Johnny Pawlik, Mantra Media

There’s nothing wrong with treating customers well and meeting their needs, but this isn’t actually why they stick around. The first thing you need to understand is that recurring interactions must exist for a relationship to be built. Without a vehicle for recurring...

Planning a tour in Japan can be stressful. Your customers don’t know where to start, what’s value for money, how much a tour will cost, or which tour operator to choose. You could maximise customer satisfaction by solving each of these problems for them, but most tour operators...

Parks & Japan aims to promote Japan’s 34 national parks as a network of equally exciting destinations whilst supporting conservation efforts and local communities. The project is currently overseeing the development of two brands designed to build interest in the parks...

How can one company, or even one person, make a difference in Japan’s trillion-yen tourism industry? Spanning multiple behemoth sectors with challenges on local, national, and even global scales, making a significant positive impact seems like an impossible task. I believe...

I usually focus on the value you provide for others when I talk about increasing your profit and impact, and it’s true that customer obsession is key to your success. However, if you want your business to be the source of your personal wealth, there are certain things that need...

Results are never guaranteed when it comes to strategy. This might not be what you want to hear, but it’s important to know why a strategy can fail, how to prevent it, and what to do if it happens to you. It’ll make investing in strategy a whole lot easier, despite its inherent...

In March 2023, my application for Art Council’s ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ grant was rejected. I’d planned to expand my creative skillset for a series of projects celebrating Japan’s relationship with national parks, but with funding no longer on the table, it was up to...

Where your brand purpose defines the problem you will solve through your product, service, and actions, your brand mission defines how you will solve that problem. It’s important to get clear on your brand purpose to begin with, as you can’t determine how to solve a problem without...

Your brand purpose, also known as “your why”, is usually summarised in a meaningful statement about why your brand exists beyond making money. However, brands often fall into the trap of creating a purpose that’s poetic rather than practical. This is the very reason they rarely...

If you rely on cheap, fast, or easy solutions to get ahead, you will not win. There’s a prevailing bias that any long strategic process must be needlessly complex, and should be simplified and made quicker for the client. This is justified by the idea that “time is money”, despite...