【April Dream】Enabling PR Professionals with a Desire to Contribute to Their Communities to Fully Leverage Their Local Skills

Our company supports "April Dream," an initiative aiming to make April 1st a day for sharing dreams. This press release represents the "dream" of EAT UNIQUE Inc.

◾️ The Latent Potential to Energize Communities Through PR Work

Our representative, Ono, published "The Strategy Book for Solo PR" (published by Cross Media Publishing) in 2022, which is soon to reach 10,000 copies in circulation. In Japan, where small and medium-sized enterprises constitute a high percentage of businesses, it is common for individuals to be solely responsible for PR roles or to manage them concurrently with other duties, leading to many PR personnel facing difficulties. This business book, which systematically distills my own experiences into actionable tips, has been widely adopted by many seeking guidance.

Furthermore, as a result of this book, I serve as the sole instructor for the online school "Solo PR Academy," dedicating myself to nurturing PR talent and developing their careers. This academy opened in May 2024, and as a place to systematically learn fundamental PR skills, it attracts students from across the country and even from overseas, with a cumulative enrollment exceeding 300 students. Some of these current and former students participate in internships at our company or are already active as PR professionals, but this is still limited to a small portion of our students.

The primary reason for this limitation is that the majority of our students have difficulty balancing their work with their main jobs. However, beyond that, we have learned that many students face situations and circumstances such as being around childbirth, in the midst of childcare, caring for sick family members, or undergoing fertility treatments, all of which present limitations to working. Critically, when we hear their direct voices, we understand that it's not just the physical difficulty of "wanting to work but being unable to," but also cases where opportunities are deliberately pushed away due to "self-imposed beliefs" like "I think it's impossible for me right now."

■ Establishing a Work Style Policy

Based on the many voices heard around us, we have established a "Work Style Policy" for freelance members involved in internships and contract work.

1. Minimal meetings
2. Maximum remote work
3. Children allowed to accompany to company meetings
4. Team follow-up system
5. Accepting last-minute cancellations with an "it's mutual" spirit

6. Manuals to support new tasks

7. Feel free to consult anytime
8. Workload varies by individual
9. Working hours tailored to lifestyle
10. No residential restrictions

At first glance, these may not seem special, and for independent freelancers or those with discretionary work systems, they are commonplace. However, most of the factors that cause hesitation in people about working are concentrated in the points listed above. We realized that without explicitly stating these, individuals might feel resistance or guilt about working flexibly, preventing their actual available labor force and motivation from becoming apparent. Therefore, we have re-established these as explicit policies. We hope this will serve as a catalyst for them to take a step forward. In the future, we will also focus on creating systems and team structures for work styles.

◾️ Transforming the Desire for Community Contribution into Local Power

There are many people around us who wish to change their careers to public relations because they want to contribute in some way to the future healthy survival of the places where they were born and raised, or where their lives are still based. As vitality declines nationwide in local regions, we must address all sorts of challenges to foster possibilities for their survival and development.

In the process of solving various issues, such as population decline, industrial challenges, and cultural and economic matters, we believe that the "power of public relations" is something our company absolutely must utilize. Solving challenges requires the strength of many people. For this purpose, it is crucial to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and foster a change in perception through linguistic expression and information dissemination, which is precisely what public relations activities entail. Therefore, with the theme of "Community Contribution Desire × Local Issue Resolution PR," we will strengthen the deployment of small projects by public relations professionals with ties to their regions nationwide in the future.

▪️ To Local Businesses Who Want to Promote Their Products and Services to the World

We are launching a service where our PR team, including PR professionals familiar with their local areas, will initiate small projects to tackle challenges for local people, goods, and activities that are recognized as having their existence or appeal not yet reaching the world. We will support them from three perspectives: Message Design (rediscovering and articulating strengths and appeal), Output Design (creating buzz and disseminating information), and Communication Design (connecting people, goods, and activities with stakeholders). We will focus on intensive efforts for six months to a year. The first phase is underway for implementation in Kyoto and Chiba, and we aim to expand the service area and increase its utilization in the future. (For inquiries about the service, please feel free to contact us at info@eatunique.co.jp.)

EAT UNIQUE Inc. will steadily advance step by step towards the realization of its dreams. For next year's April Dream, we plan to announce concrete results of our achievements and visualize the process towards our dreams in greater detail.