January G3 – Changing To Stay The Same: How Successful Brands Update Their Communication While Keeping Their Soul

Come meet with and listen to Jean Henaff, Semiotician and Marketing Consultant for Japanese and Western brands, and former Marketing Research Director for L’Oréal Group in Asia.

What is unique in a brand? How do we fight new competitors, adapt to Japanese consumers and speak to digital natives without losing our “soul” and the unique values defining our brand, that should be worldwide and timeless? Based on more than 20 years of experience in Japan and Asia in consumer goods, Jean Henaff will show how all those issues can be understood, clarified and solved by simple approaches exploring the generation of brand meaning and consumer culture.

The presentation will show how some Western and Japanese brands have successfully adapted their communication, store architecture and merchandising to a radically different context while being able at the same time to strongly assert their unique values.

Jean Henaff is a consultant using extensively semiotic research tools to provide marketing advice to leading Western and Japanese companies in cosmetics, luxury and food industries. He is a native French speaker and he is also fluent in English and Japanese. Japan-based clients make up 40% of his activities and he regularly works in cooperation with the Japanese consulting company Itochu Fashion System and Yumiko Yoshimizu.

He also previously worked in marketing research for L’Oréal Cosmetics in Asia and Europe. Jean is a graduate of the HEC School of Management (Paris) and of Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo) and holds a Master’s Degree in Semiotics.