Posts Tagged ‘Japan media landscape’

Search Engine Marketing in Japan – International Search Review Issue Number 5

February 17th, 2011

Reform published the fifth installment in its “International Search Review” series this week. After venturing all the way to Google friendly India in our previous review, this time we decided to mix things up a bit and check out the land of the rising sun… Japan.

It’s currently the third largest economy in the world but many western businesses find entering into the Japanese marketplace difficult (just ask Facebook). Yet the potential of the Japanese market makes it a worthwhile goal for companies focused on a global presence. With over 94 million people online, Japan also has the third largest population of internet users in the world. This translates into a high amount of paid advertising and PPC ads. In this International Search Review, we break down how the Japanese marketplace can prove difficult for foreign businesses and why it’s worth the effort.

Key stats and findings to take from our review of Japan search market include:

  • This is a market with a broadband penetration of 75%.
  • 90% of all Japanese have a cell phone and 40% of them use their mobile to surf the web.
  • Mobile usage is growing faster than regular internet use.
  • With Google’s partnership with Yahoo! Japan, they now control the organic search results for 84% of the market.
  • Differences in alphabet can create problems in keyword usage.
  • Mixi, not Facebook, dominates the social media marketplace but Twitter has shown that a western brand can be effective.

 

To find out more about the search marketing landscape in Japan, download a copy of the white paper here – and let us know any comments/feedback. Contact us, and we’ll send you the next issue of our International Search Review before anyone else.

Blog post by Matt Dorville, SEO Strategist at Reform

We need to look beyond the media landscape to predict future media change

October 5th, 2009

 

It’s normally around this time of year that the next year predictions start to tumble from the media trend spotters.

And some trends don’t require a crystal ball or an econometric model to forecast, for example:
• Yes, Google probably will make big waves in the smart phone market
• Most phone and computer manufacturers will try and replicate Apple’s super intuitive touch screen technology
• Online TV consumption will rival traditional box set consumption
• Social media tools such as Twitter will amplify – and potentially replace – some traditional PR and publicity vehicles

But let’s forget about 2010 predictions and look ahead to ten years time. How different will our media consumption habits really be by 2020?

Nigel Gwilliam, Head of Digital at the IPA has recently returned from a fact finding mission to Japan and China – two nations with a very different media landscape to here in the UK, and for many different and sometimes contrasting reasons. Here are some of the IPA’s observations in terms of digital media consumption:
• The Japanese have been using smart phones since the late 90s. Email on the move is “so 1999, darling” (I don’t know the Japanese for darling, sorry!)
• In China there are over 200 internet addition treatment centres and boot camps
• In 2007, half of the top ten best selling books in Japan were written on – and for – electronic handheld reading devices
• In Tokyo, teenage girls can attend a fashion show and buy the clothes they see on the catwalk there and then – via their mobile phones

Are these signs of future times for Western media consumption? Not necessarily. Media habits evolve as a result of external influencing factors in society such as economic growth (particularly the import/export market), government regulation, cultural attitudes and education (the teaching of English as a foreign language).

Let’s look to the East for some examples of factors that have influenced media consumption:
• In Tokyo, it is frowned upon to talk on the subway. So people don’t talk on their phones, they email on them (cultural)
• Chinese netizens prefer anonymity, so they don’t publish (blog) as much as UK netizens (government and the “censor culture”)
• There are no Japanese mobile phones outside of Japan (economic)
• Manufacturers and mobile phone networks work together – product doesn’t necessarily come before marketing (economic)
• The isolation of single-child families in China has led to an explosion in online socialising (cultural)

As avid, future-gazing media planners we need to look beyond 2010 and who will be the next Google killer, and think about the broader socio-economic backdrop and how this will impact digital Britain in the years ahead. What factors will influence the adoption of new media and new devices? What will be the barriers? And the enablers? It’s certainly a complex predictive model. Perhaps we need a crystal ball after all?