From the fifteen-minute call window to the boardroom report

Mandate

Return the company to growth after two flat years without repeating the advertising habits that had produced complaints from older customers, and make acquisition spending answerable to persistency rather than applications.

Outcomes

• Rewrote advertising for the relaxed-underwriting medical plan; complaints about first-year payments fell from 214 to 61 a year and 9,800 applicants moved to a cheaper standard plan.
• Left two comparison rankings that would not label paid positions; thirteen-month persistency from comparison partners rose from 84% to 90%.
• Moved digital partners to payment on policies in force; cost per policy in force at thirteen months fell from ¥96,000 to ¥71,000.
• Introduced a claimant follow-up question in 2024; the share reporting a smaller payment than expected fell from 14% to 9%.
• Policies in force rose from 1.18 million in March 2021 to 1.32 million in March 2026.

Decisions in context

When marketing and direct sales were separated in 2021, our president asked me to lead marketing as an executive officer. The company had been flat for two years, and the obvious route to growth was more of what had worked: confident television for older viewers, comparison rankings and partners paid by the application. I took a slower route. We rewrote the relaxed-plan advertising, left rankings we could not label and paid digital partners only for policies that stayed. Each change cost volume first and was argued over in writing. I also built the measures that let our board judge marketing at the claim as well as at the call, and with our contact-centre and compliance leaders designed the two-call process for applicants aged 75 and over. I attend the board for my report and am not a director.

Reason for the move

Current appointment.

Mandate

Rebuild brand and television planning as online applications overtook telephone, and give the company a recognisable voice beyond price.

Outcomes

• Opened a free policy-check line in 2019 that took 47,000 calls and advised no change in 38% of them.
• Raised the share of applications completed online from 31% to 52%.
• Built regional television response models by time slot, reducing wasted airtime spending by about ¥0.8bn a year.
• Published a commitment that no applicant aged 75 or over would be asked to replace an existing policy in a single call.

Decisions in context

Tomoshibi's president invited me back to lead marketing after my years at a comparison site, partly because I could explain how customers were choosing before they reached us. The company's television was still built on response habits I had helped create, and its online journey was a form attached to a brochure. We rebuilt the journey around worked examples of what policies pay and moved most applications online. The defining decision of the period came in 2019, when an industry scandal made a contrast campaign tempting. I argued against it and we opened a policy-check line instead, open to anyone and staffed by advisers who were not paid on sales. I closed the line in 2021 to meet a budget cut, which I regret. The period taught me that a brand can be built on advice that does not end in a sale.

Reason for the move

Promoted to executive officer and chief marketing officer when marketing was separated from direct sales.

Mandate

Build an insurance comparison business from a small brochure-request service into the company's second-largest category.

Outcomes

• Grew insurance page traffic from about 300,000 to 2.1 million visits a month.
• Increased insurer partners from 4 to 23.
• Built comparison tables for medical, cancer and term life cover that showed premiums and main benefits side by side.
• Built a paid editor's selection which, by 2016, contained only paying insurers' policies; later argued against extending it.

Decisions in context

I left Tomoshibi to see the choice from the customer's side, before any insurer's telephone rang. Hakari Navi was an advertising and referral business with no agency registration, and its insurance pages were thin when I arrived. We built comparison tables that readers used and grew traffic sevenfold. I also built a paid editor's selection, agreeing to a fee for consideration on condition that editors kept the final choice. In practice only paying insurers were considered, and our disclosure, though accurate, went largely unread. When the company planned to sell positions in more rankings, including a popularity list that blended payment with applications, I objected and then resigned. The four years gave me an insurer's most useful outside knowledge: how comparison sites earn money, what readers notice and what they do not.

Reason for the move

Resigned after the company decided to sell positions in more rankings without clearer labelling; invited back to Tomoshibi Life to lead marketing.

Mandate

Build customer acquisition for a new direct insurer before its first policy was sold.

Outcomes

• Reached 420,000 policies in force by March 2013.
• Launched online applications in 2010, alongside telephone sales.
• Set up television planning with the parent company's airtime team, measured by policy issued rather than by call.
• Introduced a read-back of benefit limits before every telephone application from launch.

Decisions in context

I joined the team preparing Tomoshibi Life six months before it received its licence to sell. Kawasemi knew how to sell on television better than any insurer, and my job was to adapt that skill to a product whose value appears only at a claim. I built the acquisition team from three people, wrote the first television and newspaper advertising and insisted from launch that advisers read back the benefit limits before taking an application, a practice I had brought from Asagiri. We launched online applications in 2010. By 2013 we had 420,000 policies in force, ahead of the founding plan. I also completed a part-time MBA, writing on acquisition cost and early lapses. I left because I wanted to understand the customer's choice before it reached any insurer.

Reason for the move

Recruited by Hakari Navi to build its insurance comparison business; wanted to understand how customers chose between insurers.

Mandate

Build a mail-order and telephone channel for medical cover without competing openly with the company's own sales force.

Outcomes

• Grew the channel from launch to 38,000 new policies a year.
• Introduced a read-back of hospital benefit limits before every application, reducing complaints about benefit amounts by about half.
• Published the first newspaper advertising in the company's history to show premiums by age in a full table.
• Agreed rules with sales-force leaders that kept the channel to customers no agent served.

Decisions in context

I moved client-side because I wanted to be on the side of the telephone that answered the calls my commercials produced. Asagiri was a cautious mutual whose tied sales force was suspicious of any channel that sold without them. I spent as much time agreeing rules with sales-force leaders as I did on advertising. I learnt underwriting, claims handling and contact-centre work from the people who did them, and began listening to recorded calls every week. The read-back of benefit limits, which cost a few points of conversion, was the change I was proudest of. The channel reached 38,000 new policies a year, small for the company but proof that medical cover could be sold well at a distance. I left to help build a direct insurer from its first day.

Reason for the move

Joined the founding team of Tomoshibi Life, a new direct insurer.

Mandate

Write and then produce direct-response campaigns for mail-order clients selling health foods, cosmetics and insurance.

Outcomes

• Wrote or produced more than 200 television and radio spots.
• Set up call tracking by fifteen-minute window, region and time slot for the agency's insurance clients.
• Produced the agency's first campaigns for mail-order medical insurance from 1999.

Decisions in context

I joined Nijimaru straight from university because it measured everything, and I wanted a craft I could test. The agency sold for mail-order clients, and every spot was judged by the calls it produced in the following fifteen minutes. I learnt to change a single phrase and watch the telephones respond. From 1999 our clients included insurers selling medical cover by mail order, and I produced their first campaigns. It was in this role that I wrote the commercial my grandmother answered, and her hospital stay in 2001 made me look differently at the conditions we ran along the bottom of the screen. The agency taught me direct response thoroughly. It also taught me how easily a technique that works on a tired viewer becomes the only technique anyone uses.

Reason for the move

Moved client-side to build a direct channel at an insurer, after seeing at close quarters what one of my own commercials had led a customer to believe.