Greater China continues to grow rapidly. Nike, the world's largest sporting goods manufacturer, considers it to be as important a market as North America.
In January 2012, a Japanese employee was dispatched to the company's Shanghai base: Entertainment Marketing Director Tomoaki Moribe. As the only Japanese director among the approximately 1,000 employees working there, we spoke with him about his work and the unique characteristics of the Chinese region.
First, please tell us about entertainment marketing (EM).
Sporting goods manufacturers like Nike typically support athletes as part of their brand strategy. However, young people are often influenced by actors, musicians, and other actors in the entertainment industry when it comes to fashion. EM supports not only well-known figures in the entertainment industry, but also people from a variety of professions and levels, including film directors, writers, photographers, and on-site assistants, with the goal of enhancing Nike's brand value. This marketing technique has been around in North America for over 30 years, but it's not very well known in Japan.

--What specific approach do you take when it comes to this support method?

We sign sponsorship contracts with athletes, but in EM, the basic premise is that we don't sign contracts with the people we support. We first build a good personal relationship behind the scenes. Simply put, we become friends (laughs). Once our relationship level has grown, we have them wear Nike products in public appearances, such as on TV shows or on stage. If we're a program producer, we might ask them to increase the number of shots showing their shoes. The result is a form of product placement, featuring Nike products in mass media.

--How is this different from paying to promote a product?

PR is the job of promoting a product that's about to be sold, but EM's goal is ultimately branding. To put it in extreme terms, we can handle products that aren't even sold, and it doesn't even have to be directly involved with the product. It's a great success if consumers think, "Nike is doing something interesting, even if I don't really understand it." In that sense, it's also buzz (word-of-mouth) marketing.

--What specific activities did you undertake in Japan?

For example, we partnered with a female celebrity to improve her running skills and spark a running boom in the market. This project was aimed at people who had no interest in running, and we were involved from the story development stage of the digital content. When an actor-director was making his first film, we gave the staff T-shirts, cookies with T-shirt designs, and watermelons. The director and staff were thrilled. On set, word spread that Nike's acquaintances had given them all these gifts. From there, word of mouth spread. If supporting athletes is one side of the coin, what we do is like the other side.

--Isn't it difficult to get celebrities to use your product without paying them?

It's impossible without a personal connection, a deep relationship—something like friendship. The target audience is both male and female, and ranges in age from young to old. It requires the interpersonal and communication skills to easily connect with anyone. EM is a new marketing concept, but its methods are quite down-to-earth (laughs). The reason EM is important in the first place is because traditional methods like paid publishing have begun to seem contrived to consumers. EM allows brands to be promoted in a more natural way.

--So, since 2012, you've been expanding EM in Greater China, including China and Taiwan.

Our bases of operations are Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, but these four places can't be lumped together. The languages are different, and the national characteristics are all different. There are also differences in popular entertainment culture: Beijing is known for rock music, Taiwan for pop music, and Hong Kong for art and street culture. Taiwan, in particular, has a large number of powerful influencers. This was a major discovery for me. A notable feature is the large number of people who are active across genres, such as singer-actors Wang Leehom and Jay Chou. EM has an aspect of what we call "giri ninjo" (obligation and human feelings) in Japan. Does that translate to Greater China? That's a big concern for me. It's still understandable in Taiwan, but China and Hong Kong have a much more businesslike and dry mentality. Even through our agency, the conversation quickly turns to, "I'm happy to have our actors wear your shoes, but how much will you charge?" Recently, competitors willing to spend money have appeared, making work even more difficult. In 2012, we were able to persuade a certain author to make one film in China, but we haven't seen any notable results yet. As for television programs, we're still groping in the dark. What about staff development? There are big differences in business practices and ways of thinking, aren't there? EM only has a few staff members at each location, so it's not a large number. One challenge is a weak awareness of rights. Portrait rights are still not widely recognized in China, and problems frequently arise. They claim that a celebrity attended a Nike-sponsored event and then try to post the photo on their website without the influencer's permission. It's fine to hand over shoes to the influencer and ask them to wear them, but then they ask them to write an article about them on their blog. We also need to train our internal staff on the basics of EM. My role is to build a team to make EM work. It's been a year, but I think it will still take time.

--Even so, the market in China and Greater China is vast, so surely there is still room for EM to penetrate?

First, we need to develop the sports market itself. Sports themselves are not yet widespread in China. In 2011 and 2012, Nike held a participatory event called the "Festival of Sports" in Shanghai. The event allowed people to experience the wonders of sports in various categories. The 2012 event attracted 200,000 participants over four days. Our Greater China division is working hard on this. The job of EM is like pioneering an uncharted wilderness. I have one year left in my term, but I want to create an environment that makes it easy for the staff who come after me to do their jobs.