COMING OF AGE JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTIONThe communications industry in Japan is evolving fast, buoyed by a new feeling of bullishness at the world’s third-largest economy

W hen PRWeek last visited Japan, in 2012, the country was still reeling from the after-effects of

the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, followed by accidents and a meltdown at the coun-try’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Three years later and there is a much more positive feeling in the air, driven by the rec-ognition from large multinationals that they need to be doing more in Japan, which let’s not forget is still the third-largest economy in the world by GDP.

Ally that to a slow-down in China, issues in Europe, the prospect of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and the continuing impact of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo– Abe’s “Abenomics” eco-nomic reforms, and it’s no surprise senior PR pros in Japan are bullish about the future.

“Japan may not be the most high-growth country in the world, but it’s certainly very stable,” says Ross Rowbury, president of Edelman Japan. “A large number of our mul-tinational clients are suddenly picking up the phone and saying we need to do more in Japan, and bringing in significant talent from HQ and other areas – it’s like Japan is doing a 15- to 20-year catch-up.”

Such has been the change that the per-centage of Edelman’s business that comes from local Japanese companies has risen ex-ponentially, from 5% to 40% in the last five years. Furthermore, Rowbury’s operation is exporting an equivalent amount of business to other Edelman networks around the world, emphasizing the increasingly global nature of Japanese business and communications.

On October 1, PRWeek and Nissan convened a panel of communications experts in Yokohama, Japan, to assess the state of an increasingly bullish Japanese PR market that reflects growing confidence in the country at home and abroad. By Steve Barrett

Joey WuExecutive director, group corporate communications department, Nomura

Haruhiko HirateSVP, corporate communications and public affairs, Takeda

Takeo TamagawaExternal relations manager, IBM

Billie ColeDeputy head of corporate comms, Rakuten

The Panel

Dan SloanEditor-in-chief, Nissan Global Media Center

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 2

John Morgan, president and CEO of Hill+Knowlton Strategies Asia, has just relo-cated to Japan having spent 15 years else-where in Asia, and he is also seeing a grow-ing trend toward globalization.

“Large domestic companies now have a great appreciation not only of what com-munications is, but also how it can drive their business objectives,” Morgan explains. “Our room for improvement will focus on ac-cess to the C-suite to do things we believe are more meaningful than traditional commu-nications elements.”

Nomura’s executive director, group cor-porate communications department, Joey Wu, reiterates the fact that PR in Japan is no longer just about issuing press releases and answering media calls.

“C-level executives are starting to realize the value communications brings and they expect PR functions to be a lot more pro-active and strategic,” she says. “They want communications to help them achieve their business objectives, so you simply have to be more strategic and proactive.”

That’s not to say the case for PR has been won in corporate Japan. While CEOs at the majority of companies understand the need for communications, they aren’t always aware of what it takes to build an effective global function.

“We have a lot of people coming to us and saying, ‘just help us with the first step, the baby step,’” explains Rowbury. “‘Where do we start?’”

Pharmaceutical company Takeda’s global communications team is headed by a Japa-nese executive, SVP of corporate communi-cations and public affairs Haruhiko Hirate, whose team is truly global.

It also comprises individuals including an American, Jeff Cross, as head of global corporate communications, and a German, Tobias Cottmann, as head of global exter- nal communications.

“In a lot of companies, the C-suites are very frustrated and want us to get on board with the new way of doing things, but they definitely don’t know how difficult it is,” ad-mits Hirate.

A lot of Japanese organizations are not yet truly global from a communications stand-point, especially in the IT sector:

“Lots of IT companies still have a Japanese- only communications team, and that is a challenge they’re facing,” says Takeo Tama- gawa, external relations manager at IBM.

At Rakuten, Japan’s answer to Amazon, the C-suite essentially consists of one very prominent person, charismatic cofounder and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani.

In 2010, Mikitani embarked on a process of “Englishnization” at Japan’s largest Inter-net company, installing English as the com-pany’s de facto language, despite most of its staff being Japanese.

“Rakuten is a real innovator and very ad-venturous, but actually a large proportion of our sales are in Japan,” says the company’s deputy head of corporate communications Billie Cole. “We’re trying to globalize quick-ly and joining Rakuten and meeting all these people who five years ago spoke no English

Content newsrooms have arrived at Japanese agencies

Rakuten installed English as its primary language CEO Hiroshi Mikitani is effectively a one-man C-suite

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 3

Ross RowburyPresident, Edelman Japan

John MorganPresident and CEO, Hill+-Knowlton Strategies Asia

Junko OkamotoCEO, Glocomm

David BleckenExecutive editor, Campaign Asia-Pacific

The Panel

Shintaro KuritaAd sales manager, Line

“TODAY, EVERYONE IS

A CONTENT CREATOR

AND AMBASSADOR” – Dan Sloan

Nissan Global Media Center

and are now dealing in business meetings in English, is really inspiring and different.”

But messaging for the company still has to be very different inside and outside Japan, which means Cole’s job can vary significant-ly from the Japan team.

“Mikitani is such a big presence in Japan, whenever he does anything 100 media out-lets are trained on him, and it’s very intense,” she explains. “But as soon as you go outside Japan, suddenly you have to explain what Rakuten is and what it does, and why it is relevant. That is sometimes a little jarring for the C-suite.”

Another organization that is incredibly successful in Japan and other parts of Asia, such as Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia, is mobile services app Line.

The company is working out how to ex-pand internationally following a stage when it didn’t need much PR as the service spread like wildfire organically.

“We are hiring many global PR and com-munications managers at Line HQ and our local offices in Asia, and we also have offic-es in the US,” says Line’s ad sales manager Shintaro Kurita. “We are unifying our infor-mation and distributing it globally, but we also have to do some local things, especially in the US.”

This is partly because Line’s appeal lies largely in its stickers and emojis, a popular trend in Asia that doesn’t necessarily transfer directly to Europe and the US.

“It’s perceived as kind of childish for peo-ple in US and European markets,” adds Kurita. “So we have to translate the concept behind the sticker in the smartphone era and our daily communication.”

Nissan’s Global Media Center editor- in-chief Dan Sloan calls this the DIY era for communications, epitomized by hybrid PR, and defined by social media and the ability of everyone to be a content creator.

“Five years ago, relationships and roles and responsibilities were more clearly de-fined,” he explains. “Corporate did this and its agencies did that, and the media and public at large knew we would get to them in the end. But in today’s DIY era, everyone is a content creator and ambassador: Who’s speaking on behalf of the company becomes much more important.

“Being in the social media conversation and knowing what’s being said about you is just as important as the content and discus-sion you’re producing about yourself.”

These topics and many more came under discussion as this influential group debated the evolution of the Japanese communica-tions, marketing, and media landscapes – key takeaways can be found in the follow- ing pages.

The incredibly popular mobile services app Line has plans to expand internationally, but is still trying to work out a strategy to transfer its sticker appeal over to the US and Europe

Nissan’s Dan Sloan says it’s the era of ‘DIY communications’

Edelman’s Ross Rowbury believes Japan is doing a 15- to 20-year catch-up as regards multinational client work

“C-LEVEL EXECS ARE REALIZING THE VALUE

COMMS BRINGS” – Joey Wu

Nomura

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 4

INTERVIEW WITH NISSAN’S ROEL DE VRIES

JAPAN ROUNDTABLE INTERVIEW WITH NISSAN’S ROEL DE VRIES

1. Content is the biggest issue in marketing and com-munications at the moment – brands need to be far more in the middle of the conversation and driving it. Nissan is actively creating news inside the company and can move fast and broadcast itself.

2. Measuring the effectiveness of content – Nissan can go more in-depth on its cars with behind-the-scenes con- tent that is useful for its customers, such as owners who want to go deeper or people who want to know about the business.

3. The mix of PESO – while de Vries wishes he could “spend less on advertising,” he knows advertising and marketing is all getting mixed up and blurred, and that it’s hard to do anything without all four of the PESO (paid, earned, shared, and owned) elements.

During his visit to Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama for the Japan Roundtable, PRWeek editor-in-chief Steve Barrett sat down with the automaker’s corporate VP and global head of marketing and brand strategy Roel de Vries in the company’s global media center to discuss trends in communications and marketing.

A full version of the video can be viewed by clicking the link on the left, but here are some of the insights de Vries shared in a wide-ranging conversation.

HOW NISSAN DRIVES CONTENT

4. Using agencies – the automaker created the Nissan United concept to better integrate its agencies, but de Vries believes this is just the beginning of a bigger pro-cess. “We went down a road of specialization and created a maze of agencies,” he adds.

5. Consumers influencing agencies – the world of custo- mers is integrating on mobile and is much more simplified; the agency model needs to go toward a continuously integrated model, without each firm losing its specialization.

6. The future of PR – the big ideas are going to come from those that sit in the middle of the conversation and know what’s working and what’s not. Communications agen-cies are at the table, in the middle of it, because they are on top of what’s going on.

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 5

Line Corporation is based

in Japan, but was launched

by Korean Internet search

behemoth Naver

Popular Line characters include

Other more esoteric characters include

As of September 2015, Line had 212 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs)

Line Music had

8.6 million downloads

and

4 million MAUs

137 million MAUs derive from Line’s top 4 countries for market share – Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia

(as of Oct 21, 2015)

(as of Sept 30, 2015)

In February, the company said it expected its total number of users to hit the

700 million mark by the end of 2015

BrownMoonJames

Cony

It originated in messaging, but has evolved into stickers, news, and payments – Line doesn’t see itself as a social media platform and it is more closed and private than public

Line continues to see global growth in ad revenue due to sponsored

sticker packages

Gudetama (a chronically depressed egg)

Gloomy Bear (a naughty grizzly)

48% express happiness

10% represent sadness

5% denote surprise

6% reflect anger

STICKING OUT FROM THE CROWD

In June, Line announced that up to 2.4 billion stickers and emojis are sent each day by its users

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 6

VOX POP

What are the main differences between PR in Japan and the rest of the world?

What is the interaction between marketing and communications in Japan?

What is the perception of internal communications in Japan?

Dan Sloan Editor-in-chief, Nissan Global Media Center

Ross Rowbury President, Edelman Japan

Joey Wu Executive director, group corporate communications department, Nomura

Billie Cole Deputy head of corporate communications, Rakuten

Risk aversion in Japanese corporations can kill initiative and endeavors beyond tradition-al roles and responsibilities unless someone tells them “it’s now your job.”

Content is king, but distribution is ace, and distribution is often overseen by marketing. We are tied to marketing and both mar- keting and comms are working to enhance overall opinion.

The discussion about globali- zation means a lot of things including, internally, looking beyond the borders of having a headquarters in Japan, and also being much more sophisticated.

You can’t just take someone who has been doing media relations exceptionally well for 20 years and say now we want you to apply those skills to employee engagement, or content production – that’s a really difficult challenge.

Internal communications is necessary when you become global. In Japan, employees stay in the same company forever, but when you operate outside of Japan you must communicate your mission and strategies so employees feel proud of the company.

We started an internal video network at Rakuten in April and our CEO wanted one video up every day. The team got it done – they’ve been doing this really cool daily video post for the last six months.

The majority of large Japanese companies have an incredible degree of experience and capability in what they call their PR department, but in many cases it’s a very narrow media relations or media outreach remit.

Marketing has always been very much about driving sales, whereas PR has been about driving reputation, which is harder to measure so it has tended to attract lower budgets.

We try to learn from the expertise of our global teams and bring best practices back here to Japan. You have to do that if you’re a Japanese company trying to be global.

Many years ago, the PR departments of Japanese companies were basically writing press releases and answering phone calls. C-level executives now want comms to support businesses to achieve their goals and objectives.

It’s a really interesting mix of skills. Some people didn’t join the company to be a PR pro but discovered it’s something they’re really good at and stayed 20 years. They get the message out and advise the C-suite.

When I joined Rakuten, it was still trying to work out where it should put my role: Should it go up to marketing or communi-cations? Marketing was a little more globally focused, whereas communications was more domestic.

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 7

How can Japan overcome its natural aversion to taking risks?

VOX POP

Dan Sloan Editor-in-chief, Nissan Global Media Center

Ross Rowbury President, Edelman Japan

Joey Wu Executive director, group corporate communications department, Nomura

Billie Cole Deputy head of corporate communications, Rakuten

In communications, we can leapfrog. The only barrier that holds us back is that traditional hierarchical culture that makes us averse to taking risks and afraid of making mistakes.

The big issue for Japanese PR is how quickly we can create talent that understands commu-nications in the broader sense, beyond just media relations or outreach, and what is needed to do that – suddenly it’s outside their comfort zone.

There will be a lot of positive things happening in Japan, and you need good communicators to send that message to the world. The most important thing is to have good people in comms to make that happen.

Rakuten is ahead of the game, but a lot of people have gone from being focused on Japan to having to deal with things in a more global context, and that’s uncomfortable. It’s a really big challenge and creates a lot of creative tension.

Increasing number of people in their 20s-50s “don’t watch TV at all” Decrease in daily contact with TV by 20- to 50-year-olds

Decreasing positive impression toward TV

2010

2010

8%

22%

16%

19%

13%

24%

6%

15%

6%

8%

28%

3%

18%

2%

2010

2010

2010

2010

2010

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

TV VIEWING TIME SHORTENS FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER 1985

20s

Love to watch TV

Disappointed to miss

a TV show

Program has become a hot topic

30s

40s

50s

100

%

AGE

2010

2015

78

7564

7279

85 85

7979 8189 90 88

75

80

60

40

20

16-19 20 40 6030 50 70 and over

0

SOURCE: NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute and public opinion research

COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 8

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE JAPAN ROUNDTABLE

13Japan is getting its mojo back after a 20-year hiatus, fueled by Prime Minister Shinzo– Abe’s “Abenomics” economic reforms, a slow-down in China, issues in Europe, and the pros-pect of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

PR firms are hiring talent from ad firms and other diverse backgrounds, but the pre-eminence of PR only started around five years ago and the potential for a golden age will only be realized over the next decade.

The PR profession is evolving and there is much more awareness among the C-suite of the importance of com-munications in running an effective business, as well as the need to look outward and think globally.

There are still only a limited number of universities where students can learn about PR.

Multinational clients are under pressure to get their act together in Japan and they are engaged in a huge catch-up process – the next 10 years will be extremely interesting for PR and marketing.

Japan is the last major mature-growth market for healthcare companies and the multinationals are sending some of their best people to the region.

The globalization of Japanese companies and increasing number of people in global communications roles is testament to how important the function has become and how fast it is accelerating.

Traditional media hung on longer in Japan than other parts of the world, but is finally losing its influ-ence and being usurped by digital and mobile.

As in the rest of the world, PR is no longer just about media relations – it is now also concerned with broader communications and strategic issues.

Social media has come of age in the last three years, driven by companies such as Line, as the Japanese learn to become private in public.

Sometimes executives in the Japanese C-suite underestimate how difficult it is to set up a modern, global communications function.

Line and other Asian mobile services have the added advantage of direct sales communication with users and integration of e-commerce.

Despite this, the work Japanese agencies and clients are producing compares well to the best in the US and Europe.

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COMING OF AGE: JAPAN’S PR EVOLUTION 9

5

“GLOBAL CLIENTS ARE

SAYING WE NEED TO

DO MORE IN JAPAN” – Ross Rowbury

Edelman