Japan growth,
without the guesswork.

We have Japanese native senior strategists, creative leads, and media planners who understand Japan's market intimately. Unlike agencies that use generalist translators or remote execution, our team makes live decisions about creative direction, platform strategy, and market timing.

Your Japan campaign is led by people who are native to the market, who understand seasonal patterns, regulatory nuances, and real-time consumer sentiment. We connect your global team to Japan-specific expertise without adding layers or hand-off delays.

Platform mix differs drastically from global assumptions. Yahoo!JP and LINE are essential in Japan—not secondary. Google, Meta, and TikTok matter, but their audience composition and creative format preferences are Japan-specific. LinkedIn is not as dominant in Japan, but still might be considered depending on the audience you are targeting. Programmatic and Digital Out of Home (DOOH) media also need to be localised to the market.

Search, GEO & AEO: Yahoo!JP and Google are both critical for your search strategy. OpenAI, Google and Claude are all increasingly more crucial too. Messaging & Social: LINE is where Japanese consumers spend time and shop in addition to the traditional global channels like Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Video: TikTok and YouTube are crucial. E-commerce: Rakuten and Yahoo Shopping are major channels. We build your strategies around Japan's actual media behaviour, not global norms.

Yes, end-to-end. We produce brand films, photography, social content, and performance creative locally with Japanese-native creative directors. Copy is transcreated for Japan, not machine-translated, to capture cultural nuance and local idiom.

We understand what visuals, messaging, and tones resonate with Japanese audiences. We manage relationships with local production houses, talent, and studios. Your creative output feels native, not imported.

Japan has specific regulations around health claims, advertising standards, influencer disclosures, and data privacy. We navigate these proactively so your campaigns stay compliant and avoid costly corrections mid-launch.

Global brands entering Japan for the first time. Enterprise SaaS companies adapting their positioning for the Japanese B2B market. Consumer brands launching premium or localized product lines. And existing Japan operations looking to refresh growth after a plateau.

Common scenarios: brands who tried Japan with a global template and didn't gain traction; companies launching a completely new vertical into Japan; and teams restructuring Japan operations after acquisition or market shift.

A properly localized launch takes 30-90 days minimum. This may include a performance audit, market research, positioning refinement, creative development, platform setup, CRO and multivariate creative testing.

Yes. About a third of our engagements are launching global brands into Japan for the first time.

LinkedIn is a niche platform in Japan, with roughly 5.3 million users — about 4.5% of the total population. However, when isolating Japan's 20 million working-age knowledge workers, adoption jumps to ~30%. We also often recommend Meta, Google, Bing, Yahoo!JP, LINE, programmatic for nurture, and increasingly note for long-form content. Google's share in Japan is around 70–75% in search but lower on mobile, where Yahoo!JP overperforms. We build platform mixes per category rather than defaulting to global playbooks.

Most engagements start with a foundation phase where we audit your current strategy or market fit, refine positioning, and build the strategic, media and creative framework for Japan.

After that, we can work on a project basis (single campaign), retained monthly retainer (ongoing management), or a hybrid model. Terms depend on your needs: are you launching something new, scaling an existing presence, or refreshing an underperforming market?

Book a free conversation with our team. We'll review your brand, market position, and what you're trying to achieve in Japan. We'll provide an honest assessment of whether Kindred is the right fit and what a Japan-specific strategy might look like.

From there, we either move into a foundation phase engagement or help you think through next steps independently. Either way, you leave with clearer direction.