Sample Lab

Marketers will be particularly interested in this Wall Street Journal article about a first-of-its-kind "marketing cafe" that has opened in Japan. Sample Lab Ltd. operates this cafe in Tokyo, targeting women in their 20s and 30s. The women have an opportunity to earn tokens based on the amount of food or drink they purchase. Then, they can redeem those tokens for samples of new products about which marketers would like to garner customer feedback and launch effectively into the marketplace. It will be interesting to see if this concept succeeds in Japan, and if it spreads to other countries.