Shinji Kawamura (PARTY) ⇔ Susumu Namikawa (Dentsu Inc. Business Creation Center)

What possibilities lie within advertising, within the skill of creating advertisements, for us who work in this field?
My book published last year, Communication Shift: From "Selling Things" to Communication that "Improves Society" (Hatori Shoten), poses precisely this question.
So, I want to pose this question to those who read this book. And I want to hear your answers, which will likely be different from mine.
This serialized exchange of letters—where I pass this book along with a letter from me to someone, and then receive a letter back from them—began from that very sentiment.
Letters are strange things. If you're not careful, like a letter written late at night, the passion in the words can become too intense, creating a disconnect with the reader. Yet, without giving that a second thought, I've continued, and now it's already the fourth installment.
For the fourth installment, I decided to send a letter to someone quite different from me.

Cool, stoic, with a personality and work style completely different from mine, yet one of the creators I respect most: Mr. Shinji Kawamura of PARTY.

We worked together in 2013, spending almost every day together back then. But that same year, Kawamura-san moved his base to New York, and I haven't been able to meet him since. That's why I felt like sending him a letter across the ocean.

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Dear Mr. Kawamura

How are your days in New York?

It's been a while since I last wrote a letter, and as I recall those intense days of 2013 when we were together constantly, I find myself wanting to write passionately. But come to think of it, you've never been fond of this kind of "passionate sentiment," have you?

You always focus solely on whether something is truly innovative and of high quality, rather than vague notions like "the creator's feelings." This applies to both your own creations and those of others.

Whenever I witnessed Kawamura-san's almost cruel purity, I'd feel my own impurity—how I'd filter creativity through the creator's feelings or my relationship with them.

The project where I worked with Kawamura-san as a dual creative director was the Toyota Estima Hybrid Dream Relay Movie.

The Estima Hybrid is a car that supports children's creativity. So, let's create a project that truly gives shape to children's creativity.
Children across Japan wrote the scripts, which adult filmmaking teams then turned into videos one after another, culminating in a single movie. We spent over half a year realizing this unprecedented project. (Looking back, Mr. Fuminori Kataoka from Toyota, the project leader who decided "Let's do this!" for such a plan, is truly remarkable.)

Advertising going forward won't be created solely by those calling themselves creators; it will be "created together" with people from all walks of life. Advertising will become that kind of "shared space."
This project was also, in a way, inevitable. It was born from the meeting between me—who had always wanted to do something like this—and Mr. Kawamura, who had been experimenting with participatory creative production, often called social sourcing.

Mr. Kawamura gave his all for six months, without cutting corners for anyone. He tackled even elementary school children with complete sincerity.
He relentlessly refined workshop methodologies to encourage children to conceive wildly unconventional projects that unleashed their imagination more freely.
Precisely because the children's stories were so unconventional, he relentlessly demanded that the adult directors translate them into high-quality video.

Kawamura-san, an expression supremacist, and me, a concept supremacist.
The strict Kawamura and the lenient me.
Like oil and water.
But strangely enough, it was incredibly fun.

I remember once, when we went on a business trip to Kanazawa, the whole team took a bath together. At that moment, Kawamura-san looked genuinely happy and said, "What a great team we have."

But Kawamura-san left Japan soon after.

He's too strict, even with himself.
He must have thought, "Even though I could be happy here in Japan, that's definitely not good enough."

As I wrote in the book 'Communication Shift', I've been fighting this battle too.

When we had a product, rather than just saying, "This product is great, right?" I wanted people to genuinely believe it was a great product by doing "activities that truly benefit society." I wanted that to be recognized as a new form of advertising. With that in mind, I struggled and launched various projects.

What are you fighting against, Mr. Kawamura?
What did you go to New York to fight?
(Only after writing this far did I finally realize: Ah, this is what I wanted to ask, this is why I wanted to write this letter.)

I look forward to your reply.

2014.11.19 Susumu Namikawa

 

Namikawa-san

I'm not at all averse to passionate feelings!
I understand why people might think that, given how logical and cool-headed my creative expressions and direction tend to be (laugh). I'm actually a former sports club guy with a naturally fiery temperament, so I consciously hold myself back.
But it's true that to truly create something new, you sometimes need to be ruthless and strict. And that goes not just for others, but for myself too. As you wrote, Namikawa-san, I'm probably hardest on myself.

The Dream Relay Movie was such a fun project! The power of children's imagination truly exceeded all expectations... Because the kids were so serious, we adults felt we had to match that intensity and give it our all, working at 120%.
And I think the reason the dual creative director setup worked so well for Mr. Namikawa and me is precisely because we're like oil and water. Mr. Namikawa covered the areas I'm weak in, and I compensated for the areas he's weak in. That's the ideal way to work, right? That dynamic spread throughout the entire team, creating a really great rhythm. I truly felt Mr. Namikawa has a powerful ability to build that kind of circle. I'd love to collaborate with him again!

Now, about what I'm fighting for and why I went to NY...

In a word, I think I'm fighting to expand the possibilities of creativity. As you said, staying in Japan is enjoyable, but it's just too comfortable—you risk getting stuck within Japan's small confines. If designing communication is your livelihood, its essence lies in moving more people's hearts. To do that, you have to create things for the world.
If it resonates with Japanese living rooms, it fulfills its purpose as Japanese advertising, but that's not interesting. Furthermore, the current creative business and the way our industry operates isn't necessarily a system for creating truly interesting or useful things. I feel that to bring about the Communication Shift Mr. Namikawa advocates, we need to change that framework itself.

For example, the concept of "creativity" isn't only needed within the confines of advertising. The power of ideas and design is fundamental to services and products in the world. Therefore, we should be able to conceive, propose, and realize new infrastructure, products, and services ourselves. We should also be able to step in as creative directors alongside executives to supplement the creativity lacking in business operations.

This would enable more interesting things to be realized in the world. Rather than being sheltered under the umbrella of "advertising" and merely challenging the limits of that system, it's healthier to break that system down or step outside it, even if it means starting small, to actually put truly interesting or useful things into practice.

I often say things like "Shut up and make shit" in my talks, emphasizing the importance of taking action. I hope that beyond those incredibly difficult, tiny steps, a cycle will emerge where people who genuinely create truly interesting things over the next 10 or 20 years are properly valued, can healthily propose their ideas to the world, and make the world better.

That's precisely why I think I wanted to leave Japan, where the system is rigidly fixed, and compete overseas, where freer and more diverse values swirl.

This topic could go on forever, so let's talk about it next time over drinks!

2015.1.13 Shinji Kawamura