MUJI Chi, President Of Muji: The Understanding Of Lifestyle Brand Boundaries

"We search for thousands of mountains and rivers, find many things, and finally give you a suitable solution to create a way of life.

We can earn money from work, because customers will enter.

We can get more satisfaction and more people understand this, so that brings us business success.

Fukazawa Naohito, a Muji consultant, once said.

According to the world clothing and shoe net, there are more than 7000 kinds of MUJI products, and the number has increased by several hundred in the past 3 or 4 years.

It also opened a dining hall and hotel, made products such as MUJI house, and expanded it beyond the retail outlets.

Which direction will it expand in the future? Or, in other words, where can Muji be related to your life?

In every

With China's ideal of "lifestyle brand", the idea of MUJI products may be more noteworthy.

"This is a very complicated problem, but simply speaking, we are in the necessary time to provide consumers with the necessary commodities," Matsuzaki Kyo, a Muji president, told reporters. "For example, travel is already a very common behavior in people's lives, so we made a wine shop, actually this idea was there 10 years ago."

Again, in the rooms of MUJI HOTEL, "necessary commodities" mean 5 alternative pillows for customers, and a self opening toilet. These will make sleep and occupancy experience better, but there will not be too many disposable supplies.

How to explore the subtle lifestyle of people in an era, a country and a region? Muji has always advocated returning to the essence of life.

For example, the Found MUJI project, launched in 2003, aims to collect worldwide "necessities" that need a long time to integrate into the concept of "Muji" and redevelop products.

The "bar stool" that has been heated by Muji.

However, when an enterprise has gone through too many successes, it is easy to go all the way to do everything.

There are many commodities in the world, not for easier use, but for selling better and more popular.

"Muji has actually worked with Nissan for cars, you may not know," Matsuzaki Kyo said. In order to better grasp the yardstick, the Advisory Committee composed of original research, Fukazawa Naohito and others will exercise "negative right" to some ideas of the management of the company.

During the opening ceremony of MUJI HOTEL, the reporter interviewed Matsuzaki, chairman of the Muji company, and talked about what the hotel should be like in his mind and his understanding of the "border" of the lifestyle brand.

Reporter: what is the definition of "Muji" for hotels? Or what kind of products do you want to see?

Matsuzaki: with the development of the times, the sense of the hotel will change, but our concept of "anti luxury and anti rudimentary" will never change.

In the actual operation, the performance is to oppose excessive consumption, and oppose excessive provision of spare parts in the room, only to meet the basic needs of life.

For example, 20 years ago, we would not develop such products, but now people have higher demand for a comfortable residential environment, and the pollution outside is relatively large, so they produce the demand for aromatherapy machines, and it becomes a necessity of life.

That is to say, the concept of luxury is different in different times.

I think the definition of a hotel is a profit oriented family facility, so what you are like at home, how it should be in a hotel, not to provide excessive services.

Our company has a rule that no matter how high you are, your luggage is your own when you are on a business trip. In fact, it is similar to the operation of the hotel. We do not have doormen and do not provide luggage service.

Of course, this is not absolute. If people with disabilities come to stay, we will certainly help.

MUJI President Matsuzaki (left) and general manager of China market Yamamoto Naomiyuki

Reporter: what is the cooperation mode of this hotel? Are you satisfied with its current state?

Matsuzaki Xiao: our cooperation with the owner, Shenzhen and Shangcheng is that we participate in the hotel.

But the specific operation is responsible for the deep industry. We charge the naming fee.

The interior of this hotel is designed by Sugimoto Takashi's super potato team. We think it is perfect. Although there are some improvements, there is no surplus at present. For example, we have 5 choices of pillows. We use automatic toilets. When you go in, you automatically open the lid. That's what you really need. We don't need much more if we don't need it.

After our trial, we also put forward many suggestions, such as the fragrant machine, we will lend it to customers, and have a list of rental items.

Reporter: what is the future development plan of MUJI HOTEL? How can we ensure that cooperation with more owners is consistent with the concept of Muji?

Matsuzaki: because partners are the source of investment, the idea is the same at the beginning, but in the actual process, there will be some problems. For example, what material is used, and the owners should pursue interests, so how many collisions will happen.

In addition, many partners are coming for the name of Muji.

We began communicating with the deep industry in 2014. We do not know how many times we have come here before we have such cooperation.

At present, we have announced 3 projects, Ginza in Shenzhen, Beijing and Tokyo. In the future, we still plan to do comprehensive projects and not separate hotels.

More and more owners, management will be standardized, and our owners and the exchange is very important, Beijing and Ginza is an owner.

The key is the management manual. In addition, we have the supervisory power to ensure our compliance.

We are now monitoring for half a year.

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Reporter: how do we view some companies that offer similar products with Muji in the Chinese market?

Matsuzaki: there are many companies in the world who are learning others to do, but they are just like that. The most important thing in our products is the story behind them. This is the value. We make a product, not just say it to the factory, but we will go to the original place to know how it was made.

For example, we have goods made by women in Africa, so that they will get an income.

It is not cheap to do there, but when they have income, they can get their children to receive education.

This is the value that our brand hopes to pass.

MUJI design consultant Fukazawa Naohito

Reporter: maybe there are many consumers in China who do not know the brand of Muji.

Matsuzaki: so I think our efforts are not enough, so many people still don't understand that in the future, they hope to do more communication with consumers through shops and through the Internet.

Customers buy similar things, which can not be prevented from imprint, but we can only try to provide the customers with the background of the development of the goods more fully.

Not only do we want to get feedback from our products, but we want to get feedback from people in general. Do you use toothbrushes in your room? When you try, people respond to toothbrushes too hard.

But in fact, for Japanese, the hardness of this toothbrush is just right.

The toothbrushes used by Japanese people are also soft fur. The way to brush their teeth is to brush them up and down. But with the change of times, we realize that the most important thing is dental plaque. The Japanese dentists are few, because we have realized the correct way to brush teeth.

We also hope to pass these things to China through the hotel, hoping to tell you the story behind the merchandise. If we haven't done enough, then we hope to do better in the future.

And imitation is only part of it. We have all the necessities of life, there are many products, the overall feeling of customers is not the same.

For example, when lazy sofa was developed, many companies went to imitate it in 2002. Now it's not true, but it's rare.

Because the price can be cheap, but there is no story behind the development of goods, it can not be more than ten years has been improving the goods.

Reporter: lifestyle brands seem to be all embracing. Muji thinks that what should be done and what should not be done?

Matsuzaki: in short, what we need to do is what we live on.

This is what we have been discussing whether the foundation of life is changing.

Another is that our design advisory committee will play a role in restraining us.

We've worked with Nissan before, haven't you heard about it?

Our approach to living space is to start from the hotel as a starting point, and gradually do other things, such as MUJI HOUSE may also enter China, and old building pformation.

On the first two days, we visited several old housing areas, which were very broken, and all the clothes hung on the balcony.

What we want to do is to let people live in a dignified house, such as a common laundry in Japan, which is very suitable for designing such a residence.

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