Tweaking your Message

Very effective advertising in your home country can be worth next to nothing if it is not tweaked sufficiently for Japan. Of course this is by no means exclusive to the Japanese market, but the same important principles apply: Differences in languages, culture and customs mean that your Japanese target market may respond to your messages in very different ways. Obviously, this could very well distort the product image you are trying so hard to get across.

The best way to overcome this problem is to tap into avenues which do resonate with the Japanese. Sounds tough, right?

A (moving) picture paints a thousand words, so as a way of explaining what I mean, check out the following 30 second advertisement from Apple in the US compared to the ad from Apple Japan:

US Apple Mac Commercial

Japanese Apple Mac Commercial

A Closer Look

At first pass, the commercials come across as almost identical. Like the US version, the Japanese ad has a rather geeky-looking PC actor, and a younger, cooler looking mac. In fact, if you were to translate and compare the dialogue between the two versions, you would find that they are almost identical. Almost.

Language

The crucial differences between the two lie firstly in language nuances. In the Japanese version, Mac introduces himself in a casual form of Japanese, whilst the PC introduces himself in a traditional, formalised, almost rigid way. Whilst just merely a greeting, this makes the Mac guy sounds in touch with the times, and the PC guy sound a little rigid. Hard to believe that there is so much meaning in a few words of hello, isn’t it? This follows on from the different levels of formality or honorific language used in Japanese – and this includes even the most simple of greetings.

In English, we simply would not be aware of these differences as there is no such linguistic comparison when saying hello. Other than that, the dialogue is almost identical, but ignore these differences at your peril.

Cultural Comparisons

The other big differences are cultural considerations, such as the way in which the PC guy is portrayed. In the US, he comes across as a bulky, clumsy 40-something on a fast track to nowhere. The Japanese PC guy is a little different. Firstly, he’s obviously a bit thinner – quite simply the problem of obesity in Japan is almost non-existent, and having such a big character would look out of place.

Other than that, the character screams “Salary Man” – a word typically used to describe your everyday run-of-the-mill Japanese businessman: Lousy tie, a suit that doesn’t fit with a conservative haircut to boot, this guy screams ‘boring’ and ’stuck in yesterday’ to most Japanese.

Most interesting of all is that Apple does not tweak their image of their actual target market. The Japanese mac guy is still what they deem to be the image of a fairly cool, casual type of guy. He appears calm and approachable, just like the character in the American version of the commercial.

Global Message. Localised Resonance

The biggest strength of this set of commercials is that the message is more or less exactly the same. Thus, Apple are delivering a universal, global message, but are tweaking the message ever so slightly to ensure resonance with different markets.