[jhou2]

The ad was terrible. It explained how Candy Japan works. I don't care how Candy Japan works. I want the why should I buy Candy Japan. It should have focused instead on the candies that you can get. Delicious, weird, unique candies only available through this service.

[avree]

Additionally, just because someone is interested in Japanese candies, doesn't mean they like anime. The high-pitched annoying cartoon voice really turned me off right away, and it's not immediately obvious in the first 10 seconds (which is how long you have to watch before you can skip on YouTube) what it's for (after all, CrunchyRoll is a service for watching anime online, not ordering crunchy rolls.)

[lugg]

I believe that is intentional. Sentence missing from the blog post is still up on the reddit post[1]:

> 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...

[chime]

> 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)

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?

[ShinTakuya]

Sure but keep in mind that a much higher percentage of anime fans would like the candies than the average YouTube viewer. So essentially the cost per interested user decreases since even though people like yourself miss out, overall the wins per dollar go up.

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.

[laumars]

The blog posts are how I originally discovered Candy Japan (which is a great service by the way. I definitely recommend). But we are a weird demographic. I doubt the majority of his customers are HN readers.

[azernik]

Correction - statistically they're not in the audience. i.e. even if you'd one person would be a good Candy Japan customer, YouTube ad billing incentivizes you to lower the false-positive rate (ie the number of people who view your ad but don't buy) rather than the false-negative rate (ie The number of people that skip your ad but would have been interested in the product).

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.

[ferongr]

I'm the "target audience" but the use of English made me flinch.

[keerthiko]

Agreed, as an anime fan (and spent ~4 months in Japan, love candy and love Japanese candy as much), the anglicized "Kony-chee-wa" at the start turned me off more than the concept of the ad. Either use English, or go full anime and do real Japanese with subtitles, ie what anime fans are used to.

Western-accented Japanese is the worst of both worlds.

[raverbashing]

I think people are being a bit overly critical of the ad

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

[corobo]

The article is being overly critical of the ad system

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

[Meekro]

They're not selling the product itself, but the cute Japaneseyness of it. And that's good, if they managed to target their ads to the right people. I really loved the ad, and I think I'm in the right segment: I love cute anime, and I want to live in Japan someday!

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.

[dmix]

None of the actual (appealing) candy was shown in the ad nor was the most interesting part of his business (the personal need that drove him to created a delivery service) communicated. I was a subscriber to Candy Japan for a few months and I really felt it undersold his offering.

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.

[lugg]

That's a good idea but I suspect you're being a little hard on a guy that went to the expense and clear trouble of getting something like this made, dropping the coin and then sharing the story for us to pick apart.

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.

[dmix]

True, good point, it's always easier to criticize then it is to put yourself out there and create something. I should have been a bit more reserved in my judgement.

[lotyrin]

Yeah, but imagine someone who regularly visits the country, or is from there originally that wants nostalgic candy and certainly does not want to associate themselves with weeb/otaku culture.

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.

[bobbles]

Yeah, its almost like its a pitch for the company to an investor instead of an ad to an actual customer of the business

[jliptzin]

A better ad could have been made a lot cheaper and faster too by just having a friend (or an actor) opening the box and eating the candy and enjoying it with a voiceover explaining the benefits.

[janekm]

Even better would have been paying one of the popular unboxing channels to make that video (well... not too popular or it would be crazy expensive!).

[lotyrin]

His competitors are already doing this very aggressively (based on a number of channels I've unsubscribed from because I don't want to watch them eat candy), so it seems like it works.

[musage]

I made a little Elsagate scraper thingy, scrapes video metadata and thumbs of channels and takes note of featured channels, channels mentioned in descriptions and channels videos that get mentioned belong to; then I go through those, tag them as EG or not EG, rinse repeat. My point is that EG channels link lots of channels showing hands unpacking sweets and talking about them (just like they link to official cartoon channels and whatnot).. I'm just seeing this tiny, random fraction, and yet there's so many it did dent my faith in humanity some more.

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.

[imron]

> The ad was terrible.

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.

[spiznnx]

"explaining" is a pretty good technique since Candy Japan is a service that people want, but might not know about. But the ad didn't need to be more than 10 seconds, "Candy Japan sends you different Japanese snacks twice a month. Try something new!". It felt like it repeated itself, and the high-pitched not-actually-japanese konnichiwa was very off-putting.

[jcims]

Spot on. Old talk by Simon Sinek presents it pretty well, start with the why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4&t=3m20s

[avip]

I've seen that one before, and the only thing I get out of it is "I wouldn't buy a used car from this guy".

[jcims]

lol

'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?'

[goldenkey]

That was a great talk. One of the reasons I love the "TED video" culture. It revolves around pointing out why things everyone knows and feels are obvious...actually work. The "why didn't I think of that explanation" feeling. I guess I just love having my instincts and impulses explained and dissected. Understanding self. Higher platitudes.

[bambax]

Really enjoyed that video, thank you.

[kyo3]

I've gotta agree with this, I feel like I should have a subscription like this and couldn't talk myself into it even when I was trying.

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 ;)

[Mithaldu]

I understand you mainly asked the questions to provide feedback, but as a subscriber i can give you some info that might help you decide:

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.

[shagie]

The "what is Japanese candy like" can be answered by going to ITSUGAR and getting some... well... Japanese candy ( https://itsugar.com/crave-japan-blind-box.html )... or Amazon ( https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-assortment-dagashi-TONOSAMA-... - its even prime - I can get it tomorrow!). After I clicked that link, I've got on the order of 50 different Japanese candy boxes showing up in the "related to items you've viewed". So why Candy Japan rather than another one?

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?"

[mikekchar]

You may be disappointed if you choose the amazon link. I had a hard time finding any candy in that box. It seems to be made up of mostly senbei (rice crackers) and Umaibou (think Cheetos in a stick). The seaweed makes a lot more sense when you realise that it's savoury, not sweet. For some reason, quite a lot of Japanese children do not like sweets. I don't think any of my friends kids like sweets. Korean style flavoured nori seaweed is a really popular snack (especially with really young children -- 1-4 years of age).

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.

[Mithaldu]

The Dagashi point is very good. I was a candyjapan subscriber for a while, and their box contents usually felt like they were high quality products, or at least above average. Never "cheap".

I've even used some of them as gifts for other people based on their quality and taste matches.

[Mithaldu]

> So why Candy Japan rather than another one?

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.

[shagie]

> 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.

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).

[Symbiote]

> Haribo candy berries). Yes, its a corn syrup base,

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.)

[joecool1029]

>The EU sets a maximum production quota on high fructose corn syrup

Corn syrup != high fructose corn syrup. Way less sweet and mostly dextrose/glucose. Read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_syrup

[Symbiote]

Yes, you are right.

I'm not used to the American terms for ingredients, it's labelled glucose syrup in Europe.

[Mithaldu]

The basic gold bears do contain corn syrup, under the name Glukosesirup: http://das-ist-drin.de/Haribo-Goldbaeren-200-g--1256/

[Accacin]

> A lot of the sweets are made with cane sugar

A good point for an American, but most other countries in the world use cane sugar too, right?

[Mithaldu]

Cane grows in the tropical areas, so other countries more often use sugar beets.

[JonnyNova]

Agreed. For me, the ad's pacing was too slow and it didn't stoke enough excitement for the candy.

[zaroth]

The question is - for $3,000 was it possible to make something much better? If so, is this information readily available / why was it missed?

[bennesvig]

As a marketer, videographer, and someone with a sweet tooth, I agree that it's a bad ad.

[onion2k]

I have no doubt that people could make a 'better' ad within a television format, but that's not what this is. What could be done to improve it given the constraining requirement that the advertiser explicitly wants people who aren't in the target audience to skip the ad after 5s? It needs to be something that people who understand immediately want to watch, people who don't understand but are interesting in Japanese candy don't skip, but also doesn't pique the curiosity of people who don't understand it and aren't interested in Japanese candy. That's a really unusual set of requirements and something that I think would be immensely hard to make a good advert for. As soon as you make something 'better' in the traditional advertising sense people who aren't interested in the product will stop skipping the advert. That means you've failed...

[WheelsAtLarge]

This is the kind of product that should appeal to the heart, not the brain. I'm a rational person that's not going to spend lots of money for candy when I can go to the store and get a bagful for less than $5.00 bux.

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.

[technofiend]

That and the voice over actress sounded like someone from the Bronx trying to sound like a child. Her accent was jarring and bled through. Should have had professional ad copy written and voiced by someone who sounds either neutral or Japanese.

[T2_t2]

Look at all the free advice it elicited. What would it have cost to have people make all the comments on this thread? I reckon this post has accrued its value already.

[ryen]

I disagree. He targeted a specific audience linked to manga and anime. It's likely that demographic already knows the kinds of treats this service would likely offer. They just need to know there's service out there that will get them to you easily and regularly.

[soheil]

Shouldn't there be a group of people who maybe care how Candy Japan works and are curious to find out and perhaps buy some afterwards?

Why didn't it work on those people?

[thrownaway954]

totally agree. showing examples of what candies you would get by subscribing would have been miles better then the animation. also, the blend in of the animation took a full second before you heard a the animated voice say hi. there was a reason Billy Mayes always started a commercial with a loud hi right from the get go.

[foota]

I wonder if this could be a culture thing?

[nkkollaw]

I thought it was fine

[TylerE]

"Fine" is how you go bankrupt. There is way too much competition out there for 'fine' to be enough.

[acangiano]

Fun fact, the word "fine" means "the end" in Italian.

[nkkollaw]

Also: "thin", "elegant", "goal".

[nkkollaw]

Is that from a fortune cookie?

How many many Japanese candies by mail services are there, not a lot of competition here ;-)

[corobo]

Sorry for the double reply but I can't edit my previous anymore. I just saw an ad for a "TokyoTreat" while on Facebook too

[nkkollaw]

I think you might have searched for that or "Japan"?

I've never seen any of those.

[corobo]

I'm always seeing ads for Japan Crate on Facebook. If it weren't for HN posts I'd have never heard of Candy Japan.

[bahmboo]

For an indie effort on a limited budget it was fine. I got the point. I don't need to see the actual candy. If you don't already get the idea of weird candy from other countries not sure illuminating it more would make much difference. If it were me I would have invested a bit more to make 1 or 2 remixes of the ad content to see if one had more traction than the other. But yes, I'm not a successful web marketer.

[corobo]

Are you now a subscriber to the service?