Press & Awards
Nikkei MJ's front page on today's charisma hairdressers: ASSORT TOKYO and its guests from abroad
On 3 June 2016, the front page of Nikkei MJ, Nikkei's newspaper on consumer trends and the service industries, carried the feature 「技×遊び×共感 カリスマ美容師」 — skill × play × empathy: charisma hairdressers. One of its sections, headed 「訪日客がお得意さん」 (visitors to Japan are its regulars), was about ASSORT TOKYO, run by our CEO Ken Kobayashi.
The feature
The newspaper looks back to the 'charisma hairdresser' boom and to how fiercely salons now compete for guests, and introduces a new generation of hairdressers who win fans not only with their skill, but with how they talk with their guests, how they use the internet, and the atmosphere they create.
Visitors to Japan are its regulars
With more and more people visiting Japan, the newspaper writes, some hairdressers become 'charismas' among guests from abroad — and many guests from abroad come to ASSORT TOKYO in Gaienmae, Tokyo, run by our CEO Ken Kobayashi.
It describes how the salon looks after them: the staff introductions on its website give each stylist's level of English, such as 'FLUENT' or 'ADVANCED'; its hair catalogue shows many styles on guests from abroad; and in Japan, English teachers from outside the company come in to give the staff lessons.
With Assort in New York as well, the newspaper closes on guests posted abroad by their companies who fly from country to country — some of them, it says, make a 'world ASSORT tour', visiting Assort salons in different countries.
The feature is in Japanese, on the front page of Nikkei MJ of 3 June 2016. It shows Assort as it was in 2016.
About Nikkei MJ
Nikkei MJ (日経MJ（流通新聞）) is one of Nikkei's specialist newspapers, published three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MJ stands for Marketing Journal: it focuses on the consumer economy, covers daily life, consumption and the service industries, and picks out business movements and consumer trends from a marketing point of view.
Thank you to Nikkei MJ, and to everyone who read the feature.
Written by Assort