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Japan: no matcha for China
Happy Sunday {{first_name}},
The sun is shining. The Ghost Mail website is working. All is well in the world - unless you’re trying to compete with the Chinese, that is.
In the fight for consumer attention, the herd mentality of humans is a powerful characteristic to tap into. Experienced investors know this already from living through hype cycles in the market. In the consumer world, marketers rely on creating FOMO around shiny new things.
We like to tell ourselves that we are rational, discerning creatures. In practice, we tend to just buy what our friends are buying.
Case in point: Dubai chocolate. It was never a thing. Now it is.
Ditto for matcha, with the green powder becoming ubiquitous in areas targeting trendy shoppers. But if there’s one great truth about success, it’s that it attracts competition.
In her excellent column this week, Dominique explains why the Japanese matcha industry should be treating the European automotive sector as a cautionary tale. When your product is in Chinese crosshairs, you should be afraid. Very afraid. Read it here.
Speaking of herds, read on for a story of how walking became a spectator sport in the 1800s. The human desire to bet on something is nothing new, that much we can tell you.
And in the Fast Facts, this week’s segment is inspired by various crazes through the ages.
Have a great Sunday!
The Finance Ghost (follow on X) | Dominique Olivier (connect on LinkedIn)
Japan is no matcha for Chinese disruption
The Chinese disruption playbook has been incredible to observe in the automotive industry.
And if Japan isn't careful, the same thing is going to happen in matcha.
Dominique Olivier shows how green powder has become a red ocean of competition.
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When walking drew a crowd
TL;DR: For a few decades in the 1800s, the hottest ticket in town was watching strangers walk until they hallucinated.
It may seem hard to believe, but there was a time when walking was a spectator sport. Not racing, but merely walking - for days, around a ring of boards laid down inside a hall, while thousands bought tickets to watch. Pedestrianism, they called it, and for a stretch of the 19th century it was one of the biggest spectacles going in Britain and America.
It started with bored aristocrats betting on how far and how fast their servants could travel on foot. But unlike the other sports of the gentry, this one needed no horse, no equipment and no pedigree - only stamina. So when promoters started selling tickets to pedestrianism contests, it became a game the working class could not just watch, but also win. Its champions rose from the bottom of the ladder to the top of the sports pages.
The signature contest lasted six days, Monday to Saturday midnight, with the Sabbath left clear for churchgoing (of course). Those who made it to the Saturday covered close to 800 kilometres on almost no sleep, fuelled by beef broth, oysters, champagne and the odd measure of whiskey. By that time many had exhausted themselves into a waking dream, drifting round the track while their minds wandered elsewhere.
The betting is what turned it dark. Riled-up spectators wagered on everything - not just who would win, but who would drop out, who would collapse, who would vomit first. The crowd, in other words, had money riding on the walkers falling apart, and the walkers knew it. Add race-fixing and heavy drinking among the competitors, and the spectacle began to rot from the inside out.
In case you’ve been wondering, online betting/gambling isn’t exactly tapping into a new human condition.
Just as the craze got serious, it was over. Bicycles arrived, and so did bicycle races. Team games came along, with scoreboards and heroes and a win by suppertime. Against all that, a man accumulating laps over the course of several days could no longer hold a room’s attention, and the crowds went looking for something a little more action-packed that they could bet on.
Dominique’s Fast Facts - “Crazes through the ages”
Orchidelirium - perhaps the spiritual successor to the tulipmania of the 1600s, orchidelirium ruled the 1800s. Victorians developed a frenzied obsession with owning and collecting rare orchid varieties, even going so far as sending “orchid hunters” into remote jungles to uncover new species.
Phone booth stuffing - as the name suggests, this craze from the 1950s involved jamming as many people as possible into a phone booth. In 1959, students at the Durban YMCA actually set a world record when 25 of them were able to squeeze at least the greater portions of their bodies into a standard upright phone booth. Sadly, since there are almost no full-enclosed phone booths left, phone booth stuffing is no more.
Radium everything - before the dangers of radium poisoning were fully understood, companies marketed the newly-discovered radioactive element as “liquid sunshine”. Radium was added to everything from toothpaste to cosmetics and even water because it was believed to be a miracle cure and source of vitality. The fad ended with the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act after several deaths pointed to the fact that radium was, in fact, highly toxic.
Ether frolics - before it earned its place as an anaesthetic, ether was used for entertainment. The ether frolics of the early 1800s involved groups of people getting together to inhale nitrous oxide and/or ether purely for recreational purposes. It’s called “laughing gas” for a reason, after all.
Goldfish swallowing - this unfortunate trend allegedly began when a Harvard freshman swallowed a live goldfish for a $10 bet in 1939. Before long, students on campuses across America were lining up to do the same, with one setting a record by swallowing a total of 89 goldfish in one afternoon. Animal rights groups were not pleased by this fad, and after much protest it fizzled out.