How can Japanese companies overcome digital marketing challenges?

Interview with sembear

Based in Tokyo, Japan sembear provides digital marketing related trainings and educational programs. The company is a one-stop provider of HR development, marketing support and platform provision based on an understanding of the various stakeholders involved in digital marketing.

We had the opportunity to interview Kotaro Haruta, Founder and CEO and Nozomi Arioka, Co-Founder. of sembear. In part 1, we delve into the challenges and causes of digital marketing that many Japanese organizations are facing and in part 2, we will hear about the solutions to those challenges and the mission and vision of sembear.

Read part 1 here.

Watch the Original Interview [Japanese]

Interview Part 2

Employees who are actually willing to drive changes are not able to do so in many traditional Japanese companies and so they leave. What do you think Japanese organizations should do to break through this situation?

Kotaro: The first thing that is required is a change in mindset of the management and leadership team. When looking at the rest of the world, it gets obvious that business changes are accelerating. If Japanese companies don’t want to get left behind, they must become serious about getting out of their comfort zones and really drive change. They have to create a vision about what they want to achieve through digital marketing and then draw a roadmap with the steps to realize that vision. Communication is key here. They have to make sure to share the vision and the roadmap internally and keep relating, so that everyone understands and buys in.

In addition, new trends in digital marketing oftentimes come from overseas like Silicon Valley or other tech hubs, so it is necessary to catch up on such information in English and apply it to your own company back in Japan.

Nozomi: Companies have to really understand their diverse customers and cater to their needs. As Kotaro has mentioned earlier “CX comes before DX”. What information do customers need? And how do they get that information?

For example, instead of saying “TikTok is popular among 20-somethings, so let's advertise on TikTok”, they have to think like “TikTok is the best way to deliver this kind of information to this segment of 20-somethings with these certain needs. Therefore, we should advertise on TikTok”.

It is also difficult for organizations with a one-size-fits-all mentality to understand the diversity of their customers. I believe it is important for both management and staff to embrace heterogeneous ideas and aim for a state that embraces diversity.

Can you give us a specific example that would be a sign of change?

Kotaro: Let me give you an example from a local government. Recently, sembear conducted a training course on the basics of digital marketing for the staff of the Utsunomiya City Hall in Tochigi Prefecture.

This wasn’t just a one-off training session, but we accompanied the staff for about three months afterward and conveyed to them the concept of making data-driven decisions, instead of decisions based on intuition, experience or speculation.

As a result, they were able to quantitatively judge which measures were effective in publicizing vaccine information to the public, and put them into action. By providing them with execution focused support, they were able to create a successful experience and got used to the concept of data driven decision making.

That is a wonderful example! What other activities does sembear focus on to promote change in Japanese organizations?

Nozomi: Currently, the two main pillars of our business are training and development for advertising agency staff, and digital marketing support for businesses and local governments.

To help drive change, we focus on developing the next generation of digital marketers in advertising agencies. We have a wide variety of training programs including 1-on-1 sessions, group sessions on marketing strategy, and classes on the latest technology trends in the digital marketing industry.

Last but not least, what is sembear’s vision for the future?

I don’t mean to brag but a lot of our customers say that “sembear’s training programs are really good, not just because it’s useful in real life but because they care about us.”

This is because we don’t simply teach them the latest trends in digital marketing but we also develop them so they know how to get the latest information in the future and, more importantly, how to apply that to their business needs. Our mission is to nurture people who can think independently.

Digital marketing concepts and tools are universal. We want to increase the number of Japanese companies that use digital marketing to respond to changes in the business environment and can compete on a global scale while creating a more innovation-oriented organizational climate. I would be happy if I could contribute to such a bright future.