Maybe I’m the last person on earth to hear about Maywa Denki, but I couldn’t find any post about them on this blog so there could be a few more. This is the most remarkable and also strange company - yet incredibly competent and successful.

They’re hard to pin down exactly, and appear to be something like a cross between the Bloomsbury Group, Velvet Underground, and Apple Computer. Maybe with a bit of Google mixed in. To get an idea, check out this video. There are more of them on YouTube too, including one of the company song.

Maywa Denki, is an extremely successful award-winning Japanese engineering company, music performance group, art collective, and educational organization. They also produce lots of extremely kawaii toys like the percussion-headed Knockman pictured here, as well as CDs, DVDs, and books. The educational activities include lectures and workshops on Nonsense Idea Conceiving and Making Funny Musical Instruments.

Maywa Denki’s unique style is indicated in the terms they use. For example, each piece of their work is called a “product” and a live performance or exhibition is held as a “product demonstration.” Although Maywa Denki is known and appreciated as an artist, its promotion strategies are full of variety - exhibition, live stages, performances, producing music and videos, writing, merchandising toys, stationery, and electric devices.

Their merchandising motto is “No product sales but secondary use profit.” For example, each device in the NAKI series is a “product” or prototype and not for sale. At the next level is GM-NAKI which are multiples of the product reproduced for sale. At a final level are Toys mass-produced in factories for wide distribution and sale.

One of the unique points of the company is that they do all of the promotion themselves, using a wide variety of media. There is a lot more information about this company available on their website.

Via eBizTutors