Company name: Media Bridge Consulting Co., Ltd.

Established: 2002

Sales: 120 million yen(March, 2008)

Directors: Representative Director: Masashi Yoshiike

Director: Takashi Murakami

Director: Yasuji Kawashima

Dealings bank: The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Shinbashi Branch

Address: De Vinci Ginza building 2F　6-2-1　Ginza, Chou-ku　Tokyo 104-0061 Japan

Telephone:+81-3-3572-0481

FAX: +81-3-3572-0482

E-MAIL: info@mbc-pr.com

Members of: The Japanese Public Relations Society, the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, The Association for Corporate Support of the Arts Japan

Cooperation Enterprises:　TV Production Companies, Broadcast Writers, Research Companies, Advertising Agencies, PR Companies, Casting Company, Theatrical Agencies, Consultants, Lawyers, Patent Lawyer, Licensed Tax Accountant, Accountant, Public Consultants on Social and Labor Insurance, and Administrative Secretaries, etc

A. In Japan, PR tends to have a single meaning of “Sales and Promotion=PR”, but the original meaning is much more complex. It can be defined as Public Relation (PR), which is the activity of a company to build up good relations with those outside the company, such as the general public, potential investors, the government and providing consumers and potential employees with information about your company through the mass media that it may not otherwise have access to. “The act of building good relations between a person, service, product and/or company and the community it serves.” This is a workable definition of what a Public Relations company does. As for PR Company, like MBC, our activities are not necessarily squeezed into our relationships to various segments of the public, so a good definition of what we do is: “Constructing a good network of mass media relations to further our clients’ goals.”

A. They are the following groups and individuals: ･Journalist ･Stockholders/Investors ･Employees/ Employees of Incorporated Companies ･General consumer ･Security analyst ･Local populace and local societies ･Pundits and Specialists, etc. ･Corporate ranking agency ･Financial institutions ･Interns and Transitional Employees ･Countries and Municipalities ･Miscellaneous People

A. An easy explanation of the difference between advertising and Public Relations is this: buying space in the newspaper or a magazine, buying time on television or the radio, buying billboards or setting up websites and other forms of media for the purpose of passing information about a person, product , service or company is “advertising.” With advertising, you can control the time, place and cost of the enterprise to the liking of your group, especially given the cost of large scale advertisement on television. Moreover, often the effect of the advertisement is not seen through the cost that was put into it because things are often seen subjectively and one-sidedly. Basically, it is analyzed that it is not easy to relate to the sales if the message is made neither to be repetitive nor to be memorized in consumer's head.

"PR"

It has been said, the strong point of PR is that it attempts the integration of the corporate message through the use of print media and the programs of the mass media. "Originating reliability from objectivity". A lot of consumers tend to believe the content of the advertisements and information unconditionally because he or she takes the view that given information from an objective third party named by the mass media, unlike an advertisement which is merely picked up the press and mass media. Therefore, in the eyes of the public, Public Relations can become a comparison to advertisements. And that will cause a reaction from the general public and potential customers. This means that the finished product will actually cost less than an advertisements, once you add in the costs of programming, space in print media, because you don’t have to worry about those costs. However, the company cannot control the message that it wishes to send, but while there are a lot of advantages, the weakness in timing that will appear in the programming.

"Paid publicity (Tie-Up Paid PR) "

This is paid publicity that has all the advantages of advertising and PR, and is done more actively in foreign countries than it is in Japan. The cost is lower than PR, the message is easily transmitted and to some degree can be controlled better than it can be through mass media transmission, this makes it a technique that is widely used. If the faults are listed then the results are fewer and it’s always a seller’s market.

A. The Public Relations Department of any enterprise should do various activities besides building excellent relations between their client and the mass media; it should increase the number of positive articles about the client. Generally, there is an activity of only following through with a few little ideas, and this is part of the abstract work of the Public Relations Department , each of these types of activities can supported by MBC:

･Making and delivery of Press Releases ･Coordination of Press Conferences ･Making of In-House Magazine (Group Reports) ･In-house Television Video Taping ･Making of Corporate Profile (Group Guides) ･Making of Annual Report for Investors ･Briefing Investors ･Making of PR Papers and Magazines ･Environmental Reports ･Making of Sustainability Reports ･Creation and Management of Web Site ･Creation and Management of Intranet ･Planning and Management of various Visitations and events ･Clipping and Information Accumulation for Newspaper, Magazine, and TV Media

The idea behind this is that it completes the world of a single faceted engine in these areas in order to raise them to the level of strategies and systems that exist. These words were once only seen in economic magazines, and MBC has PR that supports these themes:

･Investors relations(IR) ･Risk Management(Crisis-Management) ･Internal Corporate Communications ･Marketing PR ･Corporate Branding PR ･Leader Communications PR

A. Media Bridge Consulting’s first strong point is strong a mass media relation in Japan, where the television medium is the top media form, though various fields exist in PR activity as stated above. Especially, we advocate sticking with the `Cross Media PR;` mixing mass media with Internet.

A. Yes, the building of roads into the Japanese markets, being partners in the share extention process, will do a great deal to advance the clients’ needs as we have done up to now.

A. MBC not only uses old mass media, such as television, but also can use the Internet and the new mobile media. And although there are more than 300 PR companies in Japan, MBC appears at the top of the search results in all the main search engines including Google and Yahoo Japan of Japan, when you search for PR Company in Japanese. These SEO measures become the promotion measures executed for clients only after our staff has worked everything out, and continued to be used for our staff.

Many of the foreign companies that come into Japanese markets are surprised by the gap that exists between the mass media of their home countries and Japan is so large. There are people who say, "Japan is a socialist country that has put on a mask of democracy." There is a seemingly free press, while is possible to report freely what you see and hear, but there is also a “Press Club” that seems to act more like a cartel that has a system of a limited freedom of expression, that is invisible to major advertising companies, this is in contrast to the foreign media that says “As long as there is a press release, we will run a story on it or advertise it on television.”

Add to this that the Japanese culture is one of a single race that tends to be conservative that has a policy of not dealing with those they don’t know. As a result, foreigners often wonder at the Japanese mass media that says “We will report `new`, but nothing that is `too new`; `If other forms of media are not reporting it, we won’t. ` A PR company that protects the old while introducing the new, avoids this troublesome custom by having a face to face interpersonal relationship with journalist and reporters.

Moreover, Japanese people have a peculiar value system in which foreigners often feel a sense of alienation. One of the manifestations of this is the Japanese use of the word “Gaijin”(foreigner). This value system came about because Japan is an island country with little experience interacting with people of a foreign nationality. A result of this is that when the Japanese mass media has the choice of dealing with a foreign company or a Japanese company with the same PR value, the Japanese company will seem like the natural choice and thereby be given priority over the foreign company. Japanese mass media often boasts about it’s wide-ranging media relations, but that is mostly domestic. So, when your company enters such confused surrounding, it will need a company like ours to help navigate the mass media.

Just as in other Asian countries, the average Japanese consumer’s interest in advertising has declined. This failure of promotion projects is happening on a large scale because the reliability of advertising swings widely when a large budget is put into large scale promotion, and the product enters Japan with great excitement. The situation is the same whether the company is domestic or foreign, every year more and more attention and money are poured into PR and advertising. (Contrary to the advertisement.) Moreover, there are many enterprises that are have a lot of their share of the market taken by the domestic enterprises, and therefore succeeding in the Japanese market after the fanfare has died down is really a matter of luck.

When a Japanese company is confronted with a foreign company, the Japanese company relies on its advertising department to retrieve the lost share, but will fail and then the Japanese company will at last launch a large scale advertising campaigns, and then, finally the company will retrieve the lost portion of the market. In both cases. The key to success in getting and keeping your share of the market lies in the success of strategic PR, and with both schools of logic trying to shape an image that is successful in PR and the development of successful PR and advertising is a the same the world over. A major contributing factor of the branding introduction/reactivation process is the first step is the brand maintenance stage after coming into Japan.

However, barrier to accomplishing this is the media of Japan. How a company starts the marketing process is very important, and while the other pages of this site cannot help but start with the foreign company’s native media circumstances, in the cases where the company’s PR strategy but it a very serious disadvantage and will help turn it around.

After your falling into this difficult situation, and having spent your advertising and PR budget, you will have to repair the damage done and it is necessary to find a good PR company as your ally quickly, that will help you acquisition of the share of this attractive Japanese market, and that has a large-scale media network tuned into the mass media circumstances in Japan, so that your big project won’t fail.

There is a Japanese saying, “Japanese common knowledge is the uncommon knowledge to the world” , if this reversed then it becomes “The world’s common knowledge is Japan’s uncommon knowledge.”

By all means this is a very difficult process, but the Japanese market is very attractive and expansion into it is very important. For help with this very important decision, please contact Media Bridge Consulting Ltd!

Even if you have a television centered public relations strategy, you cannot ignore the importance and effectiveness of other forms of media. MBC’s Comprehensive PR strategy is offer combining print, internet to make the most effective menu for our clients The concept of this service is to combine a strong marketing policy, teamwork, plain and simple hardwork, and an original, customized and creative PR strategy with a strong ‘push’ PR with a high ROI marketing strategy to create a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Many of MBC’s staff have participated in gathering information for television, and we are famous for being the company that knows the best and worst of television. Up until recently, in the event of a corporate scandal, there are a lot of staff members who are good at dealing with the ‘painful’ parts of television programs. But when you compare the crisis management capability of MBC to other companies, MBC has the reputation being best at dealing with television news programs in times of crisis. MBC’s strength is 120% of those other companies; we are the best at protecting clients from bad publicity, 24 hours a day. Moreover, our staff has, obviously, a long history of working with weekly magazines and newspapers. So, you can have confidence in MBC.

In recent years, the number of Japanese and foreign corporations that have suffered damage from bad publicity, and have had to retreat from the market, as a result is rising, this is because a characteristic of Japanese mass media, which is not widely known, is to operate with disreputable news organizations. The result of this is that many companies have to deal with a public backlash. For foreign companies new to Japanese markets, MBC can teach your management how to relate to that Japanese media. For the companies that unfamiliar with the Japanese media, this will help you leave a good impression with the Japanese public.

This option is for those companies who want to target television as their only PR medium. The main difference between this option and a retainer contract is 1) we completely ignore all print media and promote your product, service, and/or company on several television programs for a selected period of time. 2) The average PR company usually asks for a retainer fee of 1~1.5 million yen, we reduce this to less than 10% of this and use it in a cost effective manner.

We will ask for a sample of the item, person, company and/or service that you wish to promote, and with it, we will promote it on as many television programs as possible. After you chose which programs you wish your product to be promoted on, we will start to advertise your company, service, item and/or person on these programs. Moreover, with our “Television PR Support Service”, we will only charge what it costs us to promote your company, and since this is a result based service, if your product is not advertised on television, we won’t ask for more than cost.

Even clients who haven’t signed a long term contract with MBC can use this service. This is a completely results based service that uses newspapers, magazines (print media) along with internet news sites and other forms of web-based media. Our company deals directly with the media, so there is no need to issue a press release. (But for those clients who need a press release, see “Press Release Service” below.) The length of the contract is 3 to 6 months, depending on the needs of the client.

The way that MBC sends out press releases is to communicate directly with members of the mass media. Most members of the media do not look carefully at press releases issued by PR companies, because of the conformity of the language. Unless they are familiar with the company that is issuing the press release, and the company is one they can trust, they don’t really look at the press release. In Japanese market media relations, the negotiations after the press release is issued are very important to the analog reporters to the success of a product. With this service, your press release will be paired with an experienced and cordial PR manager and this will produce an effective, efficient press release. With this it is also possible to offer an effective and face to face relationship with the mass media.

In Tokyo, there is a press conference almost every day now. For the company that is not used to dealing with Japanese press conferences and other press events, there is a tendency to think “If we have a press event, then the mass media and the press will come to it.” But this is a mistake, unfortunately, organizing a press conference or event and getting members of the press and mass media to attend it is a very difficult and complicated process. There are cases of press conferences being held and there are is no press there, much to the embarrassment of the companies who held them.

Because our company handles press conferences for our retainer corporate clients more warmly but decisively than usual, our press events usually have a great number of reporters and other members of the press. The most difficult of our services is attracting professional journalists and reporters to our clients’ press events, whether this handled internally or is outsourced, it is very important that is successful.

If you are considering the timing of entering the Japanese markets, and are considering when to hold a press conference or press event for the mass media, then give Media Bridge Consulting a call. Our well experienced staff will do all they can to making your press event a success!

When you type in the keyword `PR Firm` into any Japanese search engine, MBC is the first company in the list of search results. Our company‘s SEO know-how allows us to do the same for our clients that are interested in using Japanese domestic search engines to promote themselves. We can use SEO and SEM formats to help support your company in the Japanese market.

　At MBC, we don’t stop at just corporate and group PR support; we can also do specialized and personal PR support for clients such as athletes, corporate managers, members of the medical industry, cultural attachés, singers, and actors/actresses. We are a company that is accomplished a great deal in the world of television media relations. We have attained a place as the `Top Runner` in the areas of promotion within Japanese markets, management and support, and publishing and lecture production. Because of this, we have a well known and well-regarded `personal brand`.