Who's using QR codes?

Not the affluent over 40s, it seems.

The terribly BCBG "Precious" magazine offers lots of glossy images promoting expensive European brands, with nary a QR code to offend the delicate eyes of its precious readers ...

The somewhat younger and less elitist "STORY" magazine contains four QR codes...

Youthful titles such as "JJ" and "CanCan" contain upwards of 40 QR codes within their 400 pages.

(The blue post-it notes on the magazines mark the places where I found QR codes. When it came to JJ and CanCan, I simply stopped counting when I reached 40 QR codes).

And which advertisers are the most aggressive adopters of QR codes? Here's my gut feeling based on a quick look through the magazines:

(1) Cosmetic surgery clinics

(2) Cosmetics makers

(3) Diet product vendors

(4) Lingerie stores

Of course, there are also QR codes on ads for handbags (Coach) and other products, but the four categories above seem to be the most aggressive in their use of QR codes to make a connection with the customer.

I think it's telling that the top users of QR codes are the companies with services and products that customers might be somewhat shy about. The mobile phone is an ideal channel to communicate with people about these sensitive topics, because it is a truly personal device. (For example, a typical young consumer mighht share her PC with other members of the household - but the mobile phone will be used exclusively by her).

A new world view

I've been a fan of the Strange Maps web site for a while - and I particularly like the maps that "tell a story" by making visual changes to reflect certain demographic data etc.

Today in the Telegraph newspaper (not a paper that I normally read) there's a series of such maps and some of them are fascinating. The one below shows each country's size in proportion to the NET number of tourists who visit. (i.e. the number  of incoming tourists minus the number of outgoing tourists).

Click on the link below to see the full size version and several more maps on the Telegraph web site:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/3109042/The-Atlas-of-the-Real-World.html?image=3

I picked up a few things from this map:

(1) Japanese people can holiday all over the world. But Japan just isn't attracting enough tourists. Despite the highly developed domestic tourism infrastructure, Japan is doing a terrible job at persuading people to come and spend a holiday here.

(2) France exports its culture by importing its tourists ... in the hordes ... and the French further boost their country's NET INCOMING TOURISM ranking by staying in France for their own holidays. And why not? After all, France has mountains, coasts, fun cities, fantastic food....

.... but so does Japan.

It's time for Japan to get serious about promoting its brand as a tourist destination. Unfortunately, the sudden rise in the value of the yen won't help. It comes just as Japan was starting to shake off the image of being terribly expensive.

The future of the internet is mobile...

Dr. Philip Sugai at International University Japan's Mobile Consumer Lab points to a recent report from IBM, which predicts that "Worldwide adoption of the mobile phone as the preferred device for accessing the Internet is just around the corner."

I think we can already see this today among young consumers and in developing countries, where cheap cell phones are more readily available than PCs with internet connections. To quote William Gibson: "The future is already here; it just isnt' evenly distributed yet."

Philip points out that the interfaces for mobile internet should not be the same as those we use for other media - they should leverage the strengths of mobile devices. He points to the example of Amazon Japan, which lets its mobile site's users navigate to its product pages by scanning the barcodes on DVDs or books that they come across in the real world.

I believe that another idea with great potential for mobile devices is "image search" or "visual search" - D2 Communications is developing new types of image search as alternatives to the text-based search engines that are more suited to PCs than they are to mobile devices. Imagine being able to snap a photograph of an item with your phone and quickly receiving relevant information in return. Today it works within certain limited categories (for example, D2 has launched a search engine that can identify wines from their labels). I think there's huge potential for mobile phones that provide contextual support, triggered by location, images, sounds or other non-text based inputs.

Who are the movers and the shakers of Tokyo's Social Computing scene?

I had a very enjoyable evening yesterday at the Bloggers' Dinner in Tokyo. It was great to speak with the group of about 30 Japanese and non-Japanese bloggers who had so many interesting perspectives to share. We met at Fujimama's near Omotesando - an ideal venue for this kind of open networking evening.

Jeremiah Owyang introduced the evening with his observations that Japanese consumers are ahead of Japanese companies in their adoption of Social media - Whereas consumers are eagerly leveraging new media to express themselves and interact with each other, Japan's corporate world seems rather hesitant.

Forrester's Technographics data shows that Japanese consumers are eagerly participating in social media as creators, critics, collectors, joiners and spectators.... so why aren't Japanese firms putting more effort into engaging with customers via social media? Here are three thoughts or recommendations that came to my mind. If you disagree, or if you have better recommendations, please post a comment.

With regard to Social Computing - what aren't Japanese companies doing that they should be doing?

• Let go of the "command and control" Public Relations mentality
  • The PR and corporate communications departments in Japanese companies want to have complete control over the message
  • Japanese companies see Social Media as frightening, threatening places where irresponsible writers make libellous comments with impunity
  • Even when large Japanese companies make an outreach to bloggers - as Nissan does by inviting automotive bloggers to vehicle launch events - the companies still want to have a one way flow of information (official communications go out) rather than allowing a dialogue to arise freely.

• Focus on PEOPLE not on technology
  • The last thing firms should do in their social media strategy is choose a technology
  • Companies first need to understand who their customers are and how they use social media in their lives. Do your target customers want to interact with each other in social networks? or share ideas through some kind of Wiki? When you can see what they're doing, it becomes possible to understand where you need to be to reach them.
  • If your target audience is heavily into social networking, then the place to meet with them and interact with them may be in Mixi or Gree. For younger and more "game oriented" audience then the place to find them may be Mobage Town.

• Empower young Japanese employees as innovators
  • Kenichi Ohmae has railed against the seniority-based hierarchies in Japanese firms for many years. Simply put, the young employees are the ones who "get" social media. They are the ones who should be empowered to start up new ventures with innovative ideas.
  • Japanese corporate culture is such that one person may "veto" the good ideas of the rest of a team. As a result, new business models get stifled and progress takes a long time.

Those are the ideas that came to my mind during my discussions yesterday evening. What do you think?

If you're interested in seeing who the "movers and shakers" are in Tokyo (at least, the ones who came to our gathering), please check out the blogs in the list below. They represent some of the brightest commentators across a variety of fields - culture, business, food, fashion, technology, politics - just about everything:

Bloggers who attended the Oct 22 Bloggers’ Dinner

http://akihitok.typepad.jp/

http://hq.andrewshuttleworth.com/

http://www.tokyoreporter.com/

http://tokyoeater.blogspot.com/2008/07/bon-chemin-gohongi.html

http://fumijp.blogspot.com/

http://gen.kanai.net/

http://labs.cybozu.co.jp/blog/akky/

http://clast.diamondagency.jp/en/

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

http://blogs.forrester.com/jonathanbrowne/

http://kaorine.vox.com

http://jp.zooomr.com/people/kristopher/

http://www.mattromaine.com

http://www.tugo.com/

http://mikesheetal.com/en/

http://spinondemand.wordpress.com/

http://nob.vox.com/

http://www.tokyo2point0.net/profile/pacificIT

http://fukumimi.wordpress.com/

http://shinyai.cocolog-nifty.com/

http://www.honjo.biz/blog/

http://www.dseneste.dk/

http://www.thewesternworld.net/

http://www.taromatsumura.net/web/top.html

http://www.socialmediamarketing.jp/

http://blog.myrss.jp/

If you attended the event but not on this list, please let me know and I'll add you in here

I will admit, there's a serious gender bias in the list - It's mostly men.

Finally - We made an important announcement last night:

GROUNDSWELL -- The best selling business book by Josh Bernoff (Forrester analyst) and Charlene Li (former Forrester analyst) will be published in Japanese by Shoeisha. I'm really delighted that this book will help us to introduce more Japanese executives to Forrester's ideas and data on Social Computing.

Problem with Feedburner feed

Someone recently told me that he received some weird E-mail updates from my blog. On several occasions he got repeated alerts about the same post and once or twice he got a message about a very old blog post, which was puzzling.

Forrester's online community manager, John Cass, investigated the issue. Apparently, it's a known problem with the Feedburner solution that Forrester uses to generate E-mail updates. It seems that Google, the company that acquired Feedburner, has not fixed the problem, despite several requests from users. You can see a couple of online threads (going back to March 2008) that discuss this issue:

http://groups.google.com/group/publicity-tools/browse_thread/thread/aabc60938061123c

http://forums.feedburner.com/viewtopic.php?t=21740

I am concerned that this may be quite irritating for people who want to follow my blog. Please let me know if you've received any weird E-mails related to this blog. You can enter a response to this post, or you can write me at jbrowne at forrester dot com.

If necessary we'll find an alternative solution.

Google Maps - Overcoming the challenges of transliterating Japanese

Fascinating blog post by the Google Maps team;

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/10/transliteration-for-japan.html

"This week we will be releasing English labels of city names, prefectures, districts and transit station names in Japan. We have used a combination of transliteration (local pronunciation into English alphabet) and translation so that "Shibuya Eki" would read as "Shibuya Station", for example. We thought it would be more helpful to transliterate the name but let users know the difference between a city or a station. We've even used macrons so "Tokyo" reads as "Tōkyō" to help with pronunciation."

I totally agree with their approach - It's more helpful for English speakers to see "Shibuya Station" than "Shibuya Eki". And macrons .... who doesn't love macrons?

[Let me issue a bad pun warning for that last hyperlink]

Notes from the road... When I'm naked, I'm blind

You may remember that I complained about web sites that use illegible text in January.

Back then I promised to write about 'some "day in the life" scenes from a person with crummy eyesight (me).' I'm sorry that I forgot about that promise until this week when I made a business trip to Europe and found myself struggling to identify the shampoo...

I suppose that I ought to be grateful to Hilton for supplying me with the oh-so-nice Crabtree And Evelyn toiletries, but the packaging made it hard for me to tell what's in the bottle. My eyesight is so-so when I have my glasses on ... but I don't wear them in the shower.

I found myself squinting at the bottles in the bathroom, struggling to make out at least a few letters of the word "Shampoo". It seems that Hilton (or Crabtree) had decided that an entirely "blue theme" would be very attractive. Let's get some blue liquids, put them in blue-white tubes, and label them with some tiny blue writing that blends into the whole thing...

So I stopped my shower, donned my spectacles, read the labels and positioned the bottles strategically. (Shampoo on my left, Conditioner in the middle, Body wash on the right).

I imagine that the decision to go with this packaging was made in a dry, well-lit meeting room. And I expect that all the decision makers had perfect eyesight or wore fancy designer spectacles. What a shame that is for Hilton's visually challenged guests.

Next time the team from Hilton has a discussion with Crabtree and Evelyn about bathroom amenities, I suggest that they hold the meeting in the shower. And I mean shower on, clothes off.

ウォールマート対スターバックス係数

米国の大統領選挙は面白いですね。イギリス人なのに必死に見ています。

CNN等のウェブ・サイトをアクセスすると信じられないほど沢山のデータがあります。意見調査によるデータ（例えば立候補者についての意見など）はもちろんあります:

（Source: www.realclearpolitics.com）

そして、各州のデモグラフィック・データも沢山あります。例えば、各州の宗教、人種、収入などの分析も非常に大事ですね。州と州との差が大きいために学校で学んだ「エンゲル係数」、や最近よく聞く「ジニ係数」を思い出しますね。

今日はもう一つ面白い係数を知った：　「ウォールマート対スターバックス」係数です　（下記表の下から２番目のデータ）。

(Source: www.fivethirtyeight.com)

恐らく、ウォールマートが少なくて、スターバックスが多い地域は富裕層な方が多いとは言えるでしょう。しかし、それだけではなくて、価値観もずいぶん違うと思います。かなり面白いですね。 日本でこういう分析を行いたいと思ったら、どのデータが使えるのでしょうかね？

「ファミレス対すし屋さん係数」、または「タバコ屋さん対コンビニ係数」でエーリアの比較ができるのでしょうか？もっとよいアイディアがありましたら教えてください。

ちなみに、アメリカでのスポーツ分析もデータ中心ですね。ヤフーの野球情報を見ますと頭が痛くなります。（笑）

Forrester's events for marketing and strategy executives in North America and Europe

Here's a plug for two terrific events that Forrester is hosting in the US and the UK. The theme for these events is "Keeping Ahead of Tomorrow's Customer". We will be exploring the things companies need to do today in order to be thriving in 20 years.

(1) Forrester's Consumer Forum 2008 (Oct 29 - 30, 2008) – Dallas, TX

The speaker lineup includes:

David Armano, Critical Mass
Robin Beers, Wells Fargo & Company
Larry Cost, AT&T
Debra Coughlin, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, Citi Brands
Dave Finnegan, Chief Information Bear, Build-A-Bear
Daniel P. Garton, Executive Vice President, Marketing, AMR Corp. and American Airlines
Seth Greenberg, Director, Online Advertising & Internet Media, Intuit
James W. Keyes, Chairman & CEO, Blockbuster
Helmut Kirchner, Cybertec
Meredith Lind, Momentum Market Intelligence
Patricia Seybold, Author, Customer Revolution, and Customers.com, Patricia Seybold Group.
Tim Suther, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing Services, Acxiom
Paco Underhill, Founder and Managing Director, Envirosell
Vivi Zigler, President, NBC Universal Digital Entertainment, NBC Universal

Plus a team of Forrester analysts.

If you plan to attend, please sign up on our Facebook Event page, or Follow the event on Twitter.

(2) Forrester's Consumer Marketing Forum EMEA 2008 (Nov 6 - 7, 2008) - London, UK

The speaker lineup includes:

Alessandro Manfredi, Global VP, Dove, Unilever

Dr. Nicola J. Millard, Customer Experience Futurologist, BT

Pernille Bruun-Jensen, Marketing Director, Johnson & Johnson - Lifescan

Rob McDonald, Director of Customer Loyalty, UK & EMEA, Hilton

Garreth Hayes, European Marketing Director, Logitech

Lars Hemming Jorgensen, Chief Creative Director, Story Worldwide

Marc Sands, Director of Marketing, The Guardian

Fred van Ommen, SVP Innovation Excellence Corporate Technologies, Philips

Jochen Schmalholz, Head of Marketing Innovation, BMW

Nate Elliot, JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company
Helmut Kirchner, Cybertec

Plus a team of Forrester analysts – (including me!)

If you plan to attend, please sign up on our Facebook Event page.

The topics that we'll be discussing include:

• What has been the true impact of the Web and emerging channels on consumers?
• How has the Internet altered buying behavior and receptivity to advertising?
• How will customer behavior change even further over the next 20 years?
• Which new technologies will enable these changes?
• How will companies reach customers who weave in and out of channels?
• How will firms determine what consumers need, and stay ahead of their competitors?
• How will consumers respond to a constant, persistent barrage of marketing messages?
• How will companies track and measure the return on their new marketing methods?

K.I.S.S. Award #2 - Tomy AeroSpider remote controlled car

You may recall that I announced the creation of the K.I.S.S. award (Keep It Simple, stupid) in April this year. Today I want to thank the Terries Take newsletter for alerting me to a worthy winner: The Tomy AeroSpider - a remote controlled car that climbs walls.

To get a preview of the wonderful things that this toy can do, check out this video:

You may recall the criteria for my award are that the product or service should be delightful and simple.

Delightful? If you don't think so, please watch the video again.

Yes, I realize that parents might disagree. If you have children, this gizmo may actually drive you up the wall. I also realize that caring parents may want their kids to get some fresh air rather than seeking out environments with walls and ceilings....

But I decided the rules for this award. There's no rigor in the methodology, so don't read too much into it.

Simple? According to the maker, it's OK for kids over eight years old, it's lightweight and won't break easily when it falls off a surface that it can't stick to.

I also think the wacky commercial on Tomy's site is funny (click the guy at the bottom left of the page). I doubt that it can leap from floors to walls or walls to ceilings. (I assume you have to place it on the surface that you want it to run on). But even so, I think it's delightful and simple, so it wins K.I.S.S. Award #2

If you have a product or a service that you feel is better - more delightful, simpler, more deserving of a K.I.S.S. - please post a comment below or send me a message.