When entering new markets, global businesses must overcome cultural differences and effectively communicate their product/services to their customers, catering to the local audiences. Localization, adapting your contents, products, and services​​ to specific local markets, is an essential facet of any global business market entry strategy. Localization allows your product to adapt to the different cultural contexts while respecting the grammar and style of other communities. 

Cameo is an American video-sharing company based in Chicago that allows fans to request personalized videos from their favorite celebrities for a fee. They partnered with SoftBank to expand its services to the Japanese market by releasing the Cameo app entirely in Japanese. Tokyo Techies collaborated with Softbank and Cameo to help adapt and localize their service to Japanese-speaking users.

Tokyo Techies empowered SoftBank and Cameo by providing product localization solutions to adapt Cameo’s platform to Japanese users, focusing on UI/UX optimization, translation, and improving and catering their existing search & discovery features to Japanese-speaking users. 

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Tokyo Techies optimized Cameo’s UI/UX design and Japanese translations in three months by providing all-encompassing QA feedback. We also improved Cameo’s existing features with a Proof of Concept of their Search & Discovery feature suitable for Japanese-speaking audiences. We conducted the project using Agile methodology within the two weeks sprint cycle to enable faster feedback and better risk management. 

• Optimized UI/UX & Japanese translations:

Tokyo Techies optimized Cameo’s UI and Japanese translations by creating and providing feedback on a test plan​​ and a ticket systhem accounting for all user’s touchpoints with Cameo’s app. The test plan accounted for all possible input from the Tokyo Techies team for Cameo’s desktop website, mobile web, and how the app works in iOS and Android, including transactional comms and payments. 

We also provided an additional final report to communicate to all relevant stakeholders of the project regarding the feedback and significant insights. Through thorough testing, Tokyo Techies ensured all Japanese translations in Cameo were correct and of high quality, with no broken UI links, resulting in an optimized user experience of the platform. 

• Improved Search & Discovery Experience:

Using ElasticSearch, Tokyo Techies also created a Proof of Concept of Cameo’s Search & Discovery system catering to Japanese-speaking audiences with an accompanying manual so that Cameo can easily integrate the PoC into their systems. In turn, the PoC helped elevate Cameo’s user experience with the Search and Discovery features that accounted for how Japanese-speaking audiences use the search bar.

In Cameo’s search bar, users can now easily search for their favorite celebrity or talent by writing their last name in Hiragana, Kanji, or even Romaji. Users can also search based on their celebrities’ activity, even in Katakana, all without a hassle. 

• Differentiation:

Thanks to Search & Discovery PoC, Cameo could stand out and have a sound and foolproof Search & Discovery system that allowed them to stand out amongst its competitors in Japan.