Born from loving the subject
"Working with the power of words"
Interview with Copywriter Keiji Tochizawa - Part 1 -

I know this is a bit reassuring for the two of you who were my students, but should I start by telling you about my background?

please.

Unusually for a copywriter who is mostly from a liberal arts background, I studied engineering at university, and after graduating I worked as a programmer at a certain manufacturer for a year. The work itself was interesting, but I felt like "something's not right."
I was 23 years old. I was walking up the stairs at the Kudanshita subway station in midsummer. The sky was a deep blue. I stopped and thought, "Huh? What am I doing?" A few months later, I quit my job.
So I decided to go into the world of advertising, which I had been interested in since my student days, and started attending a copywriter training course.

It was a certain poster that sparked your interest in advertising, right?

That's right. At Isetan. When I was a university student, I worked part-time at Isetan.
When I saw a poster that combined the copy "Ah, it's like the wind has changed," written by copywriter Tsuchiya Koichi, with the visual of a woman, I felt an incredible sense of expanse beyond just a single piece of paper.
I thought it was interesting that such a word could evoke so many different things. That's how I started to admire it. But I was in the engineering department at university. It had nothing to do with me. Even though I thought expression was wonderful, I continued to study diligently.
And then, when it came to getting a job, I was on the path my parents had laid out for me: "Go to a good school, study science if you want to learn a trade, and get into a good company."

Was it smooth after you left the company?

Since I had done fairly well in my copywriter training course, I thought "Maybe I can do this?" and joined a small production company and started working as an assistant. At first, I was just a running errand boy, learning various things while working, and I think it was in my second year, when I was 26 years old, that I was given a business card as a copywriter.
From then on, he was a copywriter. He changed jobs once and joined the Nippon Design Center, then went freelance at the age of 31, and 12 years ago he incorporated the Tochizawa Keiji Office and became the representative of Connecting Rod LLC, where he is today. I'm not the representative or anything, but I'm the only employee (laughs).

Why were you able to “write” it right from the start during the copywriting training course?

In science departments, there are many opportunities to write lab reports. There, you are forced to memorize standardized writing styles, and your professors will constantly mark your work in red. I think that by repeatedly resubmitting my reports, I was able to write logical sentences.
So maybe it's better to say that it was useful in an unexpected way.

We've only just joined Monosus, but how did you and our company meet?

There was a project for a local bank. I was the creative director, and Hayashi-san, who was still working before he created Monosus, was part of the marketing team.
That was the first time we worked together and as we talked, I found out that Hayashi had been selling Yamaha Motors for a long time. I had been doing advertising for Yamaha Motors for a long time, so I was like, "Wow!" and that's how we became closer.
Later, Hayashi asked a salesman from Yamaha Motors to talk about the Yamaha brand, and he gave a lecture titled "What is Yamaha's DNA?" based on the advertisements he had created up to that point.
This time, I asked him to create a website for Yamaha Motors, so our relationship goes back quite a long time.

Speaking of Yamaha Motor, the phrase "Jinkikankan" (human machine sensibility) is still used today as a copy expressing Yamaha's development philosophy. I was really surprised to learn during my class at Monosasusu Juku that it was Tochizawa who created this copy.
When does a great copy come about?

When it comes to copy, you think and think and think until your head hurts, and just when you start to give up and think it's no good, it comes to you.
That's because my brain keeps thinking even when I'm doing other things. So it just pops out. I can write something that feels good. Of course, there are many times when that doesn't happen.

Is it important to go to the site and get moving before coming down, or is it more important to have time to think it over and think it through?

Both. When the term "Jinkikanno" came to me, I had already created a number of advertisements for Yamaha Motor's new products and had spoken to a lot of engineers and designers during interviews. I think the fact that I had accumulated such experience played a major role.
I definitely didn't come up with it on my own; I think it took a lot of different factors to come together and get it out into the world, including the sales people at the advertising agency who gave me direction on the idea.

Is it something that emerges as a result of formulating a theory and extracting issues? Or is it something that comes from intuition?

The preparation stage is quite logical. Here are the characteristics of the company, here are the areas of expertise, etc. There is a stage where the elements are organized and the company is understood, and at that point some copy is generated, but it is set aside for the moment.
Then, it will come down from a completely different angle. If the left brain is not fully engaged, the right brain will not work either. Words are superficial, so if you combine words you have heard somewhere and use them well, your copy will not have much power.
As Omura-san said earlier, there is power in words that come from the bottom of your heart and make sense to you. However, you have to think about it so much that it gives you a headache.

If it were just one word, it might seem like something that just pops into your head, but there are many steps to go through to arrive at that word, and it won't come to you unless you make the effort to find out.

This is not limited to words, but may also be true of ideas. In my case, I have difficulty making the knowledge I see or read relevant to me. I value the physicality of experiencing things.
I happened to have been riding motorcycles since I was 16, which is how I came across the job at Yamaha Motor and have been able to work there for so long. This is something I am truly happy about.
I may not be good at everything, but I have two arms and two legs. Everyone has 24 hours in a day, so I think it's better to be involved in things that you have experienced.
It's for the same reason that many of my other jobs are outdoor-related. As for this house that you all came to see today, while I was making the advertisement, I fell in love with the brand's theme of "living with nature" and ended up buying it.

I thought it was an amazing story that he fell in love with a product he discovered through his work and even bought one for his home.

He wrote the copy for the product himself, and when he thought, "This is great," he wanted it (laughs).

They really put their heart into their products and they love their work so much that they want to make them their own.

I can't say that I'm able to do this in all my work, but I try to do so as much as possible. When I was taking a copywriter training course, Shigesato Itoi told me, "Love your products." That advice still remains with me, so I try to love even the things I'm not good at. Because it's work. Because I can't choose.

Even if you don't like something, if you look at it from a different perspective, you can find something to love about it.

Exactly. Even if you think, "I can't love this," if you change your perspective and see it as, "This is excellent, this function is needed by many people," you can still empathize to a certain extent, even if you can't love it.

It's amazing how you can find something that you want to communicate.

It's not rare that the client doesn't understand what they need to communicate. Copywriters look at the essence of the brand that the company has, and look at the customer who will end up picking up the product. Find the point of contact between the two. That way, the expression won't stray from the concept.
If you don't do that and keep correcting things by valuing one side and another, the work will never be completed. I think the important thing is to think about what lies between the client and the consumer, the people who live their lives.

When asked about your most memorable job, what comes to mind?

I showed it to the school, but it was a branding project for Yamaha Motors in Russia. It was heavy, but it was interesting because we were able to do a lot of things in all directions.
At that time, Russia was a country where we didn't know anything about it. I only had an image of piroshki and the onion-shaped buildings in Red Square. The products we were selling were motorcycles, marine vehicles, ATVs (all-terrain vehicles), and snowmobiles. After passing the presentation and thinking that we had secured the job, we were asked, "There will be a test drive event on the other side of the Ural Mountains in nine days, so can we shoot a promotional video for the snowmobile there?"

9 days later?

The reason is that the lineup of snowmobiles to be photographed was only available on the day of the test ride. It was difficult to secure a new location in Russia, and we were told that this was the only chance to shoot, so we prepared in eight days and shot the graphics and promotional video. Using that material, we created a website, organized events, held an exhibition, and created outdoor billboards and magazine advertisements.
It was really thrilling and fun. I don't think I'll ever have an experience like that again.