Mercari’s Public Relations Team (PR Team) promotes the company’s vision and the value of its services to the public in a variety of ways, while focusing on bridging the vision and message of Mercari Group. Mercari’s PR Team probably deals with a wider scope of work than most PR teams. Their mission is to contribute to product growth and change people’s perception of Mercari’s businesses with big strategies.

We talked to Yuichi Miyamoto (@yax), who is in the head of Mercari Group PR, CEO of Work Asami Ota (@Asami), and CPO Takaaki Shinohara (@unryu-in) about the synergy that can be created by collaborating with the PR Team, with @Asami giving insight into the relationship between launching a new business and growth, and @unryu-in talking about promoting user experience going forward.

The keywords of this article are “story” and “rapport.”

Going beyond sharing the same ideas

—First, could you tell us what role you think Mercari’s PR Team plays?

@yax: Mercari’s group mission is to “circulate all forms of value to unleash the potential in all people.” This means that our job is not to just release the latest information about the company, but to also create a link between that information and the group mission, which is at the forefront of everything that we do.

Whenever we announce an action taken by a project lead or business, we, the PR Team, create a story that ties that action to the overarching group mission. Our aim is for the majority of our stakeholders to understand us and empathize with us through these stories.

One other unique aspect of our team is that we communicate closely with leadership to create stories. We talk to each member of senior management to gauge their thoughts and create a shared understanding before making a story. This allows us to convey their enthusiasm effectively. One thing I’ve been thinking recently is that Mercari is unique in that our stakeholders not only understand our products but also take action to the point where they create a rapport with us.

@unryu-in: What do you mean by “rapport”?

@yax: Well, our mission as the PR Team is to gain fans who share the same worldview as Mercari Group and support us. Stakeholders sharing the worldview as us means they don’t say “No” and instead say “I think so too.” The people who make Mercari’s services put a lot of care into them. When advertising our services, we don’t want users and stakeholders to simply share our passion and vision, we want them to make the services their own and advertise them for us. I believe that creates a sort of rapport between those working at the company and those using our services, and from there we can change perception.

@Asami: What a great line!

@yax: We often communicate with external stakeholders due to the nature of our job. The sense that I get from these interactions is that we can build rapport because of how polished our products are and how well the business divisions perform. Unfortunately, when the PR Team tries to create rapport alone it can feel superficial. So, we work with the product and business teams to find out users’ actual experiences and use that as our base. That way, there’s no gap between what PR publishes and what users experience, and our users share the same worldview as us. We don’t just focus on the positives.

Communication on two axes: business growth and industry perception change

— Over the last few years, Mercari has been busy creating new businesses and new products. One product in particular, our on-demand work service Mercari Hallo, has had a great impact on society. How did you come up with the communications strategy for Mercari Hallo?

@yax: Mercari has put a lot of effort into creating new businesses in different sectors over the last few years. Contributing to the launch of a new business in a communications field like PR is quite challenging and comes with some hurdles.

Mercari Hallo is a business in a completely new industry for Mercari, so we approached communication on two axes: growing the business and changing people’s perception of this new industry of “on-demand work.” I think we were able to create a comprehensive communication strategy by aligning on the core message early on. That is, addressing why Mercari is venturing into the on-demand work sector and what role Mercari Hallo will play there.

@Asami: At first, we struggled to come to an agreement on the directionality of the messaging. This was Mercari’s first attempt at a service in the HR sector, and we thought our audience would be taken aback if we just relayed that information with no explanation. They would probably think, “Why is Mercari starting an on-demand work service…?”

So we had to go deeper and established steps—first, thinking about what to say at the pre-launch announcement, then what to say at the time of launch, and then what to say when we began expanding across the country. We thought about how to create this story together with the PR Team. We had numerous discussions on what the business side wanted to convey and how to communicate that to the public to ensure that it was well received. Because we planned a series of announcements over a period of six months rather than just a single announcement, we were able to make the announcements cohesive, which I’m proud of.

@yax: We had a lot of information we wanted to convey, and there were also many stakeholders we wanted to reach, right? We wanted our messaging to cover a broad scope, including Mercari Hallo workers and partner companies. The first thing we wanted to convey was why Mercari was starting an on-demand work business. Once people understood that, we could plan how to explain the business in more detail. That’s when I saw the effect of the PR Team’s efforts, which was very impressive.

Actually, I wanted to take this opportunity to ask @Asami something. We were able to create good momentum that attracted a lot of media attention, and hence attention from the public. But wasn’t it difficult to handle such a large number of interviews? Media exposure doesn’t immediately translate into clear numbers…

@Asami: It never felt difficult to me! That being said, we did have interviews almost every week, which was tiring (laughs). While we did spend a lot of time on promoting Mercari Hallo, I also felt that our work had a positive impact on the business, and that was also evident from the numbers.

In terms of quantitative results, we saw increased website traffic and app downloads as we made more media appearances. So, there was a clear impact, and that really motivated us to keep going. When we started sales activities to promote the idea that Mercari was starting an on-demand work business, we had some pushback at the beginning. People had concerns, like “Are you serious about this?” and “Why Mercari?” But when we started to get more exposure, we saw a different reaction from people; they were more open to listening to what we had to say. On sales calls, people would tell us that they saw Mercari Hallo in the news, and that made us feel that we had made a positive impact.

I myself received questions from the media expressing interest. Each time I answered one of their questions, I could feel the message I wanted to convey and my thoughts on how I wanted to develop the story for Mercari Hallo becoming more refined. So, the momentum we built with the PR Team did have a significantly big impact even if it wasn’t entirely evident from the numbers. Considering that we implemented hardly any mass marketing initiatives, the PR Team played a big role in being able to grow the business this far.

@yax: Thanks for sharing that! I think being able to align with you in the beginning was a big help. For us, we knew that on-demand work was not a very well-known service, so we wanted to focus on explaining what on-demand work is and how it differs from regular part-time jobs, rather than talking about how our service differs from our competitors or what we envisioned for Mercari Hallo. This was intentional, with the aim to reach as many people as possible. Because of this strategy, we had a lot of TV coverage, which led to a surprising number of interview requests.

When we thought of ways to change people’s perception through advertising Mercari Hallo, we figured that taking a solely PR-based approach wouldn’t create that positive loop of “sharing ideas” and “rapport.” A single story could create a large amount of interest, but there’s no point if the conversation ends there. If there’s a response and that response generates things like updates to the product, we can reach an even higher peak the next time. That’s the ideal feedback loop.

@Asami: Yes, absolutely. In the beginning, I mentioned that I wanted to create a lot of “scenes” from the consumer perspective. The words “on-demand work” or “hourly job” don’t conjure up a concrete image for most people. More importantly, the majority of people don’t think of on-demand work as a service they can use. I was adamant that I wanted to show people exactly what type of jobs were available and what kind of people were working these jobs in the form of relatable scenes. At the launch event, we not only conducted demos of using the app, but also interviewed workers, and were able to show the audience how people work at our partner companies. This gave people from the media an understanding of what on-demand work entails, which led them to ask more involved questions. I think that event was really successful.

More communication between product experience and PR

—I’d also like to hear about how the product development teams and the PR Team will strengthen collaboration going forward.

@yax: Mercari has refined the user experience for Mercari products, and I believe one of our main strengths is that users actually enjoy using our products.

Most recently, we’ve strengthened PR for Mercari Hallo, Mercard, and our cryptoasset service to send a clear message that Mercari wants to take the lead and be a central figure in new industries while giving them a boost. On the other hand, our C2C marketplace is already quite an established market. While we have confidence in the business due to Mercari’s significant presence, we haven’t been able to communicate enough information about updates to the product experience.

Of course, we always put out an announcement whenever there’s a new feature, but we want to work more closely with the product teams to publish more information about what kind of experiences we want our users to have on the marketplace app, and how we want our users to feel.

@unryu-in: After PR boosts awareness of a service, the product teams then have a responsibility to provide an experience that doesn’t fall short of expectations. We have to prevent users from feeling disappointed when they use a service after seeing information about it on the home screen of the app or reading a media article. Really, if we don’t provide an experience that exceeds expectations, users won’t use that product again.

That’s why the link between product experience and PR is actually really important. We want to work with the PR Team to essentially define the basics—what we should say to elicit a response, and what kind of story will get a reaction. We took this approach with the “No Price Listing” feature and the “My Collection” feature. It’s important to have users imagine how they will benefit once they use these features.

Ideally, we want to tell stories using real-life events that serve as examples. Of course, the best thing is for users to use the product as intended without having to put in too much thought. I feel that this is where the PR Team takes the lead.

In terms of what we want to achieve going forward, we want to create a reaction based on what users like. Personally, I want to maintain Mercari’s flea market-like vibe. Searching for things you like is one way to enjoy the app, but users can also enjoy themselves by talking with sellers or checking out a shop run by someone they think is fashionable. These moments that connect users through a shared love can create a big place because the entire experience is online.

This is a bit off topic, but I love BMW’s company philosophy. BMW’s slogan is “sheer driving pleasure,” but they are also putting a lot of effort into autonomous driving. Why do they focus on autonomous driving with a slogan like “sheer driving pleasure”? Well, they’re automating driving for straight roads like highways so that drivers can focus on changing gears on tricky roads like mountain passes, enjoying the feel of the engine, and having fun with the throttle. In other words, they’re automating the uninteresting parts. That’s why they’re refining autonomous driving technology. I can really relate to them approaching their mission in a technical way. They’re providing pleasure focused on what the customer needs.

In terms of Mercari, when we provide users with the opportunity to talk to each other, create a UX that feels like you’re walking around a real flea market, and provide the excitement of finding a hidden gem, we’re appealing to something other than convenience. That’s why we want to continue to add updates to our products based on these two factors. That is, we want to perfect our UX so that it’s as easy and convenient as possible, and create experiences that target the emotion of the user.

For some people, taking pictures of items they want to sell and choosing how to ship their item is a pain. That’s just a fact. Going back to the BMW example, I see this problem as the highway problem. Communicating with other users and finding hidden gems is akin to driving on a mountain pass, and we want to simplify everything else as much as possible so the user can relax and just focus on the fun parts.

@yax: Taking that into consideration, we can’t just appeal to stakeholders by saying that we created a feature that anyone can use to easily list items. Instead, we need to convey that allowing users to enjoy the process of discovering what they love promotes the circulation of value to gain more stakeholders who support us. We want to continue sending out messages like that.

@Asami: A lot of the initial workers who signed up for Mercari Hallo told us that they’re supporting Mercari Hallo because they like Mercari. They probably also use other on-demand work services, and I’m sure the app was difficult to use in the beginning because it had limited features. Even so, they celebrated with us on X whenever a new feature was added. Sometimes you get support like that from fans that would seem to have no logical explanation. I really believe that users like that give Mercari so much support, and we want to take care of them.

—One other important thing is being “safe and secure,” don’t you think?

@unryu-in: A “safe and secure” experience should be a given. If Mercari is perceived as “unsafe,” we’ve already lost our user base. But our users aren’t often consciously aware that Mercari is safe and secure. The user has to run into some trouble to realize that a feature is not safe. So, prevention is key. Users probably aren’t aware of past instances of fraud in the marketplace or the dangers of drop-shipping without inventory, so it’s important to relay information about specific cases along with these stories and encourage users to take safety measures themselves.

Having said that, there’s not much point in Mercari only addressing this for its own services. It’s a problem that has to be tackled by the entire industry or we’ll run into a game of cat and mouse with people exploiting service loopholes. In that sense, having the PR Team plan industry-wide events and disseminate information via the media is very reassuring. We aren’t able to do all that on the product side. The PR Team truly embodies the creation of “public relations.”

@yax: What you said just now is really important. The amount of information users can access in advance is very limited. When they actually run into trouble, it becomes a bad experience for them. To stop the user from having bad experiences and prevent incidents, we have to create opportunities to share previous incidents and problems with users.

@unryu-in: More specifically, reputation risk is a factor but is not very well recognized within the company either. Tactics to attack reputation are popular at the moment, which means we deal with reputation risks that may damage users’ trust in the company and the company’s brand value. It’s also important to raise awareness internally about objective reputation risks.

@yax: Public relations is often referred to as the “window between internal and external,” and has the role of bringing external perspectives and perceptions into the company and conveying accurate knowledge based on how the world views us.

@unryu-in: Reputation is not a clear-cut issue, and no one has a clear yardstick to measure it. It’s a kind of knack, so to speak, where the knowledge PR possesses is quite useful when representing the voices of the public and crafting company policies.

I want users to feel grateful that Mercari is part of their lives

—I would like to hear once more about what is expected of the PR Team from a management perspective.

@Asami: The Mercari Hallo release reminded me of the importance of creating a story. When you’re on the business side of things, it becomes easy to only think of things linearly. I’m always thinking only about Mercari Hallo (laughs), but from the user’s perspective, we need to think about how we want them to perceive the world we want to create and carefully create a story that achieves that. Current Mercari users will also be using Mercari Hallo, so highlighting the relationship and points of consistency between Mercari Hallo and our existing services will be important. Creating a consistent story was a process that developed through discussion with the PR Team, and I look forward to creating more stories with them in the future.

@unryu-in: Our products are being updated every day. I feel like we’re in the loop about developments that will happen in the next few months, but we’re still uncertain on a lot of aspects when it comes to strategies six months ahead. So, I don’t think there’s been enough discussion.

We need to talk about what we want to create six months to a year from now, then establish what we want to achieve in the initial phase and determine what kind of story would best convey that. I want to create more opportunities to have discussions like that as the first point of call.

Every organization follows a roadmap tied to the group mission, so we should all be aiming for the same thing. So, I want to think about our six-month strategy, one-year strategy, and three-year strategy together, and I think we should start doing that.

—Lastly, I have a question for @yax. What kind of presence should the PR Team continue to have in the future, and how should the PR Team evolve?

@yax: I think we should aim for two things: achieving a state where we can contribute more to the business and communicating to inspire expectations across Mercari Group. 

At Mercari, PR has always played a big function. I feel like the PR Team has been quite successful in creating stories alongside the business divisions. Over the past year and a half, I feel that we’ve been able to contribute over a wider scope. So, we want to reach a state where PR can contribute more to the business. If we can look forward past the three-month mark and the six-month mark to business strategy even further in the future, we can release teaser-like pieces based on that information and elicit greater expectation from a wider section of the public.

Thinking about Mercari from an internal perspective, we are a big community aiming to achieve the same mission. However, from an external perspective, we haven’t created a story comprehensive enough to get people excited about the company, even if they recognize that we have all these services. We want to link the “company” Mercari and the worldview that each of our services offers to write one story, so that people are on board with what we are trying to achieve and we can build rapport. Basically, we want to send out messages that make users feel grateful that Mercari is part of their lives!