Monthly CX [6]From Purpose to Business Rebranding: How Art Directors Engage in the CX Domain
CX (Customer Experience) continues to evolve daily.
How can Dentsu Inc.'s creative team contribute to the CX domain, now demanded in every scenario?
To explore this potential, members of Dentsu Inc.'s CX specialist unit, the "CXCC" (Customer Experience Creative Center), share insights on CX and creativity in this series. This is "Monthly CX" ( For more on Monthly CX, click here ).
This time, we spoke with Nao Karakida, an Art Director (AD) participating in AEON FANTASY's Future Creation Project.
From defining purpose to rebranding the business, she speaks directly with the client, identifying creative challenges within those exchanges and proposing solutions. What is this new way for an Art Director to engage with the work?
[Profile: Nao Karakida]
Dentsu Inc.
Customer Experience Creative Center
Art Director
After joining the company, she focused on graphic design for OOH and point-of-sale materials, while also handling art direction across various fields including CM planning, web design, packaging design, logo design, and store design.
To drive projects forward, art directors also take the front line.
Monthly CX: Please tell us about AEON Fantasy's initiatives.
Karukida: AEON Fantasy is a company that operates entertainment businesses and children's playgrounds within AEON stores. Its vision is to be "the one and only edutainment (Education + Entertainment) company delivering fun 'play × learning' experiences worldwide for the smiles of children and families." It operates various facilities globally, including the family amusement facility "Molly Fantasy" and the "Skids Garden" playground where children can play independently.
Dentsu Inc. has supported the company since 2014 through business consulting, consistently involved from identifying challenges to delivering outputs. I joined the project when I transferred to the CX Creative Center in 2021.
Monthly CX: How is the project progressing?
Karukida: We hold regular meetings with the president and executives of AEON Fantasy, and conduct joint biweekly meetings with various departments to identify challenges. Rather than acting only after receiving a request, we work alongside them to tackle problem-solving. Our approach to challenges is concretized through "subcommittees" formed with relevant business divisions. When it comes time to announce outputs, we also collaborate with the PR department, conducting market research and assisting in communicating the findings to the public.
Monthly CX: As an Art Director, how does your involvement in this project differ from your typical approach to conventional advertising?
Karukida: At Dentsu Inc., the Business Production (BP) department typically serves as the client interface, compiling requirements and passing work to the creative departments. However, this project was unusual because various roles, including myself as AD, directly met with the client and maintained daily communication to advance the project, expanding the scope of our responsibilities.
Normally, creatives rarely receive direct calls or emails from clients, but this happened frequently with the AEON Fantasy project. Being asked questions on the spot and having to make immediate decisions really honed my quick-thinking skills.
By speaking directly with the client, I believe we've uncovered issues the business partner couldn't identify from a creative perspective and proposed solutions to address them.
Monthly CX: I heard you were also involved in the playground rebranding. What exactly was that?
Karukida: At the family amusement facility "Molly Fantasy," there's a timed, paid playground called "Waiwai Park" for young children. At our regular meeting, we announced the opening of "Sobinavi," which is a rebranding of this facility to strengthen its concept of play and learning.
However, from our perspective, we felt there was significant room for growth if the communication approach and design were changed. For instance, "Sobinavi" is a coined term combining "play" and "learning," but its intent isn't immediately clear upon hearing it. I also thought the logo design and the play equipment installed within the facility could be significantly improved by creating greater unity and standardizing the color scheme and design tone & manner. So, at the very next meeting, we proposed a brand concept, copy, logo, and spatial image.
Presenting a proposal that was quite close to the final form allowed us to quickly align with the client's vision, leading to an immediate decision on the spot.
We then swiftly moved through internal approvals, and the new playground "NOBICCO" was realized at remarkable speed. Since opening, visitor numbers and average stay times have increased compared to the previous "Waiwai Park," leading to higher sales. A key point was also providing a place within NOBICCO where parents could rest, not just for the children.
Establishing the Purpose: "Take pride in working at AEON FANTASY"
Monthly CX: I understand you immersed yourself within the client and were involved in establishing Aeon Fantasy's new purpose. Could you elaborate on the purpose formulation process?
Karukida: Aeon Fantasy originally had a corporate motto: "Through play, we propose dreams, enjoyment, and interaction, serving the local community." We evolved this into a new purpose by adding an external perspective focused on "society and consumers."
In formulating it, we first considered it crucial to incorporate the sentiments of Aeon Fantasy's employees. We used graphic recording—capturing discussion content in real-time with words and drawings on whiteboards—to preserve the discussions. This allowed us to share the content with those not present at the meetings and deepen everyone's sense of agreement. We also conducted surveys among employees to gain insights from their daily work.
Monthly CX: What kinds of opinions emerged during the discussions?
Karaki: One particularly memorable comment was, "We want employees to feel even more pride in working at Aeon Fantasy." The general image of game centers isn't always positive. However, Aeon Fantasy's vision of "Edutainment" (Education + Entertainment) embodies a wonderful idea: children becoming engrossed in play and learning, thereby spreading smiles around the world.
Specifically, stores feature bright, open designs, and ambient sounds are adjusted to volumes that won't harm children's ears—every detail is carefully considered. We developed our purpose with the desire to make this vision better known to the world.
Monthly CX: How do you plan to roll out the purpose?
Karukida: We will translate the completed purpose statement into languages worldwide, not just Japanese, and communicate it to all employees.
Furthermore, creating the purpose isn't the end goal; it's also crucial to communicate it externally. How we convey it in places where we interact with consumers is a key challenge moving forward.
Monthly CX: AEON Fantasy is a business that values play and learning. What kind of learning-focused initiatives do you have?
Karukida: For children, play and learning are always two sides of the same coin. They learn many things through play. However, it was difficult for users to understand that our facilities embodied the "play and learning" vision stated in our mission. We are supporting efforts to communicate this in a clear and accessible way.
One example where play and learning are particularly evident in the content we co-created is "Fish Play!? Learning!? Sakana-kun's Summer Gyo-gyo-tto Operation!" supervised by Sakana-kun. In "Too Real! Gyo-gyo Aquarium!", where ultra-realistic fish plushies were prizes, we leveraged Sakana-kun's unique, illustrator-like perspective. These plushies, meticulously recreating even the smallest patterns and shapes, allow children to learn about fish.
In another game, "Save the Sea! Gyo-gyo Rescue!", players earn points by fishing up trash instead of fish. This game aims to raise awareness about marine debris while playing, and also teaches about endangered species.
Discovering challenges and solving them yourself is CX Creative
Monthly CX: What does CX Creative mean to you, Mr. Karakida?
Karukida: I believe it's about how closely we can align with our clients and end-users. Needs and challenges are fragmented; there isn't just one right answer.
Challenges aren't just found in regular meetings; they're hidden in daily interactions too. Not overlooking them is crucial for CX. I feel the real test is our ability to discover what the challenges are and provide answers, rather than just waiting for clients to bring them to us.
For example, when I heard about creating a calendar to give to users at year-end, I proposed making it not just an ordinary calendar, but one that reflects Aeon Fantasy's purpose.
So we created a calendar that lets users count down the days until their favorite events.
Monthly CX: Why did you choose a countdown format?
Karashida: First, we considered how children perceive days. Children don't think in terms of weeks or months; they think about how many more sleeps until a fun event. Especially during the pandemic, with fewer enjoyable events, we designed it so they could enjoy the waiting time itself.
This is also a result of taking the word "calendar" as our challenge and expanding it into a better form.
From an AD's perspective, there are many unsuccessful projects out there due to low output quality. Solving that alone changes the outcome, so I feel it's crucial to be in a position where you can recognize the problem and take action.
Previously, I waited for client briefings. But this time, stepping forward to speak directly with the client yielded a completely different volume of information. Through our exchanges, I understood their feelings and aspirations, which also fueled my motivation to work hard for them.
(Editor's Note)
In Monthly CX Issue 6, we learned about AEON Fantasy's initiatives and outcomes from the perspective of an Art Director.
The approach of discovering challenges from a creative perspective through direct client dialogue and immediately proposing outputs seemed well-suited to this project. They are also supporting new areas one after another, and I could sense the high level of trust and expectation from the client.
This interview was also conducted in collaboration with 'CX Creative Studio note' ( For more on CX Creative Studio note, click here ). We are collecting and introducing a broader range of case studies through collaboration not only with the Dentsu CXCC team but also with Dentsu Digital Inc.'s CX Creative team. If you are interested, please take a look there as well.
If you have requests for future case studies or themes you'd like us to cover, please send a message to the Monthly CX Editorial Department via the contact page below. Thank you for your continued readership.
Dentsu Inc. CXCC: Koike, Oda, Takakusagi, Kanasaka, Okumura
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Author
Nao Karakida
Dentsu Inc.
After joining the company, I have been responsible for art direction across various fields, primarily focusing on graphic design for OOH and point-of-sale materials, as well as CM planning, web design, packaging design, logo design, and store design.
Monthly CX Editorial Department
Dentsu Inc.
The editorial team for "Monthly CX," a series where members of Dentsu Inc.'s CX-specialized division "CXCC" share insights on CX and creativity. By covering outstanding CX creative success stories within the agency or company, we unravel the essence and potential of CX creativity. Core members are Yoko Kibata, Hiroshi Koike, Nao Otani, Hirono Okumura, Yutaro Kosugi, Espin, Keisuke Saito, Kenji Oda, Hirozumi Takakusagi, and Motofumi Kanasaka, all belonging to CXCC.
