Thoughts about Ayumi's Marketing Strategy

[GSC89]

Well, while browsing through wikipedia the history of various jpop artists, I've come to a conclusion that the reason for Ayumi's rise to popularity years back then was alot due to her PVs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that she thrived during an era where she had the stamina to come out a single every month(or two I forgot) and that kept her fans constantly interested for new releases.

Her vocals has definitely improved alot since her early songs (the songs on GUILTY were far far much better than say Loveppears), so what was the cause of her decline in sales? Even with losing one ear she was able to produce music at least twice better than the songs that made her popular in the first place?

At first, I thought that maybe she was hindered by age in a music industry where people look for "young" and "trendy" icons.

One thing I noticed though. The JPOP singer Utada Hikaru (hikki as popularized by her fans) has PVs that were nowhere near Ayumi PVs (and singers like Namie Amuro or Kumi or any other japanese singer for that matter). If you watched her PVs you would know what I mean -_-. (Hikari, Kiss & Cry comes into mind)

Even without attractive PVs to promote her music she was pulling a very impressive record of sales. I don't believe that the vocals were the reason for it at all. Sales figures was never an indicator of how good the music was.

First Love, the top selling Japanese album in history certainly did not achieve its status through the vocals alone. Ditto with the single Flavor of Life. It's the marketing.

Her PVs suggested that they had horrendously low budget. However, one cannot help but notice that her success with singles is largely due in part of tie-ins. (e.g Hana Yori Dango 2, Majo no Jouken, Kingdom Hearts, various other anime series)

Can this be a possible marketing strategy for Ayumi's marketing team to consider? How does getting drama and movie tie-ins for songs work anyway =/?

Thoughts?

[jonneh]

I don't really know much about all that stuff, but, I do know Ayumi has done other things. The very first song I ever heard from Ayu was on a video game called "Thousand Arms". It was an RPG for the Playstation, I think. The song was "Depend on You". The next song I ever heard from her was in the anime Inuyasha - she does "Dearest" as one of the ending themes. Also, now her song "Secret" is being featured in a new film. =)

[Not~Yet]

Originally Posted by jonneh

I don't really know much about all that stuff, but, I do know Ayumi has done other things. The very first song I ever heard from Ayu was on a video game called "Thousand Arms". It was an RPG for the Playstation, I think. The song was "Depend on You". The next song I ever heard from her was in the anime Inuyasha - she does "Dearest" as one of the ending themes. Also, now her song "Secret" is being featured in a new film. =)

I'm also pretty sure that rainy day and Startin' were featured on some video game. Heaven --- Shinobi movie. Born to Be --- winter olympics. And fated --- Kaidan... So besides the heavy promotion she also has songs featuring a movie etc once in a while even now. I'd just guess that her sales ain't so good because people download lots of music illegally more now and don't really care to buy so much CDs and such.

Her musical style also has changed quite a bit so even if that makes some new fans, old fans who in example liked her LOVEppears and I am... songs won't all like GUILTY and Secret.

And also since she's such a big star and shown everywhere it can get tiring and people start listening to less famous "rising" stars with a fresh style of music.

I.e. I don't really like any "big" (pop) stars around here in my country.

[Halla]

Ayu probably has more marketing that Hikki overall. both have PV's in heavy rotation, but Hikki does barely any tv whereas Ayu does all the biggest music shows and specials.

Ayu also has a huge presence in fashion. She's on the cover of all the biggest fashion magazines in japan so many times. Vivi , Cawaii , Scawaii etc and even a couple of Vogue Nippon editorials.

so IMO there's nothing wrong with the Ayu's recent sales (or lack of, according to some ...) and certainly the promotion is not the problem.

[che0173]

Originally Posted by Halla

Ayu probably has more marketing that Hikki overall. both have PV's in heavy rotation, but Hikki does barely any tv whereas Ayu does all the biggest music shows and specials.

Ayu also has a huge presence in fashion. She's on the cover of all the biggest fashion magazines in japan so many times. Vivi , Cawaii , Scawaii etc and even a couple of Vogue Nippon editorials.

so IMO there's nothing wrong with the Ayu's recent sales (or lack of, according to some ...) and certainly the promotion is not the problem.

i reckon the reason why ayu has more marketting than hikki overall is because she has a lot more songs released than hikki.
for example...hikki's first album under the name of cubic u...released i think just after nothing from nothing?
and after that she had first love which was like...AN AWESOME HIT!
and after that she slowly stopped making music regularly unlike ayu
ayu makes new songs quite often!
and theres been an album almost EVERY YEAR
whilst hikki... her third album deep river and 4th album ultra blue
there was a 4 year gap in between!

[KarenPang]

I rather ayumi takes her own time to release great material . it seems that when she releases material & keep on putting out singles & albums on a yearly basis , quality seems to suffer .

I rather she takes her own time & then come up with something BAM

[CHE.R.RY]

I think one of the reason Ayu's popularity (and I know someone is gonna have something to say about this), which was something Foxxy_Fuyumi brought to light in another thread, is for the simple fact that Ayu releases TOO much TOO often...as opposed to Utada who releases things every now and then. Maybe it's just becoming too much for the Japanese public and they're getting tired of her material. Ayu does release singles/albums at a very rapid pace, even if it's not quite as often as she used to. It's a little puzzling, but I really think it has to do with Ayu's excessive releases, which just to let you know does not bother me in the least
I'm just saying that Ayu's crazy music + rapid releases might be getting a little old to the Japanese public, but talk about lack of loyalty to your favorite artist :/

But there is another theory I have...maybe it's Ayu's new recent style of music? Lately, her music has been more rock-involved and has taken on darker sounds to it, which if you look at her past sales on A BEST 2 -BLACK- (which is said to feature more dark songs than A BEST 2 -WHITE- that features the lighter and happy songs) there is a slight difference in the sales.

A BEST 2 -BLACK-
http://wiki.theppn.org/A_Best_2_-Black-
*Notice it actually reached #2.

A BEST 2 -WHITE-
http://wiki.theppn.org/A_Best_2_-White-
*Notice this reached #1.

Also, glitter/fated sold better than talkin' 2 myself/decision...

So who knows? It could be a variety of things causing Ayu's sales to drop. She certainly has an interesting marketing strategy.

[Milox]

You came to the conclusion that it is because of her PVs? Seriously?

She has alot of crappy PVs. The PVs actually have very little to do with why she became so sucessful.

3 simple things:

1.- Lyrics

2.- Fashion

3.- Tie-Ins

Her lyrics were the reason why she is known so much, her lyrics are usually very personal and in some times they share thoughts and feelings that many people have. Those were reflected in the teenagers of japan back then. Thanks to the huge popularity of her persona she was able to make herself even more popular due to everyone wanting to imitate her, therefore every company wanted to use her image for their products. Of course, Avex took advantage of this and gaved permission of her image and they would use her songs on the countless CMs she has done.

Japan has alot of artists, and everyday there seems to be a new one coming up. Ayu was in pretty much every important product and company, therefore the promotion was huge.

The problem with Ayu's "decline" is that her audience has "grown up" and while her music has matured somewhat, she is in an odd place where her older fans are either still with her or have "moved on" to other things. But she isn't really making "new fans".


On the Utada thing, Lyrics are also one of her stronges assets. Hikki doesn't has horrendous PVs like you say, some are even better than Ayu's. Also Hikki is very popular due to her fluent english/japanese, her mother was a popular singer aswell. Had good promotion fromt the start. And perhaps most importantly, she is like nothing else out there, making her a completly fresh and new artist since day 1.
The fact that FoL got insane sales could be because of many things: 1.- was her first real single after quite a while, making it a very anticipated song. 2.- was a good song 3.- had one of the best tie-ins in her entire career

But honestly, her sales aren't that far from Ayu's if you take into consideration that Ayu releases so much in so little time unlike Hikki

[sugarbasil]

I really don't think it has anything to do with PVs. I can't say why she became popular necessarily, besides people just liking her music; but I can give some reasons that I've heard 1st hand from people in Japan as to why her popularity went down.

1. She produced popish-trancey music during the height of that music era. That attributed to her popularity (she was the best of the best of that kind of music), but then her music style changed, and people didn't like it. They fell in love with her poppy music, not her rockish music. I remember someone telling me, "I don't know what she thinks she's doing. That's not who she is." It's sort of like people not liking Koda Kumi anymore because they want her sexy music and image, not her cute stuff now.

2. As someone already said, her over abundance of releases also probably contributed to it. The more people see her the more they get sick of her, especially nowadays. She's not popular anymore (at least...not as popular), so they don't want to see some old wash-up all over the place. You have no idea how many times I heard from people in Japan that she should just retire already, and that she's "old."

[Jwiz]

Originally Posted by sugarbasil

You have no idea how many times I heard from people in Japan that she should just retire already, and that she's "old."

oh my, that's so mean of them

Originally Posted by bluegie

Just remember one thing: no one will be on top forever.

I must admit that her idea are not as innovative as before (e.g., how many times do you hear "Boku tachi wa" in her songs? Voyage, Marionette, Together When..). And I feel that she should use some new composers/arrangements instead.

PVs did have a bit of contribution to her early success. I enjoy her older pvs because there were plots inside.

I agree with what you've said ..but it's kinda sad that we can only wait for her new releases and comment on them but can't possibly make ayu more innovative again (unless someone forward this to her or she see these herself, but... )

[Halla]

couple of my observations:

I'm sure Ayu gets a huge majority of her money off her tours, something like 90% of her income at least is from tours & tour merchandise. that's the way with the music industry is today for the artists all over the world.

so I'm pretty sure Ayu herself is not too worried about the actual album/single sales. and honestly people here just think way too much of the sales numbers. compared to her tours the sales are pretty insignificant really.

who cares whether your album sells 500k or a million if you have arena tour around japan and asia to full sold out arenas?

I personally see her periodic releases as a positive thing. I thinka summer single is always fun, I'm looking forward to this years summer single since Glitter was such an improvement over the last few (blue bird, fairyland).

about Ayu's tie-ins: I'm pretty sure sure that the reason she has so less is that her asking price is just really high. only few advertisers will be able to afford her, Panasonic only hires true A-list japanese celebs like Ayu & Koyuki. Kiwi campaigns are also for A-listers only, Ayu & Yuri Ebihara.
I'm not sure how the drama tie-ins work. I'm pretty sure money is somehow involved, possibly the record company must pay for get a song of their artist's used in a drama since it's great exposure. probably Avex feels Ayu singles will sell enough withouth drama tie-ins.

[ImpactBreaker]

Originally Posted by Halla

I personally see her periodic releases as a positive thing. I thinka summer single is always fun, I'm looking forward to this years summer single since Glitter was such an improvement over the last few (blue bird, fairyland).

BLUE BIRD was actually my favorite of all of those summer songs. I wasn't a really big fan of glitter though.

I don't "exactly" mind her periodic releases, even though I refer to it in my criticism. I just wish we could see her putting more "heart" when producing her music. We often see news on ayu getting ready for a photoshoot, for filming a PV, for her concerts and tours....it is as if we see ayu dedicating herself more to her image and performances rather than the music. We don't hear much of ayu talking about the proccess of creating a song, of her getting things ready to record a new song, or even her giving her thoughts about how she's been producing a new song. It almost seems as if she leaves all that to H/\L and CMJK and her role is just singing whatever she has to sing and whatever they have to offer to her. She doesn't even give us indirect signs, like Hikki did with her Flavor of life -Ballad Version- PV. That PV was crap, but we get the feeling some effort was done into making the ballad version of that song: hiring the violinists, etc. It makes the song more special imo, to see that the artist put some effort into it, and not just lent their vocals to an already pre-produced synth-instrumental track. I know this is just speculation, but it's how ayu has been portraying her stuff lately. with so much timne spent in caring for her image and concerts, is there really any free time for the most important thing, the music?

[ImpactBreaker]

I think the lyrics most likely contributed the most. Over the years, her ideas have ran out, and her lyrics have become recyclal after recyclal. They used to have a meaning to japanese people, but nowadays, they've probably gotten sick of them.

There were extra factors: themed covers, interesting PVs, her fashion sense. But all those probably got old to japanese ppl as well.

[edgefusion]

I think Utada Hikaru is a lot more of a genuine and likable person than Ayumi Hamasaki. Ayu (I feel) has this weird, fake and diva-ish image she puts out to her fans which gets very tiring after seeing it for so long. Hikki seems just plain natural and normal.

[ComatoseBunnySnatcher]

Yeah... Ayu has said she fakes her persona, so I'm guessing that's a factor.

[CHE.R.RY]

Originally Posted by Nippon

Yeah... Ayu has said she fakes her persona, so I'm guessing that's a factor.

Well...she didn't actually say she fakes her persona that she presents to her fans. She just said that there's the Ayumi Hamasaki that the fans know, and then there's the other Ayumi Hamasaki that she knows personally -it went something like that.

[everlastingRAINBOW]

Originally Posted by Nippon

Yeah... Ayu has said she fakes her persona, so I'm guessing that's a factor.

0.o

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by Nippon

Yeah... Ayu has said she fakes her persona, so I'm guessing that's a factor.

I have to say, wtf!? When did she say such a thing? If she would really say it there would be a whole drama/scandal like kumi's.

Though ayu fills full huge arenas (even in Hong Kong and Shanghai) in no time, that one of the things that's still means you're very popular.

Everyone always seem to look about sales of CDs (which aren't bad, selling more than half a million for an album) and forgetting about ayu's successful and popular tours.

[ImpactBreaker]

I think things like that "ayu_ready?" crap helped in a way to make japanese ppl a little sick of ayu. I'm glad it doesn't exist anymore

[CHE.R.RY]

^ I never got to watch the show. What was so bad about it if you don't mind me asking?