3 Reasons Digital Marketing is a Dilemma for Japanese Brands

The conversation usually goes like this,

“What are you up to in Japan these days?”

My response,

“Helping companies transition from traditional media to digital, which means learning how to develop and execute on better Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter campaigns using the latest technology. Japan is pretty behind, so as a social media agency based in Tokyo we’re helping them move forward.”

And then they respond with something usually like this,

“Japan is behind? I thought they were the most digitally advanced country in the world?”

And so, hence we have our dilemma- why is it that technological innovation is a priority and advantage for Japan, yet taking those learnings and applying it to every day applications such as sales and marketing tends to be a bit of a dilemma, here’s a few ideas.

A dynamic yet reserved culture

For the most part Japan can be a rather closed off culture, they’re not as open to foreigners and even foreign innovations as much as you’d assume.

Yes, there is an interest and even fascination with American culture and phenomena, yet adopting it as their own goes strictly against a cultural code that has been around hundreds of years.

This therefore impacts new digital innovations as well. With today’s latest social advertising technology coming from overseas and not from within Japan, this leads to a dilemma of digital adoption, and without mass adoption of foreign technology that’s moving digital advertising forward, you’re going to have a companies and businesses falling behind in the new world of digital communications.

While this is starting to slowly change and speed up, it will have to drastically shift in order for Japan to keep up with other countries adopting foreign platforms and using them to expand their own local and global growth.

Emphasis on operational order over organizational efficiency

This is another issue that is tearing at the seems of business in Japan, organizational efficiency.

While Japan at one time used the kaizen process to create the most ordered and efficient organizations in the world, their reliance upon this model is now stalling growth as oppose to propelling it.

Having order in an organization is important, but the kaizen process as is leaves no room open for innovation and disruption, which is key for companies today that want to scale.

If Japan finally adopts digital into their business lifestyle, to make it work they’ll have to create room for disruption in a way that the culture can understand and relate to so that the kaizen process doesn’t go out the door, but is rather strengthened as a result.

An educational system seeking an update

There are many wonderful and great things about Japan’s educational system and process. However, without room for educational growth in new areas of digital communications and individual exploration, future organizational growth may continue to stall.

In today’s market, we’re seeing new trends take place around individual purpose and growth. While the outcome of this remains to be seen, being able to provide new educational options for individuals who want to become experts on new digital innovations is providing to become a winning strategy.

Should Japan want to continue its market dominance, they’ll need to find a balance that allows them to grow as a whole while also allowing the individual to become experts on key digital subjects that add value to the larger vision of Japans future growth.

If you’re a business in Japan and want to get more out of your digital marketing, contact us at hello@definition.media and we’ll help you get started.