Xavier Prabhu is Chairman & MD, PRHUB
Time to forge a new agenda by stepping truly out of our comfort zones and listening
Oh I love films. So I decided to use the non-linear narrative technique deployed by many a famous film maker in their iconic movies in this article. Here I go.
By 2025 the Japanese anime industry is expected to reach a value of US$30 billion with 60%+ of that revenue coming from overseas. Japan has 600+ studios with 500 of them spread across Tokyo alone driving that huge industry. The more I got in, the more I realized how less I knew of something so powerful and influential for so long in my 30-year PR/brand communication career. It was my teen daughter in college who opened my eyes to this world, being an ardent fan. My son who is elder is equally into it – something I noticed but did not register unfortunately. They are just among the millions of GenZ who’re the most influential for brands, organizations and even governments. For comparison, all Indian films was (as per Statista) earned US$222.23 million (a tiny fraction) through overseas theatrical receipts, in 2023. Tell me how many brands and organizations have used anime & its popularity to connect with or engage their TG?
Since I taught extensively across most leading mass media & communication schools across India, framed curriculum for some and sat on the board of one, etc. know couple of the keywords all learners are taught. PR/communication is a two way listening and engagement process. The job of a communicator is not just reflecting and amplifying their client/employer messaging but act as a true bridge by listening empathetically with no filters to what the target audiences are saying and seeking on a sustained basis. The solid reasoning behind was that brands and organizations are well served in medium to long-term if they engage and maintain open, two way channels of communication with their key audiences. Becomes handy in times of crisis since the goodwill thus built can be tapped into.
The world is becoming more and more diverse now. Navigating it requires deeper understanding and correctly inferring of the multitude of layers that our target audiences are sheathed in. To engage and communicate effectively one needs deeper understanding of their end audience’s preferences and icons. It’s not going to be easy and AI is not going to be of help either. Most of us relied on insights that came out of search results, heat maps from social listening tools and coverage analysis from third party tracking tools, to build our communication and campaigns. Wish that ideal world continued longer.
We have to get out of our comfort zones and figure new ways to be in connect beyond what tools, dashboards and AI-algorithms generated feed tell us. Else our communication and campaigns stand in danger of touching or resonating only a fraction of the intended audiences. Worse, putting off a percentage of them by communication and messaging they cannot simply relate to.
I smile now when I see someone wearing outsized jhumkas. Am getting better at understanding those anime songs. Charli XCX’s “Brat” does ring a bell. By the way, I don’t mind being called “Bae” either -):
Read more about their journey and thoughts in an upcoming e-book that will be published shortly.