Valentine's day is coming...

Hello hello againnn~

Valentine's day is coming so I decided to blog something about that!

Everyone knows that Valentine´s day has got its beginning in antique Rome and for christians the day was considered as a day of christian saint called Valentine. Valentine's day has a long history also in England and France and there are many myths and stories about the day. Nowadays it is a day which is celebrated all over the world, but of course every country and culture has its own way to spend it.

I found some interesting facts about celebrating Valentine's day in Japan. Actually I heard this first in the radio, and it made me so interested so I searched a little bit more information.

It is said that back in the 1950′s, a company advertised Valentine’s day chocolates to non-Japanese living in Japan at the time. Then, Japanese companies wanted to get on board too, and started advertising Valentine’s Day chocolates as well.

During this period there was quite a bit of “Westernization” where people wanted to adopt more Western amd American traditions. Because of this, Valentine’s Day in Japan did fairly well.

But well, everything didn't go quite right...

It seems that at some point someone messed up a translation and ended up telling the Japanese people that Valentine’s day was an opportunity for women to express their love to men. Because of this, even to this day it’s mostly women giving chocolates to men!


And because there are differents relationships between men and women, Japanese stores offer three kinds of chocolate: Giri, Honmei and Tomo-chocolates. Woman chooses the kind depending of the relation she has with the man she's giving the chocolate.

Giri-Chocolate means obligatory chocolate. This kind of chocolate refers to the chocolate you have to give to people. These could be people like bosses, coworkers, male friends, etc, who you aren't exactly in love with. Even sadder still, there’s also something called “Cho-Giri-Chocolate” (Ultra-obligatory-chocolate), which is given to unpopular people you really don’t want to give chocolates to. That's funny ehh??

Honmei-Chocolate means favorite chocolate. This kind of chocolate is the kind of chocolate you give to the one you want to express your love to. These chocolates tend to be more expensive or possibly even home made. Basically, it has to be obvious that these are honmei and not giri, so they have to be on a completely different level. Isn't that every chocolate maker's dream? To make fine chocolate no matter how much it costs because you just know people will buy it.

Tomo-choco just means friend chocolates, and refers to chocolates you give to your female friends as a female.

So well, don't you think that's quite simple? Just because you know you have to give chocolate, you don't need to spend time thinking about "What could I give to him or do I give anything?!" Like in Finland, there isn't presise rule that if you're woman, you give chocolate to men and that's it. We need to think that very much, and ohh how embarrassing it is if you don't get anything back!!! That if anything makes a girl cry haha.


Japanese people have solved this preciprocation problem too. Men just don't give anything back on Valentine's day. They have their own day to express their love, and its called White day. Traditionally, popular White day gifts are cookies, jewellery, white chocolate, white lingerie, and marshmallows. 

But that's Japan. I have to say that I really like the idea of them spending Valentine's day and White day... It's an important part of their culture, and a good example of that how Valentine's day is spent differently in different cultures. If you compare it to Finnish Valentine's day, you notice that we don't have any rules or expectations for the day. Or if we expect something, we usually get disappointed. Finnish men seldom think that women would appreciate something special on that day. But thats our culture and we just have to live with it.

....At least my boyfriend said that he doesn't see any reason to celebrate Valentine's day. Well maybe I will eat the chocolate meant for him by myself and just go to dinner with my friends. :D And after that I will teach him some Japanese traditions haha.

Happy Valentine's to you all~ <3

Heidi

Super Bowl? A total Blackout for me!

Yea, what is Super Bowl???

I have been wondering that for a few days by now, because everyone in social media (read: in Facebook) is talking about this event! And seriously I didn't have a foggiest idea what it could be until I made a little bit googling... i had to google because I just didn't dare to ask somebody like "Hey, what is Super Bowl?" Someone could have thought that I was just stupid.....

.....And I found out that it is the final championship of NFL-league of American footboll, which is played annually in the middle of January and February.

Super Bowl is known worldwide and in every country people is watching it. And I didn't know anything about it, how embarrassing...




Why I am talking about this is because the event is a huge opportunity for a marketer. Like, in every country there are plenty of people who are watching, and they will for sure see your brand.  

 And for sure, in this year's championship there was an insuperable winner in advertising.

You know that there was a half-hour power failure when the game was going on. It was really embarrassing and the game was forced to get a break. While the "Super Bowl blackout" didn't make those associated with the operation of the event look particularly great, Oreo take its change and made something unexpected. Within 11 minutes of the stadium blackout, Oreo had a new ad tailored to the moment spread among its social media channels.

The Oreo brand’s marketing company reveals on its company blog that in addition to its own staff, representatives of five separate departments of Oreo plus key brand executives were together managing the company’s social media presence during the game. At least some portion of the planning put into having such people present was very likely centered upon how the company would respond if all did not go well with their advertising campaign, but having decision makers in the room during a major event proved to be a genius move on their part.
It is clear that they were focused on positive communication to support their brand, but the structure was prepared equally for offense or defense. By being prepared, Oreo was able to take advantage of a unique moment in a creative way.

You can see that the more timely a message is, the more relevant it is. And no one proved that more than Oreo. With a blackout in the game, Oreo created and tweeted the ad featured above. With half the world sharing in the experience, this just-in-time execution may have immediately connected with more people than any other ad in history. Not all of us drink Bud. Not all of us use Samsung. But ALL of us watching the game experienced the blackout at the same time. And Oreo connected our dots immediately.

Is it possible that a free tweet was more powerful than all the million dollar spots? Unbelievable but true. While the other brands were using millions to get people's attention, Oreo owned the night and they didn’t have to pay almost anything in media costs to do it.


Sources:
http://www.marketingmag.ca/news/marketer-news/column-who-won-the-advertising-super-bowl-71234
http://agbeat.com/business-marketing/oreos-rapid-response-to-super-bowl-blackout-proves-how-to-be-nimble/
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl


See ya again,
Heidi :)