Lisa Yamai on the Enduring Appeal of Snow Peak

Outdoor life is in your blood. What do you love about being outdoors? 
“My favourite outdoor activity is fly fishing and mountain climbing. I love creek climbing in summer.”

What’s your favourite place in the world? 
“Iceland. The nature was unbelievable. I was inspired by the beauty and used some design for apparel collection.”

Why did your father decide to continue the family business in the ‘80s?
“My father was disillusioned with life working in the City in Tokyo and wanted to reconnect to nature. He moved back to Niigata the year before I was born and started to develop auto camping equipment. My grandfather has always told my father he was too reckless to spend time in the mountains so he found his own connection to nature through developing specialist products that would help make camping more comfortable and accessible to Japanese people.”

What’s special about a family business?
“My grandfather had a passion for mountaineering, my father for camping, and my passion lies in apparel. As the generations change, so does Snow Peak’s style. I think Snow Peakʼ s DNA definitely exists inside our co-workers and staff too. It may be hard to call it a family business anymore, as our company now has over 500 employees globally. The base of Snow Peakʼs business is the values of people who spend their time in the outdoors. Our employees, who share these values, are like family.”

Tell us about your following of Snowpeakers… You camp together?
“Yes, I join our camp events and spend time with our customers sharing drinks, food and laughter. At Snow Peak, we have hosted Snow Peak Way camp events throughout Japan since 1998. As part of the Snow Peak way we have Takibi time, where all members of the Snow Peak staff and campers sit and discuss what they like, and need more of from Snow Peak. Takibi time is essential for our product development and we feed back what we have learnt to our research and development team develop team to evolve our products.
We listen to the feedback from our customers at the snow peak way events and many of our innovations and product developments have come from listening to the needs of our customers. We are constantly striving for our products to be the best item in its field and its these customer developments that we are most proud of.”

Why do you think the world looks to Japan for innovation?
“I think Japan has a unique culture with our history and yet we are famous for developing innovative things to the world. I always look to historical Japanese design, especially in kimonos and traditional clothing patterns, and I think as a culture we reflect on the past to move design forwards.”

Why do you think you have a following in Australia & New Zealand?
“Many people in Australia & New Zealand love camping and going away for long trips. I feel that they are seeking durable, reliable products and Snow Peak’s outdoor products meet their demand and are well designed.” 

What are you most proud of about the brand?
“I believe that Snow Peak is a very special brand that can make our customers happy, and if customers are happy, family/friends are happy, if family/friends are happy, it leads to the society/community becoming happy and it may lead to a whole country or even universe becoming happy.” 

What do you hope the legacy of your brand will be?
“Snow Peak celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, in 2018.  During 60 years, as a business our style has changed and grown to where we stand now. I have moved away from my role as head of apparel design to focus on being Vice President and looking at the next thirty years of the Snow Peak business and how the business is going to evolve. Providing life-value to our customer will never change and whatever new business we may do in future, we are always connecting people and nature, and to each other.”

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