Kat-Tun & Celebrity Mini-Design Promotions

Written by: Michael Keferl on March 20, 2009 at 4:03 am | In LIFESTYLE / FASHION, MARKETING IDEAS | No Comments

Celebrity-designed or endorsed products and giveaways continue to show up in big promotions in Japan. This time, gum giant Lotte is running a promotion with the still-popular boy band sextet KAT-TUN to give away 6,000 KAT-TUN “selected” cases for Lotte Plus-X gum.

Buyers of the gum can enter the “Lotte Lottery” by using the code inside the wrapper online or by mobile phone, and play the accompanying mini-game for points.

The cases themselves are interesting in that they aren’t overtly branded and are rather fashionable considering that young women are already paying for similar blinged-out cases for mints and other small items. Of course, Kat-Tun’s real roll in the design/choosing of these items is up in the air, but isn’t it just a *tad* more realistic than believing that Paris Hilton or Avril Lavine designed entire lines of clothes and accessories?

Trend Potential
Japan’s celebrity-designed products are unique, and are going by a model that behaves differently from the typical “pop star fashion line” or perfume. Read the full version of this Macro Trend with multiple global examples in our Trendpool database.

Tags: Celebrities, Collaborations, FMCG, Marketing
Category: LIFESTYLE / FASHION, MARKETING IDEAS
Other categories: DIGITAL LIFE, PRODUCT INNOVATIONS

Celebrity design for sanitary napkins makes you hipper once a month

Written by: Rebecca Milner on June 19, 2008 at 10:20 pm | In MARKETING IDEAS | 4 Comments

In one of the stranger takes on the celebrity-designer theme, TV talent and half of the Osaka manzai comedy duo Othello, Naomi Matsushima has lent her name and designs to a series of sanitary napkins from P&G’s Whisper line.

Note: Whisper is exclusive to Asia (actually a little research turns up that around the troublesome India-Pakistan P&G’s Always line of sanitary napkins becomes Whisper).

It turns out that on her latest TV variety show, Kira Kira Afro, Matsushima mentioned that she wanted to “design whisper” so that “women could pass their menstrual period more happily.”

And voila! P&G has announced that from the end of June a special edition of “Silky Soft Slims” will feature Matsushima’s designs, one version with stars and one with camouflage.

We are used to seeing celebrity designers for products that owners are proud to show off and call their own, like mobile phones and MP3 players, so it is entertaining (though not necessarily trendsetting) to see a popular TV talent decorating a product that is, err, not really a talking point.

Tags: Celebrities, design, FMCG
Category: MARKETING IDEAS
Other categories: DIGITAL LIFE, LIFESTYLE / FASHION, PRODUCT INNOVATIONS