Storytelling is one of the most powerful strategies to emotionally attract an audience and can also be used to boost consumer buying behaviour. Japanese Social Media (SNS) users are used to see hundreds of advertisements, so they have become more selective of what to consume. To stand out from the crowd and to gain more attention from consumers we can use storytelling. Incorporating elements of storytelling within your instagram influencer marketing strategy will always have a greater impact than simply posting a product shot with a weak caption.
So first let’s have a look at some good storytelling marketing examples in Japan!
Nike Japan
This commercial features the Japanese-American professional tennis player Naomi Osaka, the video gives the audience an idea of her inner strength and the irrelevant focus of the media. Although half Japanese and American she spent most of her most of life in the US. She prefers to speak English, but the Japanese media sometimes try force her to speak Japanese. They also often ask her about Japanese identity which doesn’t really relate to tennis. She always answers those questions with “I am what I am”. This short but powerful storytelling video aims to say “Don’t change yourself. Change the world.”.
Following up from this Nike Tokyo Instagram shared many incredible woman’s stories across their platforms. Nike wants every woman to enjoy their athletic life whilst using Nike woman products.
Ayuri Shimano, a 14 year old baseball player decided to get herself involved in the man-oriented baseball world even though other people said “No, you can’t”. She pushes a message that, as we are all human beings, the goals we want to achieve can be the same, regardless of how we were born”
Dove Japan
Dove recently ran a campaign “the Dove self esteem project”. The aim of which was to build self esteem in young people all over the world by 2020. In Japan, only 7% of Japanese teenage girls feel confident about the way they look. This is actually the lowest number in the world. In 2018 Dove made a memorable commercial that highlighted Japanese teenagers as they discover their true inner beauty. At the end of this video, the female students seem more confident about their appearance.
Nissay (a Japanese life insurance company)
Japanese life insurance company “Nissay” made this emotional commercial. It portrays the story of a girl that survived her entrance examination for university, even though her father passed away. The message here is that it’s important to “protect your important person”. Often in Japanese commercials there are elements of sadness and yet happiness. This type of story telling is more suitable for TV, than for influencer marketing which is usually more upbeat.
Relating Storytelling to Influencer marketing
To engage audiences we can incorporate elements of storytelling into the posts and conversation that influencers make.
- First create video content, this will form the hub of your story.
- Create a strong hashtag related to your story.
- Have influencers ask the audience to relate their own stories to the issues told within your storytelling example. This can be done by adding a strong Instagram caption and imagery.
- Use Instagram slides to further build out your story. Using multiple images and videos will help the story you have to tell more understandable.
- Start conversation among various influencers around the issues contained with the storytelling. This creates can create buzz around the topic.
- Take care about the stories you focus on to prevent negative effects. Avoid political topics for examples and be wary of Japanese cultural issues.
Wrapping it up
People live for emotions. Emotions drive consumers buying decisions. So why not use storytelling to boost your marketing efforts.
In Japan, usually campaigns that use methods of storytelling have seen increased engagement and interest from their Japanese audience.
If you are interested in starting an Influencer campaign in Japan with us, then please get in touch!
