Kuriyama Holdings Corporation

[Recommended for these kinds of companies and representatives]

• ■ Executives and roles at B2B companies who feel the need to improve brand awareness
• ■ Companies aiming to build awareness among individual investors and job-hunting students
• ■ Companies who feel “we’re a good company, but no one knows about us”
• ■ Companies seeking proposals that involve media companies suited to their own challenges
• ■ Companies looking to strengthen their brand strategy or recruitment branding

Please tell us the story of how your business relationship with us began.

Mr. Okamoto: I first met Mr. Yoshida back when he was in sales at a TV station in his previous job. My impression at the time was that he was quick to act and would thoroughly research our company before making proposals. At a time when we didn’t know how to run an effective TV commercial, he came to us with well-timed proposals that closely matched our needs, and our very first project together was placing a commercial during a year-end/New Year special program. Since then, he has proposed many things beyond just commercial placement, including tie-up program concepts that matched our company’s characteristics and product affinities. I was especially surprised when I saw a tie-up program proposal — Kuriyama is a B2B company with many specialized products that should be difficult to feature, yet the proposal even included the latest information about our products installed in a newly built station in Osaka Prefecture. I was truly amazed that “this kind of corporate PR was even possible.” Related to this, what’s consistent is that he genuinely proposes things from our perspective — suggesting “this program would suit your company” or “this is a bit expensive, so we can lower it,” always taking our standpoint into account, which left a very favorable impression. Later, when I heard he was going independent and would continue in the advertising agency business, we kept working with him, and he continues to make proposals that consider our company even more than before — proposals unlike those from other agencies.

Please tell us what your company, as a B2B company, prioritizes in various media initiatives, including TV commercial placement.

Mr. Okamoto: I believe B2B companies also need to properly expand their name recognition among the general public going forward. For example, whether individual investors know the name “Kuriyama Holdings” or not. Whether students about to job hunt know it or not. In particular, as the declining birthrate continues to shrink the population, individual investors research well-known companies, and job-hunting students likewise start their research there. Modestly speaking, our company is actually quite good once people understand what we do. We’re sometimes described as “a company that does so many different things it’s unclear what they actually do,” but conversely, that also means if one business’s sales are down, another business’s sales might be doing well. As a result, our performance has grown very steadily, with consecutive profitable years. If the right people take a look and think, “oh, this is a good company,” investors will buy our stock, and job seekers will look into us. But without first getting people to know about us, we can’t move forward from there at all, so we decided to run TV commercials to boost awareness. “Getting people to know us” is what matters.

For B2B companies that haven’t yet implemented media initiatives like TV commercials, could you share any results you’ve felt from doing so?

Mr. Okamoto: According to the awareness survey we conducted last year, our awareness came to about 15%. I had expected somewhere around 10% or less, so this result made me glad we had focused our media initiatives on TV and radio commercials. We’ve increasingly heard things like “I saw your commercial on such-and-such” from business partners and employees’ parents, and we really feel the impact reaching many different people.

Please tell us honestly what strengths you feel our company has that other companies don’t.

Mr. Okamoto: As I mentioned earlier, I think it’s that they genuinely make proposals from the customer’s standpoint. We had assumed all agencies were more or less the same, but your company is clearly different — that’s a point of complete differentiation and makes you a very good partner. Recently, there was the SV League broadcast on Fuji TV. Of course things like clear pricing were part of it, but they packed in initiatives involving the TV station that would normally be unthinkable — adjusting the content of the special L-shaped ad format, and staging a sense of specialness for our product, Taraflex. In particular, being able to publicize that “it has a track record of use even at the Olympics” was both surprising and extremely gratifying. I also strongly feel that CMO Ms. Nakashima has been just as supportive of our company. I was genuinely amazed at the quality of the branding materials, which fully leveraged her experience overseeing Netflix’s brand and serving as Global CMO at 17LIVE. Her research capability in particular was outstanding — not only did the persona behavior patterns come through clearly, but industry trade publications were also thoroughly researched, to the point that even our own sales director was surprised, saying “is there really a company outside our industry that knows this much?” Having that kind of talent on the team is also, I think, one of your company’s strengths.

We aim to be a “Better Half” — like a spouse or right-hand partner. Honestly, do you feel we’ve become that Better Half?

Mr. Okamoto: So far, I think you’ve become a good partner (laughs). With people like Ms. Nakashima — an extremely capable advisor by your side — I look forward to even better proposals going forward.