The Public Relations Handbook

Japan is a land of juxtaposition where tradition meets the future—from the world’s oldest continuous hereditary dynasty to the remaking of global consumer culture through emojis, precision-built cars, and Super Mario. This is one of the most complex, layered markets to understand; its culture, history, and language make Japan not only an island unto itself, but also a paradise of opportunity for those lucky enough to have its abundance revealed.

Japan and Japanese culture represent a unique paradox. Many aspects are insular and exclusive, and the Japanese people often pride themselves on their distinctiveness. Yet they are also voracious consumers of foreign culture, and many parts of Japanese culture have gone global—Japanese cars, sushi, fashion, animation, and video games are known around the world, and in some cases have shaped its pop culture. This tension between globalization and isolation represents over two millennia of Japanese history and culture, something that makes telling the story of Japan, and telling stories in Japan as a profession, particularly challenging.

Yet sometimes Japan can serve as the perfect complement or mirror in revealing our own assumptions. Understanding Japan often takes unlearning a Western mindset and adopting a more Zen philosophy.

An example of this contrast: In the West, the gardens of Versailles have classical straight lines and right angles, with broad, clear vistas and gushing, gravity-defying fountains. Versailles conquers nature. Bending from great effort to human design, the natural world conforms to the power of the monarch or state. By contrast, in Japan, the goal is to hide human effort rather than to extol it, and Japanese gardens avoid hard, right angles or unnatural forms. In the gardens surrounding the Chureito Pagoda near Mt. Fuji, there is meaning in invoking nature instead of coercing it. The natural elements are meant to invoke still grander natural elements, as when a rock suggests an island or mountain. Rather than engineered fountains forcing water to spray, gravity alone guides water along simulated rivers, paths of white stone, and pebbles. The entire concept is the awe of nature.

JAPAN’S STORY

Japan has always been shaped first and foremost by its geography. Many compare Japan—an island off the coast of Asia—with Britain’s position across from Europe, and there are many similarities in how both island nations balance their relations and alliances. However, looking at the long archipelago of Japan, not from the traditional north–south axis but from a west–east axis, shows Japan as a comprehensive barrier for China and the Asian mainland’s outlet to the Pacific Ocean. From this perspective, the history of mainland invasions of Japan, which were all utter disasters and can be counted on one hand, takes on new meaning. The only successful occupation of Japan came not from the mainland, but from the United States after World War II.

As an island nation, Japan has long had to deal with the “Middle Kingdom” of China, through waves of interaction from the golden period of the Heian that imitated the Chinese imperial court and actively imported Buddhism, to the Tokugawa period that banned all interaction with the outside world. Japan transformed itself in the seventeenth century from a divided island of feudal lords to a consolidated nation that came of age in the nineteenth century with surprisingly swift modernization and military victories over the Chinese and Russian empires, leading to an overseas empire of its own. The subsequent way that Japan embraced defeat after World War II, through the American occupation, reshaped its international relations but not its core identity.

Invasions from the sea, as well as frequent earthquakes and natural disasters, have instilled a sense of fatalism in the Japanese, who have learned to bend adversity in the face of disaster. In contrast to America’s manifest destiny to settle its West, Japan focused mainly on internal consolidation until the nineteenth century, when it began expanding beyond its own islands in response to the collapse of its neighbors and historic empires.

Periodization of modern Japanese history is typically presented in pre- and postwar terms, with the end of World War II and the collapse of the short-lived Japanese Empire. Within the postwar time frame, historians focus on the American Occupation, marked by General MacArthur’s command, and then Japan’s transition into the “San Francisco System.”

The defining moment for Japan’s post-imperial rehabilitation was when Japan signed the 1951 peace treaty with forty-eight nations in San Francisco, hence the name, formally ending the occupation and aligning itself with the United States for the remainder of the Cold War. Historian John W. Dower is credited with coining this term in his considerable body of work on Japan and reflects on its common usage in his introduction to Postwar Japan as History, ed. Andrew Gordon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

The strategic parameters of Japan’s domestic and international alliances were set by its all-encompassing bilateral Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, which made Tokyo dependent on the United States for all critical foreign and security policies. With American patronage, and without the economic constraints of a full security apparatus, Japan’s postwar recovery was rapid, and by the 1970s the country had become an economic power.

Asia’s first Olympics, the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, was a celebration of Japan’s economic miracle, symbolized by the shinkansen bullet trains—still the envy of the world today—and modern architecture that rebuilt the capital skyline. It is critical to understand that Tokyo represents the center of almost everything in Japan. Although the spiritual centers of Kyoto and Ise represent minor exceptions with their shrines and temples, the imperial family and symbolic head of the Shinto faith, the Emperor, reside in the heart of Tokyo.

In clear contrast to Tokyo’s centrality, Washington is the political capital of the US, New York its financial center, Los Angeles a cultural magnet, and San Francisco its tech capital.

Especially in terms of government structure, which is centered on the Japanese national parliament (called the Diet), the complete domination of the national over the prefectural or municipal offers a more centralized system of governance at all levels. This top-down hierarchical-yet-consensus approach permeates almost all aspects of Japan today.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES

Tokyo was selected to host its second Olympics in 2020, after considerable cost and effort on the part of Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who personally lobbied for it and went so far as to dress up as Mario from the popular Nintendo franchise to welcome the world at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Because Japan is an extremely popular tourist destination—in 2019 it welcomed 31.88 million inbound tourists—the 2020 games were meant to break all records, but of course COVID-19 had other plans.

The coronavirus pandemic delayed the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to 2021 and has fundamentally changed our still-evolving landscape. However, like the select group of other elite metropolises that have held repeat Olympics, Tokyo 2020 further burnishes Japan’s desire to tell its story on the global stage. Following the Olympics, Japan will host the world again in 2025 at the World EXPO Osaka.

JAPAN’S INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Japan’s contemporary international relations have been anchored by its security alliance with the US, which in turn has defined its current place in the world. The first Japanese delegation to America, in 1860, was enthusiastically welcomed by New Yorkers and reported thusly by the New York Times. Despite immigration restrictions, world wars, financial upheaval, and pandemics, relations between the United States and Japan have endured.

Described by some as America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in Asia, Japan’s role has taken on greater importance as geopolitics is increasingly shaped by tensions between the US and China, much as the Cold War was shaped by US–Soviet relations. As the world’s third-largest economy, and the immediate neighbor and frontline state to China, together with its long history with the “Middle Kingdom,” Japan’s role is further heightened. Yet most Japanese relegate these strategic concerns to the government in Tokyo and to the small cadre of diplomatic hands on both sides who have managed the alliance since the end of World War II.

Japan has one of the most singular and distinctive senses of self in the world, so much so that famed Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington classified the Japanese as the only nation-civilization of its own in his controversial work, Clash of Civilizations. A declining population, the lack of naturalization pathways for non-ethnic Japanese (except in highly specialized cases such as sports stars), and low immigration rates all make for a particularly challenging international environment.

The Japanese have seemingly been on a constant search for a past. During the twentieth century, Japan tried to become a military superpower, which worked for a time until it attacked the United States. The next plan was to become an economic superpower under its alliance structure with the US, which also worked for a time. Now many in Japan are wondering what is next. Will Japan become a sustainability superpower as recent leaders have suggested? As we have seen throughout its history, Japan is deeply cosmopolitan while also insular and isolated. That tension has shaped Japanese culture for millennia and will continue to do so well into the future.

UNDERSTANDING JAPAN—JAPANESE LANGUAGE AND JAPANESE-NESS

The Japanese language is one of the most complicated contextual and written structures in the entire world. Japanese is hard to understand unless you know the details of the social context, which is generally assumed. As well, the subtext makes the language particularly difficult for foreigners to understand even if they apprehend the technical dimensions of the language. As a result, a simple Google translation of Japanese leaves many people more confused; they would have been better served by simply observing without words. The aspect of consensus embedded in the language is particularly important in the functioning of Japanese society.

The reason that Japan has such a complex writing system is largely because it adopted ideographic Chinese characters (kanji), which have no syntactical relationship to spoken Japanese. As a result, there are three distinctively different written systems. In English, there are only twenty-six letters. In Japanese, more than two thousand characters are needed to read at a basic level—representing entire words with many different meanings and sounds—plus forty-six hiragana characters to connect them, along with forty-six katakana characters used for imported foreign words. The amalgamation of characters means that the written form is critical and highly valued, resulting in one of the most literate and print-revering cultures in the world. Everything from the social status and place of the speaker to honorific circularity and deferential respect can be detected from a single word choice.

In the contemporary context, while 140 or 280 characters in an English tweet may constitute a few sentences, the same number can represent entire paragraphs of meaning for the Japanese. The fact that Japanese were some of the earliest adopters of digitization, from personal computers to electronic translations, has led to a more tech-savvy population, which often seems futuristic in application. Yet the Japanese remain, as a population, the lowest adopters of Western social media; by contrast they have the highest newspaper subscription rates in the world.

Television in Japan is ubiquitous and, up until recent digital changes, the public state broadcaster NHK, similar to Britain’s BBC or Canada’s CBC, ruled supreme. Even as the new generation of Japanese “cuts the cords” in favor of smartphones and streaming platforms, given the highly specialized nature of the Japanese language, these credible broadcasters and their content have an important relationship with their audiences.

Conglomerates drive consumption of both news and entertainment, helping to create entire genres such as unique reality and variety shows that thrive outside of Japan. At the same time, historical samurai dramas captivate audiences along with sci-fi and anime, which has taken off internationally through Japanese film festivals, even though distributors still have not adapted the Hollywood or even Bollywood models of global ubiquity.

Things go best in Japan if everyone knows his or her place and follows the rules. But the Japanese also value consensus, which means that it is awkward to explicitly insist on rules. Thus, many aspects of Japanese culture and language also involve seemingly elliptical ways of saying “No” without ever using an overt negative. The Japanese language structure means that such linguistic moves are rich and subtle—precious commodities in a society that values consensus, and frustrating circles for outsiders trying to get to a specific point in a negotiation. This paradox makes the job of PR professionals even harder.

DECODING PR IN JAPAN: A PRACTICAL ACCOUNTING

Like the Japanese language, which values societal context, Japanese businesses and culture value history and tradition. The New York Times recently labeled Japan as an old-business superpower:

The country is home to more than 33,000 [businesses] with at least 100 years of history—over 40 percent of the world’s total, according to a study by the Tokyo-based Research Institute of Centennial Management. Over 3,100 have been running for at least two centuries. Around 140 have existed for more than 500 years and at least 19 claim to have been continuously operating since the first millennium.

This respect for longevity, specialization, and tradition often comes at the expense of innovation and start-ups, and also deprioritizes public relations—sometimes viewed as a way to gloss over a lack of quality. Traditionally, PR has been seen in Japan as synonymous with marketing, rather than branding or value generation, thus hamstringing many efforts to tell successful stories. Quality speaks for itself, and having to tell one’s own story is not proper for many Japanese.

Against this backdrop, there is admiration for the American way that privileges the image of “cool America,” as defined by Madison Avenue and Hollywood. But this admiration is particularly Japanese. Rarely are American campaigns imported directly, even if the products are wildly successful, such as Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. Instead, they are adopted and adapted. “Coke Light” has a more appealing name than Diet Coke in Japan, as does the “Teriyaki Burger,” which has been extremely successful, even as the Double Cheeseburger and Big Mac remain popular as a taste of America.

Public relations in Japan is a new and evolving field. Even as the world’s third-largest economy, Japan represents a cultural and linguistic landscape that, in contrast to nearby business hubs like Hong Kong and Singapore, can mean that global norms of corporate communications do not necessarily apply. Yet Japan’s strong cultural influence, especially in pop culture and food (particularly in other Asian countries), adds to the nation’s appeal as a gateway for the West into Asia.

Business management in Japan has only recently begun to acknowledge PR as a fully fledged field. For example, the Public Relations Society of Japan is relatively new and quite small, especially in comparison to its American and English-language counterparts. Most Japanese consider PR to be just about advertising, and many still equate it with propaganda.

Unlike the US, Japan is homogenous, with a single language. Within this island nation with a centralized government, there is a general feeling that Japanese can understand each other without the higher context of communication or strategic communications. PR in Japan has developed in tandem with business diversification from globalization and the US, yet the homogeneity of Japan limits the space for PR development. Also, because traditional Japanese newspapers have a subscription rate ten times larger than that of the New York Times or other US papers, print ad revenue is extremely high. As a result, the two biggest ad agencies, Dentsu and Hakuhodo, have become extremely strong players in the field.

Dentsu and Hakuhodo are not PR companies in the traditional sense of the word, as they basically buy ads and exert significant influence in mass media the way Mad Men portrayed advertising in 1950s and 1960s America. The symbiotic relationship between mass media and these two leaders—developed during Japan’s mass-consumption era through selling ads—has resulted in a smaller, less diverse PR market.

Despite the rise of Japan’s global multinationals, worldwide PR agencies operating in Japan have generally not had great success; however, they often work with Japanese multinationals outside the country. Domestic PR firms are small. Most Japanese companies continue to rely on Dentsu and Hakuhodo, who in turn often collaborate and partner with global PR firms to service some of Japan’s largest accounts.

Legal disclosures involving corporate and economic leaders are generally handled solely by regulatory and finance authorities, not in tandem with PR professionals; there is a clear incentive to leave things to the local experts, lest the American or Western ways lead people to trouble, whether cultural, legal, or regulatory.

A TIME OF TRANSFORMATION AND OPPORTUNITY

In the 2010s, many global multinationals began opening offices in Tokyo, after decades of running Japanese accounts from their world headquarters. The Japanese business community itself, like its international counterparts, is going through a moment of transformation. Entities ranging from the powerful Keidanren Japanese business federation of Fortune 100 multinational companies, to those such as Rakuten and Softbank, have challenged the norms through their business models and unorthodox leaders.

With these changes comes opportunity for public diplomacy in Japan, including new schools for communications and a promising field for the future, including the 2020–21 Olympics and World EXPO 2025. Rather than the exotic “Land of the Rising Sun” of the past, Japan is one of the most comfortably different environments in the world, and businesses are flocking there for the Asian century. Hong Kong and Singapore remain strong competitors, but given Japan’s status as the third-largest economy and a strong domestic market—plus its links with the West through its Washington security alliance—Tokyo is becoming one of the fastest-growing destinations for PR professionals.

If we look at the distinction only among PR agencies and PR practitioners in Japan, marketing communication is used for selling services and products; lobbying is used for changing policy, obtaining subsidies, or deregulating government; and storytelling is used for differentiation from mass marketing. Everything is increasingly moving to the digital realm, and the power of social media is beginning to rise along with generational shifts. However, most Japanese are not familiar with the field of PR, lobbying, or storytelling. Even within the communications industry, Japanese may find that there are distinctions without differences. As the American way of doing business and styles of marketing have begun to arrive, those bringing them will encounter many unique features in Japan that require local understanding and partnerships.

There are few resources in English to guide those interested in Japanese public relations, but Dentsu Public Relations compiles an annual handbook titled Communicating: A Guide to PR in Japan that is packed with insights, making it a must-read for PR practitioners, business managers, and media studies researchers with an interest in Asia.

To reiterate, the Japanese public relations market is unique and can be extremely challenging for overseas companies used to a very different media relations environment. The tried-and-true method of partnering with a Dentsu or Hakuhodo is the most well-trodden path, although it seems there may be more space for change in the future.

JAPAN AS A MIRROR

Japan has oscillated between globalist and isolationist tendencies, making it a particularly difficult country, culture, and language for a foreigner to penetrate. Yet the abundance and benefits of Japan go far beyond its immediate market. The loyalty and “stickiness” of Japanese businesses and customers are legendary—they are the reason why many businesses have thrived for such a long time. Additionally, Japan is like a mirror that clarifies and refines the quality of any enterprise, including storytelling that may have to be adapted and localized.

The benefits to “cracking the code” in Japan and among the Japanese are obvious to all those who have been fortunate enough to do it, but almost impossible to explain to those trying. Like a stroll through a Japanese garden or a hike to the top of Mt. Fuji, it is the journey itself rather than the destination that defines the experience. As PR professionals and professional storytellers set their sights on Japan, a healthy sense of humility, curiosity, and appreciation for Japanese history and traditions will go a long way toward revealing the paradox of this ancient island nation.

FOR ADDITIONAL READING

■Matt Alt, Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Culture Conquered the World (New York: Crown, 2020).

■Dentsu Public Relations, Communicating: A Guide to PR in Japan, 8th ed. (Tokyo: Wiley Publishing in Japan, 2018).

■Public Relations Society of Japan, “About PRSJ,” accessed June 14, 2021, https://prsj.or.jp/en/.

■Mark J. Ravina, Understanding Japan: A Cultural History (The Great Courses, 2015), https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/understanding-japan-a-cultural-history.

■Joshua W. Walker, “Shadows of Empire: How Post-Imperial Successor States Shape Memories” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2012), https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp01v405s9415.

TAKEAWAYS

1.Japan is shaped first and foremost by its geography, limited resources, and location as an island off the coast of the Asian mainland.

2.Japan is a natural gateway for Americans and Westerners to Asia, not just because of its geography but also its own cultural influence and history.

3.Do not try PR in Japan by yourself without a deep appreciation for and understanding of the Japanese language, people, and society.

4.Japan is increasingly becoming an island of opportunity, experimentation, and possibility for the future.

5.Japan is a useful mirror in understanding one’s own mindfulness, philosophy, and thinking.