Freitag
When Freitag bags came to Japan in the mid-1990s, they were a good example of a product that had arrived before its time.
A must-have item for hipsters in Europe, they got their start when two Swiss brothers began making bike messenger bags from used truck tarps: bags that were colorful, functional, durable, waterproof, and – since each is made from a different tarp – unique. Most importantly, being made of recycled materials, including bicycle inner tubes for the trim and seat belts for the straps, they had outstanding green cred.
Ken Jungnickel, a former professional windsurfer based in Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture, met the Freitag brothers while on a trip to Zurich and, impressed with their story, decided to add the products to the European bikes, snowboards and windsurfing gear he was selling through his company, Jykk Japan Inc.
Over the years he has marketed the bags carefully, building a loyal customer base by sponsoring events that appeal to the target customer (young, design-oriented people into urban fashion), and selling through bike, apparel and design shops, rather than luggage stores. That way, he builds the brand and the customer base, as well as selling the products, thereby circumventing the inevitable boom-bust cycle of a hip item, and the equally inevitable copycat products eating away at his sales and weakening his brand. His marketing materials prominently feature his customers and their relationship to their bag and the company.
When he first started selling Freitag, in 1996, Jungnickel had to do a lot of awareness-raising, even having to explain what a truck tarp is. “All the trucks here are enclosed in aluminium,” he notes. “Also, at that time, recycled meant cheap, and people weren’t going to pay a lot of money for something recycled, no matter how cool it was.”
But in the long run smart marketing has paid off. “In Japan especially, people are sensitive to products and their meaning. Our customers know they are buying a unique, one-of-a-kind product, as well as participating in the company’s story. They like that these are a ‘recontextualised’ product, with a history of many miles on the roads of Europe.”
So far, the strategy has worked well, with sales steadily increasing and Jungnickel adding a few more stores a year to his roster. Worldwide sales are steady at 150,000 units a year, and the company has branched out beyond bags into a successful line of accessories, also made of recycled materials.