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In a world of thousands of skincare ingredients and brands vying for attention, it’s hard to break into this fickle new segment that is so spoilt for choice, and so digital savvy.

For the major coffee brand product lines, that want to give a sophisticated first impression, a boring industrial brown carton box isn’t going to cut it. How to square premium packaging, which often involves wastefulness, with sustainability, which often means reductionism and no frills?

There’s a new breed of luxury consumers out there – not married to or inheriting wealth, but self-made millionaires whose countless start-up hours paid off dearly; merely in their 20s and 30s, they want luxury.

Competition in haircare is all about ingredients and design. Few think about competing with the 90% inside the bottle: the nature of the liquid itself. Redacted set out to change that and asked Yuzu to devise ways of thinking about the topic: how to make a liquid look and feel premium?

Swissmooh, the export arm of Switzerland's farm cooperative, was searching for a new way to relaunch its brand in China, but in a way that could pave the road for market entry to Japan.

From skincare regimens to make a difference twenty years down the line, to financial services promising a carefree life if you invest wisely right now. How do brands communicate this concept of ‘the future’?

K-pop group Aespa broke records in 2020 when their single ‘Black Mamba’ got 21 million views within 24 hours, making it the most successful K-pop debut in history.

In early February, a jpeg of a pixelated, pale, bandana-wearing alien sold for nearly $24 million dollars. Why? It is an NFT from a 10,000-strong collection of digital avatars called Crypto Punks, many of which are also priced in the millions.

The role retail space plays in the overall brand experience is changing. It has evolved from a venue for transactions to a place where it enables consumers to bond with the brand and eventually understand the broader brand identity.

“Apple has no customers; Apple has fans”, a popular saying goes. Sure enough, there seems to be something to that.

In 2018, the movie Ready Player One piqued Chinese consumers’ curiosity about the Metaverse. In one scene, a particularly stark transition between dreary everyday life and fantastic cyberworld showed a fantastic vision of where this all may take us one day.

“Brand cult” is a term often used to refer to brands with highly loyal fan bases whose behaviour verges on fanaticism.

Japanese consumers are particularly fastidious. They are highly self-conscious about what any given consumption choice tells others about themselves.

Take a walk through the shopping districts and subways of Shanghai, and one face stands out. An actor with over 4.6mn Twitter followers, Eddie Peng is plastered all over advertisements.

It was more than ten years ago when talent shows first arrived on TV in China. The new entertainment format was immediately identified by the country’s corporate sector as a perfect vehicle for raising brand awareness and boosting sales.

Every nation has an identity, a narrative that it tells itself about its history, the character of its people, its preferences.

Much of this aesthetic revolution can be credited to the many male celebrities and key online influencers who have become highly successful beauty ambassadors.

In February 2021, China’s Education Ministry issued a notice that called on schools to reform their physical education lessons. The aim? To make boys more traditionally ‘manly’.

Showa Man is the embodiment of residual masculinity. He personifies the Showa era of high growth where company life and hard work was everything.

It is natural, when contemplating the mysteries of youth culture, to think only about what is different, new or emerging. And Japan is of course home to a plethora of unusual sub-cultures that evoke fascination around the world.

To the very young, earlier generations’ lives must seem redolent of ancient history; and hearing too many details of pre-meme days either engenders a horrified shudder or absolute boredom.

As in many countries, marriage rates in China have been declining sharply. In a recent attempt to raise awareness of this, a hashtag was started by older users of the country’s main social media platform, Weibo: #结婚率创近10年来新低# or ‘marriage rate hits a new ten year low’.

The Japan market still has plenty of business opportunities to offer – a story of business in Japan in charts: market entry analysis Japan 2023/2024.

It doesn’t take a pandemic to make Tokyo a challenging place to live in the summer months. But when the trials of two people working from a tiny apartment in stifling heat got too much, I decamped to Okinawa and six weeks later am still here.

Despite the negative publicity Balenciaga received for its Qixi 2020 campaign, it feels as though the ‘misstep’ barely made a dent in the brand’s appeal.

Japanese consumers understand the tropes and perceptions of other nations in a very distinctive and sometimes limited way.

Japan’s experience shows how vital it is for brands to engage with how consumers are being influenced to reframe their view of themselves as they age.

A couple of years ago, I sat behind the ‘magic mirror’ of a Japanese focus group as they went through a conventional round of concept testing.

In the West, social media influencers are on the wane. Industry surveys show decreasing levels of consumer faith in influencers in both the US and UK. This stands in total contrast to China.

For us, the yuzu is everything we love about Japan. Tangy yet mellow, the yuzu’s subtlety and nuance are a revelation: when you first taste it, it is both oddly familiar and yet an unforgettable surprise.

What changes does technology bring about in the field of market research? Where technology is a disruptor for some, to us it is a clear facilitator for our work.

Expanding into a new foreign market – whether that is China or Japan – can be potentially very profitable for your brand. However, it may be difficult to find success without proper research and planning.

From our experience as market researchers in Asia, Yuzu Kyodai has been testing different methods over the years in consumer research projects to refine those that work best with our consumers in Japan, China, and beyond.

We are starting to see brands succeeding – and trends originating – in ‘lower tier’ China before they then sweep across the wider country.

To shape conversations – or to engage people – businesses need to address notions of creativity, innovation, purpose and empathy. How can art help to master today’s challenges in branding?

Covid-19 has swiftly turned ‘social distancing’ into the phrase for us all to live by. We can see from China what the future might start to look like, as businesses are starting to reopen and citizens to emerge from their homes.

Shibuya continues to rejuvenate at breakneck speed. Recent developments are part of the effort to safeguard its position as Japan’s top shopping destination.

In the past few years, Chinese nationalism and pride have grown to such an extent that many domestic brands are now perceived to be on a par with foreign ones. The Guochao or ‘Rising China’ (国潮) trend makes this particularly clear.

In this series, we look at mundane objects from everyday life in Japan. Based on our first pop-up exhibition, and including many of your personal contributions, we use every day artefacts as starting points to learn about cultural frameworks.

During a visit to Daikin’s Innovation Centre in Osaka, I came across a beautiful air-conditioning unit from the 1960s or 70s.

In the early 18th century, Tokyo became the largest city on the planet. Since then, Japan has been a country of urban sprawl, with an exaggerated scarcity of space, time and resources. In consequence, clutter has defined its aesthetics.

A number of years ago, I found myself celebrating Christmas in the depths of Kyoto’s red-light district. The club was a time capsule of the bright and brash 1980s, albeit sparingly decorated in 100 yen store-bought tinsel, draped over the neon lights.

Standing before the magazine rack of a kombini , anyone would marvel at the sheer number of titles catering to every interest. Some, like Classy, have hundreds of thousands of readers; others, like Oggi, will be more niche.

In this series, we look at mundane objects from everyday life in Japan. Based on our first pop-up exhibition, and including many of your personal contributions, we use every day artefacts as starting points to learn about cultural frameworks.

In this series, we look at mundane objects from everyday life in Japan. Based on our first pop-up exhibition, and including many of your personal contributions, we use every day artefacts as starting points to learn about cultural frameworks.