What is product development, branding that leads EC to success?"Tamachan Shop" Deputy President Tanaka and President Fractor Kono's secret

In addition to its own EC, Tamachan Shop is located in EC malls such as Rakuten Ichiba and Amazon.As an online shop that handles natural foods in Kyushu, the EC development is the 17th year.We have been focusing on creating our own brands while developing our business using product development and planning skills as weapons.The fractors, which provide branding support from other companies, are also challenging the creation of new brands due to Corona.Two of Kotaro Tanaka of the "Tamachan Shop" and President Takanobu Kono of Fractors asked each other about branding.

Develop products by adding customer needs

Mr. Takanobu Kono (hereinafter Kono): I would like to talk about the theme of "Tamachan Shop style" Hito "," Koto "and" Mono ".

What I wanted to ask most was product development.The "Tamachan Shop" is very particular about each product, and I feel that it has a strong development and planning ability of the product as well as expressions.What is the flow of product development?

Kotaro Tanaka (hereinafter referred to as Mr. Tanaka): "Tamachan Shop" is a shop based in Kyushu.We are supporting.

I basically work on the development and planning of products.The "Tamachan Shop" emphasizes that the planned and developed ones are expanding more and more with a sense of speed.

At the same time, we are thinking about consumer needs, such as care about health and taking nutrition efficiently.If it is likely to be made, we are examining whether it is a product with a need for it, while trying to make a prototype and approaches the ideal through the manufacturer.

Kono: First, try making it yourself, or is it the strength of the "Tamachan Shop"?

Tanaka: I think it is the best strength of the Tamachan Shop.Large companies will generate tasks such as approval from the product development stage.On the other hand, the "Tamachan Shop" is enough to be released immediately at the stage I make.

However, we will also consult with designers and planning teams to discuss whether the product is like "Tamachan Shop", and ultimately set the design that matches the product.

Kono: Isn't it quite heavy work to develop products with hypotheses about the needs of the world?

Tanaka: That's right.Still, I think it's very important to determine if the product really needs it.If you don't, you'll basically be your own ego.Therefore, it is important to develop products while marketing.

Kono: Are you worried about the voice of the customer who purchased the product?

Tanaka: I'm worried most.After the release, look at the customer's impressions and think about where the bad rating was, where there was a problem, and how to improve it.In that sense, after release is a very important time to brush up the product.

Kono: I think it's just one important process of DTOC.A cycle that interacts directly with customers, understands customers, and proposes more and more.I felt that this led to overwhelming product development and planning skills.

Products tell the company's philosophy and vision

Kono: The Tamachan Shop has many content on the site.I think there are various options such as "beautiful" and "cool" in creating pages and content.On the other hand, customer service elements are also important, such as being easy for customers to read and understand the text, and pay attention to the incorrect understanding.

The balance of the entire site is required for design selection and ease of reading sentences.Is there anything you usually pay attention to in such information dissemination?

Tanaka: I think that is a very important point.As a priority, we first branded our philosophy and vision through design, and then use SNS.

I don't think this order should not be reversed.I just want to convey my philosophy and thoughts, and I want to value what kind of tools to use for that.Rather than forcing Tiktok because Tiktok is popular, I think that the tool has to be considered if there is a correlation with what we want to convey.

Right now, there are useful tools such as LINE and Instagram, but I feel that it is important to use it with sharpness, whether it is a "transmitted" tool or a "selling" tool.

Mr. Tanaka: There are various ways of thinking and theory about branding, but in my case the philosophy and vision of starting the company are very important.However, I think there are many cases where you tend to forget that and say, "What really you want to do?"

The movement of the times is too fast, especially after the corona, there is too much new tools and information, and there is a impatience that you have to catch up there.As a result, you may easily enter a cheap battle battle.

However, in this era, we share our philosophy and vision with staff again, and then "humans", "things", and "things" come together to create products.I think that repeaters and fans will be more enthusiastic about the extension, and word of mouth will spread.

I think sales and profits will be born where the product tells the company's philosophy and vision and conveys the story.

So how do you make the story yourself and how to lead it to sales?After all, I feel that the essence is here.To do so, I feel that there is no element that the customer speaks after buying.I think we should communicate the elements that customers can talk about.

Kono: I feel that the area is like "Tamachan Shop".And I feel that it is very important for branding to make something like this "feeling" properly.

Produces the characteristics of "Tamachan" over several years

Mr. Kono: The third question is, please tell us about the difficulties of building a "Tamachan Shop" brand.

Tanaka: It is narrowed down to another.I have been doing that over the past few years how to penetrate the "religion" that I mentioned earlier.

For example, when you ask a question from a customer of the EC Mall that is opening a store, you first say, "I bought it in Rakuten," "I bought it at Yahoo."But from us, we have to say, "I bought it at the Tamachan Shop."In other words, we want our brand to talk, not the mall where we opened.

For that reason, what we were thoroughly was the unification of design.Not only the design of the product, but also the delivery cardboard and packing materials were unified, erasing the unique EC mall, creating a "Tamachan Shop".

When I worked on it for a couple of years, the number of voices from customers said, "I bought it at the Tamachan Shop."

Kono: That's a very important point.However, as you said, the effect does not come out immediately.After a couple of years, I finally saw the results, and I think it would be good to do it.In that sense, it is important to endure the last few years and continue.

Mr. Tanaka: When deploying with EC malls like Rakuten, Yahoo, Amazon, I think it is important to make individuality in it, that is, differentiation.Unless you break through here, your customers will not come out, and customers will flow to competitors.We were really struggling to establish ourselves and create individuality.

Transferred to branding to "survive" in Corona.

Tanaka: I will ask a question.Did the Corona evil change in terms of branding?I feel that the angle of looking at the brand is changing little by little, and I'm curious whether the branding is changing in terms of branding.

Kono: I feel that there was a very big change in the change.

In the world in front of Corona, branding was often relatively intended to be more outstanding than other companies.However, we have always talked about "branding is what we do to survive, and it is difficult to do it to" pull out "from other companies."

As I mentioned earlier, branding is stacked and you need to do something muddy.Changing the logo does not suddenly increase sales.You will be trusted by your customers by accumulating.As a result of being chosen, I think it will survive.

In the case of Corona, I think that more and more companies are thinking about branding to survive, as they have been forced to change in the way of business so far.I'm happy, and at the same time, I feel that it's a harsh situation.

Misunderstanding of "branding = design"

Mr. Tanaka: I think there are various branding projects under Mr. Kono, but are there any trends these days?What are you looking for in branding?

Kono: I often start with consultations that "I want to realize something like a company that works well as a brand" and "I want to be like △△".

Among them, there are many cases where designs and logo are made by requesting them to make them, but they are not reflected in the business on site.In other words, at the end of being made, it does not work well with the implementation phase and does not work with the measures.There are many needs to improve such problems.

Tanaka: Certainly we have such an era.When I consulted with the designer, the content was vague.As the competition is increasing, you have to keep running.So I have to do something, but I don't know what to do.

Kono: It's commonplace that it seems like "branding = design."However, I think branding is originally thinking about the ideas that are fundamental to the design and "I want to provide such value to such customers."I think that the business operator has to derive it.

If you don't have that root, no matter how good a designer, it will not work, so it's very important to make the fundamentals first.

"The final form of branding" that fulfills your dreams with customers

Mr. Tanaka: The third question is, please let me know if you have the most important points in branding and if you have the important points "Best 3".

Kono: There are various interpretations of branding, but I think the root is "who will provide what value to provide."On top of that, the following three important things are as follows.

① Avoid pushing the value of one -way traffic

Kono: The first important point of branding I think is that "don't separate from management."In other words, a nice brand was made, a wonderful logo was made, a wonderful concept was made, but it didn't sell.This is useless.

Because branding is communication with customers.Do not impose a one -way value.Companies make good brands, repeating their money and purchasing products, being satisfied and sometimes dissatisfied.I don't think you should forget this.It should not be a desk theory.

② Create one world with digital and analog

Kono: The second important point is that the use of e -commerce and digital is very important, but it is meaningless to convert analog into digital.

In particular, the fact that it happened in the corona is that "I just want to make an EC site" and "Let's sell it all in EC" is not a state of digital.True digital natives are people who have nothing to do with digital or analog.

Rather than sorting all to EC because it is difficult for many people to go to the store, we narrow down the wisdom of how to create a real place where we can communicate with our customers more peace of mind, and how to make the purchase process of the purchase.I think it is necessary to make something like such a flat horizon, thinking about whether it will be connected to.

I feel that branding of this era should aim to create one world by conscious of analog while conscious of digital.

③ Continue branding by yourself

Kono: The last important point is that it is very important to brand it yourself.Instead of being pointed out by an expert, he continues to brand himself by himself.After all, if you can't do this, you'll end up being your soul somewhere.

It's a very painful part, but I think it's very important for branding to keep growing brands.

Mr. Tanaka: We are also a real store, but originally started from online shopping.It is becoming increasingly important to fuse digital and analog, and at the same time, it will be differentiated in the future to determine the areas that make use of the characteristics of digital and analog.

Until now, branding was just telling something from the company, but in the future, we will bring up our philosophy and vision to fulfill our dreams with our customers.I feel like it becomes the "final form of branding".

At that time, we should deliver what we really love and what we can talk about, and even if we try to sell what we can't talk about, we feel that they will be seen immediately.First of all, if we are enthusiastic, we may be enthusiastic.