Inside Angel Farm Fukui (photos via Nikkei)

Imagine going to the latest Ginza flagship store of an up-and-coming brand flagged as the “new Uniqlo”. You have to wait, as there’s a line of consumers around the block, hungry to get a piece of the latest trend. Inside, it’s a minimalist space, with light techno music. Produce is stacked up to the ceilings in cool white units. Literally cool, that is – these units are refrigerated. And what they’re chilling isn’t clothes but the latest must-have item: designer lettuce.

A taste of what may be the future already exists in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, at an award-winning produce store called Green Flavor. It sells vegetables grown in a “plant factory” located upstairs in the same nondescript apartment building. The plant factory is operated by Mirai Co. Ltd. and its 37-year-old founder, Shigeharu Shimamura. He calls his firm an “agricultural software company”.

Plant factories are slowly spreading in Japan, with support from the government. Vegetables are produced indoors and under controlled conditions. Lighting, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide and water are all measured constantly to ensure stable production. For example, lettuce can be cropped twenty times a year.

Because the produce is grown in a clean room, it can be eaten without washing. That’s potentially attractive to consumers who want safe foods and restaurants that need to guarantee quality. The factories eliminate the need for physical labor in the countryside, so may create new jobs for young people in cities, according to the government.

Ozu Corp., a maker of traditional Japanese paper known as washi, turned its unused Tokyo warehouses into plant factories in 2008 in response to consumer concerns about unsafe food. The brand is called Nihonbashi Vegetables, after the central-Tokyo location of the company’s headquarters, where it plans to open another plant factory.

Another manufacturer, Fairy Angel Inc., has its main plant factory in Fukui Prefecture and others in Kyoto and Chiba. The Fukui factory’s temperature is controlled to +25°C by day and +18°C by night and is capable of producing three million plants a year, according to the Nikkei. Many factories are starting to use LEDs instead of fluorescent lighting to lower costs.

"Green room" veggies can go direct to the shelves

Mirai, which consulted on the Ozu project, says it receives 100 inquiries a month about the “green room” concept, including many from the Middle East and Africa. The government provided financial support for plant factories as part of its New Economic Growth Strategy in September 2008, and has pledged more as part of the so-called “Green New Deal”. However, concerns remain.

Plant factories consumer high levels of artificial energy compared with natural farming methods, raising the price of the produce, as well as questions about the net cost to the environment. When grown naturally, vegetables are a vital element of the food chain. The implications of their widespread removal from the natural environment are also yet to be measured.

This article was compiled using information supplied by the Japan Foreign Press Center.

For more of Five by Fifty’s consumer insights on “Part Time Greens”, contact us.

The beverage concept is an import from Spain, where Limon & Nada was made a permanent Minute Maid offering by popular demand after its original limited-time debut in summer 2007. The word “limonada” (lemonade in Spanish) is also a play on words, broken down into “limon” (lemon) and “nada” (nothing) — suggesting, at least, that the beverage contains nothing but lemons. (It does claim to be preservatives-free.)

The marketing campaign in Japan is similar to the Spanish original, using a lemon animated with a black pen, although the Japanese version plays up the beverage’s “Spanish” origins. Online marketing includes a “radio station from Spain” promoting its “pressure-free way of life”, and the label features a cartoon of a bikini-clad girl sun-bathing against a lemon.
It’s all very reminiscent of Kirin’s World Kitchen lineup of drinks “inspired by” countries including Spain, Italy and France, and is clearly part of the “Armchair Explorers” trend of importing exotic influences to spice-up consumers’ daily routines.

The original Limon & Nada, from Spain

Other fruity flavors in new summer beverages include a sparkling lemon version of Healthya, the wellness beverage brand from Kao; a passion fruit flavor Lipton ice tea from Unilever Japan; and Muscat & Apple Juice from Ohayo Milk.

To find out how Five by Fifty helps its clients innovate in the beverage sector, contact us.

A woman relaxes after a work out in a germanium bath.

The era when a sports gym could get by with an array of exercise machines and perhaps a pool is over in Japan, where people are taking a more holistic approach to wellness. Innovative sports clubs are responding with with an array of new services.

Bodies, a women-only fitness club with 20 locations around Japan, features relaxation stations where women can soak their arms and feet in hot water infused with germanium, a popular treatment claimed to boost the immune system and combat free radicals that speed the aging process.

Recently opened in the trendy Daikanyama area of Tokyo, known for its quaint cafes and fashion boutiques, is Athlonia, Japan’s first sports gear shop specializing in triathlon equipment. The shop recently launched a triathlon school, held in collaboration with fitness club chain Tipness, and an adjoining Hawaiian cafe selling dishes with healthy ingredients such as avocado and brown rice.

Bodies also started a women-only running club, a decision it took after talking to its members as well as users of ABC Cooking Schools. There is a running studio in Marunouchi, an area of Tokyo home to a large number of female office workers. Women pop into the studio to change, then run 5km around the nearby Imperial Palace grounds, then return to the studio for a shower.

The club, which is open to beginners, advises members on improving themselves on several levels through running, fashion and beauty. The club’s website features “Beauty Recipes” for do-it-yourself health drinks, as well as organizing tours to the Honolulu Marathon.

Contact us for our ethnographic research on women’s changing attitudes to wellness.

Students at Athlonia's triathlon school.

Students at the ABC Cooking School in Marunouchi.

As we previously reported, the fact that men are behaving more like women makes them an increasingly attractive target for product developers and marketers, and some multinational corporations are responding accordingly. This shift is happening around the world, but especially in Japan, as well as South Korea and Greater China.

Here are some more examples of the shift in action in Japan, offering inspiration for other markets:

ABC Cooking Schools, with locations around Japan, is training an army of amateur chefs. Until two years ago, they only accepted female students. As the Baby Boomer generation began retiring, the competition began offering men-only classes for retirees. ABC took the step of starting co-ed classes at locations with a high density of corporate workers, such as Ginza and Marunouchi. The number of male students has quickly risen to around 600 at the schools.

Another service associated with women that has begun to patronized by men can be found at the 48 nail salons throughout Japan operated by Nail Quick. The number of male customers has risen to the level that the salons now offer a “men’s course” costing 2,940 JPY, and including disinfecting the hands, removing cuticles, and applying clear or colored polish.

One of more surprising hit products comes from underwear maker Wishroom, which has unveiled a men’s bra, which quickly became a top seller on the online shopping site Rakuten. The Wishroom store on the site claims the bra can give men a “calm, relaxed feeling”.

Click here for more insights on shifts in male behavior or ask for a sample report.

S. Korean cosmetics retailer The Face Shop

One air-traffic route that hasn’t slowed amid the recession has been the one between Japan and South Korea. In February, Japanese tourist arrivals in South Korea were up 70% from a year ago, accounting for 48% of all visitors. Numbers were also up from China and Southeast Asia. The primary attraction is shopping, especially cosmetics.

Until now, the reason was the exchange rate, with the won tumbling and the yen soaring, making Seoul an attractive shopping destination. Although the exchange rate has since leveled off, South Korea remains attractive for Japanese, who see it as accessible and safe, and because many South Koreans in retail and hospitality speak Japanese.

The most appealing products are cosmetics, with Korean brands such as Missha, The Face Shop, Skin Food and Nature Republic selling high-quality products at affordable prices for Japanese. At the Nature Republic store in the Myeong-dong shopping area, around 80 percent of customers in April were from Japan, according to the JoongAng newspaper.

In February, the Korea National Tourism Organization chose IKKO, a Japanese transgender makeup artist, as an official ambassador. IKKO has advocated Korean cosmetics in the past.

IKKO, makeup artist and tourism ambassador

“Korean women have better skin than Japanese women,” IKKO said when appointed to the role. “I want to introduce the lifestyle of Korean women, who constantly detox their bodies and minds, to Japan.”

It’s not only the government that has wised up to the revenue potential. Retailers in Myeong-dong are adding Japanese- and Chinese- speaking staff and signage.

The most popular product is Korea-originated BB cream, short for Blemish Balm, which was Japan’s seventh most popular brand last year, according to the Nikkei newspaper. Some 2.6 billion yen (US$26 million) of BB cream were sold in Japan after its launch in April, according to its manufacturer, Hanskin. Eyeshadow, mask packs, mascara and lip gloss from mid-to-low range local brands like Etude House and Missha are also top sellers. Their focus on natural ingredients is an added appeal.

Photo: JoongAng newspaper

“Whenever I come to Korea, I buy around 10 BB creams and refrigerate them so I can use them over a year or so,” Japanese tourist Yoko Wada, 22, told JoongAng at a Hanskin store in Myeong-dong. The price is about half that in Tokyo.

With South Korean brands seen as increasingly trustworthy and desirable in Japan, and Japanese consumers being increasingly cost conscious, the opportunities for South Korean cosmetics brands are obvious. The exchange rate advantage they have enjoyed since October is evaporating, so instead of waiting for the Japanese customers to come to them, they will find it increasingly necessary to target Japanese consumers on their home turf.

To request a sample of Five by Fifty’s Korean Beauty Report, 2009, contact us.

Your message here? (AP Photo via The Daily Beast)

Without wanting to minimize the seriousness of the health issues at hand, the reality is that people around the world are considering how to protect themselves. The prospect of having to wear a face mask if Swine Flu continues to spread may be no big deal in Japan and Asian countries that experienced SARS in 2003. However, for consumers elsewhere unused to such things, the face mask poses a serious fashion dilemma.

The result is the mask becoming a canvas for personal expression. Individuals in affected areas who want to be victims of neither health nor fashion have begun to get creative and decorate their masks, as this photo gallery from The Daily Beast shows.

Mint Designs' cheeky chimp face mask

Some manufacturers like Kimberly Clark already put out limited numbers of colorful masks decorated with Disney cartoon characters for children. Japanese brand Mint Designs has fashioned a cheeky monkey-style mask, and artist Yoriko Yoshida was recently inspired to create a set of beautiful, witty and sometimes faintly morbid face mask illustrations.

Mt. Fuji face mask by Yoriko Yoshida

What’s next? The face mask covers the most important area of the body for communication, and the natural target of the eyes of others. So if face masks do become de rigueur in some places for a while (and it’s far too early to say that they will), the blank white space will become a unique marketing opportunity for the right brand with the right design and the right message.

Contact us to find out more.

Catherine Zeta-Jones for Unilever Japan's Lux campaign

In a recession, consumers treat themselves with daily luxuries and are often prepared to replace a holiday to Hawaii with a small-scale splurge. Beauty and Wellness categories are ripe for premiumization at this time.

That’s why cosmetics and consumer goods’ companies are currently hiring Oscar-winning actresses and handing out free samples to grab customer interest.

Shiseido completely updated and relaunched its Tsubaki line for the first time in March. Kao has expanded its Asience line, Unilever has done the same with Lux Super Damage Repair, and P&G is aggressively marketing a leave-in treatment with the Panteen brand.

Shiseido and Kao have taken the battle to the streets, with prominent ads in subways stations and free samples for pedestrians. Unilever and P&G, on the other hand, have focused on television and high-profile web advertising. For Lux, Unilever employed a Hollywood crew to shoot a short film staring Catherine Zeta-Jones.

For more on current “Up-Trading” trends, click here.

Cosmetics maker Shiseido interviewed 10,000 women across Asia to determine the ideal Asian face.

Leonardo da Vinci theorized that the ancient Grecian mathematical formula of the Golden Mean could be responsible for beauty in the human form. Today, Japan-based cosmetics maker Shiseido claims to have found the Golden Mean of Asian beauty in a marketing campaign for its Maquillage line.

Shiseido conducted research by interviewing 10,000 women in Japan and throughout Asia to find the common factors in women’s conception of the ideal face. They came to these results: women think that an ideal face is clear, small and shaped like an inverted triangle, with sharpe, big eyes and full lips. Eyes, lips and the rest of the face should all form well-defined features, with contrast among them.

Shiseido found that the ideal proportions could be recreated using five layers of shade and highlight. Shiseido has now established a special website to teach women “M (Maquillage) Rules” for using their products aspire to the ideal face.

Maquillage has creates a series of tutorials on its website for recreating the ideal face.

Since 2004, Panasonic has been selling a lineup of beauty appliances that generate nano-sized steam particles to moisturize facial skin, offering Japanese women an affordable way to replicate the beauty salon experience at home.

Recently, the company has released a new product that represents a paradigm shift not only in the beauty appliance category, but might have broader repercussions. It has launched a steamer that no longer requires users to sit in front of the machine like previous models. Instead, it can be used while sleeping, making it easy to use fro even the most time-pressed women. It also expands it benefits by delivering moisture to hair as well as facial skin.

Technological innovations aside, introducing a product that can be used while sleeping might well turn out to be a stroke of genius for the company, and could spark a broader trend for brands to stop competing for the busy and limited waking hours of consumers, and instead offer products that fulfill their function while consumers are sleeping.

A number of similar products have already appeared in the market. A small manufacturer has recently released a blanket that contains so-called moisture care silk and promises skin-care effects while sleeping, while another company has released fragrant sheets that can be attached to the pillow case.

In the current economic climate point cards, which are issued everywhere from small restaurants to airlines, could become an important tool not only to increase customer retention and grow spending, but also to win new customers.

According to some of the numerous surveys on the topic, more than 95% of Japanese consumers own at least one loyalty card, and 30% of Japanese women under 40 carry ten or more cards in their wallets.

Almost every retailer in Japan, from small restaurants to large companies such as airlines, department store chains and credit card companies, has a loyalty card program. However, until recently the use of these cards was limited to a single company – reward points collected at retailer A could only be used at stores of this particular chain.

But this limited use of loyalty cards mainly to drive loyalty and therefore sales is increasingly a thing of the past. More and more Japanese companies are discovering them also as a tool that also allows them to attract consumers from non-competitors, and launching cards that can be used at a wide range of stores and service providers.

One such format is the T Card, which was originally introduced as a loyalty card for members of rental video chain Tsutaya. The company has now turned it into a stand-alone brand that allows it’s almost 30 million members to collect and redeem reward points at over 30 retailers with more than 27,000 stores nationwide, including convenience stores, electronics stores, cinemas and restaurants.

In September 2009, T Card went mobile and subscribers of Japan’s largest mobile provider DoCoMo were able to collect points on payments made through their mobile phones. In February 2009, the service was extended to include Japan’s other two mobile phone companies.

T Card website (Japanese)