasks. Lunch is usually with good wine. Dinner is usually wherever happens, sometimes at home. Always in the company of good business and often interrupting the day for a regular trip to the gym about twice a week, this is my typical life. All put together I spend about 4 hours or less at a desk and many more hours maximizing my day without ever touching a train during rush hour.

So, some may say I take Tokyo as a playground and they are right. I do consider it a playground where I am an individual of unique ability which I gracefully provide to as many people as possible. I live in Tokyo, a place where there are no rules I fear, where I am exercising the new way of working, and where achieving happiness doing what I like and love can too be a realizable dream. I'm just a part of the new Japan.

Imagination and Education

When I was a kid I imagined a world in which we all had the ability to communicate easily in a short period of time, where TVs turned into two way devices that allowed people to see each other. I imagined a world where a phone did not just exist at home, but did not rely on wires to work. I saw people driving cars not powered by gasoline. I imagined that natural resources were going to play a big role in the future and that traveling physically from one place to the next was not going to be as much necessary.

Today, I work in a job that didn't exist back then, a job that most people never imagined, where most things I imagined have come to exist. Today, as I look at our kids in our world, I wonder how many of them are imagining the world of the future and how many people are realizing that the visions of the future exist within the imagination of our children and younger generations.

In a world where we don't even begin to understand the future of our kids as adults, have we started to imagine new ways to educate? Have we gone back to the feelings and experiences we had as kids and projected them well enough into the coming times? I'd like to think that some us have and are doing a good job at understanding the new future being forged in today's young minds. I also and with great worries see that the immense majority of the rest of us are so much into today's problems that imagination has been relegated to a mere thought. A limited thought that carries the potential of preventing us from seeing, developing and forging the near world ahead of its existence.

Launch delay of 3D console (by Campaign Magazine around Christmas last year)

The delay in the release of Nintendo’s long-anticipated 3D gaming console certainly means missed opportunities for the company.

While Nintendo appears to be hurting from the stronger Yen, missing an important chance to increase revenues such as that which the shopping extravaganza Christmas affords, plays against it.

But let’s be clear, this will not kill the company. In my opinion the move shows a conservative, carefully thought-out strategy that allows Sony and Microsoft to release their new toys first.

Will Nintendo see recovery when the 3D console goes on sale in the New Year? Absolutely. As Nintendo says, releasing the new console at this time won’t allow them to produce enough units to hit the holiday season in good shape, but again I see this as a way to generate more expectation for later on in the game world contest, and to stand out better.

This appears to be especially so since the 3D console will offer licensed 3D content provided by TV networks and other content providers which will then put Nintendo in a much stronger position to compete against the iPod Touch. For marketers eager to play new games, just wait, there’s a new channel opening up in the field of marketing with not just 3D, but also its competitors.

Read more at: http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/243418,nintendo-delays-launch-of-3d-console.aspx

Time

Let's talk about time and all the interesting aspects associated with it. Time is indeed the element of life we shall value the most as it represents one of the most gravitational aspects in life. While money, one of the most undoubtedly valued things in life seems to be by far the winner of all, time however must not be forgotten.

It is with time that we come to this world. It is time the factor that determines growth, maturity, the love we profess, the love that we make, the relationships we value, and all experiences in life. Time determines the line between success and failure. Due time is the fairest judge and with time at hand, it is our own destiny the one we craft.

Time....in the best interest of time, is the master of our lives as it becomes the law by which we obey the rulings of destiny. Time....is what takes us from one place to the next, one smile to the next, one experience to the next...Time is what rules the end of life. Time by whereby we cease to exist once we have used it all up.

Let's talk about time and remember that in the journey of life, we are all ruled by it. Life is not just about the decisions we make, the success we achieve, the happiness we enjoy, but about how well we use the time we have.

Everybody plays the game

But only a few attempt to change it...
I guess these are the major ideas behind a dilemma that has encompassed the lives and destinies of many people.

Whenever I look at a half-empty glass that appears half-full to anyone else that I know is wrong about their appreciation, I can't help but feeling pity. Together with this feeling though, I feel urgency. The urgency that comes naturally to any living thing on the planet. Either fight or run.

The gravitating answer goes one way or the other. If ever staying longer than the maximum limit of tolerance when you know you have crossed the line to the point at which you have to go, staying longer makes you lame. Lame as a lame duck.

In this time and age, we all control our destinies. If we don't take action, we are living the life and destiny of someone else and, I don't think anyone wants to do that.

Everyone plays the game and the ones who dare to become better at it, control their lives and destinies.

Digital 2011

A definite no surprise to anybody, 2011 will continue to see digital growth. What are the specific areas to keep an eye on this year? Here's a brief slur of thoughts.

1. Tablets, tablets, and more tablets.
You didn't think that iPad was alone, did you? There are more flat devices to go about than originally thought. With Android, Palm and Windows driven systems, anything with a screen up to 12 inches and a mobile processor will provide your particular WOW!

2. Digital TV
And I mean both air and Internet digital TV. Something that started with that streaming feed somewhen not very far in the past, a cross mix between TiVo and YouTube and...kaboom, set-top box with an Apple logo on it. Apple TV pioneered what has now become a healthy set of options of the same like. With Apple, Hulu, Google TV and Netflix there's no much margin for emergent options, but definitely we'll see others popping up.

3. Mobile
With 5 billion mobile devices vs 1.5 billion TV sets in the world, it's clear to take a guess at what most people are, and will continue, watching. Tiny screens, sometimes ugly design, but definitely in everybody's hand all the time.

4. Ads
Ad networks, a continuously developing paradise for marketers. With more possibilities of individualization, more diverse and complex networks will continue to develop in a world that is about carefully thought personalization.

5. Outsourcing
If you are in the digital business, this is what you'll do a lot more. We have finally reached maturity in the outsourcing field. It's not that certain countries do a cheap job, they do a more cost effective job.

All and all, digital is now part of our lifes and whoever still sees an identifiable difference between the digital and analog worlds, lives in the latter. The days of the digital agency have ended and so have the days of the ad agency. These are the days of the communication agency in which digital is the type of communication to live and die for.

Emotions

When you look inside yourself, what do you feel? What is the passion, motivation that keeps you going? What is your reason to be alive? I've been having a few problems answering these questions lately. I think I go by the fact that my work is the main thing that keeps me going, but then again, I look at other things, I look at my emotions and feelings and while I do so I can't avoid thinking that I seem to be reaching an interesting point at which my emotions appear to be randomly changing.

It is often said that men in their 40s experience a mid-life crisis and while I don't feel inclined to acknowledge this one as such, I see my inner self having interesting questions about who I am and where I'm going. OK, granted, nobody can ever answer these questions, but the daunting questioning is something I have never experienced before. I'm not even talking about the fact that once somebody goes over 40 the possibility of leaving this world is always a chance to face as a tangible one at any given time, and therefore a chance to look inside one's self, I'm talking about the surrounding scenarios behind that chance.

As times change and life shapes into its new self, moving along the path of life seems to be an ever-enjoying adventure charged with new emotions, new people, and new experiences to discover. Whether in crisis or not, the rate of discovery is the only factor to make the rest of the journey worth living it and all whatever important comes my way just needs a bit more careful and deeper attention when evaluated. Life is not just about work after all.

Birth canal

When I look at the end of a year and the transition to a new one, I can't avoid comparing the transition to the concept of a birth canal. Right before Christmas there's the anxiety about what to do that night and how to get there while doing all the things one must do before the old year ends. Who to be with, what to do, the places to be at, the presents and all other jolly planning makes for quite a lot of stretching to go about in the birth canal. While feeling better once all the Christmas songs subside, the 2nd round begins; the new year. Who to count down, where to be, the presents and all other social compromises make a good part of the last stretching before we get to the critical point at which the new year is born. Then, we relax while thinking about new year resolutions and all the other great things we'll do in the new year. By the first week of January everything goes back to normal and we feel much better after leaving the canal and then of course, we start building another year of experiences that takes us to another birth.

Kohaku Utagassen

The 2010 edition of Kohaku Utagassen, famous NHK competition in which team white (men) and team red (women) compete with each other singing, was pretty uneventful. The competition was handed to the white team from the beginning with a poor performance from Ayumi Hamasaki that was immeditately beaten by Exile. From then on, the women were beaten on every single count by their male counterparts who once again walked with another win. While team red started on a weak note that followed through the whole competition, there were a few moments of brilliancy delivered by Angela Aki, who I believed performed too early, Perfume and Ikimonogakari. Everyone else on the female team either was wrongly selected or strategically badly placed. The men won and this time they did so not because of better performances, but because of their better strategy.

Last year was a pretty boring year for Japanese music and the event clearly showed it.