Pernod Ricard Japan picks Isobar as digital AOR for Chivas Regal

Isobar Japan has scooped Chivas Regal’s digital agency-of-record contract following a pitch called in August which also involved incumbent Euro RSCG. 

Although the monitored digital spend for Chivas was only about US124,000 July 2009 to June 2010. I really think Isobar has an opportunity to "uplift the luxury, authentic and prestigious brand image of Chivas Regal in Japan."  It's a brand with over 200 years of history, so certainly going back to it's roots and providing some historical perspective in the digital campaign would do well to interest the Japanese consumer - who do love the "history" of a brand.  Tie that up with some good on-and off-trade activity, events and PR; and they can compete with the "whisky high-ball" boom we are now seeing in Japan.

Japan’s Internet Users Not Into Social Networking

A study by TNS, the world’s largest Custom Market Research specialists, analyzed the online behavior for 50,000 consumers in 46 countries and determined that Japanese internet users have the least friends on social networking sites.

Mixi is the king of the social networking sites in Japan, embracing more than 25 million users. MySpace has had a presence in Japan since 2006, but it has never gained popularity. Facebook, since its Japanese launch in 2008, has also experienced a very slow organic growth, experiencing 1/10 of the Mixi membership.
One cultural hurdle concerns the Japanese need for privacy which social networking sites like Mixi accommodate. Anonymous nicknames are preferred and Facebook requires users to reveal their real names.
Facebook also cannot compete with the security users feel with Mixi, which provides a way to see who has viewed a profile with the “ashiato” (“footprint”) functionality. This is a fundamental part of the Mixi platform that is guaranteed for all users.

The average Japanese Internet use, according to BBC reports, has just 29 friends on websites such as Facebook or Twitter, compared with an average of 233 in Malysia, 231 in Brazil and 217 in Norway.
Considering that Internet statistics place Japan third in the world in the number of Internet users, following China and the United States, this does seem an odd fact.

“The study could suggest a culture that embraces fewer but closer friendships… In rapid growth markets… users are embracing these new channels in much more active ways. The digital world is transforming how they live, develop and interact,” said Matthew Froggatt, TNS’s chief development officer.

Another aspect of this study revealed that those countries that are just discovering the power of the Internet and are newer to technology are embracing it at a much faster rate than in established markets.
Ironically, despite this, Twitter in Japan has caught on due to the fact perhaps that many famous Japanese celebrities and politicians are using their real names on its portals.

Will Japan catch up with the rest of the world?

Keep social networking for the answer.

'Creative up to four times more important than the media plan' says comScore

Something I'm sure the "creatives" knew all along ;) But at the same time, if a GREAT creative isn't being seen due to its media plan - it isn't going to mean much!


By magz osborne on Oct 13, 2010 Campaign Asia Pacific

GLOBAL - comScore Inc has released findings showing that creative quality drives more than half of the sales changes for brands analysed, four times higher than the impact of the specific media plan involved.

The findings were based on extensive research conducted by comScore ARS into effective campaign execution for TV and digital advertising campaigns.

“Through our copy-testing measurement, we are able to quantify the quality of a campaign and show a 0.90 correlation between ARS Persuasion Scores and changes in brand sales,” explained Jeff Cox, executive vice president of comScore ARS.

“Based on our years of research in this space, we’ve determined that the quality of the creative is four times more important than the characteristics of the media plan in generating sales.”

Cox went on to say that creative is the single most important factor and accounts for over half the changes in a brand’s sales over time. He says that the importance of creative often gets minimised in the process of developing an ad campaign.

“Now is the time for advertisers using digital, as well as more traditional media, to get serious about optimising their creative on the front end so they don’t get a rude awakening when the ads don’t work and they are left wondering what went wrong.”

Steve Elrick, regional executive creative director at BBH Asia Pacific said, "I suppose as a 'Creative' one would expect me to leap at this as proof of our complete majesty over all things. And it does! But I can sympathetically imagine Media people shouting 'unfair' if the metric used is 'average' media buys. Doesn't this simply say that a strong, powerful message will resonate much more than a weak one? Based upon years of my research in space of common sense I can sort of agree."

I was asked to write for Campaign:Five things you need to know about mobile marketing in Japan

Five things you need to know about mobile marketing in Japan - Blogs & Opinions - Five Things - Marketing - Campaign Asia-Pacific


1. The mobile landscape.
There are over 110 million mobile subscribers across three mobile network operators in Japan, and over 80 per cent of subscribers use mobile data services. This translates to a whopping three quarters of the country's population. Even taking out users who only use the data capacity for messaging, it leaves nearly 70 million mobile internet users. With less than three per cent of global mobile subscribers, mobile internet penetration is more than double any European country and that of the US. Estimates of mobile advertising spending in Japan are as high as 38 per cent of the total global figure.

2. User experience.
The Japanese certainly love their mobile technology and embrace it faster than any other country. Over 95 per cent of subscribers are on a 3G handset – the highest penetration in the world. The quality of the network and the coverage is exceptional and this leads to an unparalleled user experience. As 75 per cent of users are on a flat-rate data plan, advertisers are not afraid to utilise data-intensive sites and applications, allowing for highly creative and innovative marketing campaigns all delivered into the hands of their target consumers.

3. Content rich environment.
All mobile network operators in Japan follow an open platform strategy. Staying out of the content business themselves, and offering content providers a pay out of around 90 per cent of the revenue, has resulted in a plethora of easily accessible mobile sites and a consumer that is not suffering from any cost barrier when downloading content rich media.
A downside is that media planners do have a hard time to target across all three carriers and the thousands of sites available. Marketers of large brands in Japan also tend to be of a different generation to the users, and there still is a big gap in knowledge and realisation of the potential of mobile content and marketing for some of the best known brands in Japan.
Educating brand owners by advertising agencies is the key to success – unfortunately while TV media still generates huge profits for the key advertising giants in Japan, a next big wave of content and advertising campaigns is a little ways away.

4. Device fragmentation.
The mobile network operators hold the keys to the kingdom in Japan. They define the device specs they require for their different lines of handsets and the device manufacturers make to order – of course at their own risk. The beauty for the consumer is that with three mobile phone operators with very similar functionality, developers and marketers rarely have to worry about device fragmentation and usability across the networks. This has significantly contributed to high consumer adoption of mobile data services.

5. Just plain 'funky'.
Japanese love convenience and have a lot of idle time (thanks to long train commutes). The more ways they can utilise their pocket-size, personal device, the more they love using them. We see mobile handsets used for everything from SNS to electronic payments, from navigation to video-on-demand, and of course calling.
The average 16 to 24 year-old is spending at least one hour a day on web usage on their phones, and this is still early days in Japan!

*Statistics and insights credited to research done by Christopher Billich, one of the most knowledgeable experts on mobile marketing in the world

Going Beyond Social Media Reach by Amber Naslund

I really liked this article by Amber.  A good reminder for us that what matters in social media is: focus, efficiency, and impact!!!  Clients just dont want reach anymore, but RELEVANT reach!

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We’re a little too focused on collecting humans like marbles.

Our fans. Followers. Subscribers. Impressions.

Once upon a time, numbers like gross circulation mattered a bit more, because the available channels and paths for information were somewhat limited. So by putting yourself visibly in one of them, chances were pretty good that you’d actually be seen, and command a fair bit of someone’s attention, at least for a few moments.


Now? Not nearly. Clicking “follow” or “like” is a fleeting, non-commital moment. And just as easily, that attention is off and elsewhere. (How many pages have you liked – whether sincere or just out of support for a friend – and never revisited?). It’s the equivalent of someone picking up the flyer and tossing it in the next trash can. Veneered attention is so easy to give out, because it doesn’t take our time, our effort, or even our brainpower. We simply need to click. And move on.


Is that really the only way you want to define success?



What That Number Does Tell You

What the larger network size represents – has always represented – is potential.


The number of your fans, followers, blog subscribers – they only ever represent the possible scope of your network. And it’s likely an inflated one at that.



Not all of those people are paying attention at any given time, certainly not in today’s firehose of information. An even smaller portion of those paying attention in that moment are actually in the right frame of mind to hear what you’re talking about, posting, or offering. And then again, a smaller percentage of those attentive and interested will actually act.



The balance for you is that of course, you want the greatest possible potential. So sure, building a broad network with large reach can be a good thing. But in order for that potential to pay off somehow, you want to expend the effort growing both the size of your audience as well as the density of its overall relevance to your work.



This is really what we’re saying when we refer to quality over quantity. Having 500 engaged and interested community member versus 50,000 ambivalent ones. Size only matters if there’s substance beneath.



Patience, Padawan

Building that powerful network, though – the one with both reach and relevance – takes relentless work and patience. It requires:



•Targeting: which means understanding your audience incredibly well so that you know where to seek them out, and can identify them when you find them.

•Filtered acquisition: focusing your work, outreach, and content on that customer profile (as well as being willing to let go of those that don’t fit the bill).

•Nurturing: providing value to your existing customers in a consistent fashion, through content, products and services, community experiences, or otherwise.

•Propagation: Making everything shareable and spreadable as much as possible so your current “good fit” customers and community can help you identify others.

None of these are instant. They require time and effort. Sometimes you have to adjust them based on what you learn, or how your business changes. But over time, they together return a more sustainable network fabric.



The second one is the hardest for most businesses; we’ve always done the “cast the net wide and hope to catch a few good fish” approach. It’s just far less efficient today than it once was. Why? Simple laws of supply and demand. The supply of information, opportunity, and people and businesses vying for our attention FAR, FAR outweighs the demand for it. And the minute we give our attention, we’re distracted by a zillion other things.



But there’s still a demand market based on personalized experiences, experiences with companies that feel like they’re well-tailored to our needs as customers, and backed up without outstanding service and delivery. So getting attention is harder, and keeping it is harder still. The only answer for the latter is delivering great business, relentlessly, and in response to - and in anticipation of – what your customers tell you they need. (Remember, though, that the quality of that experiences is determined by the customers, not how awesome you think you are.)



Making the Case For Relevant Reach

Fishing with a net seems like the easier approach. And it can be tempting to just gather, gather, gather. Counting our marbles, celebrating how many we have, amassing some numbers that look impressive on a spreadsheet. And stopping there.



But when you want to show your results, is it more impressive to see:



50,000 Facebook Fans and 3% of them took a qualified action (opted into a newsletter, purchased something, wrote a positive review…something more than just clicking a link)



or



7,500 Twitter Followers and 20% of them took a qualified action




If I’m the boss, the second set of numbers is much more telling to me. The net result is the same on the surface – 1,500 people did something – but the second is a greater activated proportion of our audience. That ratio represents focus, efficiency, and impact. Those things matter.



So what we want isn’t just reach, but relevant reach.



If your total number of fans, followers, or subscribers is the potential, when the ratio goes up, the larger network yields even better results. Not only are they more likely to do, say, or create something that’s valuable to you, it gives you a richer base upon which to build communications and invest in those people in return. The reach may be part of the means, but it is not remotely the end.



It’s a different way of thinking. But then again, we’re in the midst of a different way of doing a lot of things.



I think we focus much too heavily on collecting superficial demonstrations of attention, and not nearly enough on the composition of the communities we build.



What do you think?