INNOCENT TOKYO CAFE IS ACTUALLY A SECRET NPD LAB AND SAMPLING CENTRE
Lcafe in the Shibuya distric of Tokyo looks much like any other cafe, but actually it is a new kind of NPD lab, where new products are sold to upscale Japanese women.
Run by Sample Lab Ltd it is a pioneer outlet and is being tested as a way of reaching young Japanese women with innovative ideas. The designers of the cafe are taking on board the concept of consumer-advocates, and explain that in Japan women often take the intiative on shopping and can spark a trend.
We are told, in an article in Wall Street Journal online, that at the café customers must register by phone and give some personal details such as birthday, age and marital status, but they can use a handle rather than their own name and don’t have to give their address.
When registered the customers receive tokens which they redeem at a sample bar. The café has been open just a few weeks, and already has 2000 members.
Examples of products being sampled out recently are pretzels, skincare products and vitamin enriched drinks.
It is thought that this method of sampling might take the place of mass media advertising and the concept might be another expression of “crowd surfing” which is gaining in popularity as a research and NPD tool. Crowd surfing is any means of getting together larger groups of potential consumers to gain input and insight.
Registrants get a bar code which is displayed on their phone and which forms the basis for further data gathering. Customers who take part in more research get more tokens for more samples.
We are told the café, also serves alcohol and is open from 10:00 am to 04:00 am, but men are banned after midnight. LCafe says the ratio of females to males is 9:1.
Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed to this article.
To see the whole article click here.
Write to Miho Inada at miho.inada@wsj.com
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