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This is Rainomoto's Podcast, The Creative Mindset.
Welcome to The Intersection, an audio version of my written essays exploring what the future
holds at the intersection of creativity and technology. I'm Rainomoto, the founding partner
of I&CO, a global innovation firm based in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.
Based on the conversations that I have with the top creative practitioners from various industries,
I write a weekly essay to dig deeper and analyze where we may be headed as creative
and business professionals. We'll be bringing this segment as a bonus episode to you.
We are experimenting a version recorded with AI trained with my voice and see what you think.
Now, I know that some of you would be against the use of AI and we might turn you off. At the same
time, AI is a tidal wave of change that we cannot avoid and I'd like to keep experimenting with it
until we find the right balance between AI and human work. So let's get started.
リブランドの事例分析
Rethinking Rebranding
If you work in marketing or branding, you've all seen Oatley and Stanley's rebranding case studies.
Both are good examples of growth through rebranding. Between 2019 and 2023, Oatley grew
from $200 million to $800 million. In the same period, Stanley increased its revenue tenfold,
from $70 million to $750 million. Oatley's unlock started with packaging, then its logo
and messaging. For Stanley, a 110-year-old brand selling green thermoses to outdoorsmen and blue
collar workers, it was not about the logo or packaging. The strategy shifted the target
audience from men to women and rebranded a failing product with new colorways.
While the Oatley and Stanley case studies provide useful insights and good content for
viral LinkedIn posts, they are fairy tales that may not be applicable for most brands.
Hoping for sudden growth through rebranding is like an inexperienced retail investor
wishing to find the next pre-2020 in new video stock. It doesn't happen to most.
三光神社の再ブランディング
A family business making $35,000, approximately 5 million JPY a year and dormant for decades
or centuries isn't an obvious case study for rebranding. Add shrinking industry to the mix,
and the prospect of this business growing in the coming years is as slim as a raindrop
filling a well. But wells do start with single drops. According to an article in Nikkei X Trend,
a Japanese business publication, Mikari Shrine, a 1,800-year-old shrine in rural Japan,
grew from $35,000 to $1 million a year. Approximately 140 million JPY, almost 30 times
bigger over a decade, by rebranding. Its rebranding didn't start with changing its name or
logo. Laying a foundation for a business to survive for decades requires a gradual and measured
strategy. The case study of Mikari Shrine provides actionable rebranding lessons for building long
term brand resilience. It started with saving $2, about 300 JPY daily. We're discussing an
organization here, not personal savings. Kazunobu Takase is the owner of Mikari Shrine,
which has a 1,800-year-old lineage passed down from his father, who inherited it from his father.
In 2009, Takase joined his family practice. The following year, he took over as the 32nd priest
of the Takase family. I was unaware of the state my family business was in until I joined my father.
With little to no growth prospects for his family business, he could only start by saving change day
by day before increasing revenue. He saved $1,500 over two years, a miniscule amount for any business.
He considered using this fund to close the shrine, move, and start another career.
It would have been a sensible choice because the annual revenue, $35,000, came in the first three
days of the new year, a common time for Japanese people to visit shrines for new year wishes and
リブランドの成功事例
give change. He used this tiny capital as an investment to make small, but visible fixes
to the shrine, attracting visitors outside the three days. This small enhancement isn't considered
a rebranding activity. When we think of branding or rebranding, we think of new logos, names,
colours, typefaces, campaigns, and taglines. Chief marketing officers and marketers prefer
splashes, not tiny raindrops. In the following decade, Takase made small improvements to his
practice, including learning to build a website using off-the-shelf services. They were never
sudden or drastic, but each provided an incremental expansion for his business and brand.
A family practice that started with $35,000 a year has grown to over $1 million in revenue,
a 30 times increase. In the case of Makari Shrine, rebranding wasn't just a marketing makeover.
Takase reconsidered his practice's fundamentals from business and brand perspectives and reflected
them in the presentation of its products and services. This required outside, helpful objectivity
in Takase's practice. When Takase had enough funds in his savings, he engaged an external
consultant for an objective view of his practice and to assess his business and brand. In the
rebranding approach, there were three key elements. One, reticulating its mission and vision. While
Makari Shrine's mission as a Shinto practice was clear and timeless, its vision as an 1800-year-old
practice had become less relevant in the contemporary age. Many brands fall into this
trap regardless of their maturity. I come across many established brands and businesses without
clearly articulated mission or vision statements that resonate with their organizations. Whether
you're a young startup or a long-standing operation, regularly revisit your mission
and vision statement to ensure it is resonant and relevant. Two, the power of subtraction.
高瀬の革新
Makari changed the product's appearance. They were Shinto amulets and charms for good luck,
fortune, health, and various occasions. There's a cottage industry of manufacturers producing
these items and Makari, like other shrines, sourced from these vendors at low costs.
Takase did two things. First, he developed original items instead of procuring them from
a common vendor. Second, he cut down the items from over 30 to 3. The output was a set of original,
unique, and differentiated offerings available only at Makari Shrine and its website.
The lesson? Subtract and elevate.
Three, productizing its services. Over a decade ago, when Takase took over his father's business,
he knew he was not the only one facing the challenge of staying afloat.
In 2024, Japan has about 78,000 Shinto shrines compared to 15,270 Starbucks stores in the U.S.
There are almost five times the number of shrines than Starbucks in a country that
could fit into the size of California. By 2050, an estimated 30,000 will disappear.
The mission of a shrine or any Shinto shrine isn't to outdo others and win. It's to co-exist.
In 2022, Takase decided to start a consulting practice to offer its services as products
to other shrines to help them survive and thrive in their communities around Japan.
The key takeaway is that productizing doesn't always mean relying on software or tech to scale
your business, nor do you need to worship algorithms. Package your service so it is
replicable and easy to buy. If you're considering rebranding, don't start with the outside. Look
within. That will be more effective and lead to bigger returns than changing your logos,
colors, and fonts. I started writing this newsletter in 2023 as a way to organize my
thoughts that come from various conversations with many creative practitioners. Over the course
ブランディングの再考
of several months, I see and notice new patterns and new insights gained from multiple people,
and I take the time to organize and write them down so that they can be useful and hopefully
helpful to you as listeners and readers. If you're listening to this on Spotify,
there's a Q&A field, so please do send us your questions and comments. And if you like our
podcast, please leave us a 5-star rating. We'll be so grateful. I'm Reina Moto,
and this is The Creative Mindset. See you next time.
