Everything in the world is being quantified and digitized, and we live in a time when artificial intelligence (AI) presents answers based on all available knowledge. That's not all. The days when TV technology varied wildly by brand when you were buying a TV are over. Growth has all but stalled, and the pace of technological progress is more or less the same everywhere.
Corporate executives say, "We've tried everything we can, but we have no idea how to break out of the slowdown." Takahiro Hosoda, chief creative officer (CCO) at TBWA Japan, has an answer for them. He offers it in The Sense - You Also Have Sense, published in Korea in Nov. Hosoda CCO has developed not only corporate branding but also product and management concepts across a wide range. Meeting with ChosunBiz at the Grand InterContinental Hotel in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the 28th of last month, Hosoda CCO shared the power of sense, cases where sense led to strong business results, and training methods for working with sense. The following is a Q&A.
─ What led you to write a book with sense as the keyword?
"When I first started working, I focused only on copy as a copywriter, but at some point I began getting involved from product concepts to launch objectives, and I wondered how to build a successful brand. That's why I published a book called Concept Class in Jan. last year. At the time, I explained branding and keywords as the key terms, and I came to believe that sense is the most important thing to do them well. Sense is very hard to put into words, so it took some time. Seen another way, I thought it's a word that can be used across the borders of Korea and Japan (even if the language doesn't connect)."
─ Why is sense important?
"In Japanese corporate life, saying someone has good sense is high praise. You don't get called sensible just by following a manual where everything is written out. The gestures and touches that aren't in the manual have to follow. At the company level, it means successful management. AI can handle the manual. This is an era when everything is managed by data and AI organizes it neatly. On the management front lines, the winning edge comes from what AI can't do—among people, it's that feeling of "I don't know what it is, but that place is good, that product is good," in other words, the evaluation that "the sense is good." That's even more true in an era when the technology inside products doesn't differ much and growth has stopped."
─ Are there any cases of corporations that achieved results based on genuine emotion?
"I want to talk about Hilton Hotel. It's a fine-dining restaurant inside a hotel, and to raise customer satisfaction, they improved the atmosphere, changed ingredients, and hired a famous chef. But at some point, customer satisfaction stopped rising. So we examined the customer journey based on emotion to find when the emotional excitement of customers drops most. The research showed it was right after they entered the restaurant, ordered, and took photos together.
We looked into the reason, and it was because "the photos didn't come out pretty." Most hotel lighting is dim. It's an environment where photos don't come out well. Waiters would take photos for guests, but the results were often pictures they didn't want to share with anyone.
So the hotel introduced the term "waitergrapher." They taught waiters how to take good photos and gave them certificates. As the training accumulated, customer satisfaction rose. This means that from now on, executives and chief marketing officers (CMOs) need to make moves based on mood and sensation. For logical solutions, you can ask AI to give you the answer."
─ Is there a case where the problem was solved without spending a lot of budget?
"I want to talk about an automaker. It's a luxury brand known for its "engine sound." To hand over vehicles, they spent a lot of money to build an expensive showroom. They had customers take delivery in a very elegant setting outfitted with top-tier sofas and lighting. The idea was that high earners would naturally like being treated this way.
But the company's CEO said something didn't sit right, so they reviewed the space. The CEO thought, since this is a place that deals with cars whose strength is the engine, in the end, consumers probably like that kind of sensory appeal. So they changed to having engineers deliver the cars to customers at the factory. In the end, this worked. You could say the CEO had good sense. The CEO had the ability to notice that something was missing, even in a luxury showroom. CEOs now need this kind of sense."
─ How long does it take until the moment it's proven by numbers (results)?
"Generally about six months, but it can take longer. The key is whether you can endure and wait until there are outcomes. The difference from short-term results is that customer satisfaction builds solidly and raises the survival odds of corporations. Pumping out discount coupons to boost short-term results is like our blood sugar spiking after a meal and then dropping. Changes centered on emotion and sense get at the root, which is customer satisfaction."
─ What project are you most focused on recently?
"Oita in Fukuoka, Japan, is famous for its hot springs. We plan to build a Sanrio Resort there. The goal is to complete it around 2030. We're currently in the sketching stage. We want to make it a place where anyone who comes can enjoy themselves with childlike innocence. We're designing the process to make it a bit different from Disney Resort. Disney Resort has a supplier mindset like "please enjoy everything the company has made." I want to change that."
─ What should someone do to build sense?
"You have to repeat a flow of thinking that goes back and forth between sensation and logic. Instead of explaining a product's strengths rationally, you should repeatedly consider whether you can express them as "it enchants you" or "it moves you deep in your heart." You should also practice describing weaknesses in sensory terms. For long-standing brands, think not about "how" but "why." For example, "Why did this brand come into being?" "Why was it so popular?" The starting point of the question is not "what should we do going forward?" The answer is actually in the past."