Leveraging Japan: Marketing to the New Asia

Citation

Harker, M. (2001), "Leveraging Japan: Marketing to the New Asia", International Marketing Review, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 210-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/imr.2001.18.2.210.1

Many Japanese businessmen on the long train‐commute home are starting “virtual relationships” via e‐mail on their mobile phones. For around 300 yen a month it is possible to subscribe to Love by Mail online service, by which the men can make advances to a cybergirlfriend. The women, who are really clever computer programs, offer coquettish responses but little more and the relationships usually end after about three months (Lunn, 2000). Leveraging Japan aims to offer interesting insights into the “enigmatic” Japanese market for foreign and domestic managers. The insights are drawn from “decades of experience” in Japan by lead author George Fields, the president of a Tokyo marketing consulting firm. If you wish to learn more about the cybergirls, you will need to stay with me to the bitter end. In the meantime other serious readers will want to know about the contents of this book, the theoretical frames of reference and the value of the book for scholar, student or businessperson.

According to the authors, companies operating in Japan need to become more sophisticated marketers and these companies may be able to leverage such marketing strengths into the wider Asian market. The book therefore purports to offer to students and scholars “one of the most comprehensive examinations of successful marketing in Japan and Asia”. Consequently, we are treated in the early chapters to the forces of change that have led to new opportunities in Japan and that have transformed the role and practice of marketing. Following the well‐trodden path of the marketing texts from the USA, we are whisked through strategy chapters before taking the obligatory look at the “marketing mix”. The text is liberally illustrated with case studies and “war stories”. Interesting‐looking chapters on cybermarketing and new rules of marketing research precede the concluding chapter. The book is intended for more than the “passive reader”. The points of leverage at the end of each chapter are part of the process of “stimulating your thinking and creating your own strategies in Japan”.

Since one of the authors is Professor Jerry Wind of the Wharton School, I was expecting a sound theoretical foundation to the work but none is to be found except for a “marketing strategy framework” gratuitously included, on the penultimate page of the book, that is not referred to in the text, not properly referenced and not to be found in the chapter notes. Curiously, a fourth author of the book, Robert E. Gunther, appears on the title page and in “about the authors” but someone omitted to put his name on the front of the book!Enough of this pedestrian detail, I hear you say – what is to be learned from this work?

The “forces of change” chapters are a good analysis of the changing Japanese scene, emphasising the changing Japanese consumer, the breaking‐down of the regulation barriers, and the “distribution revolution”. Other chapters generally lack critical insight. The authors do, however, make the valid point that the “economy is not the market” and that, in spite of the recent economic turmoil in Japan, there are opportunities to be found in adversity. I am reminded of the words of Lloyd George who warned against taking two leaps to traverse a chasm, as, elsewhere, the authors cite research that shows that 64 percent of international firms face greater difficulties in Japan than in their operations in other parts of the world.

But it is in the chapters on strategy and the marketing mix where the book disappoints. First, it is recommended that firms change from “tap water marketing to tapping markets”, and that segmentation, positioning and branding are all about “focus, focus, focus”, using the Asahi Super Dry beer case study to illustrate the strategic approach. Regrettably, many of the other illustrative cases predate 1996 and the research used to support branding strategies is a 1998 working paper from the University of Tokyo, based on a survey of 34 firms and 12 advertising agencies. Second, we are denied any discussion on business‐to‐business marketing, on which Professor Wind would have a valuable contribution to make. Third, a transactions approach is assumed throughout and there is little discussion of relationship building and maintenance, which is sound strategy in times of economic uncertainty; for example‐consider the sales of Mercedes‐Benz cars over the last five years in Japan. As a result the chapters on pricing and promotion (using 1992 data), new product development and distribution – despite a previous promise of a distribution revolution – are prosaic. Given that sound marketing research is central to the thesis of the authors, the chapter is weak and poorly organised. The chapter on cybermarketing, to which I turned eagerly, lost all credibility by declaring that an “estimated ten to 14 million Japanese were online by 1999”; and there is no mention of WAP or online liaisons!

In conclusion, like the Japanese cybergirls who promise much and deliver little, this book left me with a feeling of frustration. The volume may encourage and titillate the desperate undergraduate student who seeks examples for a term paper, but it has little value for the good practitioner or international marketing scholar.