When you walk in downtown Vancouver, you can walk without anybody bothering you. If it were in Japan, advertisements come flying at you. Coming to Canada has made me realize the how heavy marketing in Japan relies on tissue-pack advertisements. On every street or near station exits, there are people handing out tissue packs that have advertisements on the back.

This type of advertising began in Japan in the late 1960s and is a popular type of marketing because it could cost as little as 10 to 25 yen with a high possibility a person would look at the advertisement. According an Internet survey by Marsh Research, 76 percent said they accept free tissues. As we have learned, it is crucial for a consumer to at least know about its brand for it to be within the consumer’s evoked set. People hand out these tissue packs as part time jobs, and since their job for the day is done when they finish handing out all of their tissue packs, some could be quite annoying and desperate to hand them out. As a pedestrian, yes it’s annoying when they block your way until you get that tissue packet from them, but at the same time you feel as though you can never have too much of tissue packets.

My question is, why isn’t this form of advertising popular in other countries? It has been spreading overseas such as New York but the main market still lies in Japan. Two reasons I could think of is that paper products may not be as cheap as it is in Japan, and certain areas may not be as safe. However if these two requirements are fulfilled, I believe tissue packets are an efficient way for advertisement.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/08/21/reference/pocket-tissues/#.US_bkKXEHaI

http://www.corecommerce.com/blog/the-importance-of-building-a-brand-name/

Yes, a brand name is important as Kris Graffagnino also mentions in his blog. Companies invest millions of dollars to make a brand and advertise it, but to what extend would they want to do this?

When you spill orange juice on the table, you’d ask for Kleenex instead of tissue－ without giving much consideration that what you asked for a brand and not a product. Some brand names have become so overused by consumers that they replace the product name: Band-Aid, Sharpie, Jell-O, etc…

Isn’t this a success? First of all, this shows how much this product has influenced its culture and how recognized and trusted it is. Secondly, this could capture consumers from older generations or consumers who do not wish to risk getting anything new. It automatically seems to be part of the consumer’s evoked set thus have higher chances of being purchased.

However, according to a 2012 April article in Taipei Times, companies fear its brand name becoming generic even though they invest in so much to be a recognized and acceptable brand by customers. This is because some companies have lost its trademarks for the brand name, allowing companies to legally use it. For example, aspirin, escalator, yo-yo, and zipper lost its rights as a trademark.

Kleenex and Band-Aid have tried different marketing strategies from becoming generic. They have put “Kleenex Brand” and “Band-Aid Brand” as their label on their product so as not to be forgotten that they are still trademarks.

Every day new products and new brands are emerging in the market. Now whether the brand name would stay as one all depends on how the companies balance their brand name as one that is well-known and at the same time not been taken for granted

http://www.corecommerce.com/blog/the-importance-of-building-a-brand-name/

http://inventors.about.com/b/2006/01/29/when-a-brand-name-becomes-generic-genericized-trademarks.htm