Shocking the notion of branding, Muji, short for ‘無無無無’

meaning ‘Quality goods with no brand’, a household retail

store hailing from Japan strives not to strengthen but to

eliminate the brand on products and gain maniac success. In

the article Simply Muji (Zachariah, 2013) Brand Equity is

discussed and somewhat redefined through the interview of

its current chairman to reveal how Muji revolutionize the

industry by conducting the No-brand strategy. This essay

aims to argue that Muji managed to build up effective brand

knowledge by marketing mix combining the unorthodox no-

brand strategy. Then the essay will shift to analyse Muji’s

focus on experience and quality to empower the brand

awareness. Finally it will discuss how such unique branding

strategy is supported by customer orientation and secures

Muji in a sustainable differentiated position.

Brand is considered as an intangible asset in Marketing

since it differentiates the product from those of other

sellers (Pride et al., 2007) According to Bryan A. Lukas,

lecturer of Principles of Marketing, however,

conceptualization of brand equity varies in different

period of time with the older one claiming that it is the

incremental value endowed in product in function, while the

modern sense interprets the concept as the value of market

position. (Lukas, Pers.Comm., March 19, 2014) While most

enterprises were racking their wits with bombarding logos,

stardom and advertisements to brand their image into

customers’ mind, Mr Tadamitsu Matsui, chairman of Muji's

parent company, states that Muji is not about producing

desire by advertising, but rather using that cost to refine

products. (Zachariah, 2013) The company started to innovate

in branding, gradually purified their own philosophy and

renovation on design, which Mangum (2007) described as

‘reasonable price, simple, moderate and functional design,

basic colours, and essential parts of designing lifestyles

at discretion’.

For all Muji says about not being a brand, the product and

service per se build the brand image, which is consider as

sets of ideas and attitudes that crucially influence the

cognition towards the brand. (Dobni, 1990) A coherent,

systematic and simple design aesthetic constitutes the

building block of Muji. (Amos, 2012) Muji substantially

replace the symbolic and self-expressing role of brand

personality (Keller, 1993) and melt such function into the

product, driving the product to speak for itself, and the

branding factors behind them such as style, simplicity,

high value of use and the charming uniformity. (Haig,

2006, p.226) Compared to traditional sense of marketing mix

which is 4Ps, Muji takes a step further to focus on more

contemporary factors in marketing mix by adding personnel,

physical assets, and procedures to the marketing mix that

must be integrated to form a coherent and effective

services marketing mix (Goldsmith, 1999) since Muji has

extended from mere product marketing into the whole

experience of lifestyle service. Muji offers over 7,000

products with no brand tags focusing on quality and

simplicity that dominates mostly every aspect of life, and

they are all dedicated to be eco-friendly, made of

recyclable materials while maintaining durability, raising

brand awareness with the product themselves rather than the

brand. The pricing strategy has been ‘lower price for a

reason’ (Ryohin Keikaku, 2009), with the sustainable design

the price can be drawn to a cost-efficient level.

Muji is well aware that customers are not buying specific

product but rather into a particular personal philosophy

that Muji has fitted best, reconstructing the bridge

between the brand and the product. The most reflective

physical assets Muji is proud of is the displaying space

with soothing music, relaxing ambience and delivering

emotional benefits. (Aaker, 2011) The retail store is

experienced as an actual living space that coherently

aspire customers to engage in the simple lifestyle which

has positioned Muji as an literally experience brand,

forming the differentiated brand image with the experience

and impression on the product and service without

displaying any explicit brand. Also, Muji is now planning

bring its Muji Cafe and Meal worldwide.(Zachariah, 2013)

Serving seasonal food undoubtedly create a consistent

experience of purchase when customers spend on both food

and ingredients to bring home. Extension of Muji's product

philosophy (Zachariah, 2013) to the cafe experience has

ultimately assisted to raise the depth breadth in brand

awareness with lower marketing cost when the experience

itself facilitates the acceptance of new products

especially for experience brand like Muji. (Whitwell,

Lukas, Doyle, 2003, p.255)

Sustainable brand equity, nevertheless, always requires

response and orientation to the voice of market. Muji, as a

designer brand, has been both supplier and customer

oriented balancing the feedback from customers and

designers. Mujigram, Muji’s manual based on observation of

the retail managers from customer’s perspective (Zachariah,

2013) including feedback raised about the product for

future improvement, and Advisory Board comprised of

designers with reputation independent from Management yet

excluding their names on price tags to avoid the compromise

of authenticity, serve to the consistent update of the

comments from customers and the relationship of mutual

respect with designers, and infuse dynamic in the process

of accumulating brand equity in a sustainable

differentiated way.

The ‘no-brand’ branding strategy has brought huge success

not merely in sales but also reputation in the market. From

a deficit of 3.8 billion yen, closing stores worldwide,

just one-sixth of its original stock price in 2000, the

resiliency of Muji’s unprecedented branding strategy has

facilitated 188 billion yen in sales in 2012 and posted a

record-high pre-tax profit of about 11 billion yen between

March and August in 2013, counting 300 stores in Japan and

208 stores in Asia, Europe and the United States.

(Zachariah, 2013) With the ever-changing taste of

consumption, customers realize the value of a brand lies

within more than label-deep. (Amos, 2012) And Muji’s

position is standing against the glitz of the Ginza and

other shopping centers that are filled with brands each

trying to be more upscale than the next, correlating with

the trend of customized consumption. (Aaker, 2011)

In a nutshell, Muji has built up an effective brand image

and generating the sustainable brand equity with the

marketing mix in order to obey the brand philosophy of ‘no

brand’, consequently gaining both resiliency of sales and

the common acceptance of Japanese aesthetic simplicity. The

success of Muji delivers the message to the marketing

industry, that the real brand equity lies far deeper than

the label or the logo that was once considered the symbolic

expressive medium. Muji has been a pioneer to be a brand

formed by image, not vice versa.

Word count: 1078

Bibliography

Aaker, D 2011, Muji—The No-Brand Brand, Prophet, viewed 30 March 2014, <http://www.prophet.com/blog/aakeronbrands/43-mujithe-no-brand-brand> http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/asia-report/lifestyle/story/simply-muji-20131012..

Dobni, D 1990, ‘In Search of Brand Image: A Foundation Analysis’, Advances in Consumer Research. 1990, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p110-119.

Mangum, A 2007, How Do They Do It? New York, September 3, 146. viewed 30 March 2014, http://www.proquest.com.libproxy.nlb.gov.sg/

Pride, W, Rundle-Thiele, S, Waller, D, Elliot, G, Paladino, A, Ferrell, OC 2007, Marketing:Asia-Pacific Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Brisbane.

Ryohin Keikaku Ltd. 2009, Company Profile, viewed 30 March 2014, < http://ryohin-keikaku.jp/eng/corporate/pdf/2009_e.pdf>.

Whitwell, G, Lukas, BA, Doyle, P 2003, Maketing Management: A Strategic, value-based approach, John Wiley &Sons, Chichester, United Kingdom.

Zachariah, NA 2013, Simply Muji, The Strait Times, Singapore, viewed 30 March 2014,.

Main Article

Simply MujiSunday, Oct 13, 2013 Natasha Ann Zachariah The StraitsTimes

Lifestyle brand Muji might not put its name or logo onany of its products, but it is happy to shout about their quality.

During an interview with Life!, Mr Tadamitsu Matsui, chairman of Japanese retail company Ryohin Keikaku, Muji's parent company, emphasises no fewer than 10

times that Muji is synonymous not just with minimalistdesign, but also well-made products.

The 64-year-old, who was in town last week for the opening of the seventh Muji store here in 313@Somerset, is not just paying lip service.

When he took over as president and representative director of Ryohin Keikaku in 2001, Muji was in a steep decline. It had chalked up a deficit of 3.8 billion yen the year before and was closing stores worldwide. Its stock price plunged to just one-sixth of its original price.

In an incredible turnabout, MrMatsui, who graduated from the University of Tsukeba in physical education, led Muji to a V-shaped recovery, where a long bout of depressed sales was followed by a sharp recovery. By 2007, Muji was hitting 162 billion yen in record sales.

It has not looked back since. The brand made 188 billion yen (S$2.4 billion) in sales last year and posted a record- high pre-tax profit of about 11 billion yen between March and August this year.

Today, Muji counts 300 stores in Japan and 208 stores in Asia, Europe and the United States. Besides a flagship store in New York, its products are also soldat the Museum of Modern Art store.

It started as a subsidiary of supermarket group Seiyu in 1980 selling 40 household and food products in

their stores, such as liquid detergent and canned snowcrab flakes.

Then known as Mujirushi Ryohin, it did well enough to open its first overseas store in London in 1991. The name Muji was adopted around 1999.

It won fans with clean, fuss-free products that lived up to its name, which means "no brand, quality goods".But when the standards of both its goods and customer service dropped, so did sales.

"Customers were abandoning us," MrMatsui says in Japanese through an interpreter. "While we started out

emphasising value, over time, the quality deteriorated. The price was cheaper but the quality was not there.

"We were not making products that stayed ahead of whatcustomers needed. Muji products then were the same as those you could find at discount stores."

So he came up with a 2,000-page manual on how to run the company, which he called Mujigram.

The directive was sparked by what he saw during the opening of a new store: Store managers from other outlets arrived to help, but each had his own ideas about everything, from how to set up the displays to where to place the products.

"I realised that each store was dependant on the individual store manager and what he thought was right," recounts MrMatsui, who was born in Shizuoka Prefecture near the Pacific coast in the south-east.

"There were 100 ways of doing one thing. If each manager left, that would be the end of his store. We had to make sure everything was standardised."

All work processes are detailed in his manual and standardisation is key across all areas, including product display, customer service, staff appearance and even how to clean the store.

Employees can raise any problems they encounter, come up with solutions and tweak their copy of Mujigram. These updates are synced across all stores.

About 60 per cent of Muji's 7,000- strong product inventory are household products, 35 per cent are clothes and linen, while food makes up the rest.

While other companies pour millions into marketing their brands, anonymity is what Mr Matsui covets.

He pulls out a nondescript white, cotton shirt to makehis point. Cut off the price tag and shoppers would not know which shop it comes from, he says.

It could belong to a high-end fashion house or a high-street clothing store, but it has remained one of Muji's staple products since it started 30 years ago.

"We focus on how comfortable it is to wear, such as how well it can absorb perspiration. We don't add starch or iron it. We make products which are very good and we compete in the market on the value of our products alone," he says. "We like to say we make invisible things. We make only what customers need, not create something that they want."

This explains why he is against full-blown promotionalcampaigns, such as using celebrities to tout products and releasing limited-edition ranges. Even discounts are given sparingly.

"Creating desire is not Muji's practice. Our products are good and with the right prices. We believe that ifwe have the money to spend on advertising, we might aswell use that money to make our products better," he says.

"Using celebrities means using their star power to drive sales rather than banking on your product quality. In the long run, this weakens your core products."

For three years in a row from 2011 to this year, Muji has been ranked as one of the top 25 companies to work

for in Japan. The survey of companies of more than 250workers was done by Great Place to Work Institute, a global research and consultancy firm.

The attention to detail and quality has also paid off in other tangible ways. Customer complaints have plunged from 7,000 in 2000, a year before MrMatsui took over, to about 1,000 today.

He recalls how, in 2002, the company had to recall products and take out six apology advertisements in the media in just half a year. The recall was due mainly to defective products.

"In half a year, that's a lot of advertisements to take out. I decided that we had to eliminate the complaints. So we went back to look at how our products and stores could be improved."

This means sourcing for quality materials from the start, such as cotton from top cotton producers, and paying heed to shoppers' feedback. For example, Muji added silk to its linen clothes to make them more comfortable after getting comments from customers.

One may liken Muji's success story to that of Swedish furniture giant Ikea, which also prides itself on no-frills yet stylish design at affordable prices.

But MrMatsui disagrees. Turning around the company's fortunes has made it a middle-tier brand, he says, "not so cheap, and not a mass-market brand".

He adds: "A lot of people say Muji is like Japanese Ikea. We have some common features, such as good

products, but Ikea is cheap and focuses on the environment... Sorry to say, but I think Muji's products are able to last longer."

He hopes to increase Muji's global presence to 50 countries, up from the current 23 by the time Japan hosts the 2020 Summer Olympics.

In Singapore alone, there are plans to open three morestores over the next three years.

MrMatsui says the company is looking at making Singapore the logistics hub for South-east Asia, even though the tiny city-state accounts for just 1 per cent of Muji's global sales. "Many of our products aremade in this region and Singapore is in a good location from where we can oversee our operations."

Plans are also in the works to bring its Muji Cafe andMeal here. The canteen- style cafe, which can be foundin Japan and Hong Kong, serves dishes made with seasonal produce and meats. The first one opened in Kyoto in 2000, and its largest opened a year later in Muji's flagship store in Yurakucho, Tokyo.

Not surprisingly, MrMatsui says the cafe experience will be an extension of Muji's product philosophy. "Wedon't use expensive ingredients, which is why we choose seasonal ones. We use natural ingredients too... We make sure that the food is safe."

As the interview comes to an end, MrMatsui, who joinedMuji in 1992 and worked his way up the ranks, hands

this reporter his Japanese book, which he published inJuly.

The tome on how to standardise one's business practices and manage employees hit the No. 1 spot on Japan's Amazon website and sold more than 100,000 copies.

With the book's English title translated as "90 per cent of Mujirushi Ryohin is based on standards. Do your work simply", MrMatsui hopes to spread the word on how to build a great brand.

The father of two daughters and a son who works in Singapore says: "It's important for all industries andany type of worker to know the importance and value oforganisation structure and system. I wrote it not onlyfor managers but also for everyone else in an organisation."

Already, he is looking ahead. "In 10 years, I don't think I will be at Muji anymore. We will still be growing and we will have more problems to come. But I'm sure the next person will handle this company wisely."

Looks like his successor will have big no-frills, quality shoes to fill.

Five facts about Muji

1. Muji makes houses in Japan. It has built several models of different sizes. For about $220,000, you canbuy a pre-fabricated house with the brand's trademark pared-down, timeless design.

Muji has partnered several companies to come up with different versions over the years. In 2009, acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma designed two models for the brand.

The Window House has strategically placed windows to capture the best views, while the other, The Tree House, is designed to tap on natural light.

2. Muji has branched out into music too. It has a range of Muji CDs, called BGM, or background music, featuring muzak from all over the world. For example, BGM 8 features traditional Swedish music and BGM 18, the latest, plays Celtic music from Brittany, France.

3. In 2001, Muji developed the Muji Car with Nissan. Using Nissan Marches that have been "decontented" - meaning certain features have been removed - it put out only 1,000 models of the Muji Car 1000 and sold them online.

As with its household items, the car, which came only in marble white, was sparsely equipped and the rear seat was upholstered in vinyl.

4. Muji strives to be eco-friendly. Its cotton products are made from organic cotton and its shoppingpaper bags are printed with soy ink. Food products do not have preservatives while its stationery items are made from recycled paper.

5. Muji products are not designed solely in Japan. It scours the world for designers who fit Muji's

minimalist design mantra and then makes the products in Asia.

There have been collaborations with well- known designers. They include Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa, who made Muji's CD player and worked with Italian companies such as B&B Italia and Magis; London-born James Irvine, who designed the body for the Mercedes-Benz O530 Citaro bus in Hannover, Germany; and English product and furniture designer Jasper Morrison, who also designs for Italian furniture giants Cappellini and Alessi.