One thing I’ve learned about Japan is how differently the idea of brands works here. We generally expect companies to make products similar to the ones they’ve made in the past: Dell sells computers, but if they started selling running shoes tomorrow, you’d wonder what was in their drinking water. Yet this tendency for companies to do what we expect them to doesn’t always apply in Japan. Panasonic makes performance bicycles and builds homes under its PanaHome brand, Asahi sells beer as well as bottled green tea and BalanceUp nutritional snacks, and Yamaha makes everything from pianos to motorcycles to network routers and a popular line of golf clubs. Department store chain Ito Yokado operates the Seven-Eleven and Denny’s chains in Japan, and when revenue dropped it decided to re-brand itself around its most profitable segment. It changed its name to “Seven&i Holdings” and slapped a giant Seven-Eleven sign on all of its department stores…as well as on its Denny’s restaurants, which damages both brands, since I expect to be able to order onigiri rice balls along with my hamberg steak. Now I see that Sony will start selling two kinds of laptops: the normal Vaio line it designs, and cheaper “division two” Vaios designed and built by generic Chinese companies that will still be sold under the Sony brand name. I don’t now a lot, but doesn’t this seem like a bad direction for one of the world’s most famous PC brands to take?
Kanebo’s rose-essence fragrance and the re-branded Denny’s, examples of unique branding in Japan.
