ABCA Conference 2011 Shanghai

The conference theme was How to Manage Communications in Asia. Experts from key Asian countries presented their valuable information in managing communication programs in their respective countries. David Huerta, J-Spin Inc. General Partner & Co-Founder delivered a presentation on the Japan market.

Coverage of the ABCA Conference (Chinese)

Eastmoney.com: http://finance.eastmoney.com/news/1586,20110607140713944.html

Sohu.com: http://roll.sohu.com/20110607/n309522523.shtml

 Access following URL to view keynote speeches:

http://www.bzcast.net/wjexpo/index.html

http://www.bizcomms.asia/index.php?_m=mod_article&_a=article_content&article_id=127

austriamicrosystems (SIX: AMS), a leading global designer and manufacturer of high-performance analog ICs, has selected J-Spin to run its ongoing PR campaign in Japan. Following a competitive pitch process, J-Spin will work closely with austriamicrosystems to oversee media relations, offer marketing support and provide strategic counsel in order to raise awareness of the austriamicrosystems name as leading provider of analogue semiconductor solutions in the area of power management, sensor, sensor interface, mobile entertainment in the Japan market.

About austriamicrosystems

austriamicrosystems is a leading designer and manufacturer of standard and customized high-performance analog ICs in the areas of power management, sensors & sensor interfaces and mobile infotainment. Complemented by its full service foundry services, the company focuses on the communications, industrial & medical and automotive markets. austriamicrosystems leverages almost 30 years of expertise in low power and high accuracy to provide industry-leading products, operating worldwide with more than 1,000 employees with its own state-of-the-art manufacturing and test facilities. austriamicrosystems is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange in Zurich (ticker symbol: AMS)

About McLaren Automotive

McLaren Automotive is an independent company, chaired by Ron Dennis, and based at the McLaren Technology Centre, the McLaren Group’s headquarters in Surrey. McLaren Automotive has a rich and seamless heritage in producing premium sports cars for the road: the McLaren F1 road car, which was launched in 1992, set the world land speed record for a production car, and is regarded as one of the best examples of supercar exotica. The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is the most successful supercar ever in its price bracket, having sold twice as many cars as its nearest carbon-based rival. McLaren Automotive is now launching a new car company through a global network of highly regarded premium car retailers who will sell a full range of McLaren high-performance sports cars built at an advanced new manufacturing facility, the McLaren Production Centre. McLaren Automotives debut model is the MP4-12C. Drawing on the company’s long-standing Formula 1 experience in its concept and development, the 12C will be lighter, more powerful, more fuel efficient and more exclusive than its key competition. It will achieve its performance benchmarks by introducing a unique one-piece molded carbon chassis into the ‘core’ sports car segment using a new production method. All McLarens will be based on this innovative carbon technology; McLaren has not built a racing or road car on anything other than a carbon chassis in 30 years.

Looking for ways to overcome the tough economic climate, Bridgestone supported the launch of its eco-friendly passenger tires with an internal communications campaign carefully designed to drive home the message that the new products should be sold on value rather than price.

http://www.ipra.org/frontlinedetail.asp?articleid=1869

Start-up Takes on the Chip Market Industry Gorilla

In Japan, outside of the IT trade industry, Transmeta was virtually an unknown start-up foreign company. Carrying out an aggressive communications campaign with limited local resources–compared to its competitors seemed like an overwhelming challenge. There was no established Transmeta Japan subsidiary, no local marketing resources, and only one Transmeta employee acting as Japan country representative. In order to succeed, we needed full cooperation from the Transmeta country representative and support from the US headquarters. Secondly, the challenge of differentiating Transmeta’s Crusoe chip in the high tech industry which has long been dominated by Intel’s megahertz (MHz) based marketing. Unworking billions of dollars worth of Intel marketing is no easy task, but Transmeta met the challenge by communicating to the consumers that it is not MHz but productivity that matters.

Lifting up the Hood of PC Laptops  and Showing more than Megahertz

The solution was to create a “ Japan First” one-year communication program consisting of two tiers; ongoing public relations activities and marketing activities, that would establish Transmeta as a leader in “mobile computing” in Japan. Since all of Transmeta’s initial customers were Japanese companies and Transmeta based notebooks were only sold in Japan at the time, the “ Japan First” strategy was natural. A successful Japan focused communications program would build awareness, education and validation of the Crusoe chip in Japan, strengthen relationships with Japanese customers and eventually help drive the launch of Crusoe based products out of Japan into the US and other markets In Japan, all the media is centralized in Tokyo, the centralization of the media in Tokyo provides an excellent platform to build an effective communications program. In addition, most all of the Japanese electronics makers’ headquarters are located in Tokyo, which allowed Transmeta to efficiently carry out joint marketing activities with it’s customers. While semiconductor competitors (Intel and AMD) were traditionally marketing megahertz (the one aspect of speed) for years, we positioned Crusoe chip technology superior over competitors on different terms, Crusoe’s terms- mobile solution based benefits: •Lighter: Small and lightweight for business travelers, space conscious Japanese consumers, and a perfect fit for the lifestyle of the large Japanese commuter population, who appreciate thin, light easy to carry laptops. •Longer: Transmeta’s technology keeps the battery running all day. •Cooler: Transmeta’s Crusoe chip runs cooler than other chips, no noisy fan keeping your laptop cool. Focusing on the consumer benefits that Crusoe technology creates, seeding messages such as “ Lighter, Longer, Cooler”, Crusoe Anywhere, Crusoe mobile lifestyle” and “ longer battery life”.

Japanese Customer Wins, Sustained Media Coverage and Japan Market Validation

As a result of the one year campaign the following objectives were achieved: 　Objective #1: Build brand awareness and demand for Transmeta and the Crusoe chip, inciting customer partnerships. Following Transmeta announcement of Toshiba and Sharp customer partnerships in Japan, every major Japanese notebook maker   introduced at least one Crusoe-based products and four of those customers brought (notebooks) to the U.S. market. Seiko Epson Corporation and Transmeta also agreed to cooperate in the future in the development of semiconductor technology related to Crusoe microprocessors. The Crusoe Seminar 2001 proved successful with over 350 IT managers and customers in attendance. Transmeta Director, Notebook Marketing, Michael DeNeffe summed up J-Spin’s effort as “Their professionalism, hard work and dedication were the reasons for the success of the conference and a major element in Crusoe‘s success in Japan.” The Crusoe based Fujitsu FMV-Biblo Loox T notebook won the Best of Show award at TECHXNY in New York, though the product was still only being sold in Japan at that time. Based on a marketing research survey gauging the awareness of the Crusoe chip in Japan, out of 991 respondents- 87% answered they heard of Transmeta’s Crusoe chip. Objective #2: Maintain media interest and build momentum for Transmeta in Japan through its customer wins. Media interest was sustained through strategically placed feature stories, planned interviews around customer announcements, and securing customer participation in Transmeta marketing activities. Key messages were successfully communicated through interviews held for Transmeta spokespersons, achieving an 88% coverage ratio out of 60 interviews conducted. 　Objective #3: Disseminate Transmeta’s “convenient mobile computing” positioning-lighter, cooler, longer to Transmeta’s top tier Japanese media in the consumer and business press.  Our coverage analysis showed that Transmeta’s key messages of lighter, cooler and longer was carried by the key national dailies (9 times), business dailies (5 times), major consumer magazines (8 times), top IT consumer magazines (10 times), online, newswires and TV. Transmeta was ranked sixth in Asia BizTech’s most read news stories list for 2001.

Silicon Valley start up NuCORE Technology (NuCORE) launched its first generation digital imaging chip set solution for digital cameras. Because Japan is the epicenter of the digital imaging, over 85% of all cameras produced worldwide are designed in Japan, the survival of NuCORE depended on whether or not it could succeed in the Japanese market. However, conservative Japanese camera makers remained skeptical about NuCORE’s technology and were hesitant to invest in a small-unknown Silicon Valley start up, so adoption of the first-generation chip set was anemic with only two design wins secured. Furthermore in Japan, digital camera chip image processor start-up NuCORE was virtually an unknown-with little past marketing history activity and no other marketing initiatives were in place; brand awareness would rely solely on public relations.

Key Building Blocks for Successful Campaign

Utilizing market research, J-Spin strategy concentrated on seeding messages about the importance of the image processor in digital cameras, to position and build awareness of Clean Capture. Key messages focused on how Clean Capture solves consumers three main digital camera needs; better picture quality, faster shutter speed between pictures, and faster boot up speed. J-Spin began educating media and seeding messages building a pre-launch buzz through a series of aggressive pre-launch press tours. Over 50 interviews were held with key influential media. Executed the two major press conferences to launch the first and second generations of the Clean Capture chipset.

Clean Capture Adoption & Over 48 Million Media Impressions

J-Spin met the challenge of getting consumers and camera makers to pay attention to the overlooked key element that affects both picture quality and performance in digital cameras—the image processor (Clean Capture). As a result J-Spin executed a successful media campaign that raised awareness and positioning of Clean Capture by elevating market interest of image processors in digital cameras, fuelling further adoption of Clean Capture in digital still & video cameras. Campaign Media Impressions l　Print: 18,119,050 l　TV: 19,066,200 l　Online: 10,851,000 l　Total Media Impressions: 48,036,250

In Tokyo, on January 13, 2010, Bridgestone President Shoshi Arakawa unveiled ECOPIA EX10 tires, the latest products of its fuel-efficient ECOPIA tire brand.

The launch of the new ECOPIA EXD 10 tires was a key part of  Bridgestone’s overall business initiatives to develop and promote eco-friendly products.

They needed to put together a successful event that would promote the ECOPIA brand by launching the standard product of ECOPIA brand.

Taking ECOPIA Direct to Influencers with a Touch and Try Test

J-Spin created an ECOPIA Test Drive event for the media, industry analyst and key influencers to have a real firsthand experience to touch and try the industry-leading advances of ECOPIA tires in reducing rolling resistance while maintaining reliable grip. In order to further deepen the perception of Bridgestone as a company committed to eco-friendly products, we used the hybrid cars Prius and Insight for the test drives.

The media event was planned to meet a two main objectives; to position Bridgestone as an authority leader in eco-friendly products and to promote the ECOPIA brand. Unlike most Bridgestone product press events where first a press conference is held in Tokyo then a week later the media are invited to testing trial event outside the city, we held the ECOPIA test trial on the same day as the press conference.

ECOPIA Message Captured Among All Key Influencers

Our consultants contacted all key automotive industry media, auto industry analysts and opinion influencers. A total of 98 media and analysts attended the event and completed a test drive run. This resulted in a wide array of coverage from over 30 auto magazines, over 15 trade newspapers, 3 TV programs covered the event and countless online media published online articles and photos.

VMware Japan wanted to fully leverage customer successes and customer success to show value and validation of vSphere 4. Because vSphere 4 is a critical building block of VMware’s technology roadmap that brings cloud computing to enterprises. VMware needed to secure solid validation for the technology among local Japanese companies.

Key Ingredients for a Successful Product Launch

Rather than holding a simple stand-alone product press event to launch the vSphere 4, J-Spin worked with VMware to secure the participation of six high profile customers & partners to participate in full scale press conference. Representatives from the following companies attended the event; HP Japan, DELL Japan, IBM Japan, Hitachi, NEC and Fujitsu. Following a live demo each company representative gave a positive verbal endorsement of vSphere4. J-Spin secured the attendance of 33 media/analysts for the press conference. Included were 3 of Japan’s top trade & business newspapers, 2 of the top enterprise analysts, main IT online media and the leading enterprise/networking magazines.

Japan Market Validation Secured

The press event resulted in the placement of stories in key IT and business press about innovation and market leadership demonstrated by vSphere. As well as key themes, including ease of management, 100% virtualization, unbreakable apps, disaster recovery. The event also provided an opportunity for VMware to strengthen and renew its relationship with local Japanese partners .Lastly, to keep the momentum going 10 follow-up media briefing were conducted after the launch.