Michael interviewed for Pokya.jp

CScout Japan Director Michael Keferl was interviewed recently for the “Making it in Japan” series on Pokya.jp, focusing on entrepreneurs and artists in the tough Japanese market.

Topics included doing business in Japan as well as CScout’s soon-to-be-released Eco Japan report focusing on Japanese innovations in green tech and marketing. The full interview is available online at Pokya and through iTunes.

Defacto Textil Dialogue brings CScout and the Tokyo Girls Collection together in Germany

CScout Japan client and collaborator defacto gruppe is Germany’s largest dialogue marketing agency, and their annual Textil Dialogue event brings their many fashion and retail clients all to one place to discuss and gain new impressions.

We first began our relationship with defacto over a week-long Tokyo Trend Tour, hopping around town nonstop from boardrooms to backstreet shops. We also had some time with Branding, the agency behind the famed Tokyo Girls Collection, which is what recently brought us here at CScout Japan over to Germany a year and a half later along with the innovators behind the TGC.

Along with producer Maki Okuda and F1 Media CEO Ayako Nagaya (both pictured below), we brought the energy and branding innovations of the TGC to a room full of executives from Germany and Europe’s top brands and retail shops. CScout’s job was to lay the technological and cultural background for a European audience, getting everyone up to speed on the mobile phone, fashion magazine, and pop culture trends in Japan so that they could appreciate the TGC’s ability to bring all three together in one big event.

Our presentations at the Textil Dialogue also got some great press from Textil Wirtschaft (German language only), focusing especially on the mobile commerce side of the event as well as the CRM potential.

Many thanks to everyone at defacto and Branding/F1 Media for a great event, and especially to everyone who came to spend the day with us.

Tags: CRM, Events, Marketing, TGC, Tokyo Girls Collection

CScout quoted in Advertising Age about NFC

Michael Keferl, Managing Director of CScout Japan, was recently quoted in an Advertising Age article on mobile payments and NFC technology.

They had asked originally about the McDonalds Kazasu Coupon CRM program with integrated RFID, which we’ve noticed at ground level as being relatively successful. There’s great potential for growth in this market, but retailers can be rather timid about being early adopters due to the high cost and complication of entry. Eventually, however, one brand is going to use NFC in a way that grabs the masses, and it will grow massively from there.

CScout Speaks at the Asia Television Forum

Make that “spoke”. This is old news, but I’ve just discovered some press about us while searching for my name in its most commonly misspelled form “Keferi”. Don’t worry BBC, it’s not just you.

Last December the Asia Television Forum was very nice and flew us in to Singapore to give the keynote presentation for the Mobile Television panel discussion. Broadband TV News reported on it a bit:

“It is an infrastructure experiment, but nobody is yet sure what content or applications will result in One Seg achieving viability.” He said that in the West broadcasters and telcos were “freaking out” looking for a mobile TV business model, but that may have to evolve from experimentation of the type that was taking place in Japan. Keferi suggested that broadcast mobile services could serve as teasers for paid streamed content.

Tags: Mobile, Press coverage, television

Tokyo Tours from CScout on BBC Fast:Track

Earlier this month we had the pleasure of spending the day with Rajan Datar and the crew of the BBC World business/travel show fast:track during their visit to Tokyo with Richard Branson.

Since the show expressed an interest in our Tokyo Trend Tours, a service we’ve been doing here since 2002, we planned a full day of locations and meetings that give a well-rounded view of what we do. We do tours and market immersions for professionals and globe-trotters alike, this time with a focus on a few of our favorites: The KDDI Designing Studio, Beams CULTuART, HP France, and Toppan. The idea was to show the power of mobile culture, fashion, and where they converge in the retail space.

It was also nice to find out that our friend Danny Choo was going to be featured in the same segment, which I believe we had once before on Attack of the Show. Funny how these things work out.

Many thanks to the BBC for a successful day, though I think I’m going to change my last name to “Keferi” since it seems to be the default misspelling/mispronunciation every time I do television!

Check out the video here on Yahoo. If you’re interested in inspiring yourself or your team with some time in Tokyo, from street-level trends, to nightlife, to boardrooms, feel free to contact us anytime.

Tags: Mobile, Press coverage, Retail

TASPO Sparks Radio Conversation with CScout

The last time I went on Spark, the CBC Radio show on “technology and culture”, we explored the world of QR Codes. This time, host Nora Young and I talk a bit about TASPO, RFID, and the contactless future of retail.

Unfortunately, Spark decided to edit out my anti-government comments in regards to registration of smokers, but you can’t expect much out of public radio in this regard. For the record, my opposition to government regulation in smoking life has been well documented.

You can listen live today (June 10th) at 10:30 am Toronto time, subscribe to the Spark podcast, or get the mp3 of this episode by visiting their blog. I come in around the 14min mark.

Tags: Press, Press coverage, RFID, Tobacco