Notices
Public Relations Committee Seminar] Lecture by Mr. Yu Hirosawa, DX Strategy Division, Kao Corporation
- Feb 15, 2024
Public Relations Committee Seminar
Lecture by Mr. Yu Hirosawa (Kao Corporation)
Hello, I am Kondo, a member of the Public Relations Committee of the College of Business Administration! I am Kondo, Nishihara, and Ito, members of the Public Relations Committee of the Faculty of Business Administration.
We, the Public Relations Committee of the Faculty of Business Administration, invited Mr. Yu Hirosawa of Kao Corporation's DX Strategy Department to give a lecture titled "Marketing Course (from basics to application and SNS) that can be used for job hunting and seminars.
Mr. Hirosawa joined Kao in 2015 and has been engaged in brand management of "Curél" since 2018, and currently promotes the use of digital inside and outside the company in the "Data Driven Marketing Promotion Office, Business DX Support Department, Business DX Promotion Center, DX Strategy Division" department. In addition to his work, he is also a working graduate student in the doctoral course of Hitotsubashi University's Graduate School of Business Administration (Innovation Management).
In this lecture, he spoke in an easy-to-understand manner, starting with the basics of "what marketing activities are" and ending with the applied aspects of "how to utilize SNS for marketing. We would therefore like to introduce the contents of this lecture.
What is marketing?
When you think of "marketing," what comes to mind? I am sure there are various images, such as "promotion" and "product creation.
Mr. Hirosawa began his lecture by explaining marketing as "creating, operating, and sustaining a mechanism that leads to purchases," and by reviewing a series of marketing processes (1) through (6) below in order to clarify the mechanism.
(1) Searching: To grasp the actual situation and needs of consumers through observation and surveys, and to search for what consumers are looking for.
(2) Planning: Based on the results of surveys and observations, define product design, including concepts and themes, and decide on product strategies.
(iii) Development: Embody the product concept, define functions, performance, and benefits, and confirm consumer acceptance.
4) Production: Determine product sales strategies and advertising strategies, and adjust the production system.
(v) Sales: Create a situation where consumers can easily pick up the product by deploying the product to actual storefronts and conducting advertising activities.
⑥Analysis: Analyze customer response to the product after launch, and perform post-launch maintenance, such as improving product performance and design, and adjusting advertising and in-store communication.
These series of activities are "marketing" as a practical matter, and are exactly what it means to create, operate, and sustain a mechanism for people to buy the product. It takes about two years to develop a new product according to this series of processes.
This process involves various specialized organizations and partners, mainly marketers within each company. For example, Kao uses a matrix management organization, in which the product development department is involved in the product development phase, the media planning department in the advertising phase, and so on, with specialized departments working together at each marketing phase. According to Mr. Hirosawa, "Marketing practice involves a lot of simple work and 80% of the work is uninteresting, but the real joy of the job is the moment when a product or message reaches the customer and the pleasure of seeing the product sell.
So what skills are needed to become a "marketer," a job that involves marketing? A marketer "proposes value-added proposals to buyers. The abilities necessary for this are the ability to think and intrinsic motivation. In particular, intrinsic motivation, or enthusiasm and curiosity, are the most important abilities for marketers. This is because the ability to think can be taught or trained by others, but intrinsic motivation depends on one's own awareness. He emphasized that marketing cannot be carried out without an underlying enthusiasm and curiosity that says, "This product would be interesting to make," or "This message would reach the customer. If you are interested in or enthusiastic about the job of a marketer, why don't you take some action, such as doing your own research on marketing?
SNS Marketing
How do you think SNS is used in marketing? Many people may think that it is used to introduce products. However, according to Mr. Hirozawa, SNS marketing covers a wide range of activities other than product introduction and advertising, and can be broadly classified into four aspects: (1) needs research, (2) product advertising and promotion, (3) product purchase opportunities, and (4) communication with customers.
First, (1) needs research can be analyzed based on social networking posts and reviews to understand the image of a brand or product and the issues that consumers face in their daily lives. 2) Product advertising is used when you want to let more people know about a product or spread campaign information, and includes advertising and official accounts that disseminate product information. (iii) Product purchasing is the creation of a system that allows customers to immediately purchase products they find of interest on SNS, and is a device that facilitates a series of consumption actions, such as attaching the URL of a product introduction site to an advertisement. Finally, (iv) communication with customers is an activity to create a strong impression of the brand or to make people feel familiar with the brand; there are many attractive accounts that actively interact with consumers on SNS, provide "useful information," and reply with a sense of humor.
3. Summary
In addition to the above, the lecture was filled with a variety of topics, including the history of marketing activities and the forefront of marketing studies from the perspective of a young researcher.
In this lecture, participants were able to learn the basics of marketing and SNS utilization through the eyes of a practitioner who is active in the front lines of marketing activities. It was particularly impressive that he mentioned enthusiasm and curiosity as necessary skills for a marketer, which inspired the author to boldly tackle what he is interested in during his future university life.
I was also surprised at the many ways in which SNS marketing can be used in places we are not familiar with, such as picking up needs based on the information sent out and using it to establish a brand image for the company. When you find a company's account or post on a social networking site, you may find something new if you think about what the company's intentions are in posting the information.
I hope that the students reading this article will also cherish their enthusiasm and curiosity and move forward toward what they want to do. Thank you very much, Mr. Hirosawa, for taking time out of your busy schedule to give us this lecture.
(Responsibility: Shiori Kondo, Ryosei Nishihara, and Teruha Ito, 1st-year students at Faculty of Business Administration )
