What is Dentsu?
The entrance at the former Dentsu HQ building, designed by Kenzo Tange & completed in 1967
One person’s take on why Dentsu draws so much ire in Japan.
A few weeks ago, there was a big hoo-hah on the internet when it turned out that a web comic gone viral had actually been a carefully planned social activation by a company tied to advertising giant Dentsu, all along.
The general consensus seemed to be “Must everything come from the maw of our corporate overlords? Can’t we just have at least some time to mourn the death of the poor croc?”
The strength of the reaction to the discovery of Dentsu’s involvement only renewed my conviction that Dentsu’s business and PR environment is seemingly unique among its agency group peers in other large consumer markets, in the following 3 ways.
1. Dentsu is visible
Dentsu’s primary business entity is… “Dentsu”
I’m not being cryptic here.. In most markets, the major advertising and communications holding companies don’t actually share a name with the agencies themselves.
WPP actually does business as GroupM, or Mediacom, Ogilvy & Mather, or Grey.
Omnicom actually does business as DDB, or BBDO, or OMD.
Publicis‘ famous agencies are Leo Burnett, Starcom, Digitas.
In Dentsu’s case, it’s particularly easy for the finger to point right to the top.
2. Dentsu is diversified
Dentsu has their finger in A LOT of pies
Did you know that Dentsu operates the recently launched a Personal ID-linked Loyalty Points scheme that was launched by the Government’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) as a measure to incentivise adoption of the government-issued ID card system launched 5 years ago?
And that they also are involved in the aid package for SMEs hit by the economic damage from COVID-19, working for the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s (METI)?
(it turns out that they subcontracted a large portion of the billings from each of these humongous programs, which is actually pretty standard practise in large development and systems integration projects. But the public isn’t to know that…)
This is also the company that buys around a third of all media in Japan. They also produce TV programs, to play in between those ad spots.
Dentsu brands domestic tourist destinations, and also Japan as a whole, to the outside world: the “Cool Japan” campaign in Asia is engineered by Dentsu.
Dentsu also controls the domestic rights for the World Cup (FIFA), and the broadcasting rights for 22 countries in Asia for the Olympics (IOC), as well as conducting some of the planning and operations of the Olympic games themselves.
Because of their success in becoming an indispensable part of how companies and even government entities engage with Japanese consumers, Dentsu’s footprint resembles a combination of – I’m going to use a British analogy here – WPP, Ogilvy & Mather, PwC, KPMG, CPC, Adecco, Capgemini, AtoS, and… I dunno, Hat Trick Productions? As they do so much, there are just that many opportunities for Dentsu to hit the headlines.
3. Dentsu is representative
Dentsu as emblem and catch-all scapegoat for the ills of Japan, Inc.
Dentsu has become something of an emblem of Japan’s hard-working, hard-drinking corporate culture – Shimbashi owes much of its position as the salaryman watering hole of Tokyo to its proximity to Dentsu HQ.
There is also the matter of the young Dentsu employee who committed suicide in 2015 due to being overworked. Athough this problem is by no means limited to Dentsu, they have become a lightning rod for the issue and a symbol of poor work-life balance in Japan.
As a result, even though some accuse the parts of the media closest to Dentsu of going easy on them, in reality there are a lot of clicks and column inches to be gained by criticising them as a symbol of the “big bad.”
Conclusion: they’re not really an ad agency
The above are the three main reasons why I think Dentsu so easily becomes the subject of resentment in Japan:
They are visible because they do business in the name of the holding company.
They are highly diversified in their businesses.
They are representative of a certain old-school way of doing things that is seen as out of step with what Japan needs to be in this day and age.
Which global firms are the closest comparison to Dentsu?
When reaching for a comparison, the mind first wanders towards the sort of firms that get conspiracy theorists’ imaginations running wild. The Rothschilds, DuPont, Goldman Sachs.. but none of these have the same direct influence on consumers that Dentsu has.
In fact, the closest comparison that I can draw, in terms of both influence on public opinion, as well as skepticism and distrust of that influence, might be Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.