Alumni Interview: Yuichi Hattori, Public Relations Department Leader, Seibu Lions Co.

After studying media at university, she found a job as an announcer, which she had longed for. Through his work at the TV station, Tomokazu Hattori learned that there are various forms of media transmission, and he wanted to test his abilities in a different way. He says that finding a job is not the goal, and that there are things you can see and understand while working.

Professional baseball teams are now at a turning point in their business policies, as ticket sales, concession stand sales, and other sales related to game entertainment, which used to be the main source of revenue, are slowing down. The Seibu Lions are also developing new strategies in the areas of gourmet foods and merchandise, such as inviting concerts and exhibitions, producing player-produced box lunches, and developing restaurant menus using local vegetables. This requires a different form of PR than baseball and to a different audience, so I believe this is a good opportunity to show off our public relations skills.

In my classes at the Faculty of Social Sciences, I was able to learn about the cutting edge of media, such as social networking services (SNS), which were not yet very popular, so I was able to respond smoothly when they emerged in the workforce. I was also exposed to Edo culture in a seminar led by Professor TANAKA Yuko (now Professor Emeritus). During my time at the TV station, I had many opportunities to visit historical sites, and the knowledge I had acquired about history during my university years came in handy.

During my job hunting activities, I continued to apply for jobs at TV stations, and finally received an offer from almost 100 companies. I still remember how happy I was at that moment.

In my fourth year as an announcer, I was put in charge of an information program and had more opportunities to do interviews. I was very impressed by a public relations manager of a shochu manufacturer who enthusiastically told me that his dream was to spread the company's shochu throughout Japan. As I came into daily contact with the passionate thoughts of the people I interviewed, my desire to do work directly related to business grew stronger. I wanted to increase what I could do and grow for my career over the next few decades, and after much deliberation, I chose the path of transmitting information not as a third party but as a concerned party and quit my job at the TV station.

Later, after working in marketing and public relations for a shopping mall and in consulting sales for a PR firm, I became convinced that this was what I wanted to do, and I decided to become a public relations professional if I was going to do it.

Although I have worked in different industries, including a TV station, a shopping mall, a PR firm, and a professional baseball team, I have a core belief in me because I studied media in college and have worked in media in the mass media and in corporations. We don't live in an era of "one company for life," and as long as my own axis is not shaken, I don't see any problem with changing jobs or industries as many times as I want.

Sports is a treasure trove of new business seeds because it can be connected to any industry. I myself have many opportunities to come into contact with the latest knowledge and knowledge that is not directly related to sports, such as measures and products that make use of technology, as well as staging in the new dome that makes use of video, sound, and lighting, and I would like to expand the variation of my output by making use of this knowledge. Currently, I am mainly in charge of the output part as a public relations person, but I would like to increase my opportunities to be involved from the planning stage and management strategy planning stage before that, aiming to reflect my involvement from the upstream process in the output.

When you go out into the world and start working, you will find things that you could not see or notice when you were a student. Society is changing bigger and faster, and the barriers between industries and operations are disappearing. Please do not settle for employment as your goal, but challenge yourself in a variety of ways to broaden your horizons. I am sure that you will find something that will lead to your own axis in the process.

(First published in the March 2022 issue of Hosei, a public relations magazine)