Loose weight by walking

Coca Cola has also released Active Diet, a drink that promises health and weight loss by drinking it before walking.

Japan Tobacco - whose main purpose seems to be watching what other companies are doing and then coming up with a copy as quickly as possible - has released a similar product with Walking.

Mobiles become personal

Japanese mobile operators are trying hard to provide their customers more choice in design. NTT DoCoMo has come up with the Panasonic P901iS with a huge variety of exchangeable covers. Customers can even create their own designs through a website.












Vodafone is not to be left behind and has just released the Toshiba V501t with a wide range of optional silicone covers that allow the users to give their phones a more personal appearance.

Grapefruit flavour

The new Schweppes Grapefruit Squash has just been released exclusively at Family Mart convenience stores. It is marketed by Coca Cola Japan.

The popularity of grapefruit flavor seems has been increasing steadily for the last year or so - Coca Cola released a grapefruit-flavored Beauty Drink with Body Style Water in 2004, and also the grapefruit scent by Pasha seems to have become a minor hit product recently.

Pecology

Ad for the new 2l PET bottle used by Kirin for its green tea Namacha. The bottle uses less material and is therefore easier to crush.

Summer chocolate

Although it is officially still rainy season, the temperature has gone up to a hot and humid 33 degrees in the last few days.

Kitkat has come up with this clever POS tool, placing its product next to the chilled drinks section of convenience stores and reminding japanese consumers - who generally do not buy chocolate during the summer months - that chocolate can be enjoyed chilled during this time.

Sarai

It was only a question of time, and now it has happened - the baby-boomer generation is targeted with their own bottled green tea brand, Sarai by Kirin.

Coffee Japanese Style

Ad for the new Nescafe Takumi. Ads with Japanese calligraphy have been quite popular recently, even with such distinctly western products as canned coffee. While canned coffee is usually marketed as a drink for the overworked salaryman (see Asahi Wonda), the new trend seems to be to aim for a calm, natural and slow image.

Batman in Japan

The Japanese version of the adverts for Batman Begins, showing Osaka and Tokyo swarmed by bats. The skyscraper on the left side of the Tokyo scenario is Roppongi Hills (which as far as I care can be invaded by bats any day), next to it Tokyo Tower.

The face of the moment...

...has to be the Japanese actress Koyuki of Last Samurai fame. Panasonic is offering an exclusive shortfilm with her as promotion for its Viera Plasma-TVs on its website, and she also appears in the company's campaign ads, as well as in a number of others such as Suntory's drink Macadia.




With her distinctly Japanese face, natural hair and "Asian Beauty" image, Koyuki's popularity might signal a shift back to a more natural and Japanese ideal. The ads for the hair care products Asience from 2004 had to use the Chinese actess Zhang Ziyi (below) for this effect.

DoCoMo does it better...

...with the cute family of mushrooms, the mascots for its family flatrate campaign.

Vodafone goes Punk...

...in its latest and possibly last effort to stem its loss in subscribers (158,000 so far this year according to the IHT. Read more here).

"Vodafone has succeeded in destroying what was a very successful brand in Japan. The whole rebranding exercise was an unmitigated disaster. To think that the problem can be resolved just by introducing some new handsets with fancy features is a complete oversimplification." (Bruce Kirk from KBC Securities in Tokyo)

Nothing to add, apart from maybe the fact that all ads for Vodafone since the change from J-Phone have been much less creative than during J-Phone times, and the one above is no exception (the TV ads are even worse).

Meiji

Meiji has released a series of new coffee and tea drinks, with soft taste and image, and in an innovative screw-top bottle.

Microsoft

Microsoft Japan has started a new campaign for its Office software under the title "Microsoft Office has evolved". The dinosaurs in the ads have forgotten to upgrade to the latest version and of course this gets them into trouble. Apart from magazine and train ads, there are also figures placed at the exits of major train stations.

Lifestyle Brand Muji

While outside Japan Muji is primarily known as a kind of minimalist department store, in Japan it is turning into a lifestyle company, offering not only a much larger variety of products but also renovations of apartments with Infill, new houses with the Ki no Ie series. Since 2001, the company has been running Muji Camps as well.

Shinluchu

Ad for the new apricot wine Shinluchu, which heavily utlizes Chinese elements to create a soft, feminine and healthy impression.

NTT DoCoMo

Ad for the Premini II S from NTT DoCoMo, available in new colors.

The real thing II

Posters for the new, color-coordinated Aircon Shikisaikan by Sanyo, as seen in Shinjuku station. They contain the plastic cover of the actual product in the original size in the upper part of the poster.



And also Morinaga has started using 3D ads containing the actual product package, glued on train windows. This ad is for its aloe yogurt, packaged in the recently very fashionable pouch.

UV Goods

At the moment it looks like rainy season has already started in Tokyo, but the Beauty Site "Bellne" has already published a list of the anti-UV must-haves.

Starbucks@Conbini

According to Kyodo, Starbucks coffee will be available as chilled, packaged cups in convenience stores in and around Tokyo from fall this year. Chilled, packaged coffee cups have become quite popular following the Starbucks-Boom in 2000 as a cheap alternative (140 Yen instead of 320 Yen) to the real thing, and the number of products and brands has increased steadily.

I-emon Shincha

Suntory has released a new version of its green tea drink I-emon. The Shincha is made using young tea leaves. In keeping with its "traditional" brand image, the label informing consumers that this is a limited release is designed to look like a hanging scroll and fixed to the bottle with a string made from natural material (the standard option would be plastic for both).

Success through grooming

Cosmetics for men have become popular in Japan only in the last few years, and this has lead to some unique approaches in advertising. In Europe, adverts would feature only well-groomed models, suggesting the positive effects of using the product. However, Kao is advertising its cosmetics line Success with quite drastic negative examples.

Another interesting point is the fact that being well-groomed is not being linked to attractiveness for the opposite sex but to career success. Look your best - not for your wife or girlfriend, but for your boss...!

Before...and after.

Another quite interesting example is this excerpt from an ad for the anti-perspirant Ban Zero. Again, the negative impact of not using a deodorant (in this case on the subway) is stressed instead of the positive effects.



So with men's cosmetics, shocking them into buying the product seems to be acceptable or possibly even a rather effective strategy. Obviously, such ads would be (and in fact are) totally unthinkable when targeted at women.