TOKYO PACK Offers Pre-Show Orientation Tour
- Published: July 24, 2014
TOKYO, JAPAN | TOKYO PACK 2014, scheduled for October 7–10 at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center, is offering a one-day orientation program designed to help foreign visitors gain the maximum benefit from their visit to the show. The show is expected to feature more than 600 Japanese and international packaging companies in 2,500 booths across the 51,380 sq-m exhibition space. 
Now in its second edition, the Packaging Insight Japan Tour is a collaboration between TOKYO PACK exhibition owner-operator, the Japan Packaging Institute (JPI), and EP Resources Pte Ltd, Singapore, to present a full-day program on Monday, October 6, the day before the show opens.
“Packaging in Japan is a fine balance between esthetics, marketing, and advanced technology, much of which is not immediately obvious to the first-time visitor,” says Yoichi Sonoyama, deputy secretary general of JPI and secretary general of the TOKYO PACK Secretariat. “Through this orientation program, we hope to increase our foreign guests’ understanding of the Japanese packaging market, strengthening the bridge between our industry and the global industry.” 
According to Stuart Hoggard, CEO of Singapore-based EP Resources, “There is a frequent perception of Japanese packaging as being technologically elaborate to the point of being over-engineered. Certainly packaging in Japan is elaborate, but the common Japanese consumer view is that ‘if the packaging is not 100 percent perfect, how can I trust that the product inside is also not perfect.’
“With this mind-set, Japanese converters and brand owners go beyond the basic functionality and seek to use packaging to delight, or surprise consumers,” says Hoggard. “This unique program will help foreign companies get under the hood of Japanese packaging, understand its drivers, and build a network of manufacturers and buyers that has traditionally been inaccessible due to language differences.”
The Packaging Insight Japan Tour program has been designed in two-parts: a morning orientation seminar and afternoon retail tour to see the commercialization of these ideas.
The seminar will provide background of the packaging formats, materials, and technologies that will be on display at the event. The afternoon portion will take participants on a guided tour of key retail formats in Tokyo to discover how Japan’s packaging industry commercializes its packaging technology for the consumer.
With its emphasis on “share of eye,” shopping in Japan is said to be a very different retail experience than in the West: With elegant product displays and close attention to detail, packaging—structural and graphic—design plays a pertinent role in selling the packaged product. Visits to a hypermarket and high-end supermarket/department store will demonstrate the contrast between different levels of Japanese retail and consumer sectors, and the vast range packaging formats and technology commercially available to meet varied consumer needs.
This tour is now open for registration, with an early-bird fee of $325/€240 in effect before September 1. Group discounts are also available.
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