comment 2
After reading Lingyi Xing’s blog post on the success of “no brand goods”, I became interested in how did Muji become such a successful brand. One of the main reasons of Muji’s success would be its unique brand proposition. The brand prides itself on being high quality, simple, and affordable. Best of all, Muji uses as little packaging as possible. There aren’t layers of packaging hiding the product; instead, you can immediately see what it is (even though the labels are in Japanese). Simplicity has never looked so good. Though the brand does not have a corporate tag line, it occasionally comes out with the tag line “Simple. Functional. Affordable”. This is to ensure that the message is engrained in the customers’ minds. Muji goes to the extent of recycling or reselling the unsold products in the same condition, using natural fiber material, and including very minimal and informational manuals, with minimal packaging. All these activities in totality contribute to Muji’s image of a brand that is against the “branded world”. Besides being simple and eco-friendly, Muji’s products are also user-friendly. They do market research in regular intervals to learn about consumers’ habits and preferences, and make corresponding change to the design of their products.
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References:
http://www.venturerepublic.com/resources/Muji_The_Japanese_No-Brand.asp
http://nubbytwiglet.com/2007/09/26/muji-japanese-perfection-in-simplicity/
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