[Undertaker]

Originally Posted by karice67

I'll have to disagree. Creating as many interaction points as possible means you're trying to target lots of different groups. I've never actually seen a series that has done that.

No, the point of market is creating as many interaction point as you can with targeting market.

Anyway, isn't that what we are talking about? Is Anohana targeted casual or hardcore anime viewers?

If if is like you or Guardian Enzo was saying, then Anohana is targeting at non-hardcore anime watcher.

In that case mass marketing should be their primary strategy.

If your definition for casual market are limited to causal anime viewers, then the primary marketing strategy is aiming at what casual anime viewer to most likely to see or do.

In most case, that is ACG related magazine or radio program.

Either way, that is my marketing textbooks says, if you have other view of it, I'll glad to hear it from you and apply them to my work.

Originally Posted by karice67

To me, that only proves that they're targeting specific groups of people who aren't quite the mass market. If you want to target the mass market in Japan, I think you need to use TV and other more traditional forms of advertising (yup, NOT the internet!), and you wouldn't be using a new band, but an established one, and probably covering an old, classic song.

Have you recently keep track on Japanese TV and music scenes? For example AKB has be using net and blogs as the primary tool for events and advertising and announcement. Variety TV shows now have regular Net shows to supplement it. Take London Hearts for example, their NET movie which show stuff that they weren't able to air has over 10 million hits.

And we are not even talking about Ameba, G+,or Twitters effects. Heck there are many variety shows right now dedicate on following celebrity blogs and twitters.

Originally Posted by karice67

The latter is something that AnoHana did with its ending theme, secret base ~that which you gave me~ (secret base ~kimi ga kureta mono~). The original by ZONE, was a hit back in 2001, and the theme song of a mid-day drama that ran from 1999-2003.

Fine, but how many 10 year old PV do you see on Variety in Japan that allow you to drop the name of the series that uses it?

As far as I know only Music Station does that in their Birth Year song corners, otherwise unless Zone has new works and was promoting them the marketing effect on it is minimal.

Originally Posted by karice67

Er...I was talking about the inner city trains in Tokyo and arguably Osaka - the major cities. Not the lines going out into the country. That said, I have very little idea what is advertised on them, given that I didn't live in those areas. But I very much doubt HanaIro was one of them.

Then I can't comment on them.

All I can say is that I know in Kanazawa City there are heavy promotion for Hanasaku which made news to the point that even the Ishikawa Prefecture itself got involved. Anohana might have similar promotion in Chichibu City that it is much smaller city compare to Kanazawa and I don't remember seeing any news on Saitama Prefecture's involvement.

Originally Posted by karice67

That would depend on WHICH magazines etc it was in, and whether it was in, for example, the newspapers. Again, difficult to know unless you were actually in Japan at the time. I'm not even arguing that they did a lot of advertisement, but I am saying that you can't know that they didn't either.

Agree, which is why all we can do is from the news material and the magazines that we were exposed. BTW, in Taiwan there are shops dedicate to raw Japanese magazines, you can even but they in convenient shops so at least on that front I don't think my knowledge would be much off base.

Originally Posted by karice67

This also comes down to where you got those variety shows and j-drama from. Most online ones have the commercials cut out, IIRC, and of course there'd be no related commercials if the AnoHana wasn't even showing on the same channel. Once again, I think it's difficult to say unless you were actually in the country, and in a location that was broadcasting AnoHana (or any other show you might want to investigate) at the time.

Not disagreeing here, but let me ask you logically.

If you're a marketing director on Fuji TV, would you use CM slots on prime time for a show airing at 1:15 AM for would you sell it big companies for big CM money?

While I agree with you that even if you live in Japan it's be hard to say how often the CM shows and even then unless youare a HUGE Fuji TV fan, it would have to know how often.

But logically thinking, if even I can hear the show got mentioned in various variety shows doesn't that shows that at least on TV marketing front HanaIro is superior?

Of course, that is unless Fuji TV has more viewers than all other Japanese TV station combined.?

Originally Posted by karice67

I certainly never saw any noitaminA ads on TV despite 3 years in Japan - but that was because they didn't even show noitaminA in my part of the country.

So I'm not commenting on this.

Originally Posted by karice67

Which is completely besides the point when we're talking about marketing to the mass market, don't you think? We're not talking about targeting casual viewers of anime, but about targeting people who normally wouldn't even consider watching anime.

Then this is where you miss my biggest point and the core of marketing.

All marketing efforts are tie to it's sponsors. Without sponsors, you can't even market if you wanted, which is why we see selected product placement in anime or marketing efforts on sponsor front.

Being target toward mass market only increase their importance not lessen it. Because you got more resources and product tie-in that helps to promo the shows and drive ratings.

Originally Posted by karice67

You forget that Tokyo MX is a channel that arguably caters towards anime fans.

Rinne no Lagrange also airs from 10-10.30 at night - you're not going to tell me that's something meant for the casual anime viewer, much less the masses who don't usually watch anime, are you?

Then it depends on the show in front and after it. It just happens that the show in front that slot is drama and after it is comedy variety, both target young adults crowd, which is legit market for mech and shonen/seinen type shows.

The lead-in audience from the drama can be retained some what going in and then the carrying-over viewer from that anime slot can go into the comedy program.

Originally Posted by karice67

I guess my point is this: none of us really knows how AnoHana was marketed at all. You might certainly be right. But based on what I understand of the anime and mass markets, and on the comparison between what kinds of advertisement I know AnoHana and HanaIro had, I'd have to disagree.

Actually, now I'm confused. because your argument doesn't seem to completely support that Anohana is targeting at mass market just that HanaIro is not targeting at mass market.

In that case, they we just wasted our time.

Because my stand is that both HanaIro and Anohana are aimed toward anime viewers.

I was only using HanaIro as a test ground for Guardian Enzo since GE's view is that HanaIro is aimed at mass market while Anohana is not.

My reasoning is that, based from what I know of the effort and my specialty in marketing, how can Anohana being aimed toward mass market and HanaIro is not when the marketing effort and exposure is vastly inferior for Anohana in my opinion.

Originally Posted by karice67

The simple answer is: both. No other noitaminA has achieved the same sales or ratings since. No show has managed to hit that sweet spot that AnoHana in the past year, and I'm not expecting any of the others this year to either.

Then that's where the question should be. What is exactly the point for noitaminA? is it trying to get ratings? DVD sales? or sale boost for related product?

You can't really expect a 3+% in that slot all the time, that is just not reasonable, and frankly not possible. None of other series then the ones I listed in my last post have an established mass market appeal or related project.

Anohana's 2.6% is still great, and 2.1% in 1:15AM is still pretty decent, and if you can attract the right demographic that number is definitely ok. Which is basically Usagi Drop and Thermae Romae did.

Dip below 2%, now that is more concerning.