Octopus Around the World: Japan

Once Octopus Energy decided to expand to Asia, Japan was its first choice, and in Tokyo gas we found a partner with a similar vision for renewable energy expansion in the market. Now we are taking on the incredible challenge of helping Japan transition to renewable energy by bringing super customer-focused, smart energy to Japanese homes. We’re laser focusing on solar and EV expansion, and with the latest rollout of our EV tariff in Japan, a greener day is on the horizon.

The Japan office has almost 100 people, filling out the cosy place so much they’ll be moving into a bigger office this year. Yohko is the Head of Marketing at our office in Tokyo.

At Octopus Japan, Yohko oversees and manages each aspect of the Marketing department – speaking directly to customers, creating digital marketing, webpages and blogs, email campaigns and much more. The Japan office is still in its infancy, and much of her day to day involves shaping our incredible customer experience.

Yohko was born and bred in Hokkaido, the 2nd biggest city in Japan in the northern area of Japan. She has had a fascinating career journey, starting at Japanese advertising agencies and moving on to spend the majority of her career working in the videogame industry, starting at American company Electronic Arts (EA) and ending up at the Japanese Playstation.

Although it isn’t just the engineers that make the games as special as they are: ‘It’s all about teamwork. From the engineers to the coders and writers – they’re all crucial to the final product’. Yohko worked on world-famous games like FIFA and Battlestar as a product manager and marketer.

The Japanese market has been a renegade in the videogame industry, and Yohko was right in the mix of it. She spent a lot of time thinking about longevity, and budgeting to make sure the next big game could be made. Long-term vision like that helped bring us incredible games like The Last of Us.

In 2020, Covid hit and amidst the chaos and uncertainty, Yohko felt she had to make a change.

The Japanese energy market is quite different to European markets. Currently, the adoption of green energy is very low, and most of the market relies on fossil fuels (over 70%).

Just as the Japanese energy market is unique, the Japanese energy consumer is too. ‘Japanese culture really values hospitality, efficiency and following the rules. This means our customer service has to be impeccable, at all times. Japanese people are also generally quite conservative and traditional, so it’s important that we are a brand that people trust.’

The design team originally created a Japanese specific website with a lighter, more animated and colourful theme. Interestingly, eventually based on feedback from our customers they decided to simplify it back to the original. ‘The original Octopus branding is universal and even works well with customers here in Japan.’

The market and customer expectations are constantly changing and we have to be able to adapt. ‘When it comes to Japan, we cannot speak to the past as we’re setting the green energy trend and positioning ourselves as leaders. And we are now living in the age where you cannot do traditional marketing as its ineffective and feels outdated. What you have to do instead is become a people-watcher.

Currently, Yohko is working on simplifying our Octopus dashboard. In Japan, the vast majority of people use an App called ‘Line’ which allows you to call, text and much more. Yohko’s team is currently working on ways to integrate the Octopus app with Line. The role comes with challenges in a forever changing landscape. ‘The best and most difficult thing about my job is to be comfortable in chaos. There are always so many things happening, at the same time.’ Good marketing requires straddling a lot of different layers of the business. Sometimes it’s high-level strategy, other times it’s creative writing or customer services.

‘I always try to remind myself that I’m not the only one, and that it’s okay to make mistakes. I’m always learning and unlearning but that’s the rare privilege of working in a start-up. We’re doing this all by ourselves, all hands on deck and it’s great!’

Much like the other OE offices, the OE Japan office has one goal; what’s the best thing for our customers. The ultimate questions it always comes down to are ‘what does this mean for our customers and how is this helping our customers’.

Marketing specialist, Miyoshi tells me what it’s like working with the team in a business that is expanding each and every day: ‘It’s a fairly interesting environment with a mix of people from Tokyo Gas, a large traditional Japanese company, Octopus, a UK start-up company, and new recruits (both foreign and Japanese). It might seem like a weird combination, but it naturally creates a cosy environment.’

‘We definitely have the best snacks’. Yohko tells me laughing. The Japan office is probably much quieter than the UK or US offices. Everyone quietly and calmly goes about their work, occasionally punctuated by their CEO Hajime’s hilariously loud laugh. Just like Greg, Hajime can often be found walking or sitting in the middle of the office, chatting to people or randomly joining their video calls.

‘He doesn’t keep himself separate, he is a part of the team and he has this great high pitched laugh that makes everyone in the office smile. I usually ask him what’s so funny and it always makes me giggle’.

They are focusing on growing fast and creating a super simple sign-up process, so we can help many more Japanese homes get cheaper greener energy. ‘We want to make it as easy as possible for customers to join us, and to manage their monthly bills and payments’.