Single NGT48 3rd [Haru wa doko kara kuru no ka?] (2018/04/11)

86k 1st day ....wow saving ammo for ssk

 

Honestly this. While making all the nuggets senbatsu can bring a massive narrative, the sacrifice to their own single is a slap in the face for the label. I wouldn't worry if they're under the same label as AKB, but they're under Sony (which is also the house of the edgelords46), their execs would fume after seeing this number. Recognition is a recognition, it's good for the group but won't bring money to the label, unless there's an agreement between AKS and Sony about SSK profit sharing (which I doubt is even there). I hope this is not harming the business relationship of this group with Sony.

 

There was no real national promotions at all for this single, what a shame. its a great song and great center.
and the timing is ridiculous too, for all these singles.

NMB 4/4
NGT 4/10
HKT 5/2 <- wtf

why do that at all? With ssk coming up they should not have singles after march. I could understand late feb-mid march single release dates for the sister groups. Anything after that and the fans are literally bleeding money. Of course, the one sister group not on that list?

SKE 1/10

coincidence? hmm.......

 

To avoid any misunderstandings, what Hinatan intended to say was this.

For anyone who didn't follow NGT's promotion campaigns all that closely during the previous times, and don't get what she meant by it, allow me to remind: for the first and second single, their promotion involved the members splitting up into small groups, and travelling to certain designated regions of Japan (anywhere from Kyuushuu to Hokkaido). to personally do PR promotion for the group and the single itself. On first day, that is to say release day, they would appear on local media -- radio corners for the most part, but also brief TV appearances on wideshow kind of programs, in addition to getting interviews from the local press to be later published over the subsequent months. On the second day, the girls would pay a visit to the major music stores in the areas to sign the posters on display, with a final performance and/or watashi-kai at the last stop of their tour.

I have to say that I was disappointed that they decided to forgo even such minimal promotion this time around, because beyond the question of how effective all of it could (or could not) be sales-wise, I hoped it would go on to become some sort of a traditional practice with each release. Not to mention it was still not so expensive besides transportation costs, and at any rate most of the PR work fell directly on the members themselves, which could also serve as a precious chance for them to get known more widely beyond their home prefecture, which is something that they can't afford to miss at the moment -- at least not until the mothership management starts wising up at last and realizes that NGT can't be kept confined to Niigata forever.

With that said, the cause of this decision is, if anything, the closeness of the single's release to the Tandoku Concert and Kitarie's graduation. Like Hinatan said in the video above, the schedule was already heavy and packed as it was due to this, so it was decided to keep the range of the campaign restricted to just the Tokyo area.
I can't bring myself to blame the management or anyone for this, considering how Kitarie's graduation should take top priority anyways, but I still wanted to make it clear that the upcoming Sousenkyo has nothing to do with the lack of adequate promotion.
Still a bad choice in terms of timing to me, that's for sure, and I don't know how it works with the other groups but they could've arranged to carry out the campaign a week or so in advance so as to avoid any conflicts, if there were any issues.

---

Speaking of today's promotion, NGT members rode on the advertising van and took turns to speak on the loudspeakers as they drove around the streets of Tokyo (apparently Sashihara and Tanochan noticed them as well, and reported it on their respective Twitter accounts)
A gallery of photos taken by fans as they passed by:

Spoiler

Guerrilla Showroom streams from inside of the van:

Spoiler

Tsugumin cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21943837
Katomina cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21943901
Anju cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21943962
Miharu cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21944035
Mofu cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21944053
Nanako cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21944116
Okappa cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21947846
Rittan cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21947617
Gatanee cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21947719
Ainya cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21947751
Reinya cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21947801
Maho cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21948045
Kani cam
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av21951452

Members serving as clerks for a day at the Tower Records store (also including some of today's Instagram stories):
https://twitter.com/official_NGT48/status/983872647766335489
https://twitter.com/TOWER_Shibuya/status/984057662311575553
https://twitter.com/ngt48_insta_bot/status/983878540549435393
https://twitter.com/ngt48_insta_bot/status/983916326367318016
https://twitter.com/ngt48_insta_bot/status/983875005405474816

Free live event at Yoyogi Park (with lots of pictures):
https://mdpr.jp/music/detail/1759420

 

According to Muranokuma, HKT is gunna project 222K sales lol (popcorn)


Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

 

90%+ of sales is HS! PR company and TV show don't have any role in CD sales

 

And who do you expect people to shake hands with, when they don't even know anything about the girls in the first place because the members have no PR platforms and little to no TV shows to promote them? You see, the problem is that the first part is contingent on the second one.
Or maybe we should all hope for Nakai to do more "PR" on NGT's behalf, like she has promised over and over again in oh-so-many interviews, but always "delivered" very poorly on it? Har har. Fuck that noise, seriously.

 

fans community mostly live in another reality. PR and TV show for casual people. Of course they bought CD and go in HS, but only 1-3 CDs. their role in overall sales is not large

 

Another reason I believe this single is doing significantly worse than Seishun Dokei is because at that time fans thougt ssk isn't a main factor in determining the promotion, pushes, centers and senbatsu for the next year. As shown by management picking Rika (HS queen at the time) over Katomina (only NGT48 member in ssk) as the debut single center.

If management knows that approximately 90% of singles sales depend on HS sale, then they should promote the girls accordingly. Make this group on a HS sale basis instead if ssk rank.

aren't Sony the ones who decided to make the 2nd single senbatsu and center based on ssk? You reap what you sow.

 

If you ask who to blame, blame AKB first. Why do NGT fans care that much about the center in NGT single if they do not bother to buy it? Fans even used their money to vote their entire discography in Request Hours instead of buying the 2nd single.

 

How is it AKB's fault? Why is it AKB's fault that fans felt it necessarily to vote NGT48's entire discography in RH? What made NGT48 fans more focused on AKB than the group itself compared to other sister groups?
I agree that SSK is a major reason for this single's low sales, along with the literally half assed PV, and the overall decrease in b-side PV and music quality (besides Ato de) even though they spared the individual PVs, but at least HS sale shouldn't be this bad.

This isn't just frustrating for Hinatan as center, but for Kitarie too as her graduation single.

 

Truth.

I honestly think if you guys wanna find someone to blame then its the management and the fans. Both parties equally made this result happen.

And I mean if Yuiri has the guts to reject ssk till this day then the nuggets should too. Boycott the ssk next year and to tell their fans to buy their singles lol

 

- Blame AKB of creating the popularity competitions which worked great at first but gradually showed many side effects, particularly on sister groups. SSK obsession damaged sister group sales before NGT wotas brought it to a higher level.
- Blame AKB to use Ogiyuka after her SSK success but ignore the rest (except Rika).

At least, it is more reasonable than blaming Sony who just followed the trend at the dead end of 2017. They also let Hinatan center the 3rd single and Gatanee center a coupling song, which may never happen under AKS.

Certainly, the ones to be blamed first and foremost are fans.

 

i felt like AKI-P keep launching sister groups to drive up the SSK competition and to continue their 1 mil sales streak with more members selling hs ticket on the expanse of the sister groups. this is like the chicken and the eggs paradigm....is it more important to get good single sales or success on ssk with poor single sales??

 

Spoiler

The fact that when it comes to sister groups under the direct control of AKS, Akimoto alternates between doing absolutely nothing and not knowing what he's doing. We are all aware of this. This is bad for all sister groups, but even worse for NGT because of the restrictions it suffers from.
What you saw at Sousenkyo and Request Hour was an attempt to send a direct message to Akimoto telling him to finally wake the hell up and take notice, coupled with some precise instructions on how he should act. In fact, one thing I'm thankful for is that fans didn't fall for such naive strategies like concentrating votes on only the management-endorsed members, wrongly believing them to be the "safe bet" and the "most likely" to rank in, like other group's fans tend to do. Doing so would have only meant playing into Akimoto's hands by giving him the self-confirmation he was waiting for.
Per se there was nothing mistaken about it.

Did he listen in the end, though? This is a different story...
That's why I was advocating in another post for NGT to get a semi-autonomous management of its own, the same way as NMB and STU -- because you can immediately tell at a glance which business decisions came from the local staff who knows and cares about their members, and which ones came instead from the mothership management who just half-asses things because they want to spend as little time as possible worrying about local groups (and they might as well go to hell for all they care).

And perhaps I should add: mindless goripushes, especially if characterized by flip-flopping strategies to justify continuing the goripush ad nauseam even after the initial premises are no longer valid, are more damaging and detrimental for the wellbeing of any group than wotas spending their money at Sousenkyo and Request Hour.
If it wasn't for the miracle at last year's SSK, if it weren't for fans taking action to show the true state of things and rub it right in the management's face on national broadcast, you would have never seen anything like Sekai wa~, nothing like Kenkyuusei in Senbatsu, and you could rest assured we would've been subjected to even more of ~Nakai all the time~ brainwashing.
This is not something you can demonstrate just by buying your group's CD singles, so see for yourself if it wasn't a necessary measure.

 

The buzz created by SSK last year was good, but NGT fans are pushing it to a ridiculus point. Sacrifying the group future to send hopeless messages to the ignorance people in AKS? Even if NGT take over top 20 in SSK, AKS and the public will remember no more than 3 members. And I do not believe AKS will give more exposures, shows, jobs... to the group except very few members. While Sony may drop the group, and management will not want to release the group single anymore. It just benefits few members while making NGT depend more and more on AKB-side, which is obviously a dead end.

Keya’s success proves that a sister group can succeed by itself given a strong development platform and a strong separation to the “mother” group. NGT does not have a strong development platform but at least they have Sony’s support, dedicated fans and local managers. Though, their fans are pushing the group in a wrong way.

 

Keya does not have SSK or have a sister group.

 

I remember SKE fans tried to do something similar with AKB.

Meanwhile in Japanese fan sites, the comments are mostly blaming NGT's image as a bunch of bullies.

The comments in the NGT48 matome are a bit more logical. Blaming it on the timing, the uninspiring PV and the poor pre-release promotion instead of the recent unfortunate events with Rikachan and Ayanyan.

 

If you can sell 500k+ copies, if your music is good and brings increasing profit to your investors, why do you need SSK? People get trapped by 48 sister group mindset.

 

Keya's success is mainly because the 'contrast' they develop with Nogi. Unlike 48 which the SG has basically the same concept and style (48 SG is 'extension', while 46 SG is 'series')