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Country desk · Japan
For Japanese companies whose product travels better than its story
Japanese manufacturers and brands expanding into India, Southeast Asia or Europe usually arrive with excellent product and material written for a domestic buyer who already understands the category. Overseas buyers do not, and nothing in the pack explains it to them.
Send me your overseas material See the services
- Typical client
- Manufacturer or consumer brand, overseas division
- Markets
- India, Southeast Asia, Europe
- Working style
- Written, documented, weekly reporting
- Live hours
- 06:30 to 15:00 IST, your morning to mid-afternoon
Why Japan companies call me
Five patterns account for almost every enquiry from Japan. The wording differs, the underlying situation does not.
- The overseas material is a translation. Faithful, accurate, and written for a buyer who already knows your category. In a market where nobody does, it reads as a specification sheet with no argument attached.
- Headquarters approves slowly and the market moves faster. By the time a campaign is signed off, the window has closed. The fix is a pre-approved framework rather than approval on every asset, and it is a documentation problem more than a speed problem.
- The distributor is the only voice in the market. Which means your brand is whatever they choose to say about it, and their incentive is their portfolio rather than your category.
- Premium positioning is not translating into premium price. The product genuinely is better and the value has been asserted in Japanese terms rather than demonstrated in the buyer's.
- There is no local marketing person and no case for hiring one yet. Revenue does not justify a country marketing manager, and the absence of one is preventing the revenue.
What usually gets built
An overseas brand platform
Not a translation. The argument rebuilt for a buyer who has never encountered your category, with the evidence your engineers can defend.
A guideline document that survives distance
Short, specific, and usable by a distributor in another country without a call to Tokyo. Brand guidelines.
A market website
Structure and content built for that market, not the Japanese site translated. Website design and build.
Distributor communication
Scheduled updates, approved messaging and launch kits so the channel stops improvising. Channel communication.
A launch programme
Channel, pricing logic, listing content, campaign and sales material. Market launch.
Weekly and monthly reporting
In English, in a fixed written format your headquarters can review and approve from. This is the part Japanese clients extend for.
Your home site and your market site are not the same document
The top row travels. Brand, positioning, product truth and the visual system should be identical everywhere and usually are.
The bottom two rows cannot be translated at all. Proof points that persuade a Japanese buyer are frequently the wrong ones abroad, references need to be local, pricing logic differs, and the search structure has to follow the questions buyers in that market actually type.
Companies that translate the whole site and see poor results have almost always translated the untranslatable rows.
Questions overseas teams ask
Do you speak Japanese?
I don't. My working language with you is English, which is how most international divisions run anyway. Where something has to be in Japanese, colleagues on my team handle it and I brief them, so you are not managing a translation vendor on top of everything else. It has never been the thing that made an engagement difficult.
Our approval process is slow. Will that be a problem?
Not if we design for it. The workable answer is a pre-approved framework, agreed once, with clear boundaries on what can be produced within it. Approving every asset individually is what makes overseas marketing impossible from Japan, not the distance.
Where do you draw the line on the channel?
I build what the channel uses: the messaging, the launch kits, the training, the library. I do not sit in negotiations with trading houses or distributors, and I would be poor value if I did. That is your commercial team's job and they are better at it. Mine is making sure that whoever is in the room has something worth arguing with.
What does the reporting look like?
A written weekly note during active periods and a monthly report against agreed measures, in English, in the same format every time. What happened, what it cost, what it produced, what is at risk, and what decision is needed from you.
Send me the material you use overseas
The English brochure or the export presentation. I will read it the way a buyer in your target market would and send back a short written note on what is missing. No charge.
Send me your overseas material See case studies
Kunal Waghmare · Padmavati Hills, Mokai Vasti, Bavdhan, Pune, Maharashtra 411021, India
office@quiamo.com · +91 90216 02686 · English