Thinking about the significance and potential of creative directors -Yuya Furukawa Office Yuya Furukawa x Hakuhodo / SIX Tatsuyuki Fujihira Dialogue- |

An era in which brand purpose has become commonplace and creators are required to create various actions that go beyond advertising.

In order to understand the significance and potential of the creative director in such an era, a dialogue was held between Yuya Furukawa of the current Yuya Furukawa office at Dentsu and Tatsuyuki Fujihira of Hakuhodo / SIX. With web telegramHakuhodo Center Dot MagazineIt was realized by a special project of.

The first part that talked about “expansion and liberation of creativity”Here..

A perspective of “non-financial indicators” for practicing Purpose

Fujihira:Now that we’ve gone through the creativity story, I’d like to talk about the main issues, such as purpose, non-financial value, and ethics. Purpose is now a buzzword in all areas, partly due to the Korona-ka. It’s safe to say that there are no projects to ignore Purpose now.

Before the word Purpose permeated the world, Mr. Furukawa saw the essential value of the brand with expressions such as “anthropological / sociological significance” and I think that it was embodied in many creative ways.

Furukawa:Thank you. I said it wasn’t Purpose, but the significance of existence. You all started to say it all at once.

Fujihira:That’s right. I hope it will continue to be a core asset for brand and business management, but recently I am paying attention to the “non-financial value” mentioned earlier as a concept that expands the Purpose idea.

Furukawa:This is all at once, but in fact, the idea of ​​”Is it okay to measure corporate value only with profits?” Has finally come to be seen. Some companies have already adopted it.

Fujihira:Purpose isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. I don’t think we can play a role unless the social value of the brand is improved from Purpose. Mr. Furukawa says that the client is “what is the relationship in Japanese society?” I use the word “captain” and define purpose from the perspective of “which activity will be the captain?” By deciding on a captain, the actions that the brand should take become clear.

Furukawa:That is exactly what the company is all about. As a new index to measure corporate value, Dentsu will announce a new management blueprint that visualizes the intangible value of a company this year.Integrated table Ver.1.0Was developed. It is a framework that visualizes and reconstructs corporate value by first setting “Purpose” in the center and then writing in the four quadrants of “business”, “employee”, “society”, and “environment” in the surrounding area. Originally, an executive of a newspaper company asked me to think of an index suitable for the times instead of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and after the idea of ​​well-being management, the corporate value Indicators for reconstruction are integrated tables.

Fujihira:After seeing the release, he groaned that it was a very good design. Many people pointed out that non-financial indicators are spillover (difficulty in catching up the effect), so it was easy to postpone them, but it is practical and useful to organize action segments alongside financial indicators, centering on Purpose. I think it’s easy.

Furukawa:Based on this, if you actually ask companies to fill the purpose and the four quadrants, you will notice that the purpose of various companies has become homogenous recently. The view of the world and the view of the future are becoming similar. Everyone is right. After all, before the 4th quadrant, you can see that the significance of existence that is different from the others is the most important. Because everything starts there and ends up there.

Fujihira:I have the same concern and call it the “Love & Peace Trap”. When the goal is to decide on Purpose in the first place, it tends to be an undeniable ambiguous word like Love & Peace. Is it something that is “like that”? In that case, it’s okay to decide, but it doesn’t change much.

I often create Purpose by multiplying “a story that symbolizes the brand x the ideal society that I want to create.” When the left falls, the presence of the subject becomes ambiguous, and when the right falls, the future to be drawn becomes ambiguous.

Furukawa:The significance of existence is, in short, going to a place where no one is present. In other words, it’s the future tense. There is no point in something like the current resume. Rather than competing for correctness, “we really want to do this in the world”, so we become a company like this and act. I think that is the main point.

Fujihira:In order for Purpose to be described in the future tense, it is important to move in the order of “Exactly! → Exciting! → I want to do it!”. This is just like ourselves! There is a sense of conviction, and it is exciting to raise this! There is an uplifting feeling, so I want to do this! My mind and body move. On the other hand, when I look at Purpose, I think the most dangerous situation is that all the comments “Oh, I see.”

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What is the “ethics” that the creative industries should have?

Fujihira:The perspective of “ethics” is important when working to formulate purpose for companies and brands and to support the improvement of non-financial value. As philosopher Masahiro Hirao states, there are two main types of ethics. One is “defensive ethics,” which I think we somehow think of. It is a deontological, pursuit of correctness, that is, a rule as stipulated in the legal system.

The other is “offensive ethics.” In other words, what is “morality” and “goodness for happiness” for society, brands, and consumers? I think about the positive possibility.

Recently, only the “defensive” side has come out with compliance at the top, and I feel that it is somehow regarded as a hindrance in business, but in the future, brands that are not equipped with an offensive ethics will be weeded out. ) I feel like it will be done. In other words, I think that we in the creative industries also have to acquire aggressive ethics.

Furukawa:I don’t originally think of ethics as passive. I think Aristotle was the first to advocate ethics, but the goal set there is to be happy. To that end, I think the theme was how to make full use of the original human abilities of virtue and reason. So, as you say, brands should pursue goodness, including happiness, and then think that profits will emerge after the fact. The same idea applies to B-Corp in Silicon Valley. Is it rather a positive attitude?

Fujihira:The same is true of Eiichi Shibusawa’s “Abacus and Abacus” and Sontoku Ninomiya’s “Economy without Morality is a Crime”. increase. However, when it comes to business, it is difficult to think ethically. However, it is clearly a mature era, a plateau era. That is why I have to think about implementing ethics in the brand in the future.

Furukawa:Personally, I understand that ethics is “appropriately blunting decisions.” When it seems unanimous and absolutely okay, from a different point of view, I think it’s like an intellect that can properly hesitate what to hesitate and hesitate to do. Rather than morality, it’s always about being able to activate the intellect of getting lost.

Fujihira:It’s close to slowing down the decision, but I have the image of offensive ethics as the time axis and the axis. It is an ethical point of view to extend the timeline of thinking by including short-term decision making, is it just lucrative? Etc. are the best. Thinking about the axis as a gradation, it’s like bringing in not only the X-axis but also the Y-axis and Z-axis monosashi. I think that the setting of this axis unexpectedly expresses the brand-ness.

Ability to “represent” many perspectives and do only the essential things

Fujihira:Finally, I would like to talk about the value of the creative director of an advertising company. The strengths of each event are different, but I personally think that the commonality of excellent creative directors is not only the ability to create good things, but also the ability to dispose of them. It can be said that it is the ability to see the points to invest.

Furukawa:The Pope asked Michelangelo, “How did you create such a great statue of David?” “I threw away everything that wasn’t related to David,” Michelangelo replied. There is a famous episode, and I think that is the main point of creative work. The fact that there are many important things means that the direction is insufficient. I think this is a “principle” common to all creatives, not to mention advertising.

Fujihira:That’s right. So, if you are a creative director who has a lot of experience in deciding / discarding, you can do it in any area. I think this power cultivated by industry has infinite expandability in this complex era.

Furukawa:Even if it’s not an advertisement, it is the same for any job to embody the many desires of clients, extract issues from them, and face them as “themes”. If we consider not only companies but also individuals, countries, and societies as clients, all of our commercial creative work is heteronomous client work. It’s not an autonomous fine art like Picasso, but basically a job that “on behalf of others”. That’s why the “agent” of an agency is surprisingly essential.

Fujihira:I truly sympathize with the fact that our work is commercial creative, and that is why “representative” is more essential than “advertising.” Under the philosophy of “consumer thinking,” Hakuhodo has also valued the perspective of “representing consumers,” but it is not limited to consumers, but “representative creativity / implementation that embodies the voices of all players.” I think that something like “power” is the source of the value provided.

Furukawa:Commercial creators have been thinking on behalf of companies, so I think they have a lot of muscle training. Most of the work in this world is about “I have a problem or a problem I want to reach, so please solve it.” I think that the muscles of advertising creatives that have been trained on behalf of various opponents will be a strong weapon in any area.

Fujihira:I thought that I had to renew my awareness that that was my strength. To find issues on behalf of various entities including clients, and to solve them, not only the advertising part, but also to continue to demonstrate creativity from the beginning to the end.

Furukawa:When we meet with management, we often start by asking, “What is the most important problem in the first place?” This is a very important question, and it’s an agenda setting to talk from the deepest possible point. I think this is the place where creatives should start.

Have a clear goal image and start from the very beginning. From that point to the end, from the point of contact with the world, taking responsibility from the beginning to the end is the ideal form of the current creative direction.

Fujihira:There is no more fun and essential scene than when you have a meeting after being cut out like “What are you going to decide today?”

The baton pass format was established because it was specialized in the area of ​​advertising communication and shared clear issues, and in management and business, strategy (Apollon) and execution (Dionysus) were separated. If you do, I think you won’t be able to do good things.

Furukawa:I think that creative directors who think about strategy and creativity at the same time, as Mr. Fujihira is aware of, will have more chances to become the standard and take shape of new work.

Fujihira:Thank you. The more areas we can be involved in, the more we have to set and function Purpose as the central point, and beyond that, I think it is important to have proxy skills from various perspectives.

Furukawa:Another thing about Purpose is that from now on, whether it’s a company or an individual, it’s quite difficult to say something that doesn’t make your position clear. If it’s fair and neutral or in a neutral position, it’s not convincing, or it’s not charmy. I think that being able to say that I or we are thinking about this issue will lead to trust, respect, or branding.

Fujihira:As long as a corporation has a “person”, it doesn’t seem like it’s easy to repeat bland remarks, change attitudes depending on issues, or keep silent about inconveniences. However, I think that creativity is necessary for the way of expressing an attitude that has the courage to take a step forward. Even if you say the truth as it is, you will be disliked.

Through this dialogue, which discussed a wide range of themes, I feel that the resolution of the work I want to do in the future has improved. Thank you for today. I will do my best again from tomorrow.