Testimonial

Hello everyone, I'm Nishino, the sales manager at Orinasal.

This time, we interviewed Mr. Murakoshi, the public relations officer for Tokyo Dome Corporation's LaQua Department, who has been supporting us with Instagram campaigns, analysis consulting, and ambassador program management for the past three years.

Although they now have over 10,000 followers on Instagram, we spoke frankly to them about the challenges they faced, the results they have achieved, and why they chose Orinas!

Instagram Initiatives

I Started Instagram with the Hope That People Would Take Photos

Nishino: Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today, Mr. Murakoshi! First, please tell us about your company's business and your job.

Murakoshi: Our company, Tokyo Dome Corporation, is involved in the management of Tokyo Dome City, a city with various facilities, the operation of select shops selling cosmetics and other items, and real estate.

Our department operates a hot spring facility called "Spa LaQua" in Tokyo Dome City, and we are responsible for strategic planning and sales management. I am in charge of all PR work, including advertising and sales promotion to attract many people to Spa LaQua.

Nishino: Thank you. When we first got involved (three years ago!), we started with Instagram initiatives, but what were the digital marketing challenges your company had up until then?

Murakoshi: Originally, our company, which operates Tokyo Dome City, did not have a corporate culture of proactively trying new things, and it was common for all our facilities, not just Spa LaQua, to only transmit information through their websites. However, when we considered the times, and Spa LaQua's main target demographic was women in their 20s and 30s, we wondered, "Where do these people actually get their information?" and vaguely thought it might be social media. We also felt that we needed to further increase awareness of Spa LaQua, so that was the reason we started our official social media accounts.

The reason we chose Instagram was because, compared to other social media platforms, we felt it would resonate most easily with Spa LaQua's target demographic, and because there were many places within Spa LaQua where we wanted people to take photos, we decided to focus on Instagram and started out on our own. However, we had a problem where our follower numbers had plateaued at around 100 and were not growing.

Taking on the Unprecedented Challenge

Nishino: Thank you. Your company doesn't have a culture of proactively taking on new challenges, and I imagine it was quite difficult to secure a budget. How did you end up focusing on this?

Murakoshi: As you said, there was no precedent, and the difficulty in understanding the cost-effectiveness was also a problem. In that situation, we conducted a survey of users in the target demographic, asking questions such as "Why haven't you come to Spa LaQua?" and "How do you gather information?" From this, we found reasons such as "I've never had a chance to find out about it before" and "The website alone doesn't motivate me to take action."

These surveys made it clear that "the information provided on the website up until now is not enough," which made it easier to persuade the company. Also, since we in the advertising department were part of the target demographic, we steadily sounded out to them, "These are the places where we actually get our information."

Gradually, we were able to gain understanding, and recently I feel that the culture has shifted to "as a company, you need to use social media properly."

Reasons for Choosing Orinas

Thank You for Loving Spa LaQua

Nishino: So that's the background to why you started focusing on Instagram. After that, you were looking for an external support company with a view to full-scale operation. I imagine you compared various companies, but what was the reason you chose Orinas?

Murakoshi: The biggest factor was that we had a sales representative who knew everything about Spa LaQua. There were sales representatives from other companies who came to us without knowing anything about Spa LaQua, but we wanted someone who was closer to our target audience, especially women, who could understand our concerns and feel closer to our mission of "this is what we want to do."

This was truly the person in charge at Orinas, and even though the person in charge had changed, the person in charge was someone who still loved Spa LaQua, so that was a big reason why we felt we could trust them with the project.

Nishino: I'm happy! In fact, have you noticed any positive effects from the time we supported your Instagram operations?

Murakoshi: At first, they placed advertisements and held monthly giveaways, but these were measures that we would never have thought of since we have no knowledge of digital marketing.

We had no idea how to place advertisements, and from our perspective as employees, we weren't even sure whether the giveaway campaign would be appealing to customers, so we were able to get lots of hints on what methods we could use to achieve our goal of increasing our following.

They provide us with feedback on the numerical results every time, so we can visibly see things like "Our number of followers has increased so much" or "The response from customers is gradually increasing," so I think we were able to proceed while making sure that the direction of our measures was correct.

We Want to Hear Real Customer Feedback

Nishino: Thank you. After we had established a stable level of support for Instagram, we have been helping you with the launch and operation of the ambassador program. What challenges did you face when you first started the ambassador program?

Murakoshi: That's right. After gaining a lot of followers, I realized that when posting information on our official Instagram, it inevitably came off as promotional, or rather, it ended up being a one-sided posting of information.

We felt that we were getting little response from customers, so we wanted to properly create a community of fans and repeat customers, transmit the real voices of users, and send out information in a non-intrusive way. We think that our desire to create such a community and pick up real customer feedback that is not from us was the impetus for starting the Ambassador Program.

Information Posted by Users

Nishino: When I first heard about it, I thought that even if you wanted to increase the amount of information users were posting, it was difficult to get people to post as many photos as you would like, because in many places people are barefaced and not wearing clothes. Were these factors also factors that prevented users from posting more information?

Murakoshi: That's right. Many customers come in groups, but Spa LaQua itself is a "place to relax," and many customers come to unwind and relax. Rather than going to eat something delicious and take photos, many customers come for a digital detox, or even alone, so that was a difficult aspect.

We want people to be on-demand, but when we think about what is required of Spa LaQua, which is to provide a place and time to unwind, we wanted to know how we could increase the amount of information users share, and how we could help customers who come to unwind to enjoy their time off, by spreading information such as, "Here are some ways to do this."

Ambassador Program

He Knew the Growth Process of Instagram Better Than Anyone

Nishino: Since you had previously worked with us on Instagram management, did you entrust us with the ambassador campaign as well?

Murakoshi: When we decided to carry out an ambassador initiative, we contacted other companies, but it turned out that Orinas was the one who knew the most about the growth process of Spa LaQua's official Instagram, and it was also a big help that they were aware of the attributes and tendencies of our followers.

He has visited Spa LaQua many times and understands the characteristics of the facility, so it was easy for him to give us advice on selecting the ambassador, such as "This type of person would be good."

The ambassador campaign proposed by Orinas matched perfectly with the ambassador campaign our company had in mind, so we felt we could move in the same direction, which was the main reason we wanted to ask Orinas to help us again.

Fan Affection Was Stronger Than Expected

Nishino: Thank you. What kind of effect has it had since the measures were actually launched? What have you learned or changed?

Murakoshi: We currently work with around 25 ambassadors, and until now we have never had the opportunity to meet real fans face-to-face. We had the opportunity to speak to them directly in roundtable discussions and received a variety of feedback through questionnaires, so we were able to pick up the "real voices" that we were aiming for at the beginning.

We had a feeling that "fans probably love Spa LaQua," but the affection was stronger than we expected. We were surprised at how many people think of it as "their facility." Also, they were attracted to aspects of Spa LaQua that were completely different from what we had anticipated, and we ourselves discovered the new appeal of Spa LaQua.

In terms of communication power, each of the 25 members has followers with completely different attributes, so there is a sense that they are able to communicate in many different directions. As the number of hashtags "#SpaLaQua" has increased, I think it has become an opportunity to effectively communicate the specific state of the facility inside by having the ambassadors take various photos so that people do not have a single image in their mind when they hear Spa LaQua.

A Service Born From Fan Feedback

Nishino: By the way, I think we received a lot of opinions and ideas from the ambassadors in the roundtable discussions and surveys, but have any of them been put into practice?

Murakoshi: Yes. It's a very small thing, but we use it to improve the facility, such as "It would be better if this was here" within the facility, or "It would be better if it was here instead of here" in the customer's path of movement.

Also, when we receive feedback from restaurants saying, "I would like to see this kind of menu item," we provide that feedback to the restaurant and ask them to change the menu. Also, we share any suggestions for improving service with our on-site staff and use them to change operations.

Nishino: I think there was a limited-time strawberry menu item, but that was also the ambassador's idea!

Murakoshi: That's right. Originally, Spa LaQua held seasonal events with the theme of "beauty," but we wanted to take this opportunity to hear from our current ambassadors, so we held a strawberry-themed event in March and April of this year, which was by far the most popular choice in a survey.

The event was visually spectacular and was one of the most popular among our seasonal events to date. It really brought home to us how important it is to hear real customer feedback.

Nishino: Spa LaQua's main target audience is a demographic that is well-suited to social media, but the nature of the facility means that it's difficult for people to take photos... This was a challenge for me, and I went through a lot of trial and error when I came up with the proposal, so I'm very happy to be able to put it into words and share it with you again!

We believe that one of our strengths is our ability to support our clients according to their stage of development, from Instagram support (establishing a new way of communicating from companies) to ambassador initiatives (increasing user communication rather than company communication). Going forward, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it will be important to consider how to express offline content online, so we look forward to supporting you with your next stage of initiatives!

Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with me today, Mr. Murakoshi!

Finally

We learned that Spa LaQua's Instagram initiative is not just a way to disseminate information, but is also being used as a platform to hear "real customer feedback."

Spa LaQua actively incorporates customer ideas into its services and events, and we expect it will continue to develop a variety of initiatives in the future.

That's all from Nishino!