Considering the Purpose and Potential of Creative Directors: Part 2 ~ A Conversation Between Yuya Furukawa of Yuya Furukawa Office and Tatsuyuki Fujihira of Hakuhodo/SIX ~

In an era where brand purpose has become the norm and creators are expected to create diverse actions beyond advertising,

To decipher the significance and potential of creative directors in such an era, a special discussion between two creative directors—Yuya Furukawa of the former Dentsu Inc. and current Yuya Furukawa Office, and Tatsuyuki Fujihira of Hakuhodo/SIX—was realized as a joint project between Web Dentsu Tsūhō and Hakuhodo Center Dot Magazine.

Part 1, discussing "Expanding and Liberating Creativity," can be found here.

The perspective of "non-financial metrics" for putting purpose into practice

Fujihira: Now that we've covered creativity, let's move to the main topic: purpose, non-financial value, and ethics. Due to the pandemic's impact, "purpose" has become a buzzword across all fields. In fact, it's almost as if no project exists today that ignores purpose.

Mr. Furukawa, even before the term "purpose" permeated society, you identified the essential value of brands through expressions like "anthropological/sociological raison d'être" and embodied this in numerous creative works.

Furukawa: Thank you. I used to say "reason for being" rather than "purpose," but then everyone started saying it all at once, didn't they?

Fujihira: That's true. I hope it becomes a core asset in brand and business management. Recently, I've been focusing on "non-financial value," as you mentioned earlier, as a concept that expands the purpose mindset.

Furukawa: This trend is also emerging all at once. We're finally seeing the question: "Is it really okay to measure corporate value solely by profits?" Some companies have already adopted this approach.

Fujihira: Purpose isn't something you set and then it's done; setting it is just the beginning. I believe a brand cannot fulfill its role unless its social value improves, starting from its purpose. Mr. Furukawa, you often ask clients, "What role does your brand play in Japanese society?" I use the term "captain" and define purpose from the perspective of "What activity's captain will you be?" Deciding that role (captain) clarifies the actions the brand should take.

Furukawa: That is precisely the company's raison d'être. As a new metric for measuring corporate value, this year, Dentsu Inc. developed the " Integrated Statements Ver.1.0 "—a new management blueprint that visualizes a company's intangible value. It's a framework that places "purpose" at the center, then fills in the four quadrants around it with "business," "employees," "society," and "environment" to visualize and reconstruct corporate value. It originated when an executive from a newspaper company asked us to consider a new, era-appropriate metric to replace GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Through the concept of well-being management, this evolved into the Integrated Statements as a metric for reconstructing corporate value.

Fujihira: Upon seeing the release, I was impressed by its excellent design. Non-financial metrics often face criticism for spillover effects (difficulty tracking impact) and tend to be postponed. However, organizing action segments alongside financial metrics with purpose at the center seems practical and user-friendly.

Furukawa: When companies actually fill in their purpose and the four quadrants based on this, you notice how similar many corporate purposes have become lately. Their worldviews and visions of the future are converging. Everyone is right. It really highlights that, even before the four quadrants, what truly matters most is having a unique reason for being. Everything starts from there and ultimately returns to that.

Fujihira: I share that concern and call it the "Love & Peace Trap." When defining purpose itself becomes the goal, it often devolves into ambiguous, unassailable phrases like "Love & Peace." It becomes about proclaiming something that "sounds good." Then, even after defining it, little actually changes.

I often create purpose by multiplying "the story that symbolizes the brand" by "the ideal society we want to create." It's about finding balance: if the left falls short, the subject's presence becomes vague; if the right falls short, the envisioned future becomes vague.


Furukawa: Essentially, purpose means going where no one else is. It's future-oriented. A resume-like description of the present holds no meaning. Rather than competing for correctness, the core should be: "We absolutely want to shape society this way," and "To achieve that, we'll become this kind of company and act accordingly."

Fujihira: To ensure purpose statements are written with this future-oriented mindset, we prioritize whether they spark this emotional sequence: "Exactly! → Excitement! → I want to do this!" There's a sense of conviction – "This is exactly who we are!" – followed by the thrill of "Proclaiming this gets me pumped!" Then, both mind and body move toward "I want to do this!" Conversely, if seeing the purpose elicits only comments like "Oh, I see," that's the most dangerous state.

Related article here
Redefining "Good Companies": Launching the Well-being Initiative

What "Ethical Standards" Should the Creative Industry Embrace?

Fujihira: When working on defining corporate/brand purpose and enhancing non-financial value, the perspective of "ethics" becomes crucial. As philosopher Masahiro Hirao states, there are broadly two types of ethics. One is "defensive ethics," which is likely what most people instinctively think of first. It's deontological, pursuing what is right—essentially rules defined by legal systems.

The other is "offensive ethics." In other words, "morality" – it involves thinking proactively about the possibilities: What constitutes "goodness for the sake of happiness" for society, for the brand, and for consumers?

Lately, it seems compliance and other defensive aspects dominate, often perceived as shackles on business operations. But I believe brands lacking this proactive ethical mindset will be weeded out going forward. That means we in the creative industries must also equip ourselves with proactive ethics.

Furukawa: I never viewed ethics as passive to begin with. I believe Aristotle was the first to propose ethics, and the goal he set was achieving happiness. The challenge was how to harness humanity's inherent abilities—virtue and reason—to reach that end. So, as you say, brands should pursue goodness, starting with happiness, and only then should profits emerge as a result. Silicon Valley's B-Corp movement shares this philosophy. It's actually a positive attitude.

Fujihira: Shibusawa Eiichi's "The Analects and the Abacus" exemplifies this, as does Ninomiya Sontoku's "Economics without morality is crime." I believe Japan, in particular, has a culture where ethics and goodness tend to come first. However, in practical business, it's quite difficult to start by thinking ethically. That said, we are clearly in an era of maturity, a plateau phase. Precisely because of this, we must consider how to implement ethics into brands going forward.

Furukawa: Personally, I understand ethics as "something that appropriately slows down decision-making." It's like an intelligence that allows you to properly hesitate when you should hesitate, to carefully deliberate when you should deliberate, from a different perspective—even when there's unanimous agreement or when things seem absolutely certain. More than morality, it's about always keeping that intelligence of hesitation ready to activate.

Fujihira: It's similar to slowing down decisions, but I envision proactive ethics as involving a time axis and a coordinate axis. The strength of an ethical perspective is its ability to extend the timeframe for thinking, encompassing short-term decisions – asking questions like "Is just making money now really enough?" The coordinate axis involves thinking in gradients, introducing not just an X-axis but also Y-axis and Z-axis measurements. I believe this setting of axes surprisingly reveals a brand's true character.

The ability to "represent" multiple viewpoints while pursuing only what is essential

Fujihira: Finally, I'd like to discuss the value of a creative director at an advertising agency. While each has their own strengths, I personally believe a common trait among outstanding creative directors is not just the ability to create something good, but also the ability to discard. You could also call it the ability to discern where to invest.

Furukawa: There's a famous anecdote where the Pope asked Michelangelo, "How did you create such an exceptional David?" Michelangelo replied, "I discarded everything that wasn't David." I believe this encapsulates the essence of creative work. A state where "there are many important things" signifies inadequate direction. This is a fundamental "principle" common to all creative fields, not just advertising.

Fujihira: Exactly. That's why a creative director who has repeatedly experienced deciding and discarding can apply that skill to any field. This ability cultivated by the industry has infinite scalability in our complex times.

Furukawa: Even outside advertising, the process of concretizing a client's myriad desires, extracting the core challenge from them, and confronting it as a "theme" is the same in any job. If we consider not just companies, but individuals, nations, and society as clients, then all the commercial creative work we do is essentially client work driven by external forces. It's not autonomous fine art like Picasso's; fundamentally, it's work done "on behalf of others." That's why the "agency" part of "advertising agency" is surprisingly essential.

Fujihira: I wholeheartedly agree that our work is commercial creative, and that's precisely why "agency" is more fundamental than "advertising." Hakuhodo has always valued the perspective of being "the consumer's agent" under its "consumer-centric thinking" philosophy. But I believe the source of our value lies in this "agency thinking/agency implementation capability" – the ability to give form to the voices of all players, not just consumers.

Furukawa: Commercial creators have been thinking on behalf of companies, so I believe they've developed considerable muscle. Most work in this world boils down to "We have a goal we want to reach or a problem we're facing, so please solve it." The muscle honed by advertising creatives through stepping into various stakeholders' shoes becomes a powerful weapon in any field.

Fujihira: I realized we need to reaffirm and strengthen our awareness that this is our core strength. Acting as a proxy for clients and various other stakeholders to identify challenges, and then applying creativity continuously—not just in the advertising phase, but from start to finish—with the goal of solving those challenges.

Furukawa: In meetings with executives, we often start by asking, "What is the most fundamental problem here?" This is a crucial question, setting the agenda to discuss matters from their deepest roots whenever possible. This is precisely where creativity should begin.

Starting with a clear goal image and activating from the very foundation. From there, taking responsibility to define everything from start to finish, right up to the final point of contact with the world – that's what I believe the ideal form of creative direction should be today.

Fujihira: There's nothing more enjoyable or essential than a meeting that starts with a question like, "What exactly are we deciding today?"

The baton-passing model worked because it was confined to advertising communication, where clear objectives were shared. But in business and management, if strategy (Apollo) and execution (Dionysus) become disconnected, you simply can't produce good work.

Furukawa: I believe creative directors who simultaneously consider strategy and creative—as Mr. Fujihira consciously does—will become the new standard. This will increase opportunities to shape new work.

Fujihira: Thank you. The more areas we engage with, the more crucial it becomes to establish and activate purpose as the central point. Beyond that, I believe diverse perspectives and the skill to act as a proxy will be vital.

Furukawa: To add another point about purpose, I think it will become quite difficult going forward for both companies and individuals to avoid clearly stating their position. Taking a fair, neutral, or impartial stance lacks persuasiveness—it just doesn't feel authentic. I believe clearly stating, "I or we think this way about this issue," builds trust, respect, and ultimately leads to branding.

Fujihira: Since corporations also have "people" in their name, repeating safe, non-controversial statements, changing stances depending on the issue, or staying silent on inconvenient matters won't be well-received. That said, I think creativity is precisely what's needed in how we take the courage to make such statements. Simply stating the obvious truth can make people dislike you.

Discussing such diverse themes in this conversation has sharpened my focus on the work I want to pursue going forward. Thank you for today. I'll keep pushing forward starting tomorrow.