The Small and Medium Enterprise Agency has recently announced a new logo for its campaign to help promote local products for export, says Adamu in the Mutant Frog blog.

This is their contribution to a general branding effort intented to promote exports, boost tourism, and take control of how Japan is perceived abroad. What do you think? Adamu thinks it “seems to lack a certain subtlety.” Nevertheless:

Bluntness aside, it’s a simple and attractive logo. It seems intended as a sort of umbrella logo to bring disparate marketing strategies pursued by the various regions of Japan in under a unified concept that will “create new traditions” by very efficiently letting anyone who comes into contact with a product bearing such a logo that it definitely comes from Japan, which should let a potential buyer know that, like Japan, the product stands for “quality,” “beauty,” and “pride.”

Think I like it–great brands are usually pretty straightforward and simple in words, style, color–think IBM, Coke, etc. But the real branding, of course, is in the product or service it represents. If the product or service is exceptional and the tag easy to associate with it, then the branding works.

That being said, “Made in Japan” already seemed to be pretty good branding, especially when compared to tags like “Made in China”–which conjure up totally different connotations in a consumer? However, this one looks like it should work!