 Okay we're back we're live looking to the east looking to Japan looking to Kobe Japan with Steve Zurcher and today we're gonna talk about the most remarkable band in Japan in the last 10 years and let me tell you the name is AKB48 AKB48 hi Steve it's so nice to talk to you thank you so much Jay it's a great can you can you tell us why you have a teacher in Gansai Gadai University in business and entrepreneurship would like to talk about a band of young women why what interests you about them I'm not a fan of this okay the first time I made the videos was was to prepare for this discussion with you Jay but you teach a marketing class I do that every semester at Gansai Gadai and I have the students do a case study on Asian pop music and the economic impact that has in Korea in China and in Japan and how that has with the dominance of Western music and on the international scene it's usually Western music that dominates and Japanese people Korean people Chinese people all our fans of Western music and over the last maybe 20 years there's been a growing phenomenon of the success of Asian music probably the best example of that in the last 10 years is a Korean song and I'm sure Jay you probably may remember this it was called Ganyam style by a kind of a low-level Korean musician named so it was not well known in this country but he released this video and it went viral I checked this morning before our call and 3.5 million oh jeez with a beat 3.5 million views that's something that's as popular as popular as some of us as popular as think take away I'm not Jay absolutely yes exactly anyway yeah I've been doing this case study in the class on Asian pop and one of the things that we look at is Japan pop music which has not been so successful internationally as Korean music has there's this example of Ganyam style and also there's a band from Korea right now that has international success is actually very popular in America it's called BTS that's a boy band so that's like one direction or I don't know how familiar Jay you are with boy bands and girl bands I'm kind of guessing maybe not yes full disclosure I know nothing about it okay so AKB48 started just about 10 years ago and it's the creation of a marketing genius basically he and this guy was in the music industry and what he would do was create a very large group of young women and form them into a band well AKB48 and 48 is indicating the number of people that are in the band although I read that they actually have over a hundred affiliated with this band maybe they have rotating membership so they have touring bands as well so just about 10 years ago he created this and they produced their very first song and it became a huge hit the reason why this is so interesting from a marketing perspective is that Japan has had a history of successful what they call idol these are pop musicians that become very famous but they're huge from a distance you see them in the concerts but they don't really interact with their band directly and the genius behind this particular band is that he made these idols these females in the band accessible to the public so they were performed on a nightly basis in a theater in Akihabara which is kind of the tech area of Tokyo and then after that if you had the proper ticket or you prayed the right sheet you'd actually be able to interact you could meet the girls that were your favorite in this band this is the first time anybody had done this type of thing making the talent making these idols making these pop stars available to the fans at various meetings and so forth and it just took off they have sold 60 million CDs over the last 10 years they're the most popular female high-end in Japan ever they're the second most popular band in Japan ever just to give you a context maybe Jay are you a Led Zeppelin fan by any chance no I'm sorry I would have to disclose no on that one that one as well okay well I am I'm a Led Zeppelin fan and they're one of the most famous in all that they have sold worldwide the equivalent number of records 60 million the AKB in Japan primarily has sold the equivalent number of records or CDs as Led Zeppelin which is an internationally famous band you know from the 1970s and 1980 yeah in a longer period of time actually that they use Led Zeppelin much longer period much longer period of time let me let me ask you a question about you know sorry AKB sounds like Akibara doesn't it sound like the neighborhood AKB what does it stand for yeah that's you're probably right Jay that's a very good guess I'm not sure but I would say that that's probably where it comes from because they set up a theater in Akibara and rather than having you know tours and periodic shows they actually perform every night and their fans can get access and see them so incredible so you know you say that you say that there's originally 48 48 young ladies but in fact many more than that and I guess my question is it how does this promoter handle over the last 10 years how does he handle the comings and goings because if you want to make them iconic you want to make each one you know a darling of the generation so to speak and I and I guess it's the millennial generation mostly but what happens when they leave what happens when he replaces them Jay as usual you're asking excellent questions so the guy who created this his name's Akimoko he figured out that what he could do to generate interest in this band is that the general public here Japan to see all of these different girls and every year he would have an election and ask the fans to vote for their favorite so the girls ended up being ranked you know like a college football team or like American Idol or something like that so it's a mixture of top music and marketing and democracy or voting so every year there be the number one girl the number two girl the number three girl and this would generate more interest in the band the number of people who vote in the elections was just astronomical it's national music whatever this tally was finally reported and then as you asked in the question when these girls they're targeting maybe like 17 18 for like 22 23 when the girls begin to get 24 25 they're kind of aging out of the age limitations that are set up on the band so if the girls are particularly popular they are given like a goodbye party or a goodbye celebration some have gone on to create their own independent careers but to use that aspect when the girls graduated quote unquote the band that turned into a major marketing event as well so it's all about marketing figured out okay this is how Japanese pop music works the pop idols are not accessible all make these girls accessible he writes the music for them so these girls who are 18 years old are singing songs written by a 60 year old guy and he's controlled all aspects of this and I can't imagine how much money he's made it's just been a phenomenal amount well I noticed they're all marketing promotion all of them are good-looking and young and well in a well-dressed pretty they present very well but you know query are they are they talented today can they actuals actually sing is the music worth listening to or is that sort of secondary it's like the secondary that's tertiary or maybe even Twitter down you know this is again my opinion Japanese pop music is almost unlistable in most instances there are some exceptions there's some very good Japanese singers and so forth but usually this type of music when we Westerners hear it it's almost almost borders on torture but that's not the point the point is they're cute you can meet them you know you can vote for them and so forth just to show you how maybe extreme the market goes about five years ago it came up with this campaign and basically was called make a baby with AKB 48 which I know you've been married a long time you're not in the single dating pool but there are services full disclosure right Jay all right yes full disclosure okay there are dating services where you can send your picture in and then match it with a picture of a prospective woman that you want to go out on and then they'll merge your pictures together and have a picture of what your baby potentially would look like so AKB 48 did this and ran a campaign if you became an AKB club member which is like maybe 15 or $20 a month you can send your picture to the website with the girl that you like the most and then they would send you back a picture showing what potentially your son or your daughter would look like if you were to have a child with this girl oh my god oh my god it's facial recognition it's AI it's artificial intelligence yeah exactly so they were yeah doing photo matching so this ran like 2011 2012 I remember catching it in the news services I talked about it with my students and most of them are grossed out about it but anyway that just showed the extent of the marketing to try to get the fans involved and let's engage your question before you think that the band base for this band would be younger women but actually it's not it's older guy so they create a fantastic relationship with AKB 48 members and then they say okay buy the CV buy the membership the club membership buy the ticket that allows you to go and meet these girls you can meet your favorite one there which I guess would be a big thrill if you're really interested in that and as a result the number of sales per individual rather than just buy one TV they would buy one or two or three or four then they would go to their favorite girl to try and increase our ranking in this annual election and so forth so there was one guy who bought 530 CDs and AKB 48 one guy it's remarkable well you know what I would like to study with you Steve I would like to study this from the point of view of you know the marketing namely the identification of those elements in the Japan community in the Japan culture that would that will allow this to happen where this guy he said to himself well I I want to take advantage I want to I'm an opportunist I want to take advantage of these aspects of Japan culture and I want to market around that and recreate this and make all this money and I would like you know you know a sort of a discussion if you don't mind with you in the classroom and you have your students and you're trying to identify what is it exactly that the guy what is the magic the secret sauce let's take a short break Steve and we'll come back and look we'll analyze this from an academic point of view right we'll be right back hello I'm Mufi Hanuman I want to tell you about a great show that appears on Think Tech Hawaii it's all about tourism in fact we call it tourism 101 where we talk about the issues and challenges that faces our number one industry throughout the state we'll have some interesting guests very informative dialogue and allow you an opportunity to maybe learn a little bit more by why this industry is so 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Yeah looking to the east with Steve Zercher who joins us by phone from Kobe Japan and we're talking about a band there called AKB48 Akihabara neighborhood AKB48 which is a ladies only women only young women only band that is extraordinarily successful through some really brilliant marketing in Japan so can you talk about can we sort of you know unpack exactly what the promoter is looking at in order to achieve this extraordinary popularity I think there's a couple of cultural phenomenon that are behind there the one is that there is kind of a graduation of young women in Japan and kind of a commercialization of this it's connected with a sense of a cuteness it's called kawaii so women in Japan and also men in Japan like to see the women that are depicted in the pictures that you've shown here like AKB48 so you see that in multiple areas in Japanese culture so I think this band is based on that general preference to look at and enjoy looking at I guess younger women usually in 18th at 24 year old range so but then on top of that what he's built is a marketing mechanism a marketing strategy that takes advantage of this cultural sense of cultural distinction in Japan and allows as I mentioned before access to these idols so they become idols not just in a remote sense but in an engaged sense so that you really are interested in meeting these girls you can at these various events so it's a kind of led way Japanese pop blue over the last 10 years there's lots of knockoff bands that are very similar now in Japan they're nowhere near as successful as AKB48 but there's and I think they have been in categories there's the A level bands the B level bands and the C level bands and you can see them at various retail stores or restaurants they're used to promote products and services of all kinds so you need changed how marketing is being done when it came to Japanese pop music with Japanese idol music I think it's brilliant he managed to touch you know essential elements of the Japanese culture as it exists today all the things you and I have talked about in Japan how the young people and maybe not so young people you know see others how they get along together and frankly it sounds like it's a it's a Japanese only type of cultural a cultural environment where this kind of marketing would only work in Japan for example if you applied this in the US first thing I would think about is is me too isn't this you know somehow demeaning women and the other aspect as you say they can only go to a certain age well isn't this age discrimination of a sort I really wonder I mean I'm not to say that those are serious legal obstacles but they're they're cultural obstacles anyway in the US and maybe the same approach wouldn't work here what do you think I agree with you they do have a series of different bands that are similar to AKB48 and they're marketed by the same company but they're all in Asia so there's one in Indonesia there's one in Thailand and so forth so AKB48 has gone to America and participated in concerts there or various celebrations of some sort like there's one reference I had they went to Washington DC in 2012 to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the cherry blossom the cherry trees that are in Washington DC that were given by the Japanese government so they go on there but they really have not caught on and I definitely agree with you that the reason AKB48 has not taken off in America is are the cultural elements of this Japan you know from a Western perspective if you look at the success of women in the Japanese business environment it's quite limited Japan is still struggling with equality when it comes to allowing women to have equal access to higher level positions and so forth a number of managers in Japan is quite low relatives in the United States a number of high-level executives it's below 5% number of women on director levels on the board is below 1% so Japan I don't I want to be culturally sensitive here but from our perspective these women in a much different way than we do it with a more of a sense of women's roles or more strictly defined to home-based types of activities are certainly this marketing element of young women and you could say exploitation of young women that's something that is accepted here in Japan and you don't get pushed back on the Mitu phenomenon it's not really occurred in Japan there are some instances of women doing going after women of men who have harassed them there's a couple high profile faces but it's nothing like what's occurred in the United States what strikes me I think I'm nearly at Japan what strikes what strikes me I was gonna was gonna ask you about was this you know the the magic here it's not it's not the only magic but one of the significant magic tricks involved in this is the notion of voting for your favorite and although you know the view of women at different in Japan in the US and maybe in Europe too but the idea of voting for your favorites and having some some kind of internet connection with your favorite member of the band I think to some extent that exists here already I mean having an internet connection with the favorite member of the band but voting for them that's really kind of that's kind of interesting and I and I suggest to you Steve that that kind of engagement could work in the US I don't know about the other things they sound very Japan centric but the idea of picking one or picking one out of a group of candidates I mean we're into that aren't we with the national elections aren't we we we're into picking candidates and if the promoter gets up and says well I want to add somebody to the band you decide who it is this is like so many of those shows where they when they vote for the talent right and I think this is this is a right pomegranate in the US this could work in the US no no I think if we look at our current president there's a certain element of this kind of fan support right so in Japan the AKB fan army and the other bands have dedicated fans who go to these events and join the clubs and vote for the members and so forth so we have a president in the United States who had a core group of followers who are somewhat similar to the fans of AKB 48 and they're dedicated to him and supportive of him and no matter what they're going to vote for him so I think some of this marketing phenomenon that's going to apply to AKB 48 you can see in the United States maybe at the election level also some bands or some artists I mentioned to you earlier that take Taylor Swift so she sells regular CDs but she also sells elective and within those elective they're her personal journals so she's beginning to share herself in the same sense the AKB 48 members share themselves with their fans so she adopted that policy to sell TV that a higher value and also Travis Scott who's a rapper he's quite popular right now he's an ugly merchandise with his music as well so some of the popular American idols American pop stars are doing something similar to AKB 48 but not as wild and not as extended and you know doesn't involve the voting aspect that at least and Taylor Swift is one just one individual star and Travis Scott is just one individual star I don't know in America I can't really think of an equivalent band where there'd be like 30 members you know the power power back in the old days but you know usually bands are smaller maybe this would apply to some of the boy bands you know they could have voting for which member that the girls thought was the cutest of the nicest and so forth and then that would maybe encourage greater connection sales the CDs and so forth for these boy band I think this is this is part of sort of a global evolution to connect social media with music and talent and and icons you know like this iconic people and you know it's never been as much as it is now but I mean oh I think I think we have to look to the future of it and certainly it has made a huge impression and been usually successful in Japan I think maybe this kind of thing will happen elsewhere in sort of European cultures but my question to you is is this is this a fad because in Japan we know they have fads and they don't last all that long in this case it's lasted yeah improved for 10 years but it still may be a fad and if it is a fad yeah when will it decline and what will it evolve to what will be the next step and you know in this trans this transition to internet hyphen entertainment hyphen music hyphen politics yeah maybe coming to an end so this year the band announced that for the first time they would have the general election where the fans can vote for the individual members so it could be that this is coming to an end or beginning maybe the guy who created this is saying okay we've had a great one for ten years and I've made you know half a billion dollars off of this so we know how much money he's made I'm sure it's a huge amount so it may be we need to wind down in Japan so what's after that I don't know I know about AKB 48 because of my marketing interest I don't pay much attention to Japanese pop music I can actually this case study I'm doing it on Wednesday here in Japan so I'll ask the class members I think all of them a third of AKB 48 the foreigners I mean you're inundated you can I go literally anywhere in Japan without seeing something from AKB 48 on the trains billboards music on TV there's just music with it so but they do in team being to wind down I can ask my class what they think would be coming up behind it we're almost out of time Steve almost out of time I yeah I would be interested in knowing the other the other thing here is I want to thank you for introducing me to the subject because as I disclosed earlier I know nothing about bands either in Japan or in the United States and now I feel that I am enriched that I know a lot more and I think you and I have something more in common now we both know at least a little bit about these bands and maybe maybe next time for our next show we can we can sing together Steve you know we hope for us gay there's a band that's a kind of middle-aged guy and they tour at various what they're called old sense are you can in the old sense or their outdoor Springs yes and the target market is this band older women and I saw them on TV so there's Steve middle-aged guys and they have a tremendous fan base of middle-aged women so it's not limited strictly to women young women you and I we could actually form a band and maybe we could be successful here in Japan okay Steve Steve Zercher hold that thought you never know what will happen Steve Zercher thank you so much look forward to our next discussion in the meantime you take care