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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, August 7, 2003

Local firm to market Japan tourism

By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer

Starr Seigle Communications said it has won a contract with the Japanese government to market travel to Japan from the United States.

The company would not disclose the value of the one-year contract.

Starr Seigle said it beat out Japan's top advertising firms, including Dentsu Inc. and Hakuhodo Inc.

"We competed on their territory, in their ballpark, and that was the major coup," said Chuck Cohen, Starr Seigle's senior vice president and executive marketing director. "Going in, I don't think any one of us thought we had much of a chance."

Starr Seigle President David Koch said a starting point in winning the contract was an intergovernmental meeting last year at Ko Olina between officials from the U.S. Department of Commerce and Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

That meeting followed a memorandum of understanding signed by Japan and the United States to increase travel between the two countries.

The Japan government and Japanese tourism officials, including the Japan National Tourist Organization, formed a Visit Japan committee to decide how to increase travel.

Starr Seigle said it is already developing a Visit Japan advertising campaign beginning in September in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. A team of about 11 from Starr Seigle will work on the project.

Koch said the campaign is taking the approach that Japan needs to be seen through American eyes to draw travelers from the United States.

"It's all these day-to-day things that Japanese take for granted," he said, including riding the bullet trains, taking the Tokyo subway and visiting department store basement delicatessens.

"We in Hawai'i understand it better by far than most places," he said.

The Japan National Tourist Organization could not be reached for immediate comment yesterday.

Starr Seigle recently announced the resignation of board chairman and CEO Jack Bates. Bates stepped down in the midst of a company restructuring, following the bankruptcy filing of Hawaiian Airlines. The carrier owed Starr Seigle between $500,000 and $1 million.

Starr Seigle officials would not say if the Japan contract would have an impact on its restructuring.