> Here's the end result. If the video tingles your weeaboo senses, that's intentional, as I want clearly uninterested people to skip the video as fast as possible. I'll explain why next.
...
> Now you might understand why I want to get people not in my target audience to skip – it's cheaper because you don't pay when people skip your ad!
In other words - you're probably not in the target audience.
Not saying I agree with why he is saying you shouldn't be in his audience (you're clearly interested in Japanese candy) but maybe you're not because you have an interest but would likely still cancel earlier than his normal audience. (which would have a much higher lifetime value making the numbers much harder to run)
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/8062vs/what_i...
> Not saying I agree with why he is saying you shouldn't be in his audience (you're clearly interested in Japanese candy) but maybe you're not because you have an interest but would likely still cancel earlier than his normal audience. (which would have a much higher lifetime value making the numbers much harder to run)
My wife loves Japanese candies and snacks. Neither of us watch much anime. I would absolutely buy this for her as a gift for Christmas or anniversary. Previously I bought her a monthly makeup subscription and she loved it. $350/year is easily within my budget for a special gift, especially something like this that keeps giving and that connects with her emotionally (she spent some time in SK/Japan as a kid).
If I had come across this ad, I would have skipped it immediately. That being said, I'm bookmarking the site for later this year, so I guess the blog post worked better than the ad?
It's a good strategy. In theory he could spend the money saved from people like you skipping the ad on a different ad that targets a more general market and end up with more wins overall.
Western-accented Japanese is the worst of both worlds.
Sometimes you get it wrong, like with GP, but that's worth it.
I think this is a Good Thing - it makes advertisers and YouTube care in dollars-and-cents terms about not wasting ad viewers' time and attention.
Yes, it could have been better, yes maybe there could have been an "adult" version of it. (I don't think the narration is bad, but I'm not used to hearing native Japanese speakers, so that might be it)
What I think they should have done is have a copywriter script it.
However the phrase "would you like to try some Japanese candy" ends at 0:04 (and "Candy Japan sends you unique surprises 2x a month" ends at 0:08) so I do think they got to the point as quickly as possible
In this instance it appears the ad may have been more the issue than the system so people are pointing out where the issue may be. Criticism of the ad is essential in this case to determine where the "burning" of $14k happened
The blog post wasn't totally clear on this point, but it sounds like the problem was that YouTube's ad tools weren't good enough to get them the fine-grained targeting they needed. They'd put in "anime" as a keyword and then their ad would be shown on totally unrelated videos. There is plenty of anime on YouTube -- if they could attach their ad to that, and nothing else, I think it would have done well.
It should have been:
1) a personal story of him going to Japan
2) him going back the US... and missing the awesome Japanese candy you can't (easily) find in western countries
3) him starting a service to ship Candy (right from Japan!) to people every month for a (not-to-expensive) subscription!!!
That's a great story/ad. His ad was generic and soulless. And the honestly annoying childish voiceover really didn't help sell it the candy to me at all.
I doubt anyone gets their video based marketing right the first time - another thing an agency would have helped him avoid.
Me: I don't really care about the video or the product, I'm just glad he shared the marketing experience.
Or someone who is a weeb but feels guilt, hides their power level and wants to indulge their inner weebness but the messaging/branding here is a step too far.
Or a proud degenerate wizard who is turned off by the quality of the animation and voice acting (perhaps it sets off his "ugh dubs" trigger despite context and logic).
I think a slideshow of actual examples of products with a quality normal adult human voiceover explaining the value prop, or a video of a normal adult human unboxing a shipment, or edited clips of several normal adult humans emoting the experience ("What are these" "I can't read what this says here... oh they're gummy haha ... mmm grape") would go a long way.
I really wonder about the target audience, I can't come up with more than toddlers and Anne Wilkens from "Misery"... as for the creators, they "just want to make some money", and I know I'm mean about something that harms nobody and is voluntary to watch. Though I'm not blaming them at all for being linked from EG, I do find them demented in their own right, and can see why EG would approve of them.
Agree - I found the voiceover in particular, to be very off-putting.
That said however, a brief view of the comments section on the ad showed that more than one person thought the voice was great.
Which kind of leads through to this statement from the article
> Now you might understand why I want to get people not in my target audience to skip – it's cheaper because you don't pay when people skip your ad!
If I didn't use an ad-blocker, and I was ever shown that ad, I would've skipped it straight away just to get away from the irritating voice.
'Every car you've ever bought has been used by the time you take it home. Ours just happen to have been used by someone else. Wanna buy one?'
What's so cool about Japanese candy? There are a ton of other services out there like this one, why should I get this one? These are the questions I had that talked me out of it.
I say this hoping it helps, I felt really inclined to want to subscribe from past interest and I don't know what keeps me from doing so. Best of luck, and maybe I will in the future regardless ;)
A lot of the sweets are made with cane sugar, which tastes distinctly different from the typical american fare. Beyond that they also have some taste combinations that you usually don't encounter in the us. Savoury snacks with sea weed tastes are pretty nice.
I'll point out that the savory snacks and sea weed are part of the "eww" mindset. When the pitch is "we're going to send you a bunch of random candy" I dread the prospect of opening it up and getting a box of sea weed. The repetition of "unique candy" reinforces that "I'm probably going to get sea weed"
While there may be good candy out there, trying to market it needs to take more into consideration that they're selling to an American sweet tooth. The Japan candy consumer who already has a different subscription service or connection needs to be sold on value (better selection, better quality, better price).
As to the sugar source debate... I've got a fondness for some european candies (particularly the Haribo candy berries). Yes, its a corn syrup base, but even the different traditions in making candy for a different pallet will change the flavor profile. Trips to Ieka find a purchase of Jelly Mice. All that matters at the end of the day is the "does it taste good?"
But, getting a bit more on topic, that amazon link is "dagashi", which is just inexpensive snack food. It can contain candy (in that box I notice "Milky" which is a hard candy), but things on the same level of potato chips would be in that category. I don't know for sure, but I think CandyJapan sells only candy. The "It'sugar" link seems to be much more similar.
I'm going to guess that his target market is people who have an interested in Japan (possibly through anime) and would like to try an assortment of Japanese candy. I think his home page does a lot better job of explaining the product than the ad did, so possibly it's something to think about in the future.
I've even used some of them as gifts for other people based on their quality and taste matches.
Are you sure? As far as I can see, Haribo's European products at least are made with sugar.
The EU sets a maximum production quota on high fructose corn syrup, I doubt there would be enough for Haribo to use it. (300,000 tonnes per year is the quota.)
Corn syrup != high fructose corn syrup. Way less sweet and mostly dextrose/glucose. Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_syrup
I'm not used to the American terms for ingredients, it's labelled glucose syrup in Europe.
That is a very good question. I don't know if there are comparison review sites, or how reliable they would be.
> I dread the prospect of opening it up and getting a box of sea weed
It sounds like you're not the type of adventurous person who'd care for this in the first place? Your mind went, in a leap of fear, from "tastes of sea weed" to "box of sea weed", which are wildly different concepts.
> different traditions in making candy for a different pallet will change the flavor profile
I'm a german and i've tasted, well, most german candies. And a bunch of american stuff when i visited (lol candy corn). The cane sugar stuff is wildly different even to my palate.
Personally, I’ll try things. However, a subscription service isn’t try. You have to be sure you want it to subscribe. Without specics, it’s the random grab bag of clearance items sold for a flat rate.
I’ve had problems with poor quality subscription services in the past. Starts out ok, goes downhill.
This campaign is targeted at people who are familiar with the range of Japanese candies, like anime, and don’t already have a subscription to such. I’m not sure how big that audience is nor am I sure if YouTube videos are the way to reach them reliably (most of the time I’m waiting for the skip advert button to show up).
There isn’t any indication to the type or quality that will be sent. There is no indication that one could indicate flavor preference (I don’t like many chocolate varieties).
A good point for an American, but most other countries in the world use cane sugar too, right?
But if you hit my nostalgia button or my curiosity then I'll be willing to spend so much more.
Place the how-to video on your site but go for the heart with ads.
Why didn't it work on those people?
How many many Japanese candies by mail services are there, not a lot of competition here ;-)
I've never seen any of those.