On Okamoto's marketing tactics: The whole world is dirty, but I am clean

In social marketing , going against the grain is the correct approach to dealing with existing routines. Following Durex 's dirty jokes, it is not impossible for Okamoto to blaze a new trail.

From being afraid to talk about sex to having a broader perspective, the maturity of Chinese people's thinking is prompting new changes in the adult industry. Not only has there been a temporary trend of entrepreneurship in sex toy business by post-90s entrepreneur Ma Jiajia, but many condom marketing cases are now regarded as benchmarks. This shows that adult products have gradually been in a relatively open and liberal public opinion environment, which is an improvement for both the industry and consumers.

However, it is worth noting that, although it is natural for condom brands to compete in marketing , there seems to be nothing else except taking advantage of hot topics and using "dirty" copywriting . Only Okamoto's literary style of "talking about love" and "talking about life" can be considered unique.

For example, Okamoto has recently started to launch limited edition skin series text sets in offline retail channels such as Watsons, Carrefour, and Walmart, and has combined them with NetEase News to repackage the new form. Among the dazzling brand marketing , it appears unusually fresh and calm, which is in line with Okamoto's usual style of doing things.

It has to be said that compared with the current noisy, irritable and unscrupulous "marketing trend", while other brands are increasingly keen on "dirty" routines to bring about short-term "expansion", Okamoto's route has allowed the marketing circle to retain a sense of dignity.

New case study of text marketing: Condoms can be marketed even if they are not dirty or yellow

The debate over whether marketing is king or product is king will never end . Although it has little practical significance, the topic is constantly mentioned in public opinion. The deeper reason may be that from a macro perspective, both have tended to deviate from the "track". On the one hand, the quality issues of the products or services themselves have long been a problem that cannot be solved. On the other hand, marketing events continue to refresh public awareness, resulting in a pathological communication consciousness.

Nowadays, we see that increasingly low-level marketing plans not only permeate all aspects of life and entertainment, but also increasingly ignore the bottom line. From the data click volume that requires mobilizing hundreds of millions of people across the country to achieve, to self-choreographed farces such as wire cutting and missing cases, from finding childcare in line and creating illusions to the sensationalism of a young entrepreneur with 100 million yuan, the need for public attention far outweighs the moral bottom line.

Amid this chaos, only text marketing remains a relatively clean stream. Although it is not spread as quickly as those eye-catching but mixed-reputation campaigns, its effectiveness is actually more obvious.

In this regard, we have to mention NetEase, which is accustomed to building text into its brand characteristics, first with NetEase Comments and then with NetEase Cloud Music . To give two examples, on March 20, NetEase Cloud Music launched the "Music Review Train: See the Power of Music" event on the Hangzhou Metro, contracting a car and a station entrance, and announcing that it would release selected music reviews for a month.

Soon after the launch of the special train, it swept the circle of friends . Hundreds of media outlets and thousands of WeChat public accounts reported on it spontaneously, and some netizens even said it was "tear-jerking and heartbreaking." As reflected in ROI, NetEase Cloud Music rose from third place to first place in the music rankings in the App Store, the Baidu Index increased by 80%, and the WeChat Index increased by 216 times to a peak of 13 million.

In addition, NetEase Cloud also cooperated with Nongfu Spring to launch a limited edition "Happy Bottle". After the launch, many netizens praised it. Obviously, this cross-border marketing has added a lot of warmth to Nongfu Spring and helped it open up a new media form. In addition to NetEase Cloud, Weiquan has also done a great job in text marketing and packaging. Its characteristics are bundling popular IPs, creating topics, and paying more attention to the interaction between consumers and products.

In short, compared with the behind-the-scenes operations that skirt the rules, creative text planning can win the hearts of users in a more graceful way, which is a higher level of marketing.

Another person who also takes the clean-stream route is Okamoto. This sounds a little unbelievable, because after all, in the world of TT, it seems that only dirty and obscene things are the right way. But Okamoto is different. While the entire industry is drifting with the trend, it has resolutely abandoned the existing routines and intends to win by surprise. Judging from the results of its marketing activities in recent years, it can be seen that this approach may have unexpected results.

For example, this time's text condom, with classic comments from NetEase News posted on it, not only breaks through the inherent form of condom marketing, but also contains multiple layers of profound meaning.

The success of the text set shows that users prefer the younger Okamoto

The core of marketing lies in creativity, which means that it is in form of subverting the existing framework. However, condoms, a product that is inherently topical, have long been labeled as dirty and pornographic, which is actually a fixed mindset. If you do the opposite, it may bring different results, which is the starting point of Okamoto marketing.

When social marketing was popular, the publicity direction of the TT industry underwent a major change. The entire industry was swept by a trend of following suit and imitating others. Everyone used the image of a veteran to tease consumers' G-spots, gain attention and promote sales. However, unlike this tornado-like marketing storm, Okamoto is more like the center of a cyclone, maintaining its pace slowly and relatively conservatively.

From the start of Weibo marketing in 2011 until the second half of 2013, Okamoto's marketing has always been seen by the outside world as mediocre and lacking in highlights. Perhaps it is precisely because it is out of touch with the overall atmosphere of industry marketing that many people believe that Okamoto's strict corporate attitude cannot keep up with the pace of market changes.

However, contrary to this speculation, the reason why Okamoto has been able to achieve great success with many classic marketing campaigns in the past two years and won market recognition with its clear stream approach is, to a certain extent, because in the early stage of exploring marketing models, the company has strengthened its position of not following the crowd. We can see that in Okamoto's frequently active marketing activities , a literary and artistic style that is completely different from the " dirty " and " yellow " styles is quietly rising.

Taking this text set as an example, on the outer packaging of the product, you can see texts in the following styles:

-You can admire and imitate others, but just be yourself.

-We are all looking for an opponent who is similar to us from body to soul, without the need for flattery, repression and self-admiration.

-Following the crowd is a puppet's counter-question. It is better to understand everything than to know a lot.

-I clearly told you that I was going to sleep, but actually I wasn’t. I just didn’t want to chat with you.

This "text + product" packaging is actually a relatively novel design in the condom industry. Similar to Nongfu Spring's collaboration with NetEase Cloud Music, Okamoto Text Condoms will also continue to cooperate with NetEase News comments, and achieve its own packaging changes by transferring NetEase's highly representative product value.

Packaging is just the surface. What’s more important is that from this wave of new copywriting, we can see that its textual connotation and style are completely opposite to the opportunistic “dirty” culture, and are more like the tone of NetEase Cloud’s discussion of taste and stories. This is exactly what Okamoto intended, to cater to the personality characteristics of consumers through words that touch their hearts in order to seek more recognition, thereby helping Okamoto to deeply tap the market value of young consumer groups.

The whole world is "dirty", but I am clean. Behind this is a strict brand attitude

As an old company with a history of more than 80 years, Okamoto has always relied on its strength and halo. Titles such as the world's earliest manufacturer of condoms, the thinnest condom products, and the absolute leader in the Japanese market have long been attached to Okamoto. However, since the marketing tactics of condom brands have become more and more sophisticated and gradually become more popular than the products themselves, Okamoto has inevitably suffered corresponding impacts.

This is also the main reason why Okamoto was in a silent period for a while. After choosing not to join the industry's booming marketing trend, sticking to one's own identity always comes at a price. Fortunately, Okamoto has set sail again and established its own brand, and has explored a marketing route that is more in line with the company's tone. It is not much inferior to Durex, especially after the latter gradually suffered from aesthetic fatigue, Okamoto began to expect that it would surpass the latter.

As of now, Durex's copywriting has almost become a golden signboard that overshadows the product itself. This situation can easily cause users to pay more attention to the copywriting itself than the product, which will affect the final conversion rate to a certain extent. Okamoto, on the contrary, often links the culture or activities of its marketing planning with product features. In other words, it integrates features such as "ultra-thin" and "soft" into marketing, which appears to be more accurate.

Of course, the marketing competition between competitors is endless, and no one can guarantee a long-term dominant position. But a company's marketing style is often linked to its brand attitude , which is the more core element of industry competition. In this regard, it seems that no company can compare with Okamoto.

Specifically, Okamoto's brand attitude has two key words : strictness and self-centeredness. Taking products as an example, on the one hand, similar to most Japanese manufacturing companies, the soul of technology and craftsmanship always permeates every process of product completion. Okamoto condoms not only insist on original production and select the best quality raw materials and processing equipment, but also conduct each level of quality inspection with an almost perverted and strict concept, which is a stubbornness and logic that is difficult to understand for domestic manufacturers.

On the other hand, the real strength lies in technological upgrading, and Okamoto has always been the industry standard setter in this regard. Simply put, being able to make products extremely thin, a technological level that even Durex cannot reach, is the foundation of Okamoto's business and the essence that cannot be replaced by overwhelming marketing propaganda. So “the copywriter only respects Durex, and I only use Okamoto” is just right.

In marketing planning, Okamoto's attitude is the same. Unlike other brands, which imitate Durex blindly, Okamoto is extremely subversive and establishes a high-cold and literary style in an industry that is naturally "dirty". It has to be said that without sufficient product strength as a backing, it would be difficult to have such determination.

In social marketing, going against the grain is the correct approach to dealing with existing routines. Following Durex's dirty jokes, it is not impossible for Okamoto to blaze a new trail.