Japanese companies make a splash with urinal stickers
Mainichi reports on a new a cool new fad hitting urinals across Japan:
Tiny stickers designed to look like flies, ladybirds, ghosts, monsters and a range of other objects are starting to appear in urinals in public toilets across Japan, with the latest designs featuring changing colors and disappearing illustrations.
The idea behind the stickers is that if men aim at them when they go to the toilet, there is less splashing, making it easier to clean the urinals. A feature of many new stickers is that they change color or become invisible, and it appears that many male bathroom users are happy to have a go at hitting the target.
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The airport [Kansai International] asked Soyosha Co., a company located in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, to create the stickers. The firm was reportedly taken aback by the request, but came up with a product a month after the order was made.
Since the stickers were to be placed somewhere that was frequently covered in water, the firm focused on producing a product that had strong adhesive power, used waterproof ink and had a plastic coating. The design they came up with was a dartboard with the number 10 printed in a star in the middle of the sticker.
Various businesses such as copying and information processing companies, label and sticker printing firms, and marketing companies have got in on the act and are producing the stickers. However, with only about 600 stickers a month sold, and the price of each sticker ranging from about 30 yen to 300 yen, the market remains small.
What’s next, target stickers in squat toilets so that people can drop their bombs cleanly in the middle?
You can check out some examples of the stickers, and maybe even order some yourself, at one of these pages:
I can’t say I’ve seen one yet. Anyone had the chance to score a hit on one of these targets yet?
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