JOURNAL

Seitaro Yamazaki Newsletter October 30, 2024

Today, I would like to talk about the Content Driven Growth Strategy Project of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, which I was involved in from August to September.

I was asked by Mr. Soichiro Imaeda, Vice Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, to join the team as an observer. Simply put, it is a project to come up with a grand design for what is needed to harness the potential of what we collectively call “content” – art galleries, museums, historic sites, cultural assets, performing arts, music, movies, manga, art, food culture, etc. – to lead to economic growth in Japan. Now, what did I actually do?

I listened to the stories of people who are active in the field of contents business and laid out the current situation, challenges, and future possibilities in the areas of tourism, performing arts, music, movies, manga, games, food service, design, and art.
Kyoto, for example, is now overflowing with tourists, and the problem of over tourism is being pointed out in society. Whether it is “Godzilla-1.0” for movies, “New School Leaders” and “YOASOBI” for music, “Pokemon” that started as a game and has been developed into a wide range of media, Japan has so much contents that the world is crazy about. On the other hand, there is also the issue that these success stories are only one success story at a time and are not spreading horizontally.

Kyoto is a wonderful tourist destination, but there are many other places in Japan that can offer experiences as wonderful as Kyoto. Movies, music, games, and performing arts has the potential to sell more, so why isn’t this happening? This project was to think about that and put together a proposal on how to make it more economically scalable. My role was to propose a grand design policy for Japan’s content industry from the standpoint of being both a creator and a strategist.

After listening to the people who are active on the front lines, the first thing I felt was that we struggle in capturing markets outside of Japan. This is because the knowledge and strategy for global expansion is not widely shared and learned. It is only the large companies that lead the content industry have accumulated marketing strategies over many years. For contemporary art, Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki must have overwhelming assets.

However, traditional craftsmen and artists who are just starting out and are not affiliated with any gallery, privately owned restaurants, and non-profits need to use different strategies to attract customers outside of Japan than how these large corporations do. The strategy probably exists somewhere, but not in a form that everyone has access to. As a country, we have not created footholds and routes to expand overseas.

It is also important to have a PMF (Product Market Fit), or a system that prevents a mismatch between the target market and the product. In foreign markets, each country has its own cultural differences, preferences, and customs, so it is necessary to partner with locals who are specialized in the market.

We also proposed a mechanism to facilitate encounters between creators from different fields and the spread of option agreements. Option agreements are a mechanism that I learned about when I was working on a project to adapt Japanese content into a Hollywood film. If the decision to make a film is made suddenly, the hurdle to signing a contract is very high, so the first step is to temporarily hold the copyright and consider whether or not the film can be made into a movie.

Another point I would like to make, which would be very interesting if it were actually introduced, is that we should set an annual theme for Japan as a whole. This was inspired by the marketing of fashion brands. For example, if we decide to have an annual theme of “Moon” for the year 2025, we would announce that anyone can create a creation on the theme of “Moon” and present it to the public. This annual theme can include fashion design, architecture, contemporary art, Japanese painting, manga, animation, music, cuisine, film, and tourism. Any industry can participate. I believe that having this aligned theme can attract the world’s attention to Japanese content not as a point of reference, but as a collective surface.

Another part of my role was to propose how to effectively apply design and art in Japanese business. I started out as a designer, but I also work as a consultant. I also run several companies myself, and I am also a contemporary artist. Because I am involved in design, art, and management, so I think I was just the right person to work with on a content-driven growth strategy.

My proposal for this issue is to establish a system to educate specialists who will work with management to implement art and design elements into the organization. In my experience, there have been many cases where managers do not know who to assign to their companies when it comes time to implement art and design. So, I thought it was necessary to develop the people who would work alongside them in a way that would allow them to be properly recognized.

Another proposal is for art universities and colleges to offer business-related courses such as accounting, intellectual property law, and marketing, and to create a system that allows students to learn something other than art and design as a minor. This is the so-called “double major” concept. If you want to be an independent artist or designer, it is absolutely necessary to have the basics of business, and another area of specialty in addition to art and design.

I myself majored in photography and sociology at university, then studied filmmaking at in New York, and later studied wood architecture at Kyoto University of Art and Design. I have also studied ink painting, ikebana, and many other things, and I feel that all of these seemingly unrelated experiences have led me to where I am today and are useful in my expression.

I am not sure what the final proposal will be, but I hope that I have been able to contribute to the global appreciation of Japan’s wonderful content.