Men and Women Watch TV Differently. Here’s how to make money from that.

Most of us don’t actually zone out in front of the TV. In fact, we give off all kinds of clues to what we really think about the shows we are watching.

Japanese startup, T-Vision Insights has come up with a way both to measure and to monetize those reactions.

Today we sit down with founder and CEO Yasushi Gunya and we talk about T-Vision’s business and the future of advertising in video.

T-Vision Insights already has 100’s of customers and is monitoring thousands of households both in Japan and the US and we dive into some of the differences in how different kinds of people watch and react to TV.

I guarantee some of the results will surprise you.

It’s a great conversation, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

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Show Notes

• How AI can determine viewer engagement
• Proof that women watched the super bowl more closely than men
• How men and women watch TV differently
• Which TV shows and commercials  are most engaging
• The danger of advertising on the Walking Dead
• How privacy concerns are addressed
• Why it’s hard to sell genuinely new innovations
• The most engaging parts of commercials
• Why starting a startup is not really risky in Japan

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Transcript

Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs.

I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me.

This episode is a fun one. You know, I’ve always considered watching TV to be a passive activity. I mean, aside from sleeping, it seems like the most passive thing you could spend your time doing. You zone out while entertainment is poured into your brain, but it turns out, that’s not quite the case. TV watchers are a subtly active bunch and as we watch, we give off all kinds of signals to indicate our opinion of what we are being shown.

Well, Yasushi Gunya, founder and CEO of T-Vision Insights has developed an unobtrusive way to measure viewers’ reactions to TV shows and to TV commercials. It’s already deployed in thousands of homes in Japan and in the United States, and the results are remarkable. T-Vision is already showing global 100 brands how consumers react to their commercials and to the TV shows that they air in, and they provide a data-driven approach to show what content is the most engaging and what kind of response it evokes, but what I think is even more interesting is that T-Vision’s data shows that we all engage with TV differently.

Adults engage differently than children, Americans watch differently than Japanese, and men watch very differently than women do. In fact, there’s a big difference between how men and women watch sports on TV, and I guarantee you, it’s not the difference you think it is.

But Yasushi tells that story much better than I can. So, let’s get right to the interview.

 

Tim: Cheers!

Yasushi: Cheers!

Tim: So, we are sitting here in the We Work office in this incredibly hot Tokyo afternoon with Yasushi Gunya of T-Vision Insights, so thanks for sitting down with us.

Yasushi: Thank you, Tim, and let’s cheer since we have beer here.

Tim: That tastes good on a hot day. So, T-Vision Insights measures the viewer’s reactions to TV shows and the commercials, but why don’t you explain basically how it works and what it is?

Yasushi: Okay, our core technology is AI-backed algorithm and we just inserted to a sensor and set the sensor on the top of TV. As a result, we can understand how people in front of the TV will react to the contents of TV, and actually, we have already said this kind of stuff to 3,000 households in US and Japan.

Tim: Okay, and we say ‘how they react,’ so is this a device sort of like Microsoft Kinect, or what are you measuring or what are you watching?

Yasushi: Yeah, actually, Microsoft Kinect is the sensor we are currently using but it’s not device-oriented. The core technology we developed is AI algorithm inside that and it’s applicable for all sensors.

Tim: Okay, so basically, what you’re trying to do is find a way to objectively measure the quality of the reaction for a TV commercial.

Yasushi: Yeah, different thing, different thing, because if you’re watching the TV, sometimes, you’re in front of TV but sometimes, even if you’re in front of the TV, you are just watching on your mobile phone or you are talking, or you have communication with others, and sometimes, even you go to the restroom.

Tim: Yeah, some people just turn the TV on and leave it on all day as they wander around the house.

Yasushi: Yeah, that’s actually right, that’s a reality, but the problem is, nobody understands how the reality is.

Tim: Okay. So, let’s dig into kind of the technology of this. So, what exactly are you measuring? Are you looking at facial expressions or movements, or…?

Yasushi: All kinds of these, but you can imagine that our core technology is the face recognition and body recognition, and we can see, okay, who in the front of the TV, at panel houses, we just get their pictures so we understand who they are: are they father, mother of the child but not a guest?

Tim: What determines whether someone is engaged with commercials? So, if I’m lying down on the sofa, can I still be engaged, are you looking at my facial features?

Yasushi: Yeah, if we find it by both the movement of face and the movement of body. If you are facing TV but you close your eyes, you cannot say you are engaged in the program, right? We just measure voice, and we have the combination, and we got the score. As a result, we define, okay, this guy is looking at the TV or this guy is not.

Tim: And can you tell what type of emotion you’re getting? So, for example, I might be looking at the TV and very engaged, but can you tell the difference between someone who’s laughing or smiling and someone who’s crying?

Yasushi: Yeah, we do get some emotions like neutral, smile, angry, or surprised, or maybe we don’t call it angry, we call it negative.

Tim: Okay, so those are the four basic categories?

Yasushi: Four basic categories, but once we get the data, it seems like okay, the audience just do not smile at a lot in front of the TV.

Tim: People have done research on this and a lot of times, when you’re watching TV, your brain state actually changes a bit. You’re in this zone where you’re not – I don’t know, you are not thinking or emotionally different.

Yasushi: Yeah, even there are some people who do this kind of research in neuroscience, and I think one big advantage of our data is, we are taking the natural reaction in the natural environment.

Tim: This year, you did an analysis of the viewers of the Super Bowl in the US.

 

Yasushi: Yeah, we do, we do.

Tim: And you had a really interesting finding about how men and women watched the game differently.

Yasushi: Yeah, that should say our difference. Not only in US but Japan, we do find much bigger difference between men and women than that between different ages.

Tim: So, in this case, the women were actually more engaged with the Super Bowl than the men were, right?

Yasushi: Yeah, that’s what we are surprised.

Tim: Yeah, me too. Are women just more engaged with television in general or was it the Super Bowl in particular?

Yasushi: Not in general, not in general. So, that’s what surprised us a lot. It’s true, for Super Bowl commercials, sometimes you are surprised, okay, the Super Bowl is very – I’m not generist – but yeah, people over here are saying, okay –

Tim: I don’t think it’s sexist to assume that men would be more engaged with the Super Bowl than women.

Yasushi: But sometimes, you can find the TV commercials or halftime shows will focused more on women.

Tim: I mean, but the game itself, were women more engaged or just …

Yasushi: Yeah, itself, itself.

Tim: Does that work across culture too? For example, Japanese soccer games.

Yasushi: Oh, that is maybe interesting. We haven’t, but in Japanese soccer game, right? I don’t want to say an inaccurate saying, so we haven’t done such thing in Japanese soccer game, but I imagine, we can find a lot of interesting things.

Tim: And I think that would be data that advertisers would be fascinated to learn, and I assume you can also tell the difference between adults and children and sort of different ages? What are the different demographics you can distinguish?

Yasushi: We have one year by one year, so actually, we have this kind of demo data from all of our panels, so from four-year-old to I think the oldest is 87.

Tim: But I mean, you’re AI can’t tell a difference between a four and a five-year-old, right?

Yasushi: That’s why we do gather the pictures of our panelists.

Tim: Oh, I see. So, when someone signs up to be part of this program, they register, these are the people in my family and Taro is five and Rie is 10.

Yasushi: Yeah, so that’s what we can give this kind of data – men and women, and each age, and even, we got a lot of information from them. So, we know their salaries, their family conditions.

Tim: Do you analyze the interaction between the people who are watching? For example, if I have a bunch of my friends over to watch a sporting event and have a party, can you tell that we are engaged with each other and the TV?

 

Yasushi: In our lab, actually, we are doing this kind of research, but not in general yet, but that’s a very interesting thing because sports always is big event for TV as well.

Tim: I imagine that sports would be one of the most engaging types of TV content.

Yasushi: Yeah. It is, it is, so that’s why advertisers have tons of money not only in Japan but in the US.

Tim: In the broad picture, so not just sports but we are looking at dramas and comedies, do you find the engagement profiles are pretty similar in the US and Japan, or are they really different depending on the culture?

Yasushi: Actually, this question is a very good question but it’s kind of tricky to answer because for some programs, we can find the differences but it’s hard to say it’s general. Actually, during the development of our technology, we just do a kind of test and define, okay, the program which has the most negative emotion is The Walking Dead.

Tim: Okay, that’s not a big surprise.

Yasushi: Yes, yes! We are getting very confident now. We are not doing different thing.

Tim: I’m not really surprised by that result, but yeah.

Yasushi: It’s not, it’s not at all. It’s not at all. Yeah, we just increase our confidence to our technology. Okay, we are doing the right thing. We don’t take Walking Dead data in Japan but we suppose that should be a thing.

Tim: That would be really interesting because that makes sense. That is like the highly-engaged, highly-negative baseline, right?

Yasushi: Yeah, so negative sometimes is not a bad thing.

Tim: Yeah? I mean, you’d have to be careful what you do with that.

Yasushi: Differently, differently, differently. Differently, but interesting, that’s still a kind of area we have to deep dive in because from our advertisers, even they care, our commercial is engaged but is data positively engaged?

Tim: I mean, that would be incredibly valuable to advertisers. So, let’s take that strong negative engagement, that might be great to sell home security and terrible to sell diapers.

Yasushi: Yeah. Actually, we think there are a lot of unmet between this kind of combination, and if we can get this kind of data, we’re going to find a lot of good condition between commercials and the TV programs.

Tim: Do you track other behaviors? I mean, are you monitoring how people are moving around their house all day long? I mean, are there privacy concerns that families have?

Yasushi: Privacy concern, actually, we do not take a picture. Actually, we set our machine in the audience’s house and the machine runs our program to translate the picture they see to data. So, we only take the data.

Tim: Okay, so you discard the source video data and you just take the raw abstraction of it.

Yasushi: Yeah, differently.

Tim: Excellent. So, there is a stereotype that Americans move a lot and talk a lot with their hands and their body, and Japanese are really more controlled. You actually have data on this. Is that true?

Yasushi: That’s interesting. That’s interesting. Maybe it should be a next published ….  we can check data and publish it if that’s true.

Tim: Check the data and get back to her? Yeah, I’d be curious.

Yasushi: Yeah, but I don’t know if – how do you think, you have the multi-cultural backgrounds?

Tim: I think that the Americans would be more animated, they’d be more moving around more and Japanese would be more controlled. I have no data, that’s totally just an opinion, but I would love to see the data on that.

Yasushi: Yeah, I’d have to see the data too, but my hypothesis is, that’s not a big difference. Why I say that, because that’s actually result after we are seeing this kind of data several years and we show, usually, we are biased.

Tim: Okay, well, let’s make a bet: the loser buys a beer, alright? You’re on.

Yasushi: Okay. Let’s do that.

Tim: And let’s see what the data says.

Yasushi: Yeah, but why I say that biased, because if I ask, “Okay, do you laugh? Do you have a smile when you watch the TV?” I think most people will say, “Okay, I sometimes smile,” but our result is, it’s a very small percent, because you are watching a 60-minute program and remember how much you smile.

Tim: Maybe a few seconds here and there?

Yasushi: A few seconds, several times, but as a result, if you say one, so yes/no, you say, “Yes, I smile.” So, that’s a kind of bias.

Tim: Okay, let’s see what the data says, I’m really curious.

Yasushi: Yeah, but we found tons of this kind of bias.

Tim: Yeah, well, just like the sports example, right? I’m curious, how closely does this measure of engagement correlate to traditional viewership numbers? So, do you find that highly-rated shows are people are highly-engaged with?

Yasushi: Actually, our data is a different dimension. Even, you can have high viewership, lower quality. Of course, the high viewership, high-quality, but –

Tim: So, you find there’s no real correlation?

Yasushi: No real correlation, no real correlation.

Tim: Okay, that’s interesting. So, in some ways, this would be a huge opportunity for advertisers who want to look at niche shows that maybe not be popular, but the audience is highly engaged?

Yasushi: Yeah, they do, they do. Actually, this kind of program is people understand, okay, there’s a lot of value because I like this program a lot but there is no data to support it. Yes, for some niche programs, they do have stronger fans who pay attention from the beginning to the end. We quantifythis kind of new value.

Tim: That’s really cool. Let’s talk about the business side. So, the technology is cool. Business side is always tougher.

Yasushi: Usually.

Tim: Because I’ve spent most of my life doing B2B software sales of different types, and sales and marketing tools tend to be easier to sell because every company has pressure to increase sales, so they are motivated to try new things, but it’s harder to build long-term steady clients for the same reason, right?

Yasushi: Yeah, for the same reason.

Tim: So, what has been your experience at T-Vision on that?

Yasushi: I shared your opinion here. Actually, it’s tough especially for tourists because maybe we can find a few new tourists which look much cooler. Yeah, UI looks also cool, so easy to understand and easy to drive. Actually, we started this business because we think this data has very strong lifetime value.

Tim: It seems like it. It seems like the value of this kind of tool would really be recognized in the long term, right?

Yasushi: But you can imagine, in TV, the last two is the current viewership. It survives for 50 years.

Tim: That is true. I mean, TV is very, very traditional business all over the world, but I think TV is so different in Japan than it is in America.

Yasushi: Yeah, there is difference.

Tim: So, like both the rating system and most TV advertising, and even a lot of the commercial production is handled by Dentsu, by one company. Do you get customers who just kind of say, “No, I just want Dentsu to handle all this.”

Yasushi: They do, they do. So, that’s why I think we are not a tool compared with other marketing tools, it’s kind of dashboard, right? We have data. We are providing data. Of course, we can combine our data to each of those two.

Tim: So, I guess the challenge in part is you’re not just a tool. You’re requiring your customers to think in a way they haven’t before. So, it’s not just a new way to look at data, it’s a new kind of data.

Yasushi: Yeah, new kind of data.

Tim: That they just never thought about in terms of engagement.

Yasushi: Yeah, engagement. So, that’s a new axis.

Tim: Well, you’ve got a great client list. So, clearly, some clients kind of say, “I understand this. I think this new axis is useful,” and some clients are asking like, “Why do I need this new axis of information?”

Yasushi: Yeah, they do.

Tim: What’s the difference between the clients that get it and those that don’t?

Yasushi: I found the early adopters of our data, they are more digitalized.

Tim: Well, what do you mean?

Yasushi: Especially the marketing team, they can use digital data or they do have digital tools to help them do potential advertisement.

Tim: So, do you mean there are companies that are advertising digitally on the web and on social channels?

Yasushi: Yeah, that is our phenomena, and as a result, they are more data-driven.

Tim: I see, I see. So, just people who have a more analytical data-driven approach in general?

Yasushi: Yeah, in general, in general, and moves fast.

Tim: That does make sense, and the ones that have a less data-driven approach will be much more likely to just say, “No, I’m going to let Dentsu handle this for me.”

Yasushi: Yeah, I think how fast you can move in how data-driven you are should be a good metrics axis for us, and next, the data-driven but moving not so fast, some global brands, actually, they are very data-driven but they need to confirm every point, and once they confirm, they will be able to expand it globally so that’s a big deal, but it takes time,  but actually we are moving in a good way.

Tim: Okay, let’s take this data-driven idea to the next step. So, we’ve been talking about data-driven analysis for what shows and what times advertisers should show their commercials, but according to the data, what makes an engaging commercial? What features of the commercial do people engage with?

Yasushi: Actually, we did a lot of research on the sound of our voices. The character, the voice would gather more attention to that character itself. That appears that the engagement doesn’t change a lot, but once it speaks –

Tim: So, people are engaging with the sound more than the visuals.

Yasushi: Yeah, sometimes, in some cases.

Tim: Cool.

Yasushi: So, how to use the sound is very important. Yeah, actually, back to your question, you said similar thing or different thing between US and Japan, actually, we have one, similar thing is people pay more attention to weather news.

Tim: In Japan?

Yasushi: In both, US and – you can imagine. In the morning, people are busy to prepare to go to the office but sometimes, they just keep the TVs on. When weather news turns on, they will come back in front of the TV and pay attention to the weather. People just do not sit in front of the TV in the morning. It means if you buy morning time slot, it’s maybe better to use sound to catch people back to the TV.

Tim: So, do you have requests to do consulting for how to design effective and engaging commercials?

Yasushi: Oh, we do, we do, we get a lot of this kind of inquiry.

Tim: I bet the creative agencies just love that.

Yasushi: They do, they do. Actually, the good creator likes this kind of data. They do not think data is the opposite side to their creativity. They are confident that their creativity can get the number to prove they are creative. That is a good creator where they have this confidence, and we actually proved those examples.

Tim: That makes sense, I guess it depends on the type of guidance you are giving. So, information like, hey, voices, the first time you hear them is incredibly engaging, is some kind of input that people could use very creatively, and you’re not telling them, “No, no, don’t use red.”

Yasushi: Yeah.

Tim: Alright.

Yasushi: To be honest, we found sometimes do not as well.

Tim: What are some don’ts?

Yasushi: Too dark because if you use set the creativity too dark and you keep that for several seconds, you will lose somebody because they will not pay attention to too dark series, it’s a commercial. It’s not the critical part of the program.

Tim: And it takes effort to look at what’s happening in a dark – we were talking before about how TV is one of the oldest and most traditional not only types of media but the way it’s run is still very traditional, when you contrast broadcast with online advertising, so online advertising, you can determine not only how many people saw it, how many people clicked on it, but directly, how much sales this campaign led to. You can track that very effectively. The TV, traditionally, we’ve been able to measure how many people saw it. You’re sort of taking it to the next level and saying, okay, how many people are engaging? How many people are clicking on it, basically? Do you think we will ever get to the next stage to be able to say, okay, these sales are driven by this TV commercial?

Yasushi: Yeah, yeah, that’s a very good question. Actually, that’s what a lot of people want to do. Actually, my answer is, yes, we can do it if we get more data and reliable data in this area], and our data will be actually kind of the center of that kind of combination of data, but in your question, I found that another true interesting thing, because you said, okay, TV commercial is not very connected to sales compared with digital TV. Even today, people watch YouTube on TV. Of course, you can have ads, right? If you watch YouTube on TV, is that TV ads or is that digital ads?

Tim: That’s a good question. You’re right, I guess it all depends on how you engage with it, right? If you sit back and just watch it, it’s very much a TV ad. If you pull out your controller, a keyboard, and click on it, then it’s acting like a digital ad.

Yasushi: Digital, yeah. Even, you can create, if you have an android TV, you can click on a lot of things in your YouTube TV, right?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point.

Yasushi: Yeah, so sometimes, people will say TV is kind of a combination.

Tim: You know, I guess you are right, even on the technology level, as more and more TV content is delivered by cable rather than broadcast, so cable can make that digital transition really easily.

Yasushi: Yes, in the opposite, Netflix, people will think that’s a digital media but I’m sure 60% of Netflix session is happening on TV. So, is Netflix a TV media? Maybe.

Tim: Maybe. It’s not as clear as it seems.

Yasushi: Yeah, so TV is kind of a combination. We say, okay, ABC, NBS, CBS is TV. We say, okay, this is Sony’s TV, Samsung’s  TV. We say, okay, this is cable TV.

Tim: I guess there is a difference between the broadcast media and the cable or interne- delivered, but yeah, the lines are a lot blurrier than they seem. You mentioned, was there a second point you wanted to me?

Yasushi: Oh, the second point is, in digital, it happened, sometimes, first of all, we check the impression, then CPA. The result is, when you increase your efficiency, like ROI, the total amount, total reach you can get is decreasing. So, that’s why digital media, it’s more customized and it’s automatic.

Tim: That’s true, I guess it’s that difference between direct response advertising and brand advertising. They both have their place.

Yasushi: Yeah, they both have a place, right? That’s why P&G and Unilever just cut 40% of their additional budget last year because they think, okay, they are selling their mass product, it’s more efficient in some ways that they cannot reach the real mass because it’s customized.

Tim: Yeah, and I guess there are some truly brand-driven products like, let’s say Coca-Cola, they are not trying to get a sale directly from the ad, but if you can say, okay, this ad is highly engaging and having a positive response, that’s exactly the feedback they need, right?

Yasushi: Yes, differently.

Tim: Listen, Yasushi, before we wrap up, I want to ask you what I call my ‘Magic Wand’ question and that is if I gave you a magic wand and I told you, you could change one thing about Japan, anything at all – the education system, the way people think about risk, the legal system, anything at all, to make things better for startups in Japan, what would you change?

Yasushi: Maybe people’s thoughts about risk because I do not think startup has a lot of risk at all.

Tim: So, would you use your magic want to make people take more risks or just think differently about what risk is? What would you do?

Yasushi: Maybe to ask them to take more risk.

Tim: You just mentioned that starting a startup is not that risky.

Yasushi: Yeah, it’s not.

Tim: Most Japanese consider starting a startup very risky. So, why is there that gap?

Yasushi: That’s because, this is a very personal thing, but that because my wife is doctor. Actually, she is a doctor for pregnant, so every day, I go back home and meet her, and I will say, “Okay, I have hard times in my company, a lot of hard things.” So, a hard thing to me, so probably worked late. She would say, “Okay, today, the new baby, the heartbeat just stopped, so I worked hard to get it recovered,” and I just say, “Okay, good job. Compared with you, I do not think I make a lot of tough things today.”

Tim: Okay, yup, that’s fair. I’d say being a doctor is a whole lot more stressful than being a startup founder.

Yasushi: Yeah, no one dies.

Tim: That’s true.

Yasushi: Although sometimes, it’s a hard time but they will find their next career. I don’t think they can not find –

Tim: But I think a number of people who want to be doctors is also really small. That’s a small dedicated group of people, but what about the general population who would normally just go work for a big company?

Yasushi: But if I want to change one thing, would I change the result? It’s not a big risk. It’s a fear but you can recover. If somebody dies, if my wife did not do right stuff to the baby, it’s not recoverable. That’s true risk. So, you have to work hard to make that not happen, right?

Tim: So, you’d use the magic wand not so much to change reality but just to change the way people perceive the reality? That people would have a better perspective that like, look, this isn’t really that big a deal.

Yasushi: Yeah, I think so, because people will say, okay, Japanese people do not take more risk than other countries. Maybe for some statistics, it’s true but the reality doesn’t change a lot. Okay, sometimes, hard things just come.

Tim: I think you’re right. There’s definitely this perception, people think the risk is much, much bigger than it is, but compared to most other countries, compared to US, compared to Europe, the risk is real, or at least it used to be real. So, for example, 20 years ago when I started my first company here, if a startup founder failed, it was really hard for him to get a new job. It was really hard for him to get hired by another company. Do you see those attitudes changing now in Japan?

Yasushi: It’s changing, it’s changing. That’s not only for startups. I think the whole society has changed the mind. My example, I quit my first job. It was McKinsey as a consultant 10 years ago, nine years ago, and at that time, my headhunter told me that usually, Japanese company accepts people change their jobs no more than three times. The magic number is three. So, you are using the first card of all of the three.

Tim: You have two left for your entire life.

Yasushi: Yeah, I feel that wow, should I quit McKinsey? Like that. Be careful about it, you are using the first one, but now, they don’t say that because nobody has three. Of course, if you have tried 10 or 15 jobs –

Tim: Yeah, if you’ve had six jobs in the last two years, that’s kind of –

Yasushi: That’s kind of special, alright? That’s it, that’s everywhere, but nobody say the maximum is three times.

Tim: And you see, that’s happening even inside Japanese companies.

Yasushi: Inside Japanese companies, because they wouldn’t change. If they want to change, I don’t think, especially the people in Japanese company don’t want to change. They want to change. All of my clients – let me rephrase – most of my clients want to change because they don’t think the current situation is the best situation and they want to grow, they want to change.

Tim: Well, I think that particularly in large Japanese companies, that is a huge and important change because before, if you work for Toyota, or in your case, Recruit or Tepco, you were surrounded by other people who had been working in that company for 20 years, and it was that company’s culture and that’s what you did, but if more and more people are changing mid-career, that means it’s going to be more merit-based and more performance-based. That’s how change happens.

Yasushi: Yeah, that’s how change happens. I think it starts in small portions, but the small portions are moving like snowball. They influenced the sound in people and I think we are, not they are, we are just changing, but if I can do something to accelerate the change, I would like to do.

Tim: You and me both. I think that’s great. Well, listen, Yasushi, thanks so much for sitting down with me.

Yasushi: Thank you, Tim, it’s my pleasure, and it’s a very happy time to talk with you.

And we’re back.

T-Vision Insights is a genuinely innovative company with a technology that could change the way video ads are made and distributed, but as Yasushi explains, selling something that is genuinely innovative is hard.

Selling improvements or new dashboards is pretty easy, that just lets people do their jobs a bit better, but getting people to adopt a new behavior to consider not just a new view of the data but to include an entirely new kind of data into their decision-making process, well, that’s hard, and from my own sales experience, I think the difficulty comes not because the prospects don’t see the advantage to saying yes, it’s that they don’t see any disadvantages in saying no.

There is never any harm to your career for not using a tool if none of your competitors are using it either, but that’s starting to change, and Yasushi and T-Vision are building up an impressive list of global brands, and with the ongoing conversions of online, cable, and broadcast video, T-Vision Insights might well become the Nielsen ratings of this generation.

If you want to talk some more about how we watch TV or how T-Vision watches you watch TV, come by www.disruptingjapan.com/show127 and let’s talk about it. Also, please follow Disrupting Japan on Twitter and Facebook, and even during our LinkedIn group. If you want to ask a question there, I guarantee you, I will respond.

Oh, and by the way, the big Disrupting Japan fourth anniversary party and live podcast will be happening on September 13 at Super Deluxe in Roppongi. We’ll have Paul Chapman, CEO of Money Tree, Jay Winder, CEO of MakeLeaps, and Casey Wahl, CEO of Wahl & Case talking about how to start to grow a business as a foreigner in Japan. These are three successful foreign entrepreneurs who took three very different paths to growing the company here. So, I guarantee you, it’s going to be a great discussion, and of course, a great deal of wine, beer, and conversation will flow after the show. You really want to be there, so check out www.disruptingjapan.com or our LinkedIn or Facebook groups for more details. I hope to see you there.

But most of all, thanks for listening and thank you for letting people interested in Japanese startups know about the show.

I’m Tim Romero, and thanks for listening to Disrupting Japan.