Advertising & marketing on Line Japan
Line Japan has become a very popular app with over 50 million registered users in Japan and many more across the world as of 2015. So many marketers are asking ‘How can we use Line to market to Japan!?’
The short answer is that Line can be effective tool, but be prepared to pay the same price you would as high level Full Page newspaper ad.
Of the 50million domestic users that are active on Line, 50% of them use the app everyday (25 million Japanese people). On the other hand, according to Line, active Facebook users in Japan are around 15 million people per month and Twitter 10 million. They therefore say that advertising on their app is very worthwhile.
Line advertising accounts are divided into two different types.
- The Line Official Account, aimed at larger business (You will need to go through an application process and be accepted).
- Line@, aimed at medium to small local businesses. Open to everyone within these guidelines http://at.line.me/en/plan
Both Line official and Line@ share common features:
- Sending messages by push notification
- LINE shop talk
- Creating a PR page
- Creating a LINE shop page
- Statistical data analysis and friends trends
- Mutual communication with friends using comment or stamps
- Issuing of a “QR code” for friends add “friends Add button”
Line Official
The line official account is aimed at large businesses, not medium or small businesses.
The Initial cost is 8 million yen for 4 weeks (£42,128) or 10 million yen for 12 weeks of the plan (£52,637)
After that a Monthly cost of around 2.5 million yen (£13,165) is applied depending on the number of friends.
Line@
This is like line official but with limitations:
- Only 10,000 Friends allowed
- Only 1,000 messages can be sent per month
- Companies can’t send out sponsored stamps
- Your company won’t appear in the Line directory
- Can’t use the Live broadcast function
Application for LINE@ has topped 100,000. This is mainly because it’s free to create.
There are also a few upgrades
- Paid usernames, otherwise your username will be randomly selected. $24 for the first year and $18 after that.
- More messages. Up to 50,000 messages per month for $50.
With line@ there are a number of things that marketers need to consider
- Your account will not appear in the recommended accounts list.
- You will need to work hard to build your own followers
- There are many rules around which types of business can use a line@ account.
Stickers advertising
Advertisers using the Line official account (sticker) can also take advantage of sticker creation. This costs
8 stickers – 20 million yen (£105,113)
16 stickers – 25 million yen (£131,502)
Here at JapanBuzz we recommend giving Line@ a go, but don’t expect a huge impact. If you are willing to spend a large chunk of money the Line official account could well be your key Japan Advertising tool.
