The Campaign

Amway is the world’s leading direct-selling business, active in health, beauty, and home categories. Amway Japan, however, suffered from a highly unfavorable reputation, hampering its ability to attract customers and recruit distributors. Direct selling was tarnished by negative perceptions, the result of media sensationalizing pyramid schemes and of Japanese TV refusing to air direct sellers’ ads. The challenge was to communicate Amway truths in a culturally and emotionally compelling way, especially to young Japanese. The communications also had to be visually engaging and feature a fresh angle to drive brand interest in a cluttered advertising environment. The strategy devised highlights how Amway’s business model ties into Japanese culture and social values. It associates Amway’s corporate philosophy—“Good things can be shared”—with the Japanese value of sharing one’s good fortune with one’s community, expressed as osusowake in Japanese. This strategy drove a campaign reminding Japanese that Amway shares their values.

Creative Execution

To bring the concept to life, an original Amway character called O-chan (meaning little O) was designed as the hero and face of the campaign. O-chan’s role is that of associating the Japanese ideal of osusowake with Amway’s corporate philosophy of “Good things can be shared.” O-chan is a lovable character who shares everything with his friends, from an umbrella on a rainy day to a scarf in the cold of winter. As such, O-chan has become a powerful icon, making messages memorable, relevant, and easy to understand in Japanese communications and across multiple touch points. In the face of enormous barriers to direct selling in Japan, Amway launched an unprecedented campaign to rebuild its reputation and image. The campaign launched in November 2014 and includes television commercials, print, digital banners, a YouTube channel. The campaign also incorporated a range of orchestrated internal communications directed at Amway distributors.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

1. Awareness: Initially implemented as a “soft launch” to test audience response, the campaign recall was 8% after 6 months.* That percentage increased to 10% in 2016.* 2. Understanding Amway’s brand value: The word osusowake and the “Good things can be shared” tagline have been positively received by most campaign recallers : a. 89% of respondents said, “I like the line ‘Good things can be shared’”* b. 73% of respondents said, “I like the use of the word osusowake* 3. Brand interest and preference: a. 33% of people who recalled the campaign and were aware of Amway said their impression of Amway was more favorable after seeing the campaign* b. 97% of high-performance Amway distributors expressed campaign awareness† c. 92% of high-performance distributors thought “Amway should continue with a similar campaign” † Sources: *Amway Corporate brand campaign tracking (May 2016) *McCann Erickson ABO survey on osusowake (July 2016)

The strategy developed focuses particularly on young Japanese audiences, which have the least entrenched negative image of Amway among the Japanese general public. Young Japanese represent the highest potential to become Amway customers or distributors. The challenge was to communicate the truth of Amway in a way that would be culturally relevant and emotionally compelling to Japanese audiences. The communications also had to be visually engaging and feature a fresh angle to drive brand interest In a cluttered advertising environment. To this end, the strategy highlights how Amway’s business model ties into Japanese culture and social values. It associates Amway’s corporate philosophy—of “Good things can be shared”—with the traditional Japanese value of sharing one’s good fortune with one’s community, which is expressed as osusowake in Japanese. This strategy shaped and drove a campaign reminding Japanese audiences that Amway shares their values.