"Protect your smartphone's Home button"
"World First Underwear for Smartphone -Smart Pants"
"What? Is your smartphone still naked?"
"Change your smartphone's underwear every day"
The aboves are all catch copies of Smart Pants - world first underwear for Smartphone and it started selling in March in Japan and because of its popularity, it is hard to get them since released.
There are 8 different styles - stripes, animal skin, strawberries, brief, boxer, boomerang, red, and a secret design. Each Smart Pants is in a capsule and you can get it from the gashapon* machine in Japan. Gashapon*, capsule toys is a Bandai trademark and it's target market is kids and collectors. The Bandai wanted to expand its market to non Gashapon users. The developer, Mr. Moriuchi of Bandai had an idea of underwear for smartphone. His idea was a bit hard to get approval from the company at the first, but he was right. His unique idea was so successful and brilliant.
Because the buyer has to buy this product through Gashapon, the buyer cannot choose which ones you will get. People try and spend money until the one which you want to have it. It only cost a couple of dollars each time, but if you try many times, it cost more.
The Smart Pants has one secret style which made people more curious and made them eager to get the secret design. People were talking about it before its release and it was very successful campaign.
Smart Pants got very popular and now it is difficult to get them now. According to my research, it is the best way to get Smart Pants through Japanese auction website and it cost between A$10 to $100, but it originally only cost $2 at Gashapon* machine! I saw that it sells online outside of Japan and it cost $38.
The chalacter design is also clever using David by Michelangelo with underwear. The developer Mr. Moriuchi said that he researched design of the underwears to be more realistic.
There are lots of things to learn from this product development and marketing.
I would like to get one when I visit Japan next time. I would like to have stripes one ;)
*Note: Gashapon (ガシャポン) is a Bandai brand trademark widely used throughout the world for their capsule toys. It is also referred to as gachapon (ガチャポン)." Both gashapon and gachapon are Japanese onomatopoeia, made up of two sounds: "gasha" or "gacha" for the turning of a crank on a toy vending machine, and "pon" for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. It is used to describe both the machines themselves, and any toy obtained from them. Tomy, another major player in capsule toy market, uses "Gacha" instead of "Gachapon" for their capsule vending machines and toys. If you want to know more about it, please visit Wikipedia.