SNA (Tokyo) — Yoshimoto Kogyo and Dentsu are collaborating with the United Nations on a joint mission to raise awareness of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Japan.

The Tokyo director of the UN Information Center (UNIC), Kaoru Nemoto, has said that the SDGs are “hardly known in Japan,” and to raise their profile they “needed good storytellers,” and hence the collaboration.

A Dentsu survey found that only about 15% of Japanese people are aware of the development goals. Dentsu is now committed to finding creative ways to educate the Japanese public. Also, at a recent conference held in New York,  Miyabi Haneda, the general manager of corporate communications for Yoshimoto Kogyo, stated that her company, too, wishes “to collaborate with the SDGs to make the world a better place.”

Last year, there was a joint campaign conducted by Yoshimoto Kogyo and the UNIC during International Women’s Day. As part of the campaign, several popular female comedians, including Hanako Miyagawa, shared messages through social media about gender equality, and they thus demonstrated their solidarity with women across the world.

In addition, the partnership expanded to the Okinawa International Movie Festival in April 2017, where again the talent agency made it their goal to raise awareness of the SDGs. This particular event included a short promotional movie on the development goals as well as a photo exhibition. Children were able to collect stamps promoting the SDGs and featuring messages from the company’s comedians. During this festival, Dentsu also produced two videos introducing the SDGs to the audience.

In the future, the Japanese public can expect to see more creative yet informative Yoshimoto Kogyo and Dentsu campaigns come to light.

The United Nations’ SDGs are a list of seventeen goals that aim to counter global problems, such as providing quality education, clean water, and sanitation to all people by 2030. Every country that is a signatory to the SDGs has a responsibility to implement the policy plans, and part of this involves better educating the public about the remaining challenges.

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