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Since 1992, Kyodo has been working with Chugai Pharmaceutical to promote its OTC products including its healthy drink and insecticides. The program has been carried out strategically and designed for media relations activities that target general audiences and adapt to the nature of vernacular publications.
To promote the healthy drink, PR officers from Kyodo hand-carried sample bottles directly to the editors of some high-profile women' magazines in order to appeal to the product's refreshing effect. As for a seasonal product such as insecticides, these same officers carried out intensive consumer-oriented PR activities, including give-away publicity, starting a couple of months before each season.
The client is satisfied with the results every year, namely maximized exposure in the targeted media, and thus keeps renovating our contract every time for the last ten years. |
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Kyodo PR worked with Solvay in the 1998 -2001 period promoting its new medicine against depression. We organized seminars for the general public in a tie-in with Asahi Shimbun in Tokyo and Osaka and symposiums in the Fukuoka area in collaboration with Nishi Nihon Shimbun.
In addition, Kyodo PR organized twelve press seminars for three years, inviting overseas and Japanese university professors as guest speakers to give lectures on depression and how-to-overcome it. |
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For three years, from 1999 through 2002, Kyodo had been retained by the California Walnut Commission to promote the healthiness of walnuts among Japanese consumers.
We organized symposiums in collaboration with Nikkei Health, a health-oriented monthly magazine published by Nikkei BP. The main purpose was to inform the general public about the positive results of a survey comparing the relationship between heart disease and walnut consumption. To leverage the outcome of the seminar and to provide in-depth explanations, we arranged one-on-one interviews between foreign doctors and professors from Kyushu University and general journalists in charge of lifestyle columns at general newspapers and in women's magazines. |
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In the 90s, Kyodo worked extensively with the Vitamin Information Center, an organization fully run and sponsored by Roche Japan, on promoting vitamin consumption in Japan.
Inviting science and lifestyle (women's pages) reporters from major dailies, Kyodo PR helped organize a quarterly press seminar where VIC briefed them on the latest developments in vitamin research. This helped the client establish a solid working relationship with those journalists, educate the media about vitamins, and eventually obtain publicity.
The seminars on beta-carotene were a great success taking into account that major dailies' science pages reported how beta-carotene was vital to human health; consequently, it became the topic of conversation among the general public. Soon after, women's publications and cooking magazines showed keen interest in beta-carotene. Kyodo prepared recipes of dishes that contain much beta-carotene and contacted those journalists one by one in order to increase wide coverage.
Kyodo also helped organize a traveling seminar to educate nutritionists in collaboration with prefectural nutrition associations. Furthermore, Kyodo PR organized such activities in three to five prefectures per year. The agency's PR officers gathered journalists from local dailies and invited them to the seminars as well. Another vehicle was an annual consumer survey about vitamins. The results were incorporated into news releases and disseminated to all relevant media. |
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Upjohn, currently part of Pharmacia, retained Kyodo in the '90s to stop adverse publicity on its sleep prescription drug, Halcyon. In those days, Japanese media often reported that young people were incorrectly using it in order to have hallucinations and then commit crimes.
Kyodo used a legwork strategy and together with the client's representative started visiting media offices to seek out press skeptics about Halcyon and carefully explained the positive aspects of the drug. After that, most media practically stopped mentioning Halcyon as the direct cause of crimes. Some media outlets even sent apology letters to Upjohn.
Another major project with Upjohn was to educate women about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to ease menopausal disorders and osteoporosis. Kyodo promoted publicity for HRT by selecting a couple of well-known professors from Tokyo Medical and Dental University as spokespersons on this subject.
Also, Kyodo arranged a tie-up campaign with YBC TV in Yamagata Prefecture, a northern snowy place where women are affected by osteoporosis more than other prefectures. YBC televised a Japanese-dubbed video feature on HRT, which was originally prepared by Upjohn's U.S. head office. At the same time, YBC invited viewers to an HRT seminar organized by the TV station and Kyodo PR. At the seminar, a gynecologist from Yamagata University gave a lecture on HRT to over 500 women. Immediately after the lecture, he and his colleagues were available in the hall for a free clinic where many guests formed a queue. The seminar was prominently reported in the next day issue of the local daily and in the local TV stations.
Kyodo also helped Upjohn organize quarterly media luncheons inviting medical authorities to discuss hot topics in the medical field. In addition, Kyodo produced the Japanese version of Upjohn Update, a quarterly video newsletter for Upjohn employees. |
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