I came across this video recently on YouTube. It’s an interview with David Ogilvy, commissioned more than 30 years ago by the American Association of Advertising Agencies.
Looking at the size and strength of Ogilvy and Mather now it’s fascinating to hear David Ogilvy reminisce about it as the small agency it once was and the constant fear he felt that it could all “blow away” with the loss of a big account.
At nearly an hour long it’s a bit more of a time commitment than the average YouTube video but it’s worth it for Oglivy’s pearls of wisdom on creativity, hiring good staff, and the importance of research in advertising. He also gives the stories behind advertising campaigns of such iconic brands as Guinness, Schweppes, Rolls Royce, Shell, and Maxwell House.
Naturally many of the ads look dated now but the insight and understanding of consumer behavior and psychology that led to their creation still serve the agency well today.
The quote below – taken from the interview – may seem obvious but it does sum up advertising quite neatly.
“There isn’t too much difference between various brands of coffee; the one that gets the biggest share of the market is the one with the best image.”
If something goes wrong with your product, it’s essential that the user know how to make things better, and soon. This is very true with websites. If I can’t figure out how to navigate, I leave. If something takes too long to load, I leave. Web users are impatient.
This afternoon I was trying to watch video over at cnn.com - and this particularly unhelpful error message popped up (click for a full view). The video player is a grey box and simply says, “General Error.” Well, at least I know it isn’t something specific.
Of course, if CNN were really to blame, I would just head over and watch the video at (gasp!) Fox. Instead, I copied and pasted the URL, left Firefox and opened (gasp!) Internet Explorer, where it worked just fine.
Actually, CNN is to blame. Sites need to be tested in all (major) browsers. Users who run into problems need to get the information they need to find a solution to that problem. I bet the solution to my problem was something simple, such as grabbing the latest version of the Flash player.
As Asiajin points out, Softbank has faced three core problems with the rollout of the iPhone in Japan: 1) the short battery life, 2) the lack of 1-seg, and 3) the lack of emoji characters.
Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son believes that these three issues have now been addressed, as the latest iPhone firmware update included support for emoji characters. While that update may take care of the emoji obstacle, an external 1-seg tuner that doubles as a battery extender does not strike me as the sort of elegant solution that Apple is famous for.
Besides, there’s still no place for a cellphone strap…
On August 26, BusinessWeek published an article with the curious title Japan’s Mixi Tops Facebook and MySpace. Of course, this is only true in Japan; Mixi has 15 million users - mostly in Japan, while MySpace boasts 150 million users globally. Mixi, however, wants to change that ratio.
The article begins by telling us about Asuka Kosaka, who joined Facebook in order to communicate with her English-speaking friends, but uses Mixi exclusively to socially network with her Japanese friends and family members.
This is exactly the divide that Mixi is apparently seeking to resolve. According to a Reuters article published yesterday, Mixi’s CEO announced earlier this week that the firm “is seeking partners to help widen its appeal as it eyes an expansion drive in North America and Europe.”
This could make things interesting. Mixi is apparently not averse to capital tie-ups, and rolled out a version of its website in China this June. After that, Mixi intends to introduce an English language version of its website.
Mixi’s 32 year old CEO Kenji Kasahara echoed what’s on the minds of many Japanese business leaders when he said, “The Japanese market is limited. Potential is far bigger worldwide” at a news conference this week.
Electronics, automobiles and web services? Could Japan’s web services sector break big in overseas markets before the restaurant and retail chains manage to establish global brands?
If you’re blogging for your business (as you should be!), you’re probably always looking for more traffic and attention. This can always be difficult with business blogging, since there has to be a layer of promotion put on top of the actual blogging itself. Of course, some posts on a business blog can be well out of the box and of the beaten path, and should draw in readers as linkbait - especially if a timely discussion topic can be worked in.
Still, you have to let the world know that you exist. One site that I’ve written about before is JapanSoc, which is a Japan-centered social bookmarking site. Creator Nick Ramsay has been developing a community the old fashioned way, by offering a service that keeps people coming back.
If you’re familiar with Digg, JapanSoc should be easy to use. If you have content focused on Japan that you think people would like to read, submit a few stories and see how it goes. It’s a simple way to publicize your site a bit and a great way to find some new, interesting blogs on Japan.
In what looks like a clever marketing/PR move, the Harajuku location will be putting the iPhone on sale five hours before any other in Japan. This, of course, seems to have generated the result that people will stand in line outside the Harajuku shop. The TV crews and reporters know exactly where to go.
In possibly related, though possibly unrelated news, a recent story in JapanInc concerning the long lines that (somehow) still form outside of Tokyo’s Krispy Kreme locations 1 describes an interesting business model that may not be found outside of Japan:
Waiting lines have become a marketing tool. ‘Benriya’-service companies, which offer all kinds of unusual services, provide rentable ‘queuers’ who form or extend lines.
We don’t mean to imply that anyone is paying anyone to stand in line to get an iPhone in Harajuku. That would be cynical. But, Softbank has undoubtedly created the perfect conditions under which a line should form. Clearly, the JapanInc piece is very correct here: Crating a line is a very clear sign that there is demand for your product.
Now, how would that work for a website?
1Seriously, they’re just donuts. Then again, I’ve never had one.
Webpro News has an interesting post today on the topic of who retains legal ownership of blog comments. Although we’ve yet to see any blockbuster court cases centered on this issue, it’s only a matter of time before one comes up.
Webpro News spoke with Tyler T. Ochoa, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law’s High Technology Law Institute, and his comments are summarized at the end of the post:
a commenter owns his comments for copyright purposes. This means that if a blogger wanted to publish a best-of collection of comments, as Winer suggested, the blogger would likely need permission from the commenter. But just like a magazine or newspaper doesn’t have to publish letters, a blogger doesn’t have to publish comments. As far as the “right to withdraw or depublish” comments, Ochoa says this may be a more difficult matter for the blogger under European law than US law. In the US, absent of Europe’s notion of “moral rights,” without some kind of contractual agreement between blogger and commenter, the blogger can pretty much do what he wants with comments on his blog despite not having actual ownership.
“An interesting question might be whether, by posting the submission to begin with, the blogger has ‘agreed’ to distribute it, such that the blogger has a continuing obligation to continue to display it,” said Ochoa. Ochoa doubts this is the case, however, without some kind of written contract.
It’s all quite interesting, but gets us no closer to the real question on our minds: Who wrote those comment threads on 2channel that ended up being turned into the Densha Otoko television series? Does Dentsu own them or does 2channel?
Given that Softbank only sells 3G models, it looks like Apple is going to be releasing a 3G iPhone for Japan (could this be a globally timed release?)
We will be watching for the huge marketing storm that is bound to accompany the release of the iPhone in Japan. Dentsu, of course, will come out as a winner. Then again, they run the advertising accounts for all three of Japan’s major mobile carriers, so that was never in doubt.
Could there be any connection between iPhone marketing and Mariah Carey’s recent visit to Japan?
