by James Ruggia
Last updated: 2:07 PM ET, Tue January 14, 2014
PHOTO: Fashion and other pop culture is the driving inspiration behind Cool Japan. (courtesy Japan National Tourism Organization)
A lecture by Japan's Minister of the Cool Japan campaign, Tomomi Inada, addressed a packed audience at New York's Japan Society on Jan. 13.
The campaign, now several years old, has had a difficult time finding a footing. The Cool Japan idea was born when Japanese leaders took stock of the Soft Power of Japanese pop cultural forces in the outside world. Anime animations and Manga visual novels were connecting big time with international audiences and not only with children.
According to the Japan Times, former Prime Minister Taro Aso saw Soft Power as an important piston in Japan's 21st-century economic strategy. The current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe continued with the Soft Power approach when he unveiled the Japan Brand Fund in order to promote such Soft Japanese products as manga and anime.
The Cool Japan Promotion Fund would also invest on the production side of the artists who create these cultural assets. The Cool Japan Promotion Council (CJPC) provided tax incentives to anime producers in several "International Pop Culture Zones."
Since the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) began promoting Japan overseas decades ago, the focus has been on the quiet majesty of traditional Japanese culture. In an earlier era, when the expression "Made in Japan" indicated cheap products, the majestic images of Kyoto's gardens and exquisite Edo era castles offered an important counterpoint. Japan can afford to broaden its overseas branding beyond Zen tranquility, because no one sees it anymore as a source of cheap products. Though shrines, gardens and temples are authentically Japanese so is the manic frenzy of the neon's in Osaka's Dotonbori district.
The concept of Soft Power was introduced in the 1990s by Harvard Professor Joseph Nye. He detailed the enormous power of iconic cultural forces in the political and economic fortune of nations. The concept compelled Japan's leadership to realize that they weren't getting the most out of all of their resources and thus they formed the CJPC, which in its own rhetoric describes the Cool Japan strategy as the promotion of "Japanese commodities, contents and cultural products that are considered cool by non-Japanese persons."
Roshomon noodles, video games, samurai films and even Hello Kitty have their adherents in the U.S. and as they give Japan the opportunity to expand their travel market. "We are here to promote the widest possible range of cool things about Japan: films, TV, video, tourism, sushi, Mount Fuji and more," said Inada." The campaign has launched a series of meetings at the regional level throughout Japan to identify these cool things. The first took place in Kyoto in December.
"Anime and manga have many fans here," said Mike Ross, the managing director of Imagine Asia, "but it's not so much a force in getting people to go to Japan as it is an extra dimension to inspiring travelers. For family it's huge, because it offers that teenager something more than traditional culture. So it really helps open things up."
At the Japan Society, Inada went out of her way to stress the singularity of Japanese Design, which in her view, consistently expresses an acute attention to detail particular to Japanese culture whether in the production of key chains or in such traditional arts as rice kernel painting.
All Nippon Airways (ANA) has embraced Cool Japan with its own campaign entitled "Is Japan Cool?" The "Is Japan Cool?: Okinawa," played an important role in lifting that island's market profile as a tropical island with beaches, local culture and cuisine. The "Is Japan Cool?: Okinawa" video can be found here.
Japan surpassed its target of 10 million overseas visitors in 2013, a number that Inada feels doesn't reflect Japan's place in the world in terms of its Soft Power. "We are 33rd in the world in visitor arrivals, next to such countries as the United Arab Emirates and the Czech Republic. By contrast the U.S. is number two and attracting eight times the number of visitors."
Given the fact that Japan stands at number six on the 2013 Simon-Anholt National Brand Index after the U.S., Germany, the U.K., France and Canada, it's not maximizing its Soft Power resources. Still Japan had a terrific 2013, but as Ross points out a weak Yen is helping mightily.
Follow me on Twitter @JRuggia1.
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