Since its founding, Casio Computer Co., Ltd. has consistently delivered new value to the market. Recently, through digital transformation, it started embracing new marketing initiatives that rely on more than just the power of its products. Working with Adobe, Casio undertook a complete redesign of its website, which has led to an increase in product information page views and sales across the e-commerce site. The G-SHOCK customization service, which started in 2021, plays a major role in acquiring new customers.

Redesigning the websites to put users first

Since producing the world’s first compact all-electric calculator in 1957, Casio has brought many innovative products to market. Its strength lies in creating something from nothing. The watch brand G-SHOCK, which is known around the world, is a product born from this strength of innovation.

At the time, watches were fragile precision instruments, but development began from the simple desire to create a watch that would not break if dropped. In 1983, Casio released the first model ― the DW-5000C ― where the casing is covered in urethane and core modules are supported at points within a hollow structure.

The American market was the first to embrace the G-SHOCK, first becoming popular with physically active consumers such as firefighters and skateboarders, it soon became a fashion statement. It later gained popularity in Japan in the 1990s. People in their forties will fondly remember the sudden rise of the G-SHOCK, and by 2017, the total number of G-SHOCK units shipped worldwide exceeded 100 million.

Casio has pioneered new markets by delivering products that bring new value to consumers. Overseas markets account for 70% to 80% of its sales by region. Having established itself as a global company — and overseas marketing accounting for 70-80% of its sales — Casio needed to re-evaluate its traditional marketing strategy focused solely on product capabilities.

“We have a diverse lineup of products ranging from scientific calculators — used by every science student — to electronic musical instruments that people of all ages can enjoy,” says Mr. Hironori Ishizuki, Senior General Manager of the Digital Division at Casio. “There is no doubt that our strength lies in our product capabilities, but in today's world with increased digitalization and overwhelming amounts of information, it has become difficult for us to reach consumers just based on the strength of our products. We shifted our focus to the user and started to think about what kind of experience we can provide.”

To improve the customer experience, Casio undertook a complete overhaul of its website.

“The president and CEO has long advocated the importance of a user-first strategy, and he pointed out many issues with the website,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “We decided to renew the website as it is the first step in Casio’s digital experience. At the time, the website was organized based on our needs as a manufacturer. This made it difficult for site visitors, who needed to drill down through complex hierarchies to reach the information they were looking for.”

“We didn’t have a good grasp on information about users of the G-SHOCK series,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “Therefore, when we rebuilt the website, we implemented mechanisms that would allow us to gain more insights into users, such as encouraging user registration at the time of product purchase or using first-party cookies to understand user behavior.”

Global expansion with less effort

The biggest challenge that Casio faced when rebuilding its website was strengthening its global content. Technical specifications are very important for electronic products, but it was not uncommon for this essential information to be omitted when translating the pages to other languages.

“While the Japanese site covers all the necessary information, each region was in charge of managing the local site. So, when you looked at the pages globally, information on the product page would be different from the Japanese site,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “There was also a question of how we should show content such as how to use products or product recommendations for different lifestyles. We had separate corporate sites, brand sites, and e-commerce sites, so there was a structural issue where brand and product content would be dotted across sites.”

Mr. Ishizuki came across Adobe Experience Cloud while talking with vendors.

“We could eliminate the hierarchical structure issues by rethinking the site structure, but we still needed a new mechanism to provide optimal content to users,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “Using Adobe Experience Manager Sites and Assets as our content management system (CMS) and digital asset management (DAM) system, we could centralize management of global content. When I heard that, I adopted it without hesitation.”

Casio’s website restructuring took place in just ten months.

“In a typical website rebuild, we might collect requests and concerns from stakeholder departments and partners, and then look for common solutions to all the issues,” explains Mr. Ishizuki. “This could have taken three years. Instead, we drew up a blueprint for the entire website around the idea of optimizing the customer experience and maximizing the value of the experience. Then we looked for a way to turn that blueprint into reality. I believe this way of thinking about the rebuild led to great results.”

Product information on the Japanese site and global site can be managed centrally.

Capturing realistic texture online

The new site was launched in March 2021 to optimize the customer experience on the website. Casio’s next goal was to acquire new customers through its website. To achieve this goal, Casio implemented the customization service “MY G-SHOCK”, which allows users to choose from 1.9 million combinations to create their own G-SHOCK watch.

“When looking at new customer acquisitions, we focused on audiences that previously demonstrated less interest in wristwatches, such as young people and women,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “We concentrated on creating an experience where they would enjoy just visiting the website. ‘MY G-SHOCK’ was born from this idea. Since the launch of this service, the number of buyers and new ID registrants have increased among young people and women, so I believe that we have achieved our goal.”

“MY G-SHOCK” is built upon products such as the dynamic media capabilities with Adobe Experience Manager Assets and the 3D visualization tools in Adobe Substance 3D Collection.

“Made-to-order wristwatches are nothing new, and we could achieve it by creating a system to order parts individually,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “But we needed to do it in a way that would make it a compelling service to acquire new customers. With ‘MY G-SHOCK’, we wanted to create an experience where customers can actually pick up parts and combine them digitally. The service would need to be in 3D, and we decided to wait and see if we could express textures in the level of detail that we wanted before starting the service. After seeing the results using dynamic media to instantly change the overall image upon changing a part and the expressive power of Adobe Substance 3D, which beautifully reproduces the texture of parts, I was convinced that this could work.”

Collaboration with the Adobe Global Delivery Center (Adobe GDC) was an essential part of bringing “MY G-SHOCK” to life. Currently, the same team is leading the rebuild of the global e-commerce site.

“We decided that we would need to use offshore resources to achieve both global expansion and strict governance,” says Mr.Ishizuki. “The first step was to involve Adobe GDC in building the ‘MY G-SHOCK’ site. I was very impressed with the artistic quality, which is key to the project. It is also thanks to Adobe GDC that we were able to launch on schedule in a limited period of time. I am very grateful for their dedication.”

The Casio website also uses many integrated Adobe products, including Adobe Commerce, which links the content pages with the e-commerce site; Adobe Analytics, which enables analysis of individual user behavior; and Adobe Target, which optimizes personalization based on that data.

By using the Adobe Substance 3D Collection, the entire image is instantly replaced when a part is selected, and the texture of each part is faithfully reproduced in 3D.

Optimizing the customer experience

By rebuilding the website using Adobe Experience Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Adobe Substance 3D Collection, Casio saw an increase in sales on the e-commerce site. For the Japanese site, sales increased significantly compared to the previous year after transitioning to the new site.

Casio also saw an increase in the number of views of the product information page — an important KPI for the company. In the United States, which accounts for the largest percentage of sales through the direct sales e-commerce site, the average number of product information pages viewed by site visitors increased from 2.3 pages to 2.8 pages.

In-cart purchase conversion rates also increased. The rate of customers adding products to their cart and actually completing a purchase increased about 1.4 times after the site renewal.

“By working with Adobe to simplify the flow through checkout from a UI and UX perspective, we were able to improve site behavior and rebuild the site so that users would be less likely to leave,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “The fact that we could provide detailed product information in a unified manner around the world led to significant increase in sales.”

Mr. Ishizuki also says that the faithful product representation using the Adobe Substance 3D Collection helped achieve the CMF (Color Material Finish) design discipline that Casio has been promoting in recent years.

Acquiring more new customers

Mr. Ishizuki envisions two main directions for the future of the website. The first is to create a site that existing customers will want to visit, and the second is to expand the user population.

“We can encourage existing customers to visit by further optimizing the site experience and implementing one-to-one marketing,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “Expanding the user base is an issue that should be handled differently according to local markets.”

Mr. Ishizuki also points to the similarities in the corporate cultures between Casio and Adobe as a reason for this success.

“It’s not about the product or the website — the customer experience is everything,” says Mr. Ishizuki. “Many times while working on the website renewal, I felt an affinity for Adobe’s philosophy of putting the customer experience first. Adobe also helped us many times by catching the problems that we threw at them and doing their best to meet the challenge. Likewise, Casio is a company that has grown by continuing to provide users with unprecedented value, and we achieved this by taking on challenges that people say cannot be done. I believe that it is because Casio and Adobe share the same values of facing challenges head on and prioritizing customer experience that we achieved the global website rebuild in just 10 months.”

*The posted information is current as of July 2022.

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