Japan has the lowest self-sufficiency among all major advanced countries worldwide. It needs to improve its self-sufficiency level to globally stabilize food supply and demand and to reduce CO2 through shortening food mileage. This campaign’s activities were designed to actively communicate “Food Action Nippon” (FAN), a national movement aimed at improving food self-sufficiency, to Japanese consumers and to win their understanding and support. To approach a broad range of target audiences, a PR strategy was implemented by effectively utilizing influencers, the media, bloggers and children. PR activities include the FAN kick-off press conference involving influencers from various communities, food events held in major cities, round-table meetings between major newspaper reporters and food issues expert bloggers, regional symposiums involving newspaper publishers nationwide, and suggestions by “children’s food ambassadors” representing elementary schools nationwide to the Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Ministers and the Chief Cabinet Secretary. Building relations with the influencers, bloggers and children, who constitute the core information providers for stakeholders, as well as implementing PR tactics capitalizing on these, this campaign won media coverage valued at approximately 1.5 billion yen from October 2008 to February 2009.

In October 2008, we executed the Food Action Nippon kick-off press conference attended by celebrities, experts and scientists, organized into influencers to announce the onset of the national movement. We also held a symposium in Tokyo to wrap up preceding local symposiums jointly hosted by local newspapers, with the panel discussions televised on NHK TV. The food education program travelled around 14 regions nationwide where elementary school children edited school journals about food. In November, events were held in Tokyo and Osaka to allow consumers to experience “good food country Nippon”, followed by round-table meetings attended by major newspaper reporters and food-related bloggers. In February 2009, a group of children representing elementary schools nationwide submitted their suggestions to the Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Minister and the Chief Cabinet Secretary. This month also saw an experimental incentive program allowing consumers to earn points based on their domestically-produced food purchases.

We successfully built a network of influencers including bloggers and children, (who constitute our core information providers to all stakeholders), allowing us to convey information to third-parties on a continuous basis.

The FAN web site registered 1.5 million page views between October 2008 and March 2009.Media coverage (newspapers, magazines, TV and online) increased between October 2008 and February 2009 from 350 to 570 million yen (advertising equivalent value).In November 2008, we achieved 100,000 web page views via an event where bloggers were invited to sample and write about sweets made with rice flour in order to promote rice flour consumption.

1,000 partners and 7,000 independent members registered voluntarily online, agreeing with the ideals set forth by FAN to take the initiative to join the cause (partners include companies and groups that were involved in programs in different regions and fields - those in the distribution and the restaurant business participated in a domestic food fair).

Total media coverage: approximately 1.5 billion yen for the first six months of the campaign. The quantity of media reports on food self-sufficiency topics other than FAN increased from 147 in October 2008 to 284.