Vocaloid Marketing

The Hatsune Miku Studie Glad BMW Z4 competed in the 2008 Super GT season.

Though developed by Yamaha, the marketing of each Vocaloid is left to the respective studios. Yamaha themselves do maintain a degree of promotional efforts in the actual Vocaloid software, as seen when the humanoid robot model HRP-4C of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) was set up to react to three Vocaloids—Hatsune Miku, Megpoid and Crypton's noncommercial Vocaloid software "CV-4Cβ"—as part of promotions for both Yamaha and AIST at CEATEC in 2009. The prototype voice CV-4Cβ was created by sampling a Japanese voice actress, Eriko Nakamura.

Japanese magazines such as DTM magazine are responsible for the promotion and introduction for many of the Japanese Vocaloids to Japanese Vocaloid fans. It has featured Vocaloids such as Miku, Kagamine Rin and Len, and Lily, printing some of the sketches by artist Kei and reporting the latest news on the Vocaloids. Thirty-day trial versions of Miriam, Lily and Iroha have also contributed to the marketing success of those particular voices. After the success of A2-SF Miki's CD album, other Vocaloids such as VY1 and Iroha have also used promotional CDs as a marketing approach to selling their software. When Amazon MP3 in Japan opened on November 9, 2010, Vocaloid albums were featured as its free-of-charge contents.

Crypton has been involved with the marketing of their Character Vocal Series, particularly Hatsune Miku, has been actively involved in the GT300 class of the Super GT since 2008 with the support of Good Smile Racing (a branch of Good Smile Company, mainly in charge of car-related products, especially itasha (cars featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) stickers). Although Good Smile Company was not the first to bring the anime and manga culture to Super GT, it departs from others by featuring itasha directly rather than colorings onto vehicles.

Since the 2008 season, three different teams received their sponsorship under Good Smile Racing, and turned their cars to Vocaloid-related artwork:
Studie, which participated in the 2008 and 2009 seasons with BMW Z4 E86, and BMW Z4 GT3 in the 2011 season. Their car was painted in official Hatsune Miku art in 2008 season, but started using fan-derivative versions of Hatsune Miku in some races since the 2009 season. The team was crowned as 2011 Super GT season GT300 Champion by winning in three out of eight rounds (Sepang, Fuji 250km, as well as Motegi), which are all from pole to checkered flag.
Team MOLA, using a Nissan 350Z, and they received sponsors on the final race in Fuji in the 2008 season. Images of Kagamine Rin and Len was added on their original colorings. The Fuji round, in fact, is the first FIA race to feature two unique itasha cars competing in a single race.
Team COX, participating in the 2010 season, which used a Porsche 996 GT3 RSR and a Porsche 997 GT3-R. Their car used Racing Miku (an official Hatsune Miku derivative, wearing an orange race queen suit) as their image.

As well as involvements with the GT series, Crypton also established the website Piapro. A number of games starting from Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA were produced by Sega under license using Hatsune Miku and other Crypton Vocaloids, as well as "fan made" Vocaloids. Later, a mobile phone game called Hatsune Miku Vocalo x Live was produced by Japanese mobile social gaming website Gree. TinierMe Gacha also made attire that looks like Miku for their services, allowing users to make their avatar resemble the Crypton Vocaloids.

Two unofficial manga were also produced for the series, Maker Unofficial: Hatsune Mix being the most well known of the two, which was released by Jive in their Comic Rush magazine; this series is drawn by Vocaloid artist Kei. The series features the Crypton Vocaloids in various scenarios, a different one each week. The series focuses on the Crypton Vocaloids, although Internet Co., Ltd.'s Gackpoid Vocaloid makes a guest appearance in two chapters. The series also saw guest cameos of Vocaloid variants such as Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Akita Neru and the Utauloid Kasane Teto. The series comprises the original 28 chapters serialized in Comic Rush and a collection of the first 10 chapters in a single tankōbon volume. A manga was produced for Lily by Kei, who also drew the mascot. An anime music video titled "Schwarzgazer", which shows the world where Lily is, was produced and it was released with the album anim.o.v.e 02, however the song is sung by Move, not by Vocaloids. A yonkoma manga based on Hatsune Miku and drawn by Kentaro Hayashi, Shūkan Hajimete no Hatsune Miku!, began serialization in Weekly Young Jump on September 2, 2010. Hatsune Miku appeared in Weekly Playboy magazine. However, Crypton Future Media confirmed they will not be producing an anime based based on their Vocaloids as it would limit the creativity of their user base, preferring to let their user base to have freedom to create PV's without restrictions.

Initially, Crypton Future Media were the only studio that was allowed the license of figurines to be produced for their Vocaloids. A number of figurines and plush dolls were also released under license to Max Factory and the Good Smile Company of Crypton's Vocaloids. Among these figures were also Figma models of the entire "Character Vocal Series" mascots as well as Nendoroid figures of various Crypton Vocaloids and variants. Pullip versions of Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Len and Rin have also been produced for release in April 2011; other Vocaloid dolls have since been announced from the Pullip doll line. As part of promotions for Vocaloid Lily, license for a figurine was given to Phat Company and Lily became the first non-Crypton Vocaloid to receive a figurine.

In regards to the English Vocaloid studios, Power FX's Sweet Ann was given her own MySpace page and Sonika her own Twitter account. In comparison to Japanese studios, Zero-G and PowerFX maintain a high level of contact with their fans. Zero-G in particular encourages fan feed back and, after adopting Sonika as a mascot for their studio, has run two competitions related to her. There was also talk from PowerFX of redoing their Sweet Ann box art and a competition would be included as part of the redesign. The Vocaloid Lily also had a competition held during her trial period. English Vocaloids have not sold enough to warrant extras, such as seen with Crypton's Miku Append. However, it has been confirmed if the English Vocaloids become more popular, then Appends would be an option in the future. Crypton plans to start an electronic magazine for English readers at the end of 2010 in order to encourage the growth of the English Vocaloid fanbase. Extracts of PowerFX's Sweet Ann and Big Al were included in Soundation Studio in their Christmas loops and sound release with a competition included.

Crypton and Toyota began working together to promote the launch of the 2011 Toyota Corolla using Hatsune Miku to promote the car. The launch of the car also marked the start of Miku's debut in the US alongside it. Crypton had always sold Hatsune Miku as a virtual instrument, but they decided to ask their own fanbase in Japan if it was okay with them to market her to the United States as a virtual singer instead.