Tanaka Optical Holding Company Ltd. (Megane no Tanaka)
In an exclusive interview, Damian Hall, President and CEO of Tanaka Optical, reflects on the company’s rich history and future vision.
Megane no Tanaka (Tanaka Optical) was founded in 1913 as Tanaka Gankyou Ten in Hiroshima City, Japan, and in March, 2021, our company celebrated its 108th anniversary.
Since I was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer in 2016, my personal commitment is to preserving our traditional core values of delighting customers with excellent quality products and services, as well as bringing those traditional core values to you, our customers, in new, innovative, exciting and enjoyable ways. Our customers’ needs are always changing and we strongly believe that to satisfy our customers’ needs, we also need to change along with them.
As a leader of this change, I took several personal initiatives, among which were:
Following Damien Hall’s visionary leadership, Miho Koyama, Digital Engagement Manager, shares insights into the specific challenges and innovative strategies that have driven Megane no Tanaka’s recent growth and adaptation.
Megane no Tanaka decided to transition from traditional mass advertising to digital advertising and found a reliable partner in Next Level, K.K. This new partnership enabled us to respond flexibly and effectively to the business challenges we were facing.
The primary challenge during this transition was the decline in customer traffic to our physical stores due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To counter this, we aggressively utilized new advertising media and formats to attract more customers to book in-store visits, as well as phone and web consultations.
The second challenge was switching from the old to the new versions of Google Analytics. Although UA and GA4 have similar functions, their measurement results differ slightly. Next Level took the initiative to operate GA4 in parallel with UA from an early stage, making small adjustments before the complete transition. This allowed us time to compare the measurement results between the two platforms.
Regarding the third issue, the regulation of personal information protection, Next Level proposed a strategy that incorporates new targeting methods to address the cookie-less environment. This opened up new possibilities for Megane no Tanaka’s business.
The past few years have been challenging for Megane no Tanaka, a company that has always focused on direct customer service, as public refraining from going out impacted our business development.
Through trial and error, we have managed to overcome these difficult challenges. Next Level has worked tirelessly to promote digital marketing while adhering to our policy of “always exploring new possibilities based on hypothesis, execution, and analysis, while also valuing proven existing methods.” Through our collaboration, we have found flexible and effective solutions to our business challenges and built a reliable partnership.
Our future marketing goals at Megane no Tanaka include attracting online customers to our physical stores and delivering valuable information and advertising to our customers in a highly regulated targeting environment. We look forward to continuing our work with Next Level to achieve these goals.
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