From the Department of Home Economics to an advertising agency. A job that cooks up "feelings."

Oya: Actually, I majored in Home Economics in college.

Cookoo: Huh, home economics!

Oya: I have a teaching license for home economics. Besides my student teaching, I also worked part-time at a cram school preparing students for national middle school entrance exams, where I taught home economics as part of their preparation. But back then, even though we have the term "food education" now, the prevailing attitude was still very much, "You don't need to know that stuff, just focus on math and Japanese." It might still be like that today, but home economics was probably seen as just time for doing needlework (laughs). Plus, the classes were only for girls.

Cookoo: I see.

Oya: So, even though they were incredibly good at the so-called core subjects, they were astonishingly ignorant about food. Even in fifth and sixth grade, there were kids who genuinely thought tuna swam in saku (a type of tuna). When they saw instructions to "wash the rice," they'd ask, "Should I use dish soap or laundry detergent?"

Cookoo: Detergent... Had they never seen rice being washed at home?

Oya: That kid said they saw their mom washing rice, and since the water turned white, they thought she was using detergent.

Cookoo: Wow, they didn't know it was rice bran.

Oya: Exactly. It made me think, it's terrifying to imagine these people growing up and becoming important figures someday. Knowledge about what we eat is fundamentally essential for human survival, right? The character for "food" (食) is written as "to make people good" (人良くする). But do they know about seasonal produce or where things come from? Do they know cooking methods that bring out the best in ingredients? The more you know, the more enjoyable and richer life becomes. Yet, are they really going to become adults without knowing any of this?

Cookoo: That's such a shame, isn't it?

Oya: But even teaching in a classroom like this, I only reach a few dozen students at a time, and I don't even know if it truly resonates with them.

When I wanted to change that situation, the career path that came to mind was an advertising agency. There would be many food-related clients, and they also handle events like expos. I thought I could connect more deeply with the world through "food."

Cookoo: I see! Were there many people around you who thought that way?

Oya: I think it was very rare. Coming from the home economics department of a women's university, I agonized over how I could possibly get hired by an ad agency. So, I thought, just like art professionals study specialized subjects at art universities, if I became absolutely unbeatable in my knowledge about "food," that could be my selling point. Back then, I holed up in the library, studied food like crazy, and tackled my job hunt.

Cookoo: So that's what led to where you are now. Once you joined Dentsu Inc., have you been doing "delicious work" ever since?

Ōya: No. My first assignment was in the marketing department at the Kansai branch, but after six months, I transferred and became responsible for radio media.

Cookoo: Radio media sales?

Oya: It's the department that sells advertising slots to radio stations nationwide. Radio actually gets very few ads from food companies. That sizzle factor – the "Yum!" or "I want to eat that!" feeling – is hard to convey when you can't see it. So, with just sound, radio has fewer food-related jobs.

Honestly, I thought I might have ended up in the furthest place from food. But thankfully, I wasn't completely cut off from it. A new product from a food company I'd helped develop during my first six months was scheduled for release, and I continued working on that project even after my transfer. I was traveling to Tokyo about once a month for concept development, naming, and product design proposals. Then, in my third year, I transferred to the marketing department at the Tokyo headquarters, and gradually, food became more central to my work.