Tamura: We held a company-wide contest and an idea from a manager was, “How about adding ‘HIKKARI’ (a Japanese word correcponding to ‘light’ and ‘optical’ in English) to the name?” That was added to come up with “DOKODEMO HIKARIMADO.” (Japanese phrase “DOKODEMO” is correspondint to English “anywhere you like”, and Japanese word “MADO” is corresponding to English “window”.)

Tamura: I remember that the entire plant had the reaction, “I see.” (Everyone laughs)

Tamura: Currently, our sales contacts are Sumisho Tekko Hanbai and Jutec, but we need to increase sales. We are trying to improve name recognition, and we are using our own show room to let the mass media know about this product. We are also promoting the product to design offices and general contractors so that they will use this product. We hope to use this optical duct as the first step in developing “products that aid in protecting the environment” by reducing CO₂.

Tamura: Optical ducts have already been picked up by magazines on homes, and by magazines such as Nikkei Architecture. We are also working on television business programs and special feature sections of news programs. We also took part in the October 2007 “Residential Forum 2007” Exhibition (held at Tokyo Big Sight) as a supporting company. This exhibition was held by our home sales contact, Jutec Corporation and is held once a year at Tokyo Big Sight.

Okamura: I was moved at this exhibit because we were able to hear directly from users for the first time. The completed “DOKODEMO HIKARIMADO” was exhibited and I was extremely happy when they said, “This is great.”

Tamura: All members of the development team took part in the exhibit to explain the product. Since we are a materials manufacturer we take part in exhibitions where we display our material samples, but we never show our final products, so this was an interesting event from that perspective.

Okamura: We were pleased to be able to explain to visitors how light passes through the duct into rooms.

Tamura: There were many pieces of information that we were able to acquire by talking directly with visitors, and we found that we still needed to make changes. But it goes without saying that the positive reaction was much more than we anticipated.

Tamura: Jutec is involved in the sales of materials used in all aspects of building homes, and it has a wide reach when it comes to the construction of single-family homes. It has a strong organized customer network through Japan that encompasses about 110,000 contractors. It is the perfect partner to expand and promote demand for the “DOKODEMO HIKARIMADO” for residential homes. We are hoping that it will allow us to penetrate the entire market.