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Xbox promotion done right: the Xbox Café in Maranouchi, Tokyo
Posted on Thursday, November 21, 2002 by Justin
Foreigners in Japan can broadly be categorized into two distinct groups.
Group A respects the local culture. They're sensitive to Japan's social peculiarities. They dress well. They act civilized. They bring an attitude and liberated cool that Japanese people aspire to. Aspiration. These people do well in Japan.
Group B more or less flays around, a bit lost, wondering why all the Japanese people hate them. They come to Japan thinking that by virtue of being foreign, they're automatically cool and superior. But actually, they're big, oafy, sock- and-sandal wearing embarrassments that no one really wants to be associated with. They don't do well in Japan.
This analogy can be fitted quite precisely to the success and failure of foreign companies in Japan.
Some examples:
Starbucks is part of group A. Starbucks integrated itself almost spookily into Japanese urban culture. The management is almost entirely Japanese, and the operation is strategically tied to a large Japanese conglomerate, which has showed the American parent the way here. Result? The world's most popular Starbucks is in Shibuya, Tokyo. A Starbucks is on every corner in Tokyo, surprisingly brimming with young trendies, drinking its overpriced goop. Starbucks has succeeded in Japan.
Other members of group A include: Disney (Japan is their second largest market in the world), the major Hollywood film studios, designer brands like Gucci, Vuiton (Japan is their biggest global market), Hermes, Prada (most girls own a Prada bag before they've even learned how to use condoms) and premium food brands like Fortnum & Mason.
Fear not, we're about to get on topic.
Xbox is a prominent member of group B. It's big, ungainly, ridiculed. It even sort of smells different. It probably also carries herpes, doesn't wash often, and steals pocket change from grannies. In short, people are suspicious of it.
Why?
Two main reasons.
1. Adaption. Xbox has simply failed to adapt to the peculiarities of Japan. In my conversations, Xbox Japan execs often whine that 'we can't do anything, Redmond makes the big decisions.'
This accomplishes two things: first, it kills accountability. These guys will just move onto Konami, Namco, wherever, and they won't really care, because the fate of their business wasn't in their hands.
Second, it means that self-defeating (or worse, no) decisions are concocted again and again. Culturally insensitive decisions. Decisions that group B people make. A joke of a retail presence. Yucky green packaging which revolts Japanese design sensibilities. Games with about as much cultural appeal as a dating sim in America. Socks with sandals.
But the biggest problem is next.
2. No gaijin allure. Xbox has squarely failed to capture the 'gaijin allure' of foreign products. It has failed to position itself as an aspirational foreign product, in the way that the successful foreign brands have.
Now you might think, can Xbox really position itself as an aspirational, or even designer product? Yes it can. As a piece of hardware, Xbox is a superior product to the competition. Fact. It's high-end, hi-tech, a leap forward from PS2. But it not being marketed as such. Japanese women flock to international supermarkets to pay 30% more for a foreign branded food. There isn't a Japanese clothing brand in the nation that competes with the allure of foreign designer goods. These foreign firms have successfully positioned themselves as higher quality, better looking, cooler, however you define it -- superiority.
Whether it's by intention or accident, current Xbox marketing in Japan simply positions the machine as some kind of alternative to PS2. Why?
Xbox people. Are you listening? YOU CANNOT BEAT PS2 AT ITS OWN GAME IN JAPAN. EVER.
So what happens? You change the people. Get them to move on. Upgrade. How? Use a different approach. Endless stylish ads in Famitsu and bill-boards in Akihabara are a waste of space, money, and time.
Don't go anywhere that PS2 is. It just makes your brand look stupid.
Stop going after the same exclusives. Invest in your own. Ports of Onimusha and Metal Gear Solid? Who green-lighted that one? Christ.
I remember at TGS once, how Miyata-san commented that 'Xbox continues the spirit of PlayStation.' No it doesn't. PS2 continues the spirit of PlayStation. Find a new market, or change the old game. That's how Sony beat Nintendo. They didn’t try to ape them. They changed everything, they changed people's expectations, and suddenly Nintendo woke up a dinosaur.
A word of caution: spending someone to death, does not make them love you.
Make Xbox alluring, sexy, 100 times more aspirational and cool than it is now. Find places that Sony hasn't even thought of. Nothing is too big or small.
The super-stylish Xbox café, in Tokyo's most expensive, boutique office building is a great start. I had coffee there not two hours ago. Opposite the café were the Asian HQs of Merrill Lynch, UBS Warburg, and Prada. The café flanked a Harry Winston store and a Conran Shop. There was a queue of smart young trend setters at the entrance, waiting for seats. Others were lined around the outside, peering in at Xbox demos playing on the plasma screens within a dark, stylish interior. It's the only time six months that I've seen anyone aside from the hardest core gamers take an interest in Xbox.
The café is a big hit. The message it gives is clear. The execution is stylish. And Sony hasn't thought of it. Build from that, not from PS2.
-Justin
Justin@tokyopia.com
Interesante, verdad???? Consumismo de qualité, eso es lo que quieren ....
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![[chiu]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/karateka.gif "karateka")
