Richard Connell Says...

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I've been posting a few insights and impressions from some work I did last week in Tokyo with Matt Hart from Industry Approved and another couple of companies.

Popular opinion is these trips can be a bit of a jolly, and while I admit it was an amazing experience it was hard work. You'll find here a number of posts that I posted either during the trip or a couple posted when I returned. If you're familiar with the blog you'll know that you have to scroll down to get to the beginning as the most recent is the one at the top etc etc. Enjoy if you can be bothered, you never know, like me you might just learn something, if you do please comment.

So I've been back now a couple of days and had a chance to reflect on the work that I did in Tokyo and how it could work back in the UK.

Well a challenge that is always placed at the door of this work is, "It doesn't apply to music, we're not selling soap-powder!!" 

I have seen nothing this last week that could not be adapted to music if you bring your own experiences to the process. That after all is our job, those participating in the work would be working in music and therefore bring a music-flavor to the proceedings and in my opinion that's enough. Let's take a look at some other 'creative' entertainment industries: film and fashion - both centered around the 'selling' of a creative product. Both industries embark on this type of work as a matter of course. Indeed fashion makes us look like Amnesty International when it comes to commercial exploitation.

The other thing that struck me was that the work carried out this week was not rocket science. I went expecting to be a little bit lost in either the language or the proceedings. After all I was working with Global Brand Managers and Regional Heads etc. However we at SonyBMG have these conversations, we can work like this! But our level of insight, open-ness and frankly effort we put into this area is where we could do our best work on improving. After all I went to work in Tokyo with a major-major conglomerate discussing the launch of a serious product for them with their agency and team and they accepted my opinion and input. We have trouble accepting the input and opinion of another department let alone an outsider.

But it was hard work, people had put in a lot of effort and time in the pre-reading and the source material. Taking that source material and working with it, talking about it, listening, noting it down, pinning it on the boards, distilling it and interpreting it takes effort, time and team work.

And what did we get at the end? A brief. That's all. But a brief that you can build around and do as much big-idea thinking around as you want.  Not 16 different opinions on what the target market is or what they do. We ended up with a brief that was the basis for all the work to be built upon. A brief on what would have the biggest impact on the project and can actually be communicated.  It was then the job of the marketing teams to brief that in to the agency, allow them to get on with it and for them to go away and figure out the best way of communicating it.

But we have some very, very understandable challenges in seeing if we can get to a place like this. But any of you that have bothered to read this far and read all the work  leading up to this  should know that if you're up for the journey what you get at the end is so richly compelling, exciting and stimulating that it's worth the effort. Besides what's the worst that could happen.....?

 

After getting to bed at 11pm last night I wake up bright and early at about 4.30am. I sit in bed listening to music until it's time to get up. I wander down to breakfast and then out into town to get a Starbucks. I feel as tired and sick now as I did when I went to bed, how can that be, how can you wake up as tired as when you fell asleep? I understand now how Sophie Coppola can make an entire film about jet-lag. A film I didn't really rate at the time but now can appreciatre

Anyway I make it up to the 15th floor in time for us to start work. Today is all about turning our learnings from yesterday into a meaningful plan. Matt starts with a review of yesterday and any further thoughts or big ideas anybody has had overnight.

We start with a Clustering exercise. Clustering means looking for consistent themes from the work we did yesterday, That work can be broken down into four broad themes: Market, Culture, Brand and Target. We split into teams with each team given a couple of the headings to look at the clusters. We work on Culture and Target, bringing together some themes around; Summer versus winter usage, females as a 'quiet manager', The Swan and what part emotion plays in the cycle. We look at things like Displacement, Navigating with Grace and the Invisible Body.

After a break we come back together and articulate each of those Clusters from each team and look at the broad themes. I liken the previous exercise to the film 'A Beautiful Mind' if you've seen it I'm referring to the moment when Russel Crowe works with the 'CIA' to see patterns in a wall of numbers, only when some numbers start to glow does he see the patterns. That's what the clustering work is like, a whole wall of post-its with some of the themes glowing.
Other teams looked at the various segments including the Gen Zee work done earlier.

Once each team has downloaded their clusters we move onto M.I.C.E. This means the Most Important Change to Encourage. This is essentially to look from all that cluster work to see what is the single most important change that we want to achieve. 

Once we've done that we move on to one of the single biggest pieces of work that I thought was brilliant.

So we do this and we come up with a MICE statement. For example: The MICE statement for the Ford Motor Company right at the beginning was "Make The Horse Redundant." Another example is Ovaltine, traditionally drunk just before bed-time. Their MICE statement at this juncture was "Prove that Ovaltine can be drunk at any time of the day." Both very simply outline the single biggest change that they need to encourage that would have a huge impact on their business. Geddit!

To do the MICE statement we are split into two teams and come back together to present our work. Once we have that work in place and both teams have debriefed each other we work on the CREATIVE CONCEPT.
So after two days of solid hard work we end up with a Creative Concept that can be given to the Agency to bring to life. I'd love to show you it here but it's so good I think it's confidential.

We then break for lunch which we have in the most brilliant 'Salary man' cafe just down the road from the hotel.  Four of us eat an incredible lunch for £15. Wonderful. We return and have a final session catching up and looking at the Creative Concept and living with it a bit.

We finish at about 4pm today and all head off to do a bit of shopping. Matt and I catch a cab over to the Akihabara

district. This for me is a like a trip to Mecca as I'm a big gamer and gadget freak. I see entire floors dedicated to the Nintendo DS. I see the Sony Ericsson 'Bravia' phone which is brilliant and I see Arcades that are out of this world. We  jump in a cab back to dinner at the Kill Bill restaurant who's name I forget now. I eat the greatest California Rolls I have ever eaten. And then the oddest thing happens and I bump into the Sahara Hotnights who are in Tokyo playing two shows - a shame as I'd love to have seen them play. Their manager Hansi is there and I join them for half hour and catch up. We leave and head back to the hotel and catch a lift with the largest most flamboyantly dressed Japanese man I have ever seen. Lilac suit with lilac glasses (we'd seen him earlier in the week with a white suit and whit glasses!!!) and green shoes. Brilliant.

Tuesday November 6th.
So I get to sleep about 1am and wake up fully wide awake in an instant at about 4.41am! Why is when you need to get up it takes you about two hours to get out of bed, but when you don't need to you're awake in an instant.

Anyway I head over to the 15th floor of the Cerulean Office Tower which I nearly feint to find out has a Starbucks in the lobby which will prove essential over the next couple of days. I order a triple shot as now I am the walking dead having slept for about 6 hours out of the previous 72 hours.

The day starts at 9am with Matt introducing himself and what we are here to do. Following that we go around the room introducing ourselves and what our first impressions of Japan are. In addition we comment of the pre-reading we were all sent and what struck us the most. To me my biggest impression from the reading was the strength of the Japanese woman and how hard she works at quite different things at different times of her life.

Anyway today is an immersion day. We are here to learn all about the environment and market in which we are launching the product into. It's the canvas if you like that we will paint the picture on tomorrow.

Part One: We look at the Japanese market place and economy and a snap-shot of the recent economic history. We talk through the Japanese Women as our product will be aimed at them. We are walked through their attitudes and behaviour. How these change from through the stages of Japanese Womanhood: Student - Working Woman - Married - Motherhood. Some phrases I captured from this segment include:

88% of woman in their 20's are unmarried.
Need to pigeon hole people first then get to know them if they want to.
So important to always be feminine.
If you don't make the effort in your appearance you are missing opportunities.
Woman are handed a 'manual' on behaviour at work, but the dress and appearance rules are unwritten.
Marriage is the ultimate goal, work is not an aspiration.

Part Two: After the break we are told about the market and the current products category and our products position within it. We were painted a picture of why we need to re-launch the product and the size of the prize awaiting us if we got it right. Some phrases I captured from this segment include:
 
Woman reapply the product what does this mean.
What business do we want to be in hygiene or beauty.  

We break for lunch, which is some of the best Tempura I've eaten in a long time, then we come back and start on the semiotics section:

Part Three: Semiotics and Cultural Context. We spend a long time looking at what I can only call the 'emotion' driving

some of this market behaviours. This is really a truly mind blowing part of the day. This is all the stuff that makes the Japanese Japanese if you see what i mean. An example is; when you see people walking in the street with thise surgical masks on a westerner assumes it's to stop them breathing in badness. But in actual fact it's the other way around, these people have a cold and they a protecting you from getting it!
These are the 'emotional' reasons behind the consumer using not only our product but the category in general. Phrases from this section include:

Being authentic is about social harmony.
Simplicity - Authenticity - Purity
Radical Politeness
Effort to look effortless

Part Four: After the break we took a look at new and emerging trends in the market place.  We look at the new emerging  television hits aimed at this market. Shows such as "Light of Firefly" about a girl who is incredibly messy at home, but not work and how a man comes to accept her as she is. "Working Man" about a woman who is career driven and works hard but can't get a man. And also "Nodame Cantable" a brilliant pianist who is also very 'weird and strange' but again her man deals with her.

Part Five: after the break we look at what the 'brand' stands for in the market. These are some general thoughts from the global brand manager about the product. It was a fascinating journey through some high level thinking about what could be seen to be an everyday product.   As part of this we look at out competitors advertising and its effectiveness.

A lot more detail than I've descibed obviously but a lot of the work is confidential and as I was a guest I'd rather not detail too much. Then we break for the day. But before we do, during the day we've all been righting down on post its any thoughts or phrases that strike us. These are then taken and put up under the headings on the wall as and when each section is finished. We finish off putting all our thoughts together and arrange dinner.

We all walk off through the city making our way to La Bahome. The only Italian Restaurant in Tokyo. It was the strangest place right next door to 'Loft' - the 7 story department store that just sells stationary and stuff. Brilliant.
I make it to bed at about 11pm, and straight to sleep.