Moja, Marketing and Me (Japan's Best New Rock Band is Moja)

OK. A short (but hopefully interesting) blog for your Sunday pleasure. It's mainly about a Japanese rock band named Moja but it is also about getting out and marketing yourself in the real world to real people. 


First up, let's talk about the band, Moja.

Moja. Playing at SXSW 3/16/2011

Here is Japan's best new rock band. Their name is Moja. They are a drum and bass duo with a guy named Haruhiko and a goddess on drums named Masumi. This duet is so hot that they've been invited to play at SXSW in March 2011. That's huge!


What is SXSW? Wikipedia describes:


SXSW Music is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 2,000 performers playing in more than 90 venues around downtown Austin over four days, in March. Though it is an industry-based event, SXSW Music links locally with events such as the annual Austin Music Awards show and Texas Rock Fest. SXSW Music also offers free musical samples of featured artists at each festival. 


When people ask, "Who do they sound like?" I can't answer that question. It's hard to describe Moja's sound. They don't sound like anyone else. It's incredible that just two people, with just a drum and bass, can make such a massive wall of sound.


If you like loud rock music, then click on the video. If not, then don't! This blog will continue below with an explanation of what this has to do with you and with marketing. 

Since this band is rising like a rocket, I knew that I had to take this chance to make their promotion video. Both Ken Nishikawa and I took two days (one was all night) in Feb. 2011 to shoot this video and then we edited it for about 10 hours on a Saturday night. It was a fun but extremely tiring process.  


Making a video like this should cost at least ¥500,000 for the entire package. How much did Ken and I get paid to make this video? Nothing. Zero. We did it for free. It was a labor of love... 


Actually we lost money as we bought food and drinks for ourselves during the shooting and editing days as well as train fare.


So, if we lose money doing this, why do it? 


Because I've mentioned many times before, that to be successful on the Internet, you have to have great content and you have to give things away for free. When you give things away for free, you are addressing the wants and needs of the readers and people who come to your site - and not being self-centric by always thinking of your own wants and needs. When you give things away for free, people will come. Perhaps, after addressing these needs of your visitors, then they can enter into your sales cycle then become a money maker for you thereby addressing your needs. 


You also have to be an expert in some field. I consider myself an expert in independent music. I've been in it for over 30 years.


I am starting an Internet business that is very much concerned with the music business. And since I have already been in the music business since 1978 and know that, in the music  business, credibility is hard to get, it is even harder to buy.


By supporting independent artists and the independent music scene and creating these sorts of high-quality music videos for those artists,  we make a statement; we are here and we are here to help you - not take advantage of you. 


This gives me massive credibility - much more than a, say, mere promoter who wants to hold shows and make money. I am giving the artist something they really want, and can use for years and asking for nothing in return.


One of the problems with Internet people is that they have no experience in the real world. They have sat behind their computers for so long that they don't know that face to face human interaction is still the trump card - especially in a business like the music business. Look at how the CEO of Groupon screws up his business by not being understanding of real people's feelings and local customs.


He definitely needs to get out more into the real world. 


Here is an ancient Chinese saying: "It is the wise business man who bows his head lowest for he shall understand his customers and become wealthy." OK, well, it's not so ancient and it's not so Chinese; I just made it up. But it's true.


Now, with a video like the above, I show people that I am here to help and be a part of the scene and I am real. This video is great promotion for the band but it is also great promotion for me too. We made this video last night. This morning I just did a Google search for "Moja Japanese band" and there the video is on the first page of results and, along with it, my name appears! Mission Accomplished!


If you are blogging or doing Social Media or other Internet services, is there anyway that you can become more connected with the real world by getting out and doing things with real people; thereby driving others to your web site and promoting your name? 


Think about it.




Here's another article on Moja


Moja on Myspace

FM Radio Promotional Disaster... Don't Do This at Home

The other day, one of the top 5 FM radio stations in Tokyo ran a promotion for one of the hottest, most frequented restaurants in one of the most happening places in all of Tokyo. The results were laughably horrendous. Here's the story.

In Japan, we celebrate Golden Week from April 29 - May 5th every year. It's called Golden Week because there's a bunch of holidays all bunched together so that most people just take a vacation for the entire period. The holidays are things like Emperor's Birthday, Spring Equinox, Children's Day, Sushi on Top of Honorable Naked Geisha Day, and a bunch of others that neither I nor 90% of the Japanese population can remember.

It just so happens that Cinco De Mayo (May 5) falls on Children's Day here in Japan. So, in order to celebrate the beginning of sales of a world-famous imported Mexican beer at this posh restaurant, they wanted to run a week long promotion.

The restaurant campaign was announced everyday, at least 4 times a day, on this big Tokyo radio station. If any listeners showed up at the restaurant and mentioned that they heard the campaign on the radio station they got a free beer, some T-shirts, and entered into a contest whereby 10 lucky couples won coupons in a drawing that were worth about  $110 (USD) each that could be used for dinner and drinks. Not bad at all for a restaurant promotion.

So, how did this marvelous campaign go?

The big Tokyo radio station, that broadcasts to over 35 million homes in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, pushes this campaign hard for a week; everyday for 5 days, at least 4 times a day. Winners get thousands of dollars worth of free food and drinks... With a great push and prizes like that, you can imagine that the place was packed everynight! Wow! So, uh,  can you guess how many people showed up at the restaurant and mentioned the radio station's name to get their free beer and to enter the drawing?...

Let me give you a hint; the last of their worries was crowd control.

Only two couples showed up at the restaurant and mentioned that they heard about the promotion on the radio! Two couples! That's it. TWO. T-W-O. 2. Dos. II. One less than three. Two. Two couples!? Are you frickin' kidding me? Jeez-Louise! Two couples! That's worse than lame! As my friend Kris Honeycutt quipped,  "How could anyone fail at giving away free beer?"

I think that if I were the guys running the radio station that I'd be committing Hari-Kiri right now.

Don't forget that there are 35 million households in the Tokyo Metropolitan area and there are only five FM radio stations, so it's not like there's a whole heck of a lot of competition.

Now, after these crap results, you're wondering how much did this campaign cost the restaurant?... Well, this is where I came in and saved their asses... Generally speaking, for a campaign like this, the radio station would have charged the  restaurant and the beer company anywhere from $50,000 ~ $100,000 for the week. Not a small amount of money.... But the restaurant and the beer company paid nothing for this promotion. Why? Because they were at least smart enough to ask for my advice.

Lucky for them. Lucky they paid nothing because nothing is about the value of their return.

I told them before the campaign ever began that doing it the way they planned, and using a radio station as central to the promotion, was doomed to fail; but they had their hearts set on doing it this way. OK, I'm not one to argue with a client (well, not too much, anyway....) So I advised them on how to handle negotiations with the radio station and attended the meetings so that they would not have to pay for the disaster that I warned them was going to, and did, happen.

Their promotion was a failure, but at least they weren't out $100,000 on it.

How not to fall into the antique media trap in Japan.

The current market is a buyer's market. The internet has changed everything. It used to be that you had to beg a Japanese TV or radio station to take your money and promote your product. Not anymore. I had advised the client to tell the station that they wanted to see results before they would discuss money. They took my advice.

I know what I am talking about here. From my past experience, I know what's going on on the inside. So take my advice and don't make this same mistake....

And this goes for TV, radio, and print media.

Regrettably, I wish they had taken my advice on the entire promotion. Next time, they promised that they would.

The smart promotion would involve an entirely different tack on this. We need to think outside the box. Planning is central. Brainstorming essential. Long gone are the days when budgets are set aside for certain individual campaigns. The smart companies will take a longer term, more holistic view to the problem. Proper webpages using the web 2.0 concept of community; bloggers (bloggers should have been invited to this event!); proper SEO; and, crucially important is a web page that is updated daily.

Jeez.... It's so simple and so cheap to do. Just a few ideas and some direction and motivation. The days of throwing huge sums of money away at a promotional problem are long gone.

If you follow my advice you too will be soon saying, "Whee! This marketing and advertising in Japan stuff is easy!"

--------

Keywords:

Internet, InterFM, radio, promotion, marketing, advertising, web 2.0, TV, print media,