Author: Kangaeroo

  • |

    Mall Marsupial Puts Kangaroo In The Bag

    Kangaroo-do K.K. has bagged itself a position as a position as a mall retailer mainly in regional areas, but also in some shopping centers. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise because Kangaroo-do’s business is bags, which it sells from low price offerings to quality accessories from brands such as Porter and Dakota. Kangaroo-do hasn’t offered a public statement about why it chose to use a marsupial for its company name and logo, but it’s pretty obvious considering the link between its business items and pouches. Kangaroo-do is a retail chain that also sells wallets, travel luggage and small leather goods. It operates mall and specialty-shop outlets across Japan and…

  • My Heavenly Hometown, Hounded By Hitler

    With time on hand recently, I was going through historical records of the small Australian village where I spent my childhood and got a profound shock. I discovered the sleepy little hamlet I’d believed to have been a cosy resort area for day trips out of Melbourne had also been a breeding ground of Teutonic terror in the years immediately before World War II. Belgrave is located about 40 km east of Melbourne’s central business district and is a tourist-commuter town to this day with the bulk of its visitors coming to ride on the Puffing Billy Railway, a steam train that starts its trips from the village. Belgrave has…

  • |

    Kangaroo House Aims To Make Everyone A Hero

    Kangaroo House is a group home facility in Kaizuka, Osaka Prefecture, that aims to make everyone a hero. Kangaroo House is operated by Cangaroo K.K. It is registered as a residential support service for people with intellectual, mental, or physical disabilities. It’s hard to track down information on this Kangaroo House, a name given to many organizations in Japan, and I don’t know why it chose a kangaroo as the symbol of its group home services, caring for residents with various disabilities and providing daily life support. As noted in many posts, Japanese companies often use a kangaroo to symbolize their operations because the marsupial’s pouch commonly symbolizes protection and…

  • A Kangaroo Started From A Whisper That Now Shouts Out Loud

    Kangaroo House in Kyoto is a free school for kids who don’t want to attend formal classes and named because of a child’s whisper “to be a kangaroo so I can hide in Mum’s pocket,” according to a report on the organization. Kangaroo House got its name from a child’s remark: “If I were a kangaroo, I could jump free and hide in my mother’s pocket when anxious.” Kangaroo House markets itself as a “mother’s pouch” for anxious kids: lessons by day, emotional charging by heart. Operators chose the kangaroo motif to signal a place that protects, carries and recharges worried children–literally invoking the pouch as a comfort metaphor. NPO…

  • |

    Kanagawa Kangaroo Wants Clients To Leap, Not Lounge

    Kangaroo K.K.–a Yokohama startup named after Australia’s national animal–wants its clients to “bound, not lounge.” And it even picks office scents to help them. Kangaroo says it chose its company name and symbol because the kangaroo is a model of efficient, powerful leaping using the ground’s force with physiology that lets it “jump far while consuming less energy.” The company says it chose the name because it wants clients to “use us to leap forward”–operating more efficiently and achieving big bounds in performance. Kangaroo provides recruitment and job-placement services, franchise setup and operational support, digital marketing and branding services, and consulting. Kaori Aoi, who has a fine academic and business…

  • | |

    Melburnian’s Kagawa Kangaroo Business Is Bounding

    Melburnian Suliana Tesi Nakamura looks to be doing very nicely operating Kangaroo K.K., an English conversation school and real estate business located in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, where she has lived since 2011. Aussie Nakamura’s choice of the kangaroo for her company and logo is pretty bloody obvious, and a logical choice for the woman who moved to Japan in 2005 and taught English in Tokyo before moving to her current location. Nakamura worked in real estate Down Under and is using her multicultural background to leverage her multifaceted business now. The appearance of any company, organization, or individual on Kangaeroo.com does not constitute an endorsement, approval, or criticism of that…

  • |

    A Bagful Of Businesses In This Kangaroo’s Pouch

    Kangaroos K.K. operates a handful of different businesses, none of them with a direct relationship with either Australia or marsupials, but there’re are plenty of peas in this macropod. The company operates a mix of social-service, education and community businesses, including foreign-worker support and recruiting; staffing and temporary placement especially for childcare, education and welfare; security services; Japanese language education; children’s snack development and sales; childcare and child development support programs; and related event and training planning. Kangaroos doesn’t explain why it chose the name for the company, but choosing a kangaroo for a childcare, welfare or community business is common and sensible in Japan for three reasons: The pouch…

  • |

    Chiba Company Rapt To Choose A Roo For Wrapping

    Kangaroos are the choice of a company symbol for packaging-materials trading company Kawawa Co., Ltd. from Nagareyama, Chiba Prefecture. Kawawa chose to use a kangaroo to symbolize their operations because it represents “the spirit of wrapping,” according to the company’s website. Although the company has nothing to do with Australia, it chose to represent itself with the country’s national symbol because its pouch is a natural metaphor for wrapping, carrying with care, and protecting what’s inside. Even beyond the company’s official explanation for using a kangaroo logo, the choice is very logical for Japanese commercial design. The pouch representation is perfect for packaging. A kangaroo’s pouch is one of the…

  • |

    How Kangaroos Stop Demolition Work Scaring Japanese Kids

    Kangaroos have provided a way to provide a friendly face for a company operating in an industry sometimes seen as an unsavory business in Japan. Enomoto Kogyo uses the consumer-facing name of Kaitai Kangaroo for its demolition business; a line of work many Japanese associate with seediness and ties to organized crime. It’s an issue the company addresses directly, and a reason it puts kangaroos front and center of its operations. The company explicitly states it created the mascot to change the image of demolition and make the service more approachable. “The kangaroo character is a friendly mascot that visits customers and helps make demolition less scary for children and…

  • | |

    Nissan’s Fine Fragrance From Perfumed Kangaroos

    Automaker Nissan Motor Co. has long used kangaroos in its advertising, particularly in the early 2010s and notably when enlisting the aid of technopop girl group Perfume, which was then at the peak of its popularity. Nissan stylized Perfume’s three members–Kashiyuka, A-chan and Nocchi–as pink kangaroos to promote its Serena, Note and Cube models. Perfume used the opportunity for a cross-promotion of their then-newly released single, Voice, which would go on to reach No. 2 on the Oricon national charts. The campaign aimed to get the attention of a young, pop-loving audience who enjoyed animated characters and prompt them into visiting a Nissan dealership. The ad ran from July 14,…