TOKYO – Spearheading unusual approaches to solve business challenges and thinking outside the box are Dentsu Tokyo’s forte. The formulation of the Dentsu Team B, a three-year old collaborative unit under the Dentsu Innovation Institute, is a testament of this achievement.
“B side is like [being a ] DJ or novelist, actor or blogger, so each member has their personal B side. So we are combining the A side and B side and making a new business. Our clients and the society needs new innovation; we shouldn’t just approach from the A side, but we need to have an alternative approach. We don’t think typical for our clients. But we think [of] partners to make new ideas. For a good future and a good society,” opines Team B’s Hidetoshi Kuranari.
The Team B is a pool of experts in various specific fields drawn from Dentsu Tokyo. If A side is their advertising profession, then B side is a hobby, a side-job, a major in college, or something that they are really passionate about. They can be a novelist, DJ, physics major, or a hacker, among others.
Kuranari remarks, “Of course we have really great A Teams, like the issues they are getting from their clients are more complex and difficult, and sometimes even if it is hard to put some kind of solution or what kind of idea or what kind of thing they need, so the clients need something beyond Team A, so that’s where they come to us and discuss some good way of innovation or help them understand what they actually want. There are times that there are Account Executives or somebody else from the company would call us to help them do that. It becomes different from a usual team that if the client would want to have of Team A pack, so they will try to collaborate and make it and turn it to one big solution just to make the world better.”
The Team B adapts an approach similar to the ad industry in the 70s and 80s, where work was usually more play. The team follows no brief and projects are worked on together with clients so the unhurried, informal set up gives the team the freedom to explore on different solutions and processes without pressure.
With the motto, “Curiosity first,” the Dentsu Team B is able to not just collaborate, but also create new processes and offer clients business solutions that are beyond the traditional. Using the B sides of the creatives allows them to come up with alternative ways to help their clients on team building, research, ideation, and communication. “We don’t think typical for our clients. But we think partners to make new ideas. For good future and good society. We are not making projects for every clients. We have beer together – if we have sympathy together or vision, so we will start a project,” says Kuranari.
To date, the Team B has developed and practiced 30 processes for ideation using over 2000 pieces of information captured from each B-side, along with experiences from working on over 50 projects.
One of the projects that was created by the team is ‘Study with Snacks’. The team focused on making an educational revolution using the power of snacks to spark kids’ creativity and interest. In partnership with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the team crafted learning tools for kids using snacks to study about space, planets, constellations, among others.
Nadya Kirillova, Team B’s Creative Director, remarks, “Education in Japan is a little bit traditional. So we need to learn how to be more creative and especially when we grow up and go to the society. There is no answer for anything anymore, so we want to teach kids about different ways they can learn and different approaches they can take to education. You have to find the right button to push and open the kid’s innovation or inspiration or those kinds of skills. So you are making a list of programs focusing on that kind.”
