Marketing Japan: No Medium Can Survive the Indifference of 25-year-olds...

By Mike Rogers
After talking to a very interesting fellow named Roger Marshall from Odgers Berndtson on the phone this morning, and after reading the article I want to introduce today, I was inspired to quickly write up this short blog. Hope you find it interesting and useful.

There is a great article in the Guardian UK today. It is mostly about online newspapers charging for services in a scheme called, Paywall, that Internet Guru Clay Shirky says is doomed to fail (You won't find me disagreeing with him). It's an excellent article and I strongly suggest that any read it.

Most people will not have heard of Clay Shirky but he is recognized as one of the world's top experts of Social Media.

But there is one part in the article that struck a chord with me. This one part should strike fear in the hearts of anyone who is working in the old media. It says;

...if you are 25 or younger, you're probably already reading this (article) on your computer screen. "And to put it in one bleak sentence, no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds."

I found this particular point quite useful and timely as, if you read my last blog about the Long Tail, you'd know that I am now in discussions with one of the larger satellite TV stations as to what to do about their admittedly bleak future.

In the case of this music TV channel even they know that 20-year-olds today;

1) Do not pay for subscription TV (their parents do - and it's probably part of a package anyway). The 20-year-olds do not have the habit or thinking that they need to pay for music TV.

2) When 20-year-olds want to see their favorite new band's video, they won't wait through 20 other videos that they don't like in the slim hopes to see the one that they do like. They will just click on YouTube and see what they want, for free, right now.

The TV station people understand this. Yet they are stuck in a sort of denial and they hope that things will get better... 

Sorry folks, but I have found that "hope" is usually not a very good business plan.  Funny that.

The other interesting thing the TV station people have all said to me when I asked them, "Why do young people watch your TV channel?" They almost all invariably answered, "I think they search the Internet using Google Search or Yahoo for an artist that they like, then they turn on our TV channel..."

So, dear reader, bear with me for a second as I get this straight in my own head... 

Let's see.......A guy or girl goes on the Internet to find the music that they like... They do! Then the TV station people think that the young person, after finding what they like on the Internet, is going to turn off the Internet and turn on the TV and watch their channel!?.... 

What in the world are these people thinking!?

Yes. I found their thought processes quite amusing also. But it just goes to show the depths of denial that some of our good friends are in. And, don't forget, most of these kind people that we must convince are coming from a far different point-of-view than we are. They come from inside their companies, we come from outside...

It is often far easier to understand something like, say, one's own country when they are on the outside looking in. 

We need to convince our friends in old media, and in other businesses in general, how they can increase their business and protect their jobs (families too!) by opening up their minds to the possibilities that the Internet can offer them. We need to show them that the Internet is not a threat.

Clay Shirky Cognitive Surplus

In Japan, the opportunities are everywhere. Most companies seem to be running their web pages as a sort of company directory instead of a branch of a business that turns a profit by itself. From what I see today, 92% of the corporate web pages are still Web 1.0. So, opportunities abound!  

The companies that do embrace this new way of thinking will have a much better chance of survival and could even prosper.

I won't go into more about the article in the Guardian, but will say that I think you should read it. If you need ammo in convincing someone that they need to wake up and start acting, then it could help. 

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Keywords: Guardian, old media, Odgers Berndtson, Clay Shirky, Satellite TV, Internet, Google Search, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, Paywall, Social Media, Japan, business, music TV, Yahoo, Google, online, newspapers, Roger Marshall, 

Marketing Japan: Online Newspaper in Japan Bites the Dust....

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

JanJan, an online newspaper here in Japan, has folded their Internet operations. Janjan was to be the digital answer to Japan's old guard press. The story of the Internet company folding got so much traction that even the business section of the New York Times wrote about it today! The article talks much about what Janjan tried to accomplish, but I think it misses the point and doesn't seem to want to talk about how print media and newspapers are losing out to the Internet when it comes to everything including information, smart marketing, PR and advertising - or any PR for that matter - here in Japan.

I tried to find a more modern picture of a guy reading the newspaper...

Oh well, the article did appear in the New York Times who, of course, wants to conveniently forget that, Internet company or otherwise, would have a hard time competing in a staid market like the news in Japan that targets the over 40-years-old crowd for news and marketing.

Let's face it, many young people in Japan couldn't care less about the news - mass media delivered or not; the older people who do care want reputation in their news and will stick with Nikkei Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, or Yomiuri, thank you very much.

When it comes to TV news, even huge companies like TV Asahi or Fuji TV cannot unseat NHK for viewership or reputation amongst older Japanese.

If the playing field is "the news" (an area that targets over 40 crowd - who still want their newspapers) then there is no way that an online news service could ever hope to unseat the old school. The under 40 crowd in Japan, like anywhere else in the world, that has electricity, do not subscribe to newspapers.

When the service targets under 40 year old people in Japan then print media is basically dying a quick death in this country.

Anyway, I thought the New York Times article was "interesting" and had the usual suspects of "err" that I've come to expect from dinosaurs like the New York Times. In one sentence they claim that the Yomiuri Shimbun has more than 10 million subscribers (I heard from a former top executive at Yomiuri Shimbun that it was only 8 million):

For a variety of reasons, cultural as well as economic, the digital revolution has yet to wreak the same havoc on the news media here that it has in the United States and most other advanced countries. The media landscape is still dominated by the same handful of behemoths that have held sway for decades, like the Yomiuri Shimbun, the world’s largest newspaper, with daily circulation of more than 10 million.


Never, but never, believe these types of sales or circulation numbers when they are touted by any industry in Japan; especially newspapers (add to that magazines, record company sales, etc.) Also, quite hilariously, a few sentences later, the New York Times writes that the Asahi Shimbun claims a 3% drop in subscribers over these last ten years. 

Circulation of The Asahi Shimbun, for example, Japan’s and the world’s second largest daily, has fallen by 3 percent over the past decade to just over eight million.

Well, 3%? That doesn't sound so bad... Hello? New York Times, you conveniently forget to mention what really matters in this equation: Not subscriptions, but revenue! From 1997 to 2006, newspaper revenues have dropped 25%. Read here: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090303i1.html

What planet are these New York Times people living on?  Oh, well, forgive the New York Times for failing to state the obvious because the implications for themselves are pretty much doom and gloom... 

In Japan some newspapers still have credibility because they will take the government to task for lying and being incompetent; while in the USA, newspapers like the New York Times, are mouthpieces for the government and, as such, have seen their readership seriously decline because they lie all the time (remember WMD in Iraq? etc., etc.,) and people have lost respect for them... 

For all Japan's warts, we still have a press that is skeptical of the government's motivations and I'm sure that has helped the newspapers to retain readers.... Their revenues? Well, that's another story.

New York Times, why do people need newspapers like you if you are not going to do investigative journalism and just be a voice for the regime? Us bloggers? We have Twitter, Pick, Facebook, Mixi in Japan, and a host of other Social Media to get the word out.

Many older people in Japan still have the habit of buying newspapers. Old habits die hard. But, some of us oldsters are easy to change; especially if money is any motivator. I, for one, certainly don't need to pay a dollar fifty for yesterday's news. I got my old-style traditional blog and my blogger friend's.... Thank you very much.

Here's an old joke for the New York Times:

Question: What's white and black and red all over?
NY Times staff answer: A newspaper!
My retort: No, the New York Times balance sheet!


Anyhow, check out the full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21japan.html

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