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Japan's Global Competitive Marketing Strategy It takes more and more to successfully compete in the modern age. The prosperous company or even the state of the world is now determined not only by the high quality services or goods but rather by how efficiently does the enterprise sell and distribute them. The particular success and rapid growth of the Japanese economy is partially explained by well-defined marketing strategy of Japanese companies, which are present in the global market. In this paper I will examine the innovative strategies of Japanese enterprises in the areas of marketing and promotion, besides, I will investigate the influence of the Japanese government and authorities on the development of the business within the country and abroad. One of the characteristics of a well-constructed and implemented marketing strategy is the success of introduction of some particular good or service to the new market. When in 1959 Honda Motors Company decided to present its products on the territory of the United States, it faced a great challenge of market penetration.
Having successfully established itself in the Japanese market, the company, which was partially owned by Japanese government, needed new horizons for its expansion. It was at the beginning of the 1960 s when Honda created its famous You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda. The report to the British government showed that Honda had a deliberate strategy of disassociating themselves from the hells angels type of people by following the nicest people advertisement policy (Jugas). By 1964, it has dominated almost half of the US market. Later in that year, it required cash on delivery of shipments. As Pascale (1996) says, In one fell swoop, Honda shifted the power relationship from the dealer to the manufacturer.
Hondas success has been analysed and three distinct explanations for its success emerged: The most prominent is the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Report. The report states that Honda maximised experience curve economies - low costs at high production volumes. As a result, American and British motorcycle manufacturers withdrew from certain market segments. An interview with six Honda executives by Pascale, led to his conclusion that Honda was successful in Japan because superior design skills led to a better product.
Honda was also seen as one that has a learning organisation, which adapts and responds quickly. Prahalad and Hamel introduced the concepts of strategic intent, stretch and core competence. These they feel were the necessary factors for success. There are two competing views in strategy formulation: (1) the planning school, and (2) the learning school. For the planners, strategy formulation is a deliberate, rational and linear process where ends are first specified. In this case, structure follows strategy.
The learning school takes an adaptive and incremental approach. Strategy is a non-linear and complex process. Structure and strategy formulation are intertwined (Michaelson). However, the main contributor to the success is thought to be a timely shift of the companys focus to the new methods of approaching its clients (and, eventually, the final consumers). In a dynamic and competitive business environment, factors that affect an organisation will not be static.
Consumers tastes change. In the Post-Industrial era, consumers were more affluent. Hence, they demanded more than a standardised product produced by mass-production. Firms had to change from a product-oriented approach, of the mass production era to one that is market oriented (Michaelson). Thus as Michaelson says, ... whenever the future environment is expected to be discontinuous, emulation of historical successes becomes dangerous... (pp. 135) A theory is formed ideas or concepts used to describe the world to better understand it.
Ideas and concepts cannot be free from bias as they are conceived by people and people possess different ideologies, values, interests and preferences. When it comes to advertising, Japan is probably the worlds most congested place. Japan and Japanese companies are deeply committed to marketing, and spend millions using it to gain an edge on the competition. When it comes to market research, however, much of the country is left in the dark ages. For all the money that is spent on state-of-the-art innovations in advertising, management teams at many companies have allowed themselves to be satisfied with second-best when it comes to compiling the critical data about their campaigns and using research to plan future strategies. As Japan Market Intelligence director Mark Ferris explains: Japan as a research market is not so evolved, and the methodology is cumbersome and inefficient.
There is a gap in bringing in new technology, but that is where the future lies. This company is making great strides by providing to big globalized firms the sort of levels of data and intelligence in Japan that they expect from global projects. (Jugas) With the slowdown of the Japanese economy, companies are being forced to rethink their approach to satisfy a more discerning type of customer and diversifying needs. In this environment, the product development and marketing strategies of retailers requires a fast and accurate grasp of consumer trends. At the same time, the importance of market research has increased not only for manufacturers but also for a wider range of business areas such as finance, services and communications. Although the Japanese economy is in recession, the services the companies like JMI offer are profiting from the benefits of this structural shift in consumer society (Jugas). Amidst an environment where management and information are becoming increasingly integrated, the smooth distribution of information and effective use of accumulated data is becoming vital in order to develop a strong company that can compete successfully in future generations.
The key to this effort will be the further evolution of providing intelligence. Japan is one of the most cluttered marketing environments in the world, therefore the theory and practice of advertising in this country changes very often. The four key words for advertisers are attention-grabbing, memorable, meaningful and motivating. Until now, the attention-grabbing part of that has been hard to quantify, but new technology of eye tracking allows the companies to assess it. Eye tracking is an advanced form of studying the consumer behaviour that finds its clients all over the world, though the pioneers in this field were Japanese companies. Basically, eye tracking is some electronic device that records the movement of any persons eyes on the area, which delivers some advertising message (it could be a billboard, or a product shelf in the store).
People are asked to volunteer, and their eyes are calibrated for the machine. They are then asked to look at the screen, on which anything can be projected, -anything from an advertisement to a mock-up shelf in a shop. A camera records every motion of their eye, and this movement is then superimposed on the projection. Having collected the data the companies are able to adjust their marketing strategies accordingly.
This is the case of JVC, a manufacturer of home appliances and electronics, which in 1997 has build several audio systems, which were absolutely identical from the technological standpoint but quite different in the appearance. Having done that the company placed the audio systems in the store and equipped the shelves with eye tracking devices. As the result, the company has been able to identify the most appealing to the potential buyer design. This led to the creation of famous in the European market JC- 100 series of the home audio systems (Jugas). The particularities of the Japanese market are such that the basic philosophy of the Japanese manufacture is that high volumes per model provide the potential for high productivity as a result of using capital intensive and highly automated techniques. Their marketing strategies are therefore directed towards developing these high model volumes, hence the careful attention that we have observed them giving to growth and market share. (BCG p. 59).
More to it, selling more means lower fixed costs per item, and thus makes the company a low-cost producer. The result of it is a great competitive edge. No wonder, in this case, Japanese companies are using the latest hi-technology innovations in their marketing. Having considered the fact that many Japanese corporations are partially state-owned we can easily come to a conclusion that government supports these innovations from financial, legal, and administrative points. In the conclusion, I would like to state that to me it seems that not only Japan a country where one can today observe the technological tomorrow of the rest of the world, but also it is gaining leading position in the theory and practice of the business implications of these future technologies. Reference: Jugas, Joseph.
Innovative Marketing. Dublin: Dublin Publishers, 2001. Marketing Products in Japan. Boston Consulting Group report. Nov, 1986. Michaelson, Konrad K.
Marketing Theory. Munich: Blitzkrieg Per, 1999. Pascale, Joshua. Hondas Experience. Cambridge, MA: M. I.
T. Press, 1996.
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Research essay sample on Japan Global Competitive Marketing Strategy
