Japan Interactive Agency Roster, part 1

There’s not much information available in English about Japan’s web design industry. And, there is no public ranking I know of—even in Japanese—that ranks the interactive agencies similar to Advertising Age’s Datacenter or NMA’s Top 100 (the only thing even close are books like Web Designing Year Book, Web Seisakugaisha Soron and Web Design Annual ). So I decided to put one together myself and post it in English.

Who is this for?

This list is meant to be helpful to the following kinds of people:

• Clients: English-speaking business managers who are looking for a vendor of online services in the Japan market.
• Partners: Foreign agencies who are looking for a partner company or merger/acquisition target to help them cover the Japan market.
• Job seekers: English-speaking foreigners looking for a job at an interactive agency in Japan.

Four categories of players

Interactive agencies in Japan can be broadly categorized by ownership into four groups:

1. Joint ventures
2. Domestic affiliates
3. Foreign affiliates
4. Domestic independents

The information below for the first three categories is complete to the best of my knowledge (there are probably a few players missing but I hope readers will comment to help fill in any gaps). But the fourth category, the domestic independents, makes up by far the largest number of companies. For now, in order to cover the major independent shops in the market, I included only those independent firms that have 50 or more staff (publicly disclosed on their own website). However, below this point there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of smaller interactive firms. Many of them are doing some very interesting work, so I may devote a later blog entry to some of the more active smaller firms out there.

In the interest of full disclosure I want to make it clear that I am an employee of Business Architects, which is one of the companies listed below.

** Notes and caveats regarding this data **

Please send additions or corrections

Please post a comment if you know of a company that should be added or if you find anything incorrect. I welcome your feedback.

1. JOINT VENTURES

Beacon Communications http://www.beaconcom.co.jp
Staff: 340 | Established: 2001 | Parent network: Publicis, Dentsu
English website: http://www.beaconcom.co.jp/en

Dentsu | Avenue A | Razorfish http://www.dentsu-aarf.com
Staff: 191 | Established: 2001 | Parent network: Dentsu, aQuantive
English website: http://www.dentsu-aarf.com/en

Wunderman Dentsu http://www.wunderman-d.com
Staff: 92 | Established: (undisclosed) | Parent network: WPP, Dentsu
English website: (none)

2. DOMESTIC AFFILIATES

Dentsu TEC http://www.dentsutec.co.jp
Staff: 1,290 | Established: 1996 | Parent network: Dentsu
English website: http://www.dentsutec.co.jp/techp/eng

Hakuhodo i-Studio http://www.i-studio.co.jp
Staff: 190 | Established: 2000 | Parent network: Hakuhodo
English website: (none)

ADK International http://www.adk-intl.jp
Staff: 68 | Established: 1980 | Parent network: Asatsu-DK
English website: http://www.adk-intl.jp

3. FOREIGN AFFILIATES

MRM Worldwide Japan http://www.mrmjapan.co.jp
Staff: 60 | Established: (undisclosed) | Parent network: Interpublic
English website: (none)

JWT Japan http://www.jwt.co.jp
Staff: (undisclosed) | Established: 1956 | Parent network: WPP
English website: http://www.jwt.co.jp

Grey Group Japan http://www.greyjp.com
Staff: (undisclosed) | Established: 1963 | Parent network: WPP
English website: http://www.greyjp.com

Ogilvy & Mather Japan http://www.ogilvy.co.jp
Staff: (undisclosed) | Established: 1995 | Parent network: WPP
English website: http://www.ogilvy.co.jp/english

Business Interactif Japan http://www.businessinteractif.com/jp
(Acquired by Digitas, June 2007)
Staff: (undisclosed) | Established: 2000 | Parent network: Publicis
English website: http://www.businessinteractif.com/en

Tribal DDB Tokyo http://tribalddb.com
Staff: (undisclosed) | Established: (undisclosed) | Parent network: Omnicom
English website: http://tribalddb.com

Tequila Japan http://www.tequila.jp
Staff: (undisclosed) | Established: (undisclosed) | Parent network: Omnicom
English website: http://www.tequila.jp

4. DOMESTIC INDEPENDENTS

IMJ http://www.imjp.co.jp
Staff: 872 | Established: 1996 | Parent network: (none)
English website: (none)

Septeni http://www.septeni.co.jp
Staff: 375 | Established: 1990 | Parent network: (none)
English website: (none)

Mitsue-Links http://www.mitsue.co.jp
Staff: 270 | Established: 1990 | Parent network: (none)
English website: http://www.mitsue.co.jp/english

Members http://www.members.co.jp
Staff: 214 | Established: 1995 | Parent network: (none)
English website: (none)

Netyear http://www.netyear.net
Staff: 140 | Established: 1999 | Parent network: (none)
English website: (none)

Kinotrope http://www.kinotrope.co.jp
Staff: 100 | Established: 1993 | Parent network: (none)
English website: (none)

Business Architects http://www.b-architects.com
Staff: 85 | Established: 1999 | Parent network: (none)
English website: http://www.b-architects.com

Scient Japan http://www.scient.co.jp
Staff: 78 | Established: 2000 | Parent network: (none)
English website: http://www.scient.co.jp/english

DOE http://www.doe.jp
Staff: 60 | Established: 2001 | Parent network: (none)
English website: http://www.doe.jp/en

Notes and caveats regarding this data:

For the purpose of this list, I define “interactive agency” as a company that serves client firms by providing planning, design, and production of online communications.

The data for number of staff, year of establishment, and parent network was copied from each company’s public website as of the date that this blog entry was published. Within each category, the list of companies is ordered 1st by number of staff, 2nd by date of establishment, and 3rd by alphabetical name.

Ideally there would be financial data to compare the companies by last year’s billings, but unfortunately that information is not publicly available for most of these firms. For that reason I have ranked them by number of staff. However, please be aware that it can be misleading to compare these companies by size because some of them also provide other services, such as print and tv advertising production, while others focus only on interactive.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure I want to make it clear that I am employed at one of the companies listed above.

Posted by David Zienowicz