Many companies are actively engaged in branding. It is one of the essential strategies to increase consumer recognition and trust, to improve the value of the company, and also to increase solidarity and motivation among employees to improve performance.

Brands are created by the value a company provides, including products and services, the actions of individual employees, and efforts to address social issues, as well as the trust that is fostered between the company and its customers through these values. On the other hand, to maintain and develop the brand, the employees (human resources) involved are indispensable. Therefore, Yanmar believes that in branding, it is necessary to work from the perspective of both “with customers” and “with employees.

Yanmar is currently focusing on branding to “create Yanmar’s value together with our customers,” and what we are introducing in this issue of Y-media is one of the activities targeting employees who support this from the very foundation. We interviewed an employee of the Branding Division, Yanmar Holdings Co.

What are Yanmar’s strengths? Ask yourself the fundamental question as a brand.

–Can you tell us about Yanmar’s branding activities?

Sasaki: Yanmar is a company that has been providing products and services that benefit people’s lives in the fields of food production and energy conversion. Since our founding, we have expanded our business domain from the manufacture of diesel engines to the manufacture of various industrial machinery based on our philosophy of “To conserve fuel is to serve mankind” and our desire to contribute to the development of society by not wasting even a drop of fuel in resource-poor Japan. In 2016, the company adopted the new brand statement “A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE – New Value Through Technology -” as our brand statement, and we are working to realize our vision based on this philosophy.

On the other hand, globalization and diversification have increased over the past 100 years. In the result, even within the same Yanmar group, outward-facing images varied by area and business, and one of the challenges was to unify the brand. Our response to this is the Premium Brand Project, which we launched in 2012. The project, which included the participation of various people, including Mr. Kashiwa Sato, who still serves as the overall producer of the project, as well as outside designers, had a great response.

The Premium Brand Project was successful in terms of penetration of the Yanmar Group’s brand image by establishing a “mission statement” that expresses the significance of the Yanmar Group’s social mission, and by unifying the brand image. However, we have not been able to delve deeply into what our employees consider “Yanmar’s uniqueness,” and the image varied from business to business, so we have become increasingly eager to break through this gap.

Against this backdrop, we are reexamining how the Yanmar brand should be, how we should think about it, and how we should promote branding.

<Activities of Premium Brand Project>
https://www.yanmar.com/global/about/ymedia/article/asftalk_yamaoka_sato.html

–What do you mean by “Yanmar’s uniqueness” and what are the characteristics of your branding activities?

Sasaki: The source of Yanmar’s uniqueness is “people. Yanmar has a set of values called “HANASAKA” that has become the cornerstone of Yanmar’s corporate activities. We describe it as “believing in people’s potential” and “encouraging them to take on challenges. It is a pull-type approach that respects the spontaneity and independence of the person who notices the issue and initiates the action. Yanmar’s branding stance is to believe in and encourage such “people” as a company to open up the future, and to work together with all stakeholders, both internally and externally, to create a brand.

About HANASAKA

HANASAKA is the source of spontaneous and autonomous.

–There is an initiative called “Hanasaka Workshop” as a specific example of your activities.

Sawada: The objective was to draw out the spontaneity and autonomy of individuals by asking them to think about HANASAKA individually and express themselves in their own words. The more people who can make the HANASAKA concept their own, and the more widely it fills the organization, the more people will work with a lively expression and spontaneity. It will look like an attractive organization from the outside, and I believe that people who identify with it may join the Yanmar Group more likely. Therefore, we recognize that the root of HANASAKA is indispensable in strengthening and communicating the appeal of the Yanmar brand both internally and externally.

HANASAKA ambassadors “Lead”, “Report” and “Support”

–Please tell us about the “HANASAKA Workshop,” in what format and on what scale is it conducted?

Sawada: Workshops have been held in five locations so far: Japan, the U.S., Singapore, the Netherlands, and China. Yanmar has many group companies overseas, so we held these events in countries that are major hubs in their respective regions. Workshops are held for “ambassadors” who are responsible for promoting HANASAKA in their respective countries and companies, and a total of 86 people from 16 countries have participated to date.

We believe that the ideal form of HANASAKA, which respects spontaneity and independence, is for each country and company to promote their own activities led by their ambassadors, rather than having the corporate division at the head office lead the activities. We are asking each company to promote the three activities of “Lead,” “Report,” and “Support.

“Lead” is literally a leader who spreads HANASAKA. “Report” is an activity to summarize and disseminate videos and texts of people and initiatives closely related to HANASAKA in various countries. And “Support” is an activity that supports such people and initiatives.

–How exactly will you convey HANASAKA, which can be perceived and interpreted in different ways by different people, at the workshop, and how will you connect it to the three activities of the ambassadors?

Sawada: There are two main objectives of the workshop: to define HANASAKA in their own words and make it more personal to them, and to prepare them for their activities as ambassadors after the workshop.

Participants will first watch a concept video that explains HANASAKA, then paraphrase HANASAKA in their own words or pictures, and share the reasons why they paraphrased it the way they did. This program is unique in that it not only clarifies the definition of HANASAKA for you, but also provides a variety of insights through sharing.

–How will the ambassadors be asked to work after the workshop?

Sawada: Of the three activities of “Lead,” “Report,” and “Support,” this time we are focusing on “Report,” and have asked each company to record their HANASAKA initiatives and penetration activities on video and disseminate them throughout the company.

This allows us to learn about each other’s HANASAKA activities, which in turn leads to the realization that “then our activities are also HANASAKA”. On the other hand, it also provides an opportunity to review their own activities, saying, “We are not doing enough for HANASAKA yet…. This has resulted in a synergistic effect of spontaneously spreading new HANASAKA activities.

Strengthening One-Stakeholders by Connecting Across Organizational Boundaries

–What kind of response did you get from the workshop participants? Also, what were your impressions from the planning and management side?

Sasaki: The Yanmar Group’s businesses cover a wide range of fields, including land, sea, and city, but the fact that we were able to get together and talk about a common topic, HANASAKA, was very positively received. The event was very well received. I believe that many participants had a sense of having established strong connections within YANMAR Group.

Perhaps a large part of it was that we did it in a face-to-face format. Since we had not been able to see each other in person for the past several years due to the pandemic, I felt that we were all still looking for a place of connection and togetherness….

In that sense, I feel that it was very good that we were able to strengthen the overall connection as one stakeholder, regardless of whether it was inside or outside the company, as I mentioned at the beginning. And I would be happy if the connections that emerged from this workshop become a catalyst for creativity in the group and become a value and strength for the company.

–What is your vision for future branding activities, including the HANASAKA workshop?

Before conducting the workshops, I was concerned that people from overseas might not be able to relate to HANASAKA because I thought its very Japanese values, but to my delight, I found positive reactions and positive attitudes of support everywhere at every workshop.

The ambassadors in each country have been promoting HANASAKA with their own idea, for example, by providing cakes decorated with the HANASAKA logo to employees, that way people remember it.

In order to expand such opportunities to experience HANASAKA throughout the company, the HANASAKA workshop conducted this time is scheduled to be held in various locations in Japan.

I also believe that it is necessary to disseminate HANASAKA to employees who were unable to attend the workshop so that they can understand and act on HANASAKA.

Diverse touch points including print media and apps.

Internal Communication Concept

Other efforts to promote HANASAKA within the company include the production of the HANASAKA BOOK and the HANASAKA APP, a smartphone application for employees that is built and operated by the department in charge of internal communication.

HANASAKA BOOK is a quarterly print publication. Some of the employees working at the factory do not have company-provided digital devices, so we dare to produce and distribute a booklet so that these employees can also get to know HANASAKA.

HANASAKA APP is a smartphone application for employees that aims to make HANASAKA even more accessible than the HANASAKA BOOK. By downloading the application to your own device, content is sent out so that you can feel HANASAKA even at a moment in your daily life.

Both of these contents are designed to regularly expose the HANASAKA of Yanmar employees and the”HANASAKA that each and every one of them feels, with the aim of encouraging all employees to think about and nurture “HANASAKA”.

In the “MEET HANASAKA” program, external experts with affinity to Yanmar were invited to hold a dialogue on the theme of HANASAKA. In the first installment, Mr. Kashiwa Sato, the creator of Yanmar’s brand mark “FLYING-Y,” is invited as a guest to talk about the background of the birth of the HANASAKA philosophy and its relation to ″A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE″.