How Nielsen is Building Effective Brands in Japan

When it comes to innovation in Japan-based advertising and marketing, let’s just say things are a little behind.

Thankfully, you can see here how companies like Nielsen and many others are finding ways to bring new solutions to drive innovation forward, and we’ll get to that later.

In places like Japan, things usually begin with good intentions and then stop there based on thousands of years of cultural processes, necessary hierarchy protocols, and of course, paperwork.

But one often says in response to this, “But, I thought Japan was so advanced?”

Yes, in many ways, however- marketing and modern communications is “not” one of them.

And it’s important to note this, because the lack of innovation in small areas can lead to large organizational and global sales impact.

For this reason, within the challenging economic landscape of developed Asia, Japan is quickly identifying where its major needs are locally and globally and then looking for solutions that can help them move into the modern world of digital advertising.

However, the companies willing to help them make this transition, cannot underestimate the fact that their solutions must be able to meet the cultural demands and growth challenges of the organization just as much as they meeting the communication needs.

For example, when RGA launched in Japan it couldn’t simply say, “We’re here to be innovative and disrupt!” — No way, you can’t even cross a red light here in Japan, let alone try and disrupt a corporate giant like Sony.

So, instead they came up with a creative theme called, “Respectful Disruption” — Funny, clever, but it ultimately worked, recognized the demands of the culture and helped RGA solves it’s clients dilemmas.

With that being said, here is how Nielsen is doing the same and helping brands make better everyday business decisions based on the best data-driven solutions.

By Starting with a Better Approach to Global Marketing Planning

What’s Marketing Mix Modeling? Unless you’re a data analysis, most Marketing Directors in developed Asia cannot tell you what “MMM” is- however, this doesn’t mean they don’t have dilemmas such as how do I know

“What markets would work best for this new product?”

“Which digital channels really provide the best ROI?”

“How can I know what consumer group is most likely to buy my product?

And while most vendors come up with their solutions based on a mix of various tools and exhausting Google search results (seriously) — Nielsen is using what is known as Marketing Mix Modeling to gather all of their clients data and then run in through a data analysis process that helps them give accurate insights into all of their clients biggest dilemmas and ongoing inquiries.

Are you a marketer that’s looking to launch a new brand, enter a new market, or just want to simply determine where your sales are really coming from?

Then, believe it or not, the answers are here, contact us and let’s find them.

With a Stronger Solution for Measuring Digital Campaign Success

While Nielsen has always been known as one of the worlds largest research firms, it also has a host of campaign measurement and analysis tools, most important to note is their newest solution, “Nielsen MTA”.

Fresh off the acquisition of popular Multi-Touch Attribution platform Visual IQ, Nielsen MTA is a media campaign measurement tool for brands and agencies that combines their analytics platforms into one central campaign dashboard so that they can see daily results, how each channel works against the other, and do it all from their desktop or mobile device without having to wait for anyone to put a 30-page deck to explain the results :)

As a 15 year marketer, this was one of my favorite aspects of Nielsens Marketing Effectiveness practice because the MTA tool can literally measure every brand exposure touch point and show you what works, what does not, who is clicking, who is buying, what ads perform best, what ads don’t, and even run simulations so that you can adjust what channel or ad that you might want to invest in.

What?! Yes, it’s true :)

Whether you’re a brand or agency, if you’re running any type of online campaign right now and want to save either massive amounts of money or time, getting a download on Nielsen MTA is a no brainer.

To get a refresher, here’s how you can start.

By Discovering What Sales Make the Biggest Business Impact

Before joining Nielsen, I had been working in marketing for 15+ years, had held just about every position, scaled global marketing teams, and have even written for top global advertising outlets such as AdWeek and others.

And in all of that time, one thing hasn’t changed and still remain slightly complex in modern marketing and advertising business units — the relationship between the marketing and sales teams within brands and businesses.

It’s something you can’t sum up with a new reorg- It’s complex for a myriad of reasons, but both are quintessential elements to global brand performance.

Yet, even though that is so, at the end of every year there is often missing or lost data between the sales teams, the marketing teams, and everyone’s ability to tie it all together to understand what worked or is working and how can we prove it to make a change today.

That’s where Nielsen’s Mixed Panel Analysis service comes in, one of their latest innovation offerings.

MPA uses a mix of past and real-time sales data by tying it to previous and current marketing campaigns in real-time to develop a statistical swift turnaround analysis as to where the revenue is really coming from and how to invest more into it.

This sounds like a no brainer, but it takes the right process in today’s marketing ecosystem to make it work and Nielsen is going above and beyond in that area.

By being able to not only gather the data but also analyze it based on a mixture of superior statistical models and modern marketing insights, Nielsen is putting together solutions that help clients find success within their marketing and advertising and helping them strengthen their brand locally and globally as a result.

Essentially, if you’re looking to build an effective brand in 2019, start by learning more about your own data and use it to drive the results the business needs to grow.

Disclaimer: Ryan Aynz, the author of this blog, is currently a proud and happy Nielsen employee and the thoughts and opinions of this story are his own.