Everyone is talking about Digital strategy at the moment. The biggest payment brand in the world wanted to initiate a major strategy piece to understand how they can work with their banking partners to enhance digital strategy in payments
A clear roadmap for 2020 digital strategy based on consumer needs and pain points
8 clear Innovation territories based around consumer needs able to align with the global positioning of the brand
“Thanks so much to you and your team for the deck of work, there is positive feedback all around which is always great to hear!”
“Thanks to the whole team for working on this, it has been a delight!”
Person to Person payments are moving from the physical world to the digital… Our client wanted to understand not only the current P2P behaviours and gaps, but usability of the prototype mobile digital concept, actionable improvements and how to communicate its benefits to consumers and partners
A regional solution that works and is more cost effective than the original business idea. A clear strategy for the team to take forward to partners and consumers
“This is exactly what we needed! Thank you so much!”
A venerable and much-loved family bread spread was looking to consolidate its global brand equity by achieving a robust re-alignment of the brand’s position across Asia while maintaining existing market-specific brand signifiers
Existing regional and market-specific brand equity was explored and potential new directions indicated
Based on these findings four new ‘brand pillars’ were created and presented as the basis of a new region-wide positioning that would be able to align with the global positioning of the brand
“Thanks again all for all your support over the last few weeks on this project. Now I’m home I can start to appreciate just how much we managed to do!
Especially, THANK YOU team for the de-briefs – so speedy! Lovely job on the report… We are thrilled with the results!”
In order to protect its strong position in the Japanese market, a global credit card brand needed urgent action to head off an aggressive competitors new growth strategy… by building a compelling offer for customers and the cards issuers
A quantitative segmentation of customers via a ‘risk matrix’, profiling the customers and issuers posing most risk and detailed qualitative understanding of those risk factors- for immediate team action
“Thank you for the excellent work you did on this project! It was a tough nut to crack but you came out with flying colors. Have a wonderful and well deserved rest this weekend. You are such a pleasure to work with and I feel very fortunate to have you as a working partner!!”
Everyone is going digital right now… and frankly customers demand it. A global insurer in Japan wanted to get ahead of the game- providing an enhanced customer experience via innovative digital platforms and touchpoints to enable a new style of relationship; both with the customer and with agents
A prioritised list of 4 digital initiatives for development and launch
“A lot of great work was done, critical discoveries were made, and many, many hours were spent discussing and re-discussing what we’d learnt, what it meant and how to communicate it… It was the classic recipe for a year of stress, but you all made it a great year of interactive learning with lots of insights to build on for next year. I don’t want to imagine what the year would have been like without you.”
Our client intended to launch an online content platform in Japan. In preparation for the launch, they wanted to gain insight into user behaviour to reveal pain points, misunderstandings and reasons for hesitation in the sign up process, as well as understanding how language and culture influence user behaviour
The results of the first round of testing provided a solid foundation for the client
Building on the insights, the client improved their website and carried out a second round of testing, and now plan for more before the actual launch date
“I just wanted to drop you an individual note to say a massive thank you for another great round of user testing. It was great to work with all of you again, and our CTO (Chief Technology Officer) whom you met this morning, was very impressed too.”
An IT organization which provides a platform for entertainment media wanted to understand how mobile games currently fit into the lives of their biggest spenders. Their questions were- what drives them to play and spend more money than the average person? What keeps them engaged? What causes them to lose interest and stop spending?
The team drew many parallels and contrasts between the Japanese and foreign gaming app markets
The findings could be useful for the next stage of research into users on the other end of the spectrum- those who do not spend money on gaming apps
“Thank you for the great work in Tokyo! Reading over all the notes now and reflecting on what was a wonderful experience. We really enjoyed meeting you and hope we can work again together soon.”
Due to the smart home market size being relatively small compared to that of other technology markets, a service provider from this area of digital was eager to uncover how their users perceive smart home services in Japan. They hoped that this insight would help them customize their service within Japanese market and expand their reach to future users
The team could physically see how a user interacts with their smart home service throughout their daily life
The findings provided an indication for future product development
“It was a pleasure to collaborate with your team and thank you for all of your efforts to make me so welcome and for looking after me so well.”
Japan’s seniors group is a rapidly growing and seriously under-marketed segment. They’re also a highly active, fitness conscious and independent group. A global player in the Japanese Insurance market wanted to understand this target in order to fuel strategic planning- surface unrealised opportunities and white space for innovation
A quantitative segmentation of senior customers provided a prioritised segment roadmap for the team and a list of 8 innovations and offers to begin to develop for launch
“A quick note to thank you for all the hard work that went into our presentation. The senior management were really impressed and it is creating a lot of discussion and buzz. It’s a great first step of a much longer journey that will require the whole marketing team to play a role.”
A global leader in futurology was looking for emerging, dominant and fading trends influencing the behaviour of 18-34 and 35+ years old in Japan
A full trend report delivering consumer trends, insights and innovation that could be used as a foundation for workshops linking consumer and new business opportunities
“Thank you very much for the additional insights, all of which were very interesting and helpful. Always a pleasure working with such a professional team.”
On behalf of a government-supported promotion agency from Spain, we researched acceptance levels for Galician canned seafood among both food service operators and consumers, amidst the boom in Japan for tapas bars and other Spanish-themed dining experiences
The promotional organization was ultimately able to better advise and guide Galician canned seafood industry members in terms of high-potential varieties, size and packaging formats, as well as key points for messaging (i.e., food safety, quality of Galician seafood, etc.)
“It is great to have such a well-rounded view of our possibilities in the Japanese market. We have some work to do, for sure … but I think we can now make our approach more targeted and efficient.”
In addition to our repositioning work with Meat and Livestock Australia on behalf of Aussie Beef, over the past 25 years we have helped many agricultural groups to leverage their exports to Japan, including fruits, vegetables, nuts and berries:
-Alaskan Seafood Marketing Institute
-SOPEXA (French government-supported food/ wine promotion)
-Beef + Lamb New Zealand
-California Commissions for: Asparagus, Avocados, Pistachios, Almonds and Cherries
-Northwest Cherries Commission, Cranberry Marketing Committee
Our insight-directed strategic recommendations contributed to better execution of customer targeting and messaging, and in so doing, supported sustainable sales generation. Our reports in each case became part of public record as a means of supporting the exporters efforts in each of the respective countries; branding and promotional strategies were based on these efforts in many cases.
“We love the new focus with our asparagus retail promotions, and appreciate all that the CarterJMRN team has contributed to the success of our project.”
Aussie Beef is an icon food brand in Japan, but positioning hadn’t changed very much since the heyday of the 80’s. Consequently its value proposition had become blurred, or even de-valued, and the brand was playing increasingly in the budget segment. Something had to be done to re-invigorate and elevate the brand
We were able to co-create with the help of target customers a powerful positioning for the Aussie brand which built the value proposition and was highly differentiated vs. key competitors like US Beef.
We were asked to re-present the positioning outcome, and directly brief the comms agencies to ensure that the strategy was implemented seamlessly
“The sessions we had were thought provking and incredibly helpful”
A well known food brand from New Zealand wanted to leverage its technological know-how in Japan’s lucrative aging market with a health-imparting nutritional concept (both as supplement and food additive) known to enhance strength and wellbeing- even with aging
Convincing statistics indicating demographic and psychographic customer types, were matched with product concept acceptance levels by segment. This in turn fueled productive client discussions with potential partners for further development. We presented to the Japan- and NZ-based teams on several occasions, including both qualitative and quantitative results
“We are excited with the results, which will help us in approaching our partners with ideas for product collaboration. We loved the Needs DCode technique, which yielded such rich results to feed into the segmentation study”
A popular nationwide holiday food brand from the US wanted to assess the viability of bringing its products to the Japanese market in terms of taste and mouthfeel, as well as willingness to purchase as year-end and mid-summer gifts
Strong confirmation that:
-A physical presence would be necessary in order to create trust and credibility; client launched first shop 1 year following study
-Further testing would be required as regards adaptation of size and format in accordance with Japanese preferences
-Food service operators (hotels, restaurants, etc.) were a viable sales channel: client successfully leveraged this channel in Year 1
“Our market entry efforts were laser-focused and much more cost-effective because of all that we learned from the research. Thank you, CarterJMRN team!”
