The marketing of the Saxophone Samurai

IntroductionINTRODUCTION

Wearing a woven straw hat, he's playing the saxophone on a street corner. Hearing that, you might think he's just an ordinary street musician.

However, the reality is slightly different. Saxophone SamuraiA business born from marketing myself as a product. My job when I was a corporate employee was to make companies and products known to the world. For nearly 20 years, my work has centred on designing customer acquisition, building traffic funnels, and creating communication strategies.

I applied that exact way of thinking to myself. Put in order, it's just four steps.

The process of turning an idea into a businessHOW IT GREW

My marketing experience and the saxophone, which I have continued as a hobby, intersected to bring about monetisation and independence.

Strategy 1: Assessing the Market and YourselfSTRATEGY 01 / 3C ANALYSIS

What I used to design the business was3C analysisThat is the fundamental concept of marketing. You analyse the market and strategy from three perspectives: Company, Customer, and Competitor.

To start performing as a street saxophonist, first"Who it is delivered to", "What it is compared to"have been organised.

Strategy 2 / Analyse factors other than performanceSTRATEGY 02 / SECOND ANALYSIS

When I actually stood on the street, something different from my hypothesis happened.Whether people stopped to listen or not was heavily influenced by factors other than the performance itself.That is why I redid the 3C analysis once more.

So the persona of the Saxophone Samurai is no spur-of-the-moment idea.the answer derived as a result of the analysisThat was the case.

Strategy 3 / New value is born from combinationsSTRATEGY 03 / COMBINATION

There is no need to create something new from scratch.Combining existing value in a way nobody has done before.That alone creates a new category.

The values that the saxophone holds are music, healing, modernity, sophistication, and urbanity. The values that the samurai holds are Japanese culture, strength, tradition, narrative quality, and extraordinaryness. As a result of combining these two completely different things, three values were born.

Strategy 4: Designing the "Appearance"STRATEGY 04 ／ FIRST IMPRESSION

In today's age of information overload, it's not the good things that get chosen, butFirst comes the era where things that get noticed are chosen. People judge others by their appearance rather than their substance at first, both on social media and in real life.

This is a structure common to everything. For social media posts, it's the thumbnail and the opening. For street performances, it's the outfit and presence. For flyers, it's the design and headline. For shops, it's the exterior and entrance. For products, it's the packaging.It's all about the entrance designIt is the same story.

In the case of Saxophone Samurai,The worldview of the samurai itself acts as a magnet for attentionplays a role. It's designed to make people curious enough to stop, and only then deliver the sound and the experience, keeping strictly to this order.

※ This isThis is not a story that affirms lookism (looks-based discrimination).It goes without saying that the contents must taste good. On top of that, it is about how the “external design” to let people know what is inside is just as important.

Strategy 5 / Design a nameSTRATEGY 05 / NAMING

Rather than "coolness," a name shouldIs it easy to find, easy to remember, and easy to spread?is important. How a brand or activity grows changes significantly right from the naming stage. I believe a good name has three conditions.

Actually, there are changes that occurred solely from the design of names.They are easy for the media to feature. They spread easily on social media, even as text alone. They are visually communicative. Once heard, they are easily remembered.Without spending a penny on advertising, the name itself keeps working for you.

Strategy 6 / Social media is "proof of existence"STRATEGY 06 / SNS

Social media is not a place to showcase your work.a place to prove one's existenceI believe that nowadays, if you don't exist on the web, it's the same as not existing at all. Only those who keep putting themselves out there will be chosen.

Strategy 7: Cultivating Information Assets in the AI EraSTRATEGY 07 / AI ERA

From now on, the gateway to information is shifting from search to AI. That is precisely whyleaving information in a format that makes it easy for AI to findIt becomes important. This is the mindset of nurturing your social media, website, articles, and profile as a single "information asset".

Rather than one-off posts, it is the accumulation of information that makes a difference. In practice, I keep doing the following five things.

Marketing results in numbersRESULTS

How what we designed actually works has become crystal clear from the survey responses given by those who came to the live performance.

24.81 TP3T visitors from outside the prefecture. Furthermore, your visit86.7% is ‘primarily for Sax Samurai’That was their reply. It means they did not just happen to be passing by, but had come there with a specific purpose in mind.

Each live performance draws crowds ranging from several hundred to around a thousand people. This is not restricted to just the local areaAttracting visitors from a wider catchment areais being generated, which is a strength that can be utilised directly for tourism and regional revitalisation.

What I have designed comes back to me as actual human movement.

Marketing for the communityFOR THE REGION

Just as my business was starting to take off, I was already thinking about the next challenge.Three risks that will inevitably visit a personal brand if left unattendedBecause there is.

That is where we combinedSightseeingThat was the perspective. Around that time, seeing reports that Nagoya had been voted the "least attractive city" was also a major catalyst.

Tourism is a growth sector that will become a major industry in the future, going to the actual place and feeling the atmosphereBecause of their onsite and experiential nature, they are difficult to replace with AI.area. And by connecting with tourism, rather than a temporary trend,community-based and enduring businessIt becomes. Because it is designed to include even the performance, region, story, and fan community, it is not easily imitated.

Thus was bornHuman tourist attractionThat is the concept: shifting from merely gathering people to conveying the charm of the city. Although Nagoya is rich in attractive tourism resources, the PR has not been sufficient. Moving from "creating" to "utilising" and "communicating". Within the constraints of limited resources, there is now a need for the mindset to maximise Nagoya's appeal.

See efforts to boost tourism

SummarySummary

What the Saxophone Samurai did is not a matter of special talent.I analysed myself as a resource, chose where I could win, designed a message that would resonate, and kept communicating.That's all.