Alien-Eye Inc. » Latest News

Mobotap Inc: New Partner

content_editor — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:21:39 +0000

We are delighted to announce a new partnership with MoboTap Inc, a SanFrancisco based smart-phone app company responsible for the massively popular Dolphin Browser (iPhone, iPad & Android). Dolphin was the first mobile browser to make use of gesture controls to improve usability on touch screen devices. We have kicked off with running PR and influencer programs in Japan and localizing their web presence and hopefully can continue to help them grow their Japanese user base.

Canadian Solar Japan: Brochure & POP

content_editor — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:17:25 +0000

Continuing our productive partnership with Canadian Solar Japan, which began with renewing their web presence (see their website here), we have taken their newly localized brand identity and messaging strategy to other key communication channels. In particular we have developed a POP display solution for electronic chain stores like BIC camera, as well as a new and improved product brochure. We are also currently working on a very cool new digital solution for them, so watch out for that in the New Year.

Alien-Eye University

content_editor — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:51:15 +0000

Back by popular demand, we are starting our second semester of “Alien-Eye University”. The experimental first semester took place during the Sping ~ Summer this year, and was attended by our team of strategists and analysts. Believing that one of the best ways to learn is to teach, the course is run by our own “Chief Strategist” James, with the aim of further developing Alien-Eye’s innovative approach to strategic planning.

The second term will run for 8 weeks until the end of the year and according to James, is going to be much more ‘hard-core’ than the first semester!

Cannondale turns up for the Japan Cup

content_editor — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 06:38:19 +0000

The Japan Cup is the biggest stage on the Japanese road racing season. We helped ensure that the Cannondale brand made a big impression at the event, supporting various aspects of their presence, including organizing the coolest after party in town which was attended by an unexpectedly large number of journalists. A highlight of the whole weekend in Tochigi was the participation of the 8-man European Pro Race team that Cannondale sponsors, called Liquigas-Cannondale, including their star rider Ivan Basso riding Cannondale’s hero bike EVO.
The event was also a big success for the Konoya University team that Cannondale supplies with bikes, with Genki Yamamoto 3rd in Open Men, Minami Uwano 2nd in Open Women & Hayato Yoshida winner of the sprint prize as part of the Japan National Team. In addition, at the climactic party event Cannondale, together with Space Zeropoint Racing, announced the launch of a Japanese pro-race team, that will compete from next spring aiming to breed a generation of young riders who can compete on the World stage.

Thank you Steve Jobs

content_editor — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:08:06 +0000

Today all of us at Alien-Eye were very sad to hear of the loss of Steve Jobs.The user-centric innovation he lead at Apple has created so much more opportunity to express ourselves through technology, both in our daily lives, as well as in our professional work, and for this we feel we owe him a debt of thanks. As an individual, we admired his passion, his creativity and his work ethic, which meant it was always his products that did the talking. Long may we remain inspired by his work.
From everyone here, rest in peace.

New Partnership: Canadian Solar Japan

ae_root — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 01:27:38 +0000

We are very excited to be working with Canadian Solar, a global leader in solar energy. They perceive a big opportunity to empower Japanese home and building owners to produce their own electricity with best-in-class technology at an affordable price, and so help transform Japan’s energy landscape. They chose Alien-Eye to partner with them across their core communication channels to achieve ambitious growth targets, starting with their corporate home page, which includes both B2C and B2B product education. Exciting new projects are also in the pipeline for retail and agency channels, so watch out for those coming soon. Canadian Solar Home Page

Dyson : Sir James Interview

content_editor — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:58:38 +0000

Dyson launched their new revolutionary vacuum cleaner, the DC36, aka “The Ball” at a beautifully staged event at the National Museum in Ueno. So important is the Japanese market to Dyson, with its tech-savvy and design conscious home-owners, that Sir James Dyson himself attended the event. They are smart enough to grasp the importance of social media in their communications model to allow our own James (Hollow – CEO) to interview Sir James for 20mins about Dyson’s commitment to engineering and product design excellence for Japanese homes. We edited the event and interview footage into promotional movies for social media – do check them out here.

New Client: Dyson

ae_root — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 02:31:05 +0000

Alien-Eye has an exciting new client in Dyson – the British engineering company famous for excellence and innovation.
We’re working with Dyson Japan on a number of cool web projects, so keep tuned in and we’ll let you know more about release dates.

Aratana Laboratory: Switcheroo

ae_root — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 09:27:24 +0000

We recently created a product name for an exciting new social swapping app. The moniker we came up with was ‘Switcheroo’, which conveys the fun experience of trading pretty much anything, and we’re thinking it should be sticky enough to attract a few positive mentions. Check out the promo page : http://beta.switcheroo.it/

Crowsnest Branding and Identity Design

ae_root — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:07:08 +0000

Alien-Eye was asked to help with naming and identity creation for an exciting new social service which we christened Crowsnest. Still running in beta, Crowsnest is a portal that allows aggregation from multiple social sites, and has some very astute algorithms that help users do all sorts of previously unthinkable web tricks. We’re looking forward to Crowsnest’s progress. crowsnest.tv

New Partner: iNAGO

ae_root — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:23:44 +0000

iNAGO has been a pioneer in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) industry for over 10 years and continues to be laser-focused on building innovative solutions that redefine the relationship between humans and machines.
As iNAGO decided to shift focus from B2B to a B2C product with the launch of ‘netpeople:a’ on Samsung’s smart phone platform, Alien-Eye was engaged to mastermind the launch communications. So far we have been busy recreating their communications strategy for a B2C context, defining their core technology and product proposition, and promoting it through a bespoke media relations strategy and promotional video

The Le Creuset Japon Community Site is public!

ae_root — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:46:28 +0000

Le Creuset has now extended their Japanese social media reach even farther! Hot on the heels of getting onto Twitter and making the move to YouTube, Le Creuset Japon’s new social site, which was designed and produced by Alien-Eye, has gone public. The site, which is built around the concept of ‘bringing friends and family together around the dinner table’, has an incredible amount of content, including almost 100 recipes, videos for Le Creuset usage hints and recipes, culinary articles and quizzes that any foodie can enjoy.

Check out the Le Creuset SNS site!

Moage: Gift Catalog Published!

ae_root — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 10:20:31 +0000

‘Moage’, a brilliant wedding gift catalog, which Alien-Eye planned and produced, has been published! The catalog which targets newly weds in their late twenties, has a beautiful, lush design and it’s had a great reception since being published. Alien-Eye also designed the Moage website, so we’ve exerted a lot of influence on the brand this season.

Take a look at the Moage site, the Bridal Gift Book and the Gift Catalog.

New Partner: The British Council in Japan

ae_root — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:54:01 +0000

The British Council is an international educational & cultural exchange quango with a history extending back to 1934. We’re happy to announce that Alien-Eye is now making creative contents to promote the British Council Japan’s activities. Our goal is for the new creative to take the British Council Japan into uncharted territories!

Le Creuset Japon now on YouTube

ae_root — Tue, 17 May 2011 04:30:58 +0000

Le Creuset Japon’s handsome new YouTube page went live today. We’ve been busily creating media for the new YouTube presence to become a cornerstone of several other juicy social innovations we are cooking up for Le Creuset. Expect to see several videos going live over the next couple of weeks (and expect to leave with an appetite).
Le Creuset Japon on YouTube.

iKnow! The New Generation of iPhone Apps

ae_root — Fri, 13 May 2011 06:27:23 +0000

In April the new series of English learning apps we created for Cerego were launched to the app store. Under the new (old?) brand of ‘iKnow!’, the apps come with a completely original UI look-and-feel, original quiz interactions as well as a revamped core learning drill. Aiming at a broad, “casual learning” market, and at an accessible price point, we have high expectations for their commercial performance! Available now at the iTunes Store.

Cannondale Picture of the Day

ae_root — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:15:54 +0000

Alien-Eye has begun posting daily highlight pictures to the Cannondale Japan site for one of the so-called “big three” road races – the Giro’d'Italia. Journalists at the race upload the very best scenes of the Liquigas/ Cannondale Team daily, Alien-Eye then creates posts with progress updates so that everyone, no matter how much they’re into cycling, can enjoy the Giro’d'Italia.

Cannondale’s Youtube Page passes 100,000 views

ae_root — Fri, 13 May 2011 02:26:10 +0000

A little over a year since it’s launch, Cannondale’s Youtube page today passed 100,000 views. The documentary and maintenance videos we sculpted to fill the social media void in the Japanese cycle scene have found quite a niche for themselves, and the organic growth rate has tripled in the last quarter. Perhaps most impressive are the audience attention ratings, which surpass 75% for all the videos we created. Feedback from Cannondale’s customers has ranged from enthusiastic to ecstatic. Visit Cannondale Japan on YouTube.

Hanami in Nakameguro!

ae_root — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 03:32:30 +0000

Sakura is in full bloom in Nakameguro! We had a quiet but nevertheless enjoyable hanami party to mark the passing of a particularly grim winter for Japan, and are up for doing our bit to kick-start a new era.

Northern Japan Earthquake

ae_root — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:15:31 +0000

Like everyone else in Japan we are in a state of shock following the Earthquakes and Tsunami. Our sympathy and compassion goes out to all of those caught up in the tragic events in North East Honshu. It feels like a time for everyone in Japan to unite and pull through this together.

JP New Tech

ae_root — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:26:48 +0000

Our CEO is part of a team of movers and shakers in the tech scene who have kick-started a new networking event called JP New Tech. Modeled on the renowned San Francisco event of a similar name, the event aims to bring together the cream of Japan’s developer and web-design talent, forging new relationships from which new products and business can flourish. The launch event took place in February, and was recorded on the event website by CEO James here. The first official event will be on April Fools day – information here

The Cannondale/ Kanoya relationship goes from strength to strength

ae_root — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 06:58:30 +0000

To continue documenting Cannondale’s relationship with Kanoya Athletic Unversity in Kagoshima-ken, Alien-Eye paid a visit to the campus and shot some cool footage on the peaceful, scenic country roads of Kagoshima. The team has achieved some great successes in the past year with Genki Yamamoto winning major races in Hiroshima & Hokkaido, & Kohei Uchima moving straight from graduation into a spot on a major Italian cycle team.

Aliens – New & future

ae_root — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 07:19:04 +0000

2010 saw 5 new brilliant aliens join the team, and we are looking to create more new roles. The first job of any new alien is to design their new alien character, that is then used on their meishi and other places in the alien-verse. You can see the line up and the roles we are currently looking to fill on our ‘become an alien’ page.
Become An Alien

Welcome to a new partner: Shaddy

ae_root — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 03:30:02 +0000

Shaddy is one of Japan’s leading gift catalogue retailers, having been a pioneer of this industry from its foundation more than 70 years ago. In recent years however, competition has grown stronger and Shaddy was smart enough to realize that innovation was required, bringing Alien-Eye in to redesign on their leading bridal catalogue, as well as lead a brand new e-commerce website. With tight launch dates in the New Year looks like we will not be putting our feet up for Chrimbo!

myGengo turns 2

ae_root — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 02:16:55 +0000

myGengo, (www.mygengo.com) the start up online translation platform that we have been partnering with since June, celebrated its 2nd birthday on December 18th in fine style. Of course we attended (until the death), and were joined by numerous notables, such as internationally renowned start-up investor Dave McClure (www.500startups.com @davemcclure), who backs both myGengo and another one of our family – Aqush, whose CEO Russ Cummer was also there letting his hair down. Robert Goldberg, CEO of social gaming giant Zynga (FarmVille, Mafia Wars…) in Japan was also on good form as usual. Congratulations myGengo – on and upwards!

Our Smart.fm iPhone app is a Top Grosser!

ae_root — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:09:46 +0000

Our app is at #5 in Top Grossing Apps! The iPhone apps we designed and built for Cerego’s Smart.fm English Learning brand were released originally in the Spring. Since then we have had lots of user feedback and numerous improved versions have been pushed out, improving usability, stability and ultimately user satisfaction. Congrats to the team at Cerego who have done a great job in building their business on the iTunesStore!

Smart.fm ‘iPhone app’

HTML5 programming for iTunes

ae_root — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 10:00:10 +0000

Some people are saying that the future of the web will be written in HTML5. Other say that HTML5 will revolutionalize mobile. There are those that say that in going the HTML5 way, the web is losing the very thing that makes it so cool… Our jury is still out, but either way, we can now do HTML5! Although we have been playing with it for a while, iTunes have given us cause to really get our teeth into it for a still-top-secret iPad project. Hopefully we can reveal more in the near future…

iTunes’ 80KIDZ Twitter Lottery

ae_root — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 01:24:17 +0000

Last Friday iTunes Japan ran the biggest campaign to date on the Twitter Flash Campaign platform we developed with them. Our Lottery Engine technology distributed 50,000 codes in a campaign that, having kept electronic band 80Kidz’s fans on tenterhooks all day, was finally launched at 10pm. The song codes can be used to download a track from 80kidz new album ‘Weekend Warrior’.

Twitter Lottery Engine Case Study

Xerox: Trailmeme Promo

ae_root — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 06:57:33 +0000

Alien-Eye has fashioned a promo video for Xerox’s new Trailmeme project. The software creates a customized record of searches, and gives them structure so that friends and colleagues can follow our lead or learn about a new subject using the web as a guided learning experience. Trails -visual maps of Web content – allow users to create and publish creative and personalized paths through digital content to tell a story. Readers can “walk” trails in intuitive ways, using a combination of a map-like big-picture view and a reading interface with familiar page-turning controls.
Learn more about Trailmeme at the official Xerox site, and check out our video on YouTube.

IBM Anketo-kun iPhone app launched

ae_root — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:12:00 +0000

On August 4th our latest iPhone app was approved by Apple and released on the iTunesStore, reaching #3 on the Productivity apps ranking, receiving many positive reviews from users and enjoying 10’000s of DLs to date. It was made as part of a branding and education campaign for IBM and their Lotus Live suite of products.
The concept of the app is to allow office workers to create their own simple surveys and questionnaires and then share them with their colleagues and friends. The surveys can be about anything from work related topics, where to go for the company bounen-kai, or based on their personal hobbies and interests.

Le Creuset Japon Partnership

ae_root — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:10:47 +0000

We are currently working hard on an ambitious new project for Le Creuset Japon. Combining a large chunk of our expertise in each of our 3 core disciplines: Strategy, Technology and Creative, it represents a landmark project for us, and signals the start of what we hope will be a long and fruitful partnership with this very special brand.
The project aims to establish a content and user-data-driven platform, underpinning lifestyle engagement through a number of device channels, including web, mobile, iPhone & iPad. We will also be running the curation of these channels, creating content and integrating social media activities.

myGengo in Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun

ae_root — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:14:39 +0000

As featured in a previous news item earlier in the summer, we began working as PR partner for myGengo from June 1st. Since then we have been working hard on developing their communication strategy for the rest of the year, starting with finalizing their media kit and pushing out the first in a series of compelling press releases.
We have seen some excellent results already, including this ‘page 3 spread’ in NIkkei Sangyo. The article went into depth about myGengo’s unique service offering and how businesses can benefit from the implicit resource and cost efficiencies it provides. With a daily circulation of 200,000+ and targeting CEOs and CFOs, the article has reached a key target for myGengo’s business growth.

Another Innovation for iTunes!

ae_root — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:53:55 +0000

Over the weekend, Alien-Eye rolled out yet another technology innovation for iTunes Japan – A live chart countdown web app for iTunes’ retail partners.
The app contains countdowns for music and iPhone apps, iTunes Card promotions, and an intro video for iTunes store novices. We’ve started out at Yamada Denki’s Japan Headquarters in Ikebukuro, and with the degree of positive response so far, we should be expanding across other major retail partners soon. If you’re in the neighborhood go the 4th floor Apple Corner and take a look.

Our Siri App Promo is Live

ae_root — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:40:52 +0000

The intro video we made for Siri’s personal assistant iPhone App is live in version 3.1! Siri, who have been getting some serious industry buzz after their acquisition by Apple, had Alien-Eye script and execute a very cool animation to be played within the app on start up. They liked it so much that it is embedded into the features menu so that it can be replayed to your heart’s content.
It’s free, so there’s no reason not to check it out at this iTunes Store USA link.

Siri Promo Case Study

Cannondale’s Kanoya University Team 1st & 3rd in All-Japan Amateur Race!!

ae_root — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 03:28:06 +0000

Cannondale’s partner team, Kanoya Athletic University, came 1st & 3rd in in the All-Japan Amateur Cycle Race in Hiroshima over the weekend. The event also marked the beginning of Alien-Eye’s documenting of the Cannondale/ Kanoya Athletic University partnership. You can check out the documentary on the Cannondale YouTube page http://bit.ly/d4aHqN . Through this partnership, Cannondale are supporting young Japanese cyclists with the goal of them achieving a place in the LiquiGas Pro Team.
Beginning this year, Cannondale have provided the Kanoya University Cycling team with state of the art cycles – Super Sixes for the men, and Synapses for the women. Genki Yamamoto, the winner of the event praised the light, rigid Cannondale Super Six frame for giving him extra strength in the race.
Kanoya Athletic University are definitely the cycling team to watch for in 2010! (Results: 1st Genki Yamamoto (Kanoya Athletic University), 2nd Hiroyuki Harakawa (Shonan Belmare University), 3rd Masanori Noguchi (Kanoya Athletic University))

Welcome to the family myGengo

ae_root — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 06:24:29 +0000

As of June 1st we welcomed myGengo to our family! We will be supporting this ambitious start up with strategy and PR implementation. Exciting stuff!

myGengo is quite simply the best and innovative online translation tool out there. Started in Tokyo by Rob Laing & Matt Romaine, it has secured funding from some notable angels such as Dave McClure and Akimitsu Sano, the founder and CEO ofCookpad, among others. While crowd sourced translation services are not unique, myGengo’s API service is, allowing their translation service to be integrated with a content management system across the internet and corporate intranets.
http://mygengo.com/