What color is a banana to you? ~Let's imagine each person's unique values~

Happy New Year! I thought the series might end with the year-end post, but it seems a few die-hard fans remain, so I'll be writing for a while longer this year. That's right, Shinmeikai "Strategic PR" Season 2 begins. Your navigator will be me, Iguchi, a bubble-era hire who's been honing my PR skills for over twenty-odd years. Let's do our best this year too! Let's keep pushing forward! (Lately, old phrases keep popping into my head. Is something wrong with me? It's bothering me...).

When I travel around giving PR seminars and lectures, I get all sorts of questions from everyone—about practical work, mindset, and more. Starting this time, I want to answer those questions. The series is titled: "That Thing You've Always Wondered About? I Asked Ino-chan!"

So, what's the most common question? Actually, I hear this more often at gatherings of young PR and advertising professionals than at client study sessions.
"So, what exactly do you do to always come up with that PR perspective? Stop being so mysterious and tell us already!"
That's the one.
"Oh, I don't really think about it that much. It just kind of pops into my head naturally!"
I'd love to answer like some kind of genius, but honestly? This is the result of blood, sweat, and tears. I really don't want to share it, but since it's the first post of the new year and feels kind of festive, maybe I'll tell you. Hmm, what should I do... (Oh, my New Year's resolution was to stop being indecisive, but this is looking like another three-day wonder).

In PR, focus on information dissemination that engages the target audience's surrounding community

First, let's talk about targets in advertising and PR. If advertising is about delivering sharp, edgy messages that hit the core target squarely, PR's crucial role is creating buzz among the people surrounding that target. The strategy is to stir up buzz around the target, heighten interest, and then, just as their desire to buy starts to surface, give them a decisive push from their surroundings. What's crucial here is how well you can read the minds of "the people living around the core target." While advertising is consistently crafted by deeply exploring the main target's insights, PR must simultaneously consider how to raise interest among a much more diverse range of people.

For example, when targeting young business professionals with a product or service, I first imagine the people in his life. Does he have a girlfriend? Is he married? Does he have children? Are his parents the meddlesome type? What are his coworkers like? Does he still keep in touch with friends from school? Are his bonds with seniors and juniors strong? Does he have a mentor he looks up to? And so on. Then, I look for the "recommendation message" – how each person would actually recommend this product or service to the young businessman to make him think, "I want that," or "I'd like to buy that," and move his heart.

Like her saying, "People who are into that stuff really have great taste!" Or a junior colleague saying, "I always think people who know about that stuff are so cool!" Or a child saying, "If we had that at home, I could brag to my friends!" Or parents back home saying, "You should buy something like that for your grandchild, XX. I'll chip in a little if it's money!" And so on. Being praised for taste, gaining respect, boosting a child's status, or getting financial help from parents—the perceived benefit differs based on the message received, right? We constantly consider "who would be most effective to target" with the words that push that indecisive person, hesitating "What should I do?", to take that final step. Furthermore, we also consider what kind of information exposure these people are experiencing when they come up with such "recommendation messages."

But this approach assumes every possible target audience, and their media exposure is incredibly diverse. It's essentially an endless chain of reasoning. You might ask, "Is that even worthwhile?" Yet this kind of effort is precisely what's needed now. Often when proposing communication strategies, we set a hypothetical goal and make the path to it look plausible, which somehow makes it seem correct. But is that truly the right answer to the challenge? I've come to feel that the real thrill of PR lies in finding clues and gradually approaching the goal step by step, even if we don't know for sure if it's correct. That's probably why people say "PR is uncontrollable."

I mean, sure, if you throw a phrase you think the target audience will like at them on a media channel they frequently engage with, they'll probably react initially. But that's just getting them to see the information, right? Proposals like this might seem logical, but in an era where fundamental requirements like target audience insights, media contact routes, and media effectiveness have changed drastically, are they really appropriate? PR, on the other hand, constantly observes changes after outreach, measures effectiveness from those reactions, and plans the next move. At the very least, it allows real-time verification of challenges while pursuing objectives. It's tedious, but understanding those changes and objectively evaluating activities is precisely what modern communication demands. Sharing that process with clients is crucial.

Is advertising "deductive reasoning" and PR "inductive reasoning"?

To put it another way, this resembles the relationship between "deductive reasoning" and "inductive reasoning" used in mathematical proofs. "Deductive reasoning" is the method of "deriving a specific proposition from a generally valid proposition." As long as the original proposition is correct, the conclusion derived through "deductive reasoning" is always correct. It's like saying, "Since this is common sense in the world, these individual cases must surely be the same!" It's a method of reasoning based on a broad umbrella of common sense, inferring "This must be true too, of course it is." And then, "Well, everyone agrees with this, right?" and it wraps up neatly.

On the other hand, "inductive reasoning" involves "finding a conclusion applicable to all cases based on individual observations." In reality, this often means "the individual facts are correct, but the overall inference remains speculative." Ultimately, that inference might be correct, or it might be wrong. "Inductive reasoning" operates without the large umbrella of "common sense." It's an approach where you lay out the current facts, then broadly categorize and make visible the emerging patterns.

Doesn't this resemble the relationship between advertising and PR? (Though some might argue advertising itself is inductive...). Of course, we want to avoid reaching the wrong conclusion ultimately. But lately, I've been thinking that building inferences based on immediate, individual observations might actually feel more real and convincing than a predetermined, harmonious approach.

How well can you see things through the eyes of various people?

So, what should we do to hone our PR perspective daily? The method I personally use is extremely simple. My constant self-training is to "view a single news item through the eyes of various demographics." I explore how a topic or product that has gained some attention is perceived by consumers of different demographics. To do this more efficiently, I compare how it's covered across different media outlets, which serve as their primary information sources.

For example, let's compare the reputation of a hugely successful product, Product A, from the perspective of different consumer segments. This product, which became a huge hit primarily among businesspeople, is evaluated in the newspapers and business magazines they read. What are the key points of its appeal? Conversely, from a housewife's perspective, what aspects are valued and what seems lacking? Is it necessary for seniors? Does it spark purchasing desire among younger demographics? Is it likely to hit big in the metropolitan area? Will it sell well in regional areas too? And so on. Even a commodity like bananas can be fascinating when examined this way. While bananas are widely recognized as a nutritious, easily digestible fruit, for athletes, their value often lies more in being an energy-replenishing food. More recently, they've been positioned as a diet food. Or, for those of the Showa era (myself included), they might evoke a nostalgic, deeply memorable food...

In this way, viewing a single item from 360 different angles reveals fascinating differences in evaluation criteria. Nothing scores a perfect 100 with every demographic, but by imagining what score would make each group willing to purchase it while arranging this information, you begin to see evaluations through the eyes of each attribute as if they were your own.

One company has the motto: "Be a professional consumer, not a sales professional." I believe we've entered an era where we must further segment consumers/end-users and imagine how each would evaluate a product or receive information from their specific perspective. Sometimes, you need to adopt a different persona to see things. This year, I think PR professionals could gain an edge by honing this kind of "role-playing ability"... (From the musings of a man born in the Year of the Sheep).