With Kazu Mori, Japan Marketing Manager at Wix

Below is a full transcript of this episode

Stephanie Harris

Hi, my name is Stephanie Harris and I’ll be your host for this episode of Global Ambitions. Our guest today is Kazu Mori. He’s the Japan Marketing Manager at Wix, and he was also a speaker at LocWorldwide 43 and a guest lecturer at the University of Washington. Welcome to the program. 

Kazu Mori

Thank you for having me. 

Stephanie Harris

So our topic today will be marketing localization for the Japanese market. But before we get into that, would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about you and your position at Wix? 

Kazu Mori

OK, so my name is Kazu Mori, and yeah, I do the general marketing campaigns, localizing them, and also start unique marketing activities in Japan. 

Stephanie Harris

So jumping right into our first topic. What are some of the big challenges that you see working as a marketing manager for the Japan market? 

Kazu Mori

So the marketing localization actually starts even before, you know, the localization process. So before starting the localization, it’s important to think strategically and decide whether the specific marketing activity is relevant for the country.

Because marketing localization is a cross-functional effort and it takes a lot of resources from different departments. Of course, if you want to do it properly, right? In my experience, usually localization is done towards the end, and often it’s like the final hurdle before the launch of the campaign. So you have people behind you that are making sure we don’t push back the launch dates. 

But it also means that while you’re waiting for the content to finalize they have time to assess the level of localization required for that specific project and specific language, and whether you can expect to get enough results to compensate for their efforts. And also, unless the company is just starting out, it’s rare that the market penetration and market maturity is aligned globally. 

So not all activities are suitable for more mature markets or emerging markets. You need to have a clear understanding of where you stand and what you’re hoping to achieve by brand awareness or acquisition in order to do a proper localization. So it’s really much more than translation. 

Stephanie Harris

So when you’re looking at the market and sort of analyzing what needs to be done, what are some of the big things that you see pop up often? 

Kazu Mori

So people talk about cultural relevancy and expectancy when you talk about marketing localization. And, for example, back-to-school sales in the summer doesn’t make sense in Japanese or in Japan because the new school year usually starts in the spring and during the summer vacation, so they probably don’t want to go back to school. 

And of course, everyone knows that there are different seasonal holidays like Midsummer in Sweden or like Korean Thanksgiving, or I think it’s called Autumn Eve. But you also need to understand how people behave differently. Like, I don’t want to generalize, but in some countries, holiday really means holiday, and they don’t check their inbox. Yeah. 

So in talking about like behaviors, I did a presentation about consumer behavior. I did a presentation about Japan and Germany market entry with my German colleague in July. Oh, nice. Yeah. While we were researching the difference between Japan and Germany, we actually kept finding more and more similarities and, I can’t share the actual data. But when we looked at, for example, the performance of the email campaign, or a registration and a participation rate for an event, there were really significant similarities that I wasn’t aware of. 

So yeah, that was a really big surprise for us. So you kind of have to take in, understand those behaviors and adjust the marketing campaigns accordingly. 

Stephanie Harris

Yeah. One question I might have would be, how do you go about that research? Do you really need to speak with people on the ground? Can you do it a lot remotely? How do you find out those differences or similarities? 

Kazu Mori

In my opinion, I think everything starts with consumer research. Yeah, so marketing is really like trial and error. You know, sometimes you’re sure about what you’re doing and it ends up, you know, not as successful as you wished. And but that’s not a failure. You always learn from your experience. And in terms of localization, you really have to do a test. You have to understand the cultural aspect. 

But you know, if you really want to be detailed, for example, there is a way to say 50 percent off. And there’s also a way to say half price. Which one is more relevant and which one will have more results. Like, no one knows right? So you kind of have to test it and test it yourself and not just make assumptions. Hmm. So it’s really like, you know, it’s a trial and error, in my opinion. Yeah. 

Stephanie Harris

Do you have any cases from your experience going into the Japanese market in particular where you tested out something and you could explain maybe a little bit about that whole process for our listeners? 

Kazu Mori

Yeah. So last year, we had a chance to do an eight year anniversary campaign because we officially launched in Japan on, I think, December 2012. And I wasn’t the originator of this campaign, but somebody else came to me and said, Hey, do you want to do eight-year anniversary? And I said, Yeah, sure, I’d love to. But then when I thought about it, eight years is an interesting anniversary. It’s not five years or 10 years, it’s eight years. So I kind of had to find a way to make it work conceptually. 

So we know that using success stories works very well in Japan. It’s a really good way to gain trust as a company, especially for foreign corporations entering into the Japan market. So we decided to select eight different users from different areas of profession and showcase their story. And since the number eight is culturally considered to be a good number in Japan, that signifies すえひろがり, which means expansion or to scale. And it also looks like an infinity mark when you turn it sideways, which is also recognized in Japan. So we decided to use, you know, the message of infinite possibility to scale your business online and kind of tied that into the design of the campaign. And it worked very well. 

And also, a few years ago, we did a creative marketing campaign with Manchester City, in which the players unbox amusing and innovative products sold on Wix’s e-commerce platform. And we localized it to, I think, eight languages, including Japanese. And it was it really was a no-brainer for European and South American languages. But it was a surprise for some people in the company that soccer is popular in Japan and also that the e-commerce sector in Japan is thriving and we see a big opportunity. So it was very relevant for Japan. 

Stephanie Harris

Do you have any examples of mistakes that you’ve seen people make when marketing a new product in Japan that you could give as kind of like a warning? 

Kazu Mori

So we went to Japan and we arranged a meeting with international companies going into Japan and, you know, the ones that were successful. And we talked about market entries and what was a mistake and what was successful. And one of the things that really stuck with me was that one of them said, you should never try to change how people live in Japan. You shouldn’t force change. Change must occur inside your company. That was one of the most important lessons I learned because Japanese people… well I don’t want to say conservative… 

So according to research done in 2017 by American Express, 56 percent of Japanese consumers answered they will take their business elsewhere after one bad service experience. So you really have like one chance to make a good impression. And according to another research by Edelman Trust Barometer, Japanese people don’t trust business in general. So the trust in business is very low, and that’s more prevalent for, like for an unknown company. 

Stephanie Harris

So does the fact that the Japanese population, in general, is more distrusting of companies affect anything in how you market? 

Kazu Mori

So forcing a change on the Japanese people is the wrong approach. You really have to adapt and provide something that’s truly valuable to the consumers. Otherwise, they will not pay attention and open their wallet. 

And also something to consider is there are many local competitors in Japan, and they can also always choose them over you if you don’t adapt, of course. In terms of localization quality, you can’t beat local services made by local people for the local people. So yeah. 

Stephanie Harris

Is there anything else in regards to marketing in general that you would like to share or give some insights on for our listeners? 

Kazu Mori

So one piece of advice that I have is don’t measure translation quality only by accuracy. So the people who are like listening to this podcast, I’m sure, are aware of the importance of translation. And more and more agencies are capable of delivering translation with flexibility and copywriting in mind. 

So rather than like rambling on about it, maybe I’ll give you one interesting example. I think, is it’s one of the great tricks that translators pulled. So in Japan fast food, the word fast food is often translated as first food. ファストフード which means first food. And since English words are translated phonetically in Japanese, fast is pronounced more like first with like a British accent like fast, right? So we don’t know if this is a mistake or intentional. But I want to believe that, you know, the fast-food company entering into the Japan market intentionally used first in order to make, I think, a more sophisticated impression. And I think it worked very well because, you know, fast food chains were first introduced in Japan I think in the 70s, and some people still use first food over like 50 years later. So, you know, yeah, I think that was like, it really shows the power of, in this case, mistranslation, but how translation can really impact the marketing. Yeah. And of course, I’m not encouraging you to be like, overly creative. You really shouldn’t be. But you know. 

Stephanie Harris

Yeah.  

Kazu Mori

OK. Another piece of advice is to have a second set of skills in addition to localization. In my case, it’s graphic design and audio-video production. I, for example, was working on the new YouTube ad. We’re creating and checking the voiceover done by the Japanese voice actress, and it’s extremely hard to give accurate instruction on how to master audio and visual to somebody who doesn’t speak the language. So I just do it myself. It’s just much faster, and it’s worse if it’s like a longer video. One time I was editing subtitles to a forty-five-minute-long video, and it was hard enough to do it myself. And so it would be a nightmare if I had to ask someone else to adjust the timing. So, yeah, so this is a really useful skill. 

If you’re in like marketing… like international marketing, it’s much more productive and less stressful. Coding is another useful secondhand skill to have. And, of course, project management skills because localization is a cross-functional effort and you’re most likely to be working with other departments and translation agencies. So it’s very important a skill to have. 

Stephanie Harris

Well, it looks like we’re coming to the end of our time here. So I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us on the show. It has been a real pleasure to talk with you. 

Kazu Mori

OK, thank you so much. 

Kazu Mori

Japan Marketing Manager at Wix