Take an old brand and a banal product. Add some simplistic, funky packaging and an interesting theme and, hey presto, you might just have a hit.
That’s what health goods manufacturer Morishita Jintan is hoping will happen with their big new release — 116 Jintan. On sale from sixth of November (11/6) and in the 116th year of the company’s history (you see the numerical thing going on?), the product is micro-capsules made from seven types of natural medicine, developed to combat ailments like bad breath and hangovers. Though the industry is pretty commonplace, the approach to the packaging is memorably low-key. It also recalls the cereal and Shiseido’s retro Fog Bar we reported about earlier this year with similarly effective, minimalist packaging.
Jintan will expand the product to nationwide convenience stores from next spring and will change the packaging after a year. Although it only costs 300 yen for 100 capsules, Jintan has high hopes for this product: their sales target is 16 billion yen after 3 years. But will the packaging make that much difference?
Keep your eyes open for the “116 girls” too, who will be handing out samples at sixteen stations in Tokyo for one month from mid-November.
William is Editor of JapanTrends.com and a Project Manager at 
The title, Koku-Niga, reminds me of one of my employees who was in a Starbucks in Chicago. He drank some of the coffee, which was bitter — nigai in Japanese, often shortened to niga as in this title — and picked the wrong time to say “Niga!” in the middle of the crowded coffee shop.
I find it interesting the success of the rising minimalist-packaging trend when put in contrast to Japanese people’s preference for Yahoo!Japan’s mess of links, information, and pictures over Google’s traditional simplistic layout.