Interview with Eiji Doi: How Do Influential "Innovators by Genre" Emerge?

Inthe first and second installments ofthis series, we discussed "Genre Innovators" – individuals with deep, otaku-level knowledge and information in specific genres, who are being watched by Dentsu Inc. Gal Lab.

Among today's influential figures, there are genre-specific influencers who demonstrate innovator traits within particular fields. To effectively leverage them, we must understand the process by which they established their status as influencers, or how their brands were built and the mechanisms behind it. Therefore, the purpose of this series is to understand the process and mechanisms that create "Influencers × Genre-Specific Innovators" and then consider how to utilize them.

This time, Ayaka Asami from the same lab interviewed Eiji Doi of ELIES Book Consulting.

Mr. Doi is an innovator in the "business book" genre, primarily through his business book reviews in the email newsletter "Business Book Marathon," where he introduces new business trends, ideas, and business models. Simultaneously, he produces genre-specific innovators like Marie Kondo, author of the globally bestselling book (over 10 million copies sold worldwide) The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Furthermore, he excels as a skilled marketer who consistently ranks the books he introduces.

In the third installment of this series, we delve deeper with Mr. Doi into "How to Cultivate Influential Genre Innovators" and "The Secrets to Successful Genre Innovator Marketing."

<Table of Contents>

Ⅰ How to Cultivate Influential Category Innovators
▼Create Categories and Secure Unique Positions
▼Attract Followers Through B2C Communication and Messaging Skills
▼Changing Cost Perception to Share Information for Free
▼Capture the Masses with Proper Nouns: Repurposing Amazon's Marketing Approach
▼Identify Genres Likely to Produce Innovators

KEY POINT
① Find hints for a unique position in "core challenges × personal authenticity"
② Articulate what has become "tacit knowledge" in your industry
③ Hone communication skills to increase your market value outside the company
④ Leverage "proper nouns" that are sought after by people in both your own and other fields
⑤ Look to minorities to discover next-generation innovators in specific fields

Ⅱ Secrets to Success in Genre-Specific Innovator Marketing
▼Explore points of resonance with genre-specific innovators from a fan's perspective
▼Focus inward and provide what you truly desire
▼Create "watchers" as a method for finding innovators

KEY POINT
① Marketers should prioritize finding points of empathy with genre-specific innovators
②Connect brands and genre-specific innovators through shared ideology

I handle personal branding for people, including authors. For example, a late-30s announcer can't survive on cuteness alone. I help them strategize how to brand themselves, build expertise, and sell their brand. Essentially, I assist them in transforming into experts and launching them into the market. Furthermore, to become a leader in their field as an expert, several things are necessary.

Create a category and secure a unique position

To become top in a genre, mere expertise isn't enough. There are countless people knowledgeable about music or rock, right? Therefore, you must secure a unique position. As David A. Aaker states in his book 'Category Innovation: Win Without Competing on Brand Relevance,' the most impactful strategy is creating a category.

Take Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. She introduced the concept of "sparking joy" to the world of tidying, something unprecedented. As a result, her first and second books dominated the Wall Street Journal bestseller list in the US, ranking #1 and #2, and sold over 3 million copies in the US alone. Her influence spread globally, including topping the bestseller charts in Italy.

Tomomi Ishimura, author of the 800,000-copy bestseller Zero Training, was originally an actress who performed in productions like the Shiki Theatre Company's "The Lion King" and Broadway's "Miss Saigon." Drawing from her own experience of maintaining her physique and condition amidst high stress, she broke through by offering yoga lessons and seminars.

In this way, more people may rise to popularity by shifting slightly from existing genres and carving out a unique position.

Attracting Followers Through BtoC Communication and the Art of Conveying Messages

When aiming for a unique position, combining existing genres—like "actress + yoga"—creates new categories, leading to genre fragmentation. Yet, innovators within these niche genres can now establish viable businesses because social media and blogs enable individuals to directly connect with customers (the "C" in B to C). By maintaining a connection with readers, one can leverage their professionalism within the C world to make a living. That's the era we're in.

However, the absolute necessity for making C your customer is the skill of communication: "writing" and "speaking." The reason Mr. Ishimura is gaining popularity now is that he can write and he can speak. In the B to C world, this kind of explanatory skill is absolutely essential.

Change your cost mindset: Share information for free

When communicating, you should change your cost mindset to "distribute for free." If you calculate the value of what you write on your blog as稿料 (manuscript fees), you won't be able to write. Instead, what matters is creating the market. Think of your distribution as building your customer list.

Incidentally, if I were a photographer, I'd shoot tons of couples for free, making them look absolutely stunning. Then, once I became famous as a photographer, I'd publish a photo book to recoup expenses. People would be thrilled to get professional photos taken for free, right? Think about what actions create value, what people would be delighted to receive for free, and then execute something disruptive.

Furthermore, to survive when competitors adopt the same approach in the future, it's crucial to specialize in a niche genre. In the above example, that means only photographing couples, specifically at dusk. Crucially, this niche must be what everyone wants most. Your marketing sense in choosing what to focus on determines your future.

Adapting Amazon's mass-market strategy using proper nouns

Proper nouns can draw people in. Looking back now, I believe Jeff Bezos started Amazon with books because he could leverage proper nouns. Books are built on numerous proper nouns: author names, titles, genres, characters. Impactful proper nouns like famous authors can draw in people who love them or are specifically searching for them. Amazon's marketing succeeded by covering nearly every proper noun needed to capture the mass market.

When people know exactly what they want, they search by proper noun. Highly specialized products might be virtually unknown outside their niche audience. Every genre has its charismatic figures and iconic products. Popular proper nouns in unfamiliar genres hold value for those unaware of them—once discovered, they can spark desire.

Identifying genres where innovators are likely to emerge

I interpret eras through antonyms, seeking individuals who embody keywords aligned with the spirit of the times.

For example, the year the Great East Japan Earthquake struck was defined by "chaos." The antonym of chaos is "order," so order became popular. At this time, tidying up became a trend, and Marie Kondo's book sold well. At the same time, Makoto Hasebe's book, 'Organize Your Mind: 56 Habits to Pull Victory Closer,' also sold well. When people feel disordered, they want to organize. Conversely, in stable times, disorderly and free-spirited things gain traction. Among those I've worked with, Shizuka Oki is a prime example.

Furthermore, major societal trends are always created by minorities. When a minority becomes the majority, tremendous energy is generated. The business book genre I worked in was also a minority at the time. However, because many readers were CEOs, adding value to the customer list, and because a business book boom occurred, it rapidly became the majority.

So, what will be the next powerful minority? I'm still exploring this, but I suspect it will emerge from areas beyond traditional physical boundaries. For example, just as Silicon Valley in the US has "a certain breed of people like IT startups," I think we'll start categorizing people by "those with that kind of mindset."

Indeed, Mr. Doi's insights about launching category innovators like Marie Kondo were highly instructive. As Gal Lab continues researching category innovators, we'll focus on the following five key points in the process and mechanisms behind their emergence:

① Finding hints for a unique position in "fundamental challenges × personal uniqueness"

While specialized skills and knowledge are fundamental, the key lies in combining the essential challenges within that genre and their solutions with the individual's roots, character, and other unique personal elements. Pioneering a new genre allows one to offer new value unique to them, potentially securing a solid, distinctive position.

② Articulate what has become "tacit knowledge" within your industry

While working within the same industry or company, there's no need to verbalize tacitly acquired knowledge or know-how. However, when communicating with people in other industries, you must verbalize this tacit knowledge, converting it into explicit knowledge, and convey it clearly. By doing so, you can provide knowledge where it's needed, thereby increasing your own value.

③ Hone your communication skills to increase your value outside the company

In Japan, the concept of lifetime employment is said to be crumbling. Job-hopping has become a trend, and in this era of 100-year lifespans, there's a growing momentum to turn one's passions into work and increase one's market value. Precisely because we live in such times, I've come to recognize anew that the skill of explanation is indispensable for survival. If you can establish your personal brand, you might even be able to collaborate with companies to scale up your own business.

④ Leverage a "proper noun" that is sought after by people in the same field and those in other fields

Recently, the camera "GoPro," a staple product within the professional photographer industry, became a major hit in the general market, far exceeding expectations.

No matter how interested you are in a genre, it's impossible to cover all the information yourself. Therefore, proper nouns shared by genre innovators—information that wouldn't normally catch your attention through your usual filters—become invaluable. This is likely why the information held by genre innovators is sought after by both those already interested in the genre and those who aren't.

The key to becoming someone who shares highly valued information might be to approach even what you consider "common knowledge" with the mindset that it could be "valuable information" to people in other fields. Then, distill that into specific terms and share it.

⑤ To discover the next generation of genre-specific innovators, look to minorities

When considering the next wave of genre-specific innovators, the presence of minorities deserves attention. Those who create and expand new genres possess the power to shape the new era. Therefore, it's highly likely that minorities who will lead the next generation could become the new genre-specific innovators. Furthermore, when defining genres, it's crucial to look beyond physical boundaries and instead focus on common behaviors and mindsets, grouping them based on shared ideologies.

Dentsu Inc. Gal Lab's "#Girls Tag Survey" also groups people not by appearance or character, but by attaching hashtags to their behaviors and mindsets. In today's internet age, where people with shared interests and preferences can easily connect, I feel it's crucial to focus not on superficial categorization, but on common behaviors and mindsets, and the underlying ideologies revealed by them.

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So, how should companies leverage these genre-specific innovators in the market? I've considered this from a marketer's perspective.

Exploring Points of Empathy with Genre-Specific Innovators from a Fan Perspective

Genre-specific innovators are extremely sensitive to their respective brands. Because they are individuals, losing credibility means the end for them. They absolutely will not promote anything that goes against their beliefs, as doing so would lose their audience.

Therefore, rather than trying to sway them with money or power, we need to understand where their convictions lie and provide material that genuinely resonates with them. It's more important to know what kind of life they've lived, what they empathize with, and what they consider their enemies – their ideology – than superficial details like how many followers they have or what kind of customer base they attract.

Focus inward and offer what you truly desire

Marketers must provide products or services that earn that kind of empathy. To do this, it's crucial that the marketer themselves first ask, "Would I genuinely want this in my heart?"

A charismatic editor I met recently mentioned that he and his editor-in-chief always discuss, "Do we genuinely want this?" Publishers doing this are thriving now. Ultimately, whether the seller sincerely asks themselves, "As a user, do I truly want this?" is crucial.

Creating "watchers" as a way to find innovators

For marketers, finding the right people to spread the word about their products or services is also a difficult challenge. This requires looking at each person individually. For example, a company like Dentsu Inc. could have dedicated innovators for each genre, acting as watchers. Others could follow different people, each bringing information back.

Furthermore, I believe it's beneficial to form various teams based on the empathy points mentioned earlier. For a given company's empathy points, you could form teams like this: media or category-specific innovators who share the same empathy points, and customers further down the line. Then, focus your efforts on how to scale the movement generated here to the mass market.

How to effectively utilize category innovators in marketing is a challenge for the future. I'll share a point from Mr. Doi's talk that left a strong impression.

① Marketers should prioritize genre-specific innovators' empathy points

Genre innovators hold influence precisely because they are trusted as having the most reliable information. Anything that doesn't resonate with them or contradicts their beliefs becomes a lie. Therefore, if you want them to spread your message, it's crucial to properly identify their points of resonance and build your proposal around them. While this seems obvious, it's something that's often overlooked.

② Connect brands and category innovators through shared ideology

To prevent category innovators from having to compromise their integrity, establish a system from the outset that connects companies, products, and services with category innovators based on shared values. This approach enables marketing that genuinely resonates with followers.

This time, we heard from Mr. Doi about specific points for nurturing genre-specific innovators and hints for future marketing. Next time, we welcome as guests Mr. Yoji Kondo, who has gained popularity as a genderless man, and his mastermind, Mr. Takashi Marumoto of WEGO.