XXI. Ad

After a week of brainstorming about ways to increase the value of Hitachi’s internal brand at the strategic branding office, this week I learned all about Hitachi’s outward appearance at its advertisement department. Of course this department is located in Akihabara; what better place for an electronics company to brainstorm about and create its outward appearance? It was a bit unsettling at first to work right across the street from where last Sunday’s terrible stabbing spree took place, but luckily this week’s schedule was too busy to dwell on it for too long.

The week with the branding office had consisted mainly of meetings with various managers, brainstorming and working towards a final presentation. The week with advertisement was spent partly in meetings, but largely outside the office. According to one of my advertisement colleagues, Advertisement is something you learn by visiting expos and looking at ad campaigns, rather than sitting behind your desk reading through instruction materials. And so the advertisement people had created a full programme with lots of trips. On Monday, I received an extensive introduction in Hitachi’s national advertisement campaigns and I was allowed to sit in on a meeting where the advertisement team discussed their progress. Remarkably, this was a meeting for the junior staff, without the General and Senior Manager. The staff discussed a new advertisement campaign, for which the posters had just been designed, and everyone talked about their activities that week. Unfortunately there were no hand-outs and the subject matter was not yet familiar to me, so most of the meeting went over my head. After the meeting, Koike-san, one of my new temporary colleagues, took me on a walk through Akihabara, in search of stores that stock Hitachi products, to see what is on sale and, more importantly, how it is presented. We didn’t find any laptops, as Hitachi doesn’t really produce these for the consumer market, but we did find pretty much everything else, ranging from super-thin Wooo plasma screens and sleek cell phones to huge refrigerators and self-cleaning aircos. Wedged in between Panasonic and Sony, I didn’t notice the Hitachi logo at first- grey and red is stylish, but not really striking, especially in a sensory overwhelming environment like Yodobashi Camera (or Akihabara itself, for that matter).

On Tuesday I spent the morning learning everything about Hitachi’s international ad campaigns, and how they are tailored to various audiences. The American campaign, for example, focuses on the people benefiting from Hitachi’s products, featuring personal stories about a remote village that got high-speed Internet thanks to Hitachi, or a pilot who was able to continue to fly whilst receiving cancer treatment using state of the art Hitachi equipment. The European campaign also focuses on the people-behind-the-product, but it is less sentimental. Hitachi’s Asian campaigns also differ among each other: mainland China gets an environment-oriented campaign, whereas the Hong Kong campaign offers a high-tech vision of the future. All in all it was a very interesting presentation, especially since the European campaign is only visible in France, Germany and the UK, and not in the Netherlands. In the afternoon, I went out with two colleagues on a trip to Hitachi’s Sakado printing factory outside of Tokyo, where the company’s advertisement material is being printed. I had already been on a JPP-outing to Asahi Shimbun’s printing factory, so I already knew the principles of offset printing, but here I was able to come much closer to the machines and really see how they worked. Once more I was struck by the efficiency of Japanese factory workers; it seemed as if they had paid a lot of attention to doing their work as quickly and correctly as possible, making no superfluous movements and keeping in pace with the machines.

Tuesday was a long day, as there was another activity planned for the evening. I had been told that we were going on a kengaku to the TV quiz sponsored by Hitachi, the hugely popular Sekai Fushigi Hakken. I had assumed we would attend a short meeting, take a tour, receive some leaflets, that sort of thing. Imagine my surprise when upon arrival I was ushered into a TV studio on to a set featuring large plasma screens and mildly kitsch Neo-Classissistic decorations. We were invited to sit in the audience, and were instructed on when/how to clap, how to cheer and what to shout (Hitachi!). The quiz contestants were six famous Japanese, and had to answer several questions about the culture and history of Slovakia (each week the quiz features a different country or region). This quiz was typically Japanese in its format: it featured only three questions and more time was spent talking and making jokes than answering the questions. But it was good fun, and as it featured short film clips of Slovakia it was relatively easy to follow. It sure was a terrific surprise and a unique experience which I won’t forget.

On Thursday I spent the morning attending a meeting of the advertisement department and members of the strategic branding office, as they discussed the effectiveness of Hitachi campaigns in Asia and Europe. It was not easy to follow, but thanks to the hand-outs that were largely in English, I did get a good impression of what they were talking about. The meeting room was, however, rather warm and stuffy, and I was glad to go out again in the afternoon, this time all the way to Chiba, to visit the Interop exposition at the Makuhari Messe. This expo focused on IT products and networks, and most of the Japanese IT giants were there. Again, surrounded by loud music, giant screens and girls dressed up in a wide range of (very short) dresses, it was difficult at first to spot Hitachi’s subdued colours. We did find the company’s booth, however, and it turned out to be one of the most interesting to a lay person like myself, as it featured a demonstration of an earthquake safety system developed by Hitachi. When you are at home and a big earthquake occurs, you can just press one button which switches on the TV and the lights, closes the curtains and opens your door, offering a way out and at the same time protecting you from broken glass. Having experienced a 7.0 earthquake in a simulator, I think it is great to have a system take all the safety measures for you when you yourself are too shaken (literally) to think of all these things.

Finally, today has been interesting as well. This morning, a colleague took me on a trip to the technology museum close to the Nippon Budokan. The museum itself is rather dated, with a 1960s interior. But the attractions it offers still greatly appeal to children, as they can experiment and learn about subjects such as DNA, dams, optic illusions and outer space. Hitachi’s offering to the museum is a display called Nature Contact, which aims to teach children about wildlife through the use of touch screens that feature three different habitats (polar, tropics, savannah) and their wildlife. The best bit is that you can download software at home which enables you to raise a pet on your PC (a bit like a Tamagotchi) and then you can print out a barcode, which you can use to display your pet animal on the touch screen and play around with it. During our visit, the museum was full of children: they loved this display. In the afternoon, we went to Dentsu’s much quieter Advertisement Museum, which features advertisements from the Edo period to contemporary Japan. I absolutely loved it; the exhibition was small but well put together and I loved the vintage TV commercials and products. It was a nice ending to a week of exposure to various forms of corporate image building, from brainstorm, strategy and evaluation to the actual advertisement itself: newspaper ads, poster campaigns, TV commercials, sponsorships and direct promotion at expos. I feel I now have a clear image of what Hitachi is trying to do in terms of creating and promoting its corporate image. It has been a very busy week, but it has been lots of fun as well- and I haven’t even mentioned the countless lunches and dinners (including yesterday’s wonderful nomikai). Tonight I will go out with my advertisement colleagues once more, which I am sure will be a nice ending to an exciting week.

XVIII. Tea

Although I try hard not to think too much about it, the end of the Japan stay is gradually coming into view. June will be a very busy month at work, with me spending the first two weeks at different divisions. After that, I will be busy helping to organize the HISTEP conference, and little time will remain for my own research into CSR. In July I will be working on my final presentations (in addition to the JNI presentation, I am also expected to give a presentation at Hitachi). All this means that I am now working hard to finish a draft version of my Corporate Social Responsibility research report before the end of May.

I must say that I am looking forward to working with the other divisions for a while. My own division, GBR, is great, but it would be nice to get a broader view of the company’s activities. The first week in June I will be working with Hitachi’s internal branding division. The second week will be spent with advertisement. Last week, someone from branding came over to discuss my tasks for the four days I will be spending with them. This turned out to be a fine example of the non-communication that can occur in a Japanese setting. According to the schedule he had received, I had supposedly spent several weeks with different divisions already and given numerous presentations in Japanese. I was surprised- my schedule had the same date stamp on it, but was completely different. Assuming that I had lots of experience giving presentations in Japanese, the branding colleague proposed I conduct several surveys and use the results for a 20-minute powerpoint presentation- in Japanese, of course. Seeing my surprise, he suggested that if this was a problem, I could also give a presentation in English. But then he added that 80% of the audience probably wouldn’t be able to follow it. Indirect communication, anyone? In the end we decided that I would send him a summary of my work at the GBR division, and have another meeting to further discuss what I can do at branding. I hope my boss will be there as well, so they can straighten out their miscommunication errors.

With the “finish line” in sight, I have also made a list of non-work related things I should go see and experience. This week, I have been able to cross several off my list. Last Wednesday I went to the Kanda festival, to go see an open-air Nōh performance. Like natto, uni sushi or karaoke, Nōh is an acquired taste. Many people think this art form too highbrow or longwinded. But I was mesmerized. The hypnotic music, the fantastic costumes, the highly stylized dances and the simple story lines make for a unique form of fairytale-like theatre. The performance lasted three hours and consisted of a Gagaku performance, two acts of Nōh theatre and one Kyogen comedy piece. Unfortunately the seats we could afford were located at the back of the festival tent so we had to look over several heads- if I ever get the opportunity to go see a Nōh performance again, I will select better seats.

Another must-see on my list was the Sanja Matsuri at Asakusa, which I visited on Saturday. Moving through the crowd I felt as if I was in the train at rush hour; the place was packed. Luckily I was taller than most female visitors and therefore able to see most of the procession of Mikoshi. What a great experience! As the Mikoshi passed by, people were almost dancing, clapping their hands and cheering on the bearers, shouting something like “oisa.” It struck me that many of the bearers were women, although not the exquisitely manicured Ginza-kind. After the parade I sampled various Japanese foods at the countless stalls.

On Sunday, I had been invited by two ladies from my choir (both in their sixties) to attend a 茶の湯 (cha no yu, tea ceremony). One of the ladies, Oyama-san, has a mother (aged 86!) who teaches the tea ceremony to younger Japanese women. Together with four pupils, I sat down on the tatami mats of a specially reserved room in the older lady’s tiny apartment. Using proscribed, stylized movements, one of the pupils made us a thick and tasty kind of matcha. Oyama-san’s mother taught me the appropriate way of accepting the cup offered to me- when to bow, what to say, how to pick up the cup, how to hold it, from which side to drink, and where to place it when finished. It turns out that the tea ceremony is also an exercise in geometry, with objects placed at specific positions on the tatami, evenly spaced and in a set order. Basically the tea ceremony is an exercise in politeness, with cups being offered and accepted in a way that is mutually pleasing. With all this formality, I was surprised at the relaxed atmosphere. Only our host managed to remain in seiza position (sitting on the knees) throughout the ceremony (she has been trained to do so since childhood), and in between cups the women were chatting away, telling stories, making jokes and asking me all sorts of questions. All in all it was a unique experience that most short-term visitors to Japan won’t be able to experience. I did not have to pay any tuition (which is, incidentally, very elegantly presented in a white envelope placed on a spread fan), but I did bring some small Dutch gifts. They were unwrapped (!) and very well received: it’s amazing to see what effect tulips and windmills have on Japanese.