Japan's Guilty Husbands Targeted to Ease Platinum Jewelry Slump
By Dave McCombs
Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A Japanese salaryman walks out of the office for the last time to a standing ovation from colleagues.
The scenario is familiar in graying Japan. That's one reason platinum producers are using it in a TV commercial to revive jewelry sales that once accounted for almost half of the global total. The ad aims to draw on Japan's male-centered culture of work and obligation to halt a five-year slide in purchases of necklaces, bracelets and rings.
On the train home, the businessman doesn't think about how tough or exhilarating the decades of toil have been. He wonders about his wife and mentally rehearses an apology for devoting more to his career than to her. Back home, he hands her flowers and a ring. A voice-over exhorts: ``Propose again.''
``In Japan, retiring men are looked to as trendsetters with lots of pension money,'' said Hisako Hankinson, representative of the Japan office of the Platinum Guild International, a promotion group started by Anglo Platinum Ltd., the world's biggest producer. ``We focused on men's retirement day'' to create a new gift-giving occasion, she said.
About a fifth of Japanese are over 65, almost twice the proportion in the U.S. and three times China's rate. A decline in marriages is sapping the market for platinum bridal jewelry, which makes up about half of the total, Hankinson said. Platinum makers are also targeting Japan because many there see yellow gold, the rival metal, as flashy.
`Thanks Day'
The Guild in 2006 forecast that its ``Thanks Day'' campaign targeting retirees, which includes in-store promotions and magazine and TV advertising, would add 88 billion yen ($806 million) in sales of platinum jewelry by 2009. It has yet to set a new target after prices for the metal jumped 48 percent since 2006.
Sales of all jewelry will fall 3.2 percent to 1.16 trillion yen next year, estimates Yutaka Fukasawa, senior researcher at Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute Ltd., which publishes an annual report on Japan's market.
In 2007, sales of new platinum for jewelry in Japan slumped 22 percent, Johnson Matthey Plc, a London-based metals refiner, said in its ``Platinum 2008'' report released in May. The 80,000- ounce plunge outweighed the 10,000-ounce increase for platinum automobile catalysts, marking a drop in overall Japanese consumption.
Global demand for the catalysts, used in auto emissions filters, is rising and accounts for about 60 percent of platinum consumption. Even so, producers of the metal are banking on jewelry on anticipation that carmakers will develop cheaper alternatives, said Peter Ryan, senior consultant at London-based researcher GFMS Ltd.
Only in Japan
Global demand for platinum jewelry fell 3.3 percent last year and ``the outlook may not be significantly worse this year,'' according to Johnson Matthey.
The ``Thanks Day'' campaign was developed specifically for Japan, where long work days and compulsory after-hours socializing can take their toll on home life.
Platinum producers ``are looking long-term to the day when they will need Japan's jewelry market to be as vibrant as it was six, seven, eight years ago,'' Ryan of GFMS said.
To that end, the Platinum Guild has tripled the number of ``Thanks Day'' TV commercials this year and is negotiating with its members for money to increase them again in 2009.
``It's always a good idea to bring your wife jewelry,'' said Tadashi Nakagome, 61, who retired as an executive at a Japanese oil company in 2007. Still, he chose instead to take his wife on a tour of Egypt to celebrate the end of his career.
Difficult Target
The Guild's ad blitz for retiring men is aimed at a hard target, according to Fukasawa of Yano Research.
``Of course retiring men have money, but their mind these days is not on using it for luxury goods,'' said Fukasawa, who covers Japan's jewelry and fashion industries. Also, older Japanese women may have already acquired a lot of necklaces, rings and bracelets over the years.
Spending on medical care, reading and recreation will rise as Japan's population ages, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. predicted in an Aug. 8 report.
The Guild is betting Japanese will go for jewelry as well. It aims to make Thanks Day a tradition like White Day, the country's follow-up to Valentine's Day that was promoted by the National Confectionary Industry Association, Hankinson said. White Day created an occasion for Japanese men to reciprocate gifts received from women on Valentine's Day.
If the twinkle of romance in the ``Thanks Day'' commercial seems too idealistic, there is a practical side to ``proposing again'' in Japan, Hankinson said. Under a law that took effect in April 2007, a wife is entitled to half her husband's pension in a divorce.
``Japan's new divorce law means retiring men had better keep their wives happy,'' Hankinson said.
Here's one of the print ads. By clicking on the "propose again" link, you can see the original commercial.
1 comment:
oh consumerism! how you consume me....
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