Category: Interviews

Looking for an oscillator? Or an alien? Get what you’re after in the pages of Japan’s freewheeling classified ad press.

If you are in search of phone cards from the Baltic states, a pen pal in New Zealand or want to buy a pharmacy in Venezia, the chances are you will be able to find what you want in Japan’s free ad magazines. After years where the concept of classified advertising was virtually mainstream ad media, magazines that invite individuals to place ads to buy and sell second-hand goods, seek housing, pets, language exchange partners or romance are booming in Japan. Leading the pack of English-language free-ad papers is “Tokyo Classified,” a colorful publication that started as a 2-page pamphlet three years ago.

Nowadays, the free information pamphlet, in which individuals can place advertisements free of charge and that generates revenue by charging companies to advertise, has 24 pages and a circulation of 30,000. If you’ve just arrived in Tokyo, you can use the classifieds to find a house, to go places and meet people. You couldn’t do that before,” said Mark Devlin who co-owns Crisscross Co., the complany which started the handout.

Mary Devlin-Mark’s partner and wife-and another partner who has since left the company set up Crisscross in September 1993 and published the first issue in February 1994. “Before we published the first issue, Mary went around trying to sell ads to Japanese companies. We had a bit of a problem because many Japanese companies didn’t know what a classified ad was.” said Mark. He said the company plans to expand the magazine to include listings of upcoming events, as well as advertisements this year.

Free-ad magazines such as “Buy and Sell,” which originated in Vancouver, and the London-based “Loot” have long been popular in North America and Europe, but for many years publishing companies did not think free-ad papers would catch on in Japan. In the last two years, however, both English-language and Japanese-language free-ad papers have taken off here. Many people pick up the magazines to look for second-hand bargains, but others flip through the ads regularly to be amused by the sometimes off-the-wall ads that turn up among the serious ones.

Anything goes

Along with pages of computers for sale and “handsome guys looking for … girls,” there are also ads selling such oddities as a “Morse code practice oscillator.” Perhaps you might be interested in the “handyman from California who fixes lonely broken hearts.” A “hot spring club for active and sophisticated people” invites people to take part in day-trips featuring mixed bathing, while Sleepless in Yokohama desperately appeals for “help and a a serious relationship” in recent editions of Tokyo Classified. Support groups like Overeaters Anonymous and counseling groups such as a group helping the adult children of alcoholics also regularly place ads.

There are no restrictions on the ads that are run in the free ads papers-and no guarantee that the contents are accurate. In the main, ads are run just the way they are received, leaving both readers and placers of ads in a vulnerable position. A Canadian man, whose Tokyo Classified ad begins: “Alien is here! Are you bored dating men from earth…,” said he gets three to six responses a week from the ad, which he has been running for several weeks. He placed the ad, he said, “to meet somebody interesting.” So far he has met five of his callers. But also because of his ad, he now receives prank phone calls regularly.

Reiko Yamamoto of Kyoritsu Dentall Association, who regularly advertises English-language dental services in the magazine, said she believes the English-Language classifieds are the best way to reach foreigners who have only just come to Japan and don’t speak Japanese. “People come to the dental office because they have seen the ad,” she said.

Getting in on the act

The first Japanese-language free-ad magazine to go on sale here was “Quanto,”offering 300 pages of ads for the buying and selling of such items as second-hand cars and brand-name goods. Unlike the Enlish-language papers, “Quanto” is not free of charge and costs ¥430 per copy. “It’s a good way to sell goods because it’s cheap,” said Masayoshi Tsushima, who said he received 30 responses from an advertisement for Chanel design bags in the Jan. 16 issue of the magazine. Noboru Endo, managing editor of “Quanto,” believes the Japanese-language ad paperss have become popular because of a change of thinking in Japan.”We felt there was no need to go through Japan’s long, complicated distribution system to sell goods. We wanted to give people a chance to sell goods directly,” he said.

Another ad paper publisher makes a separate point. “One reason (free-ad papers took such a long time to catch on in Japan) is because people were afraid to put personal telephone numbers and addresses in the ads,” said Toshiaki Onoki, the deputy managing editor of “Jamaru,” a Japanese-language free-ad magazine that started a year ago and costs ¥430. To overcome the problem, “Jamaru” uses a system where individual advertisements are assigned numbers, and inquirers phone or write to the magazine stating the number of the advertisement they are interested in. The magazine then passes the messages on to the person who placed the ad.

Passport-sized photographs of senders are included in some of “Jamaru” ads, which is almost entirely devoted to personal ads for friends, club events and romance. “Jamaru” is published by the “From A” company, which is a subsidiary of Recruit, a major publisher of employment information magazines. The magazine sells more than 400,000 copies a month. In January, it is expanding its business to include four regional editions.”These days, there is so much information available that it has become difficult to find what you are liiking for. We wanted to allow the public to advertise for the information they wanted,” said Onoki. “With the consumption tax rising this year and having to pay for (large item) gargage pickup in Tokyo, people’s interest in buying and selling second-hand goods has been heightened,”said Onoki of “Jamaru.”

By Miranda Loney, Asahi Evening News.

With £400 pounds in his pocket, Mark Devlin left Scotland for the Far East. So how did he get from there to being publisher of one of his adopted home’s prominent English language publications? Billy Adams reports.

Reprinted with permission from Business A.M. 
Scottish Business and Finance newspaper (now out of print)

December 11, 2002

It all started with a bunch of clapped-out tape recorders. A university lecturer was about to throw them in the bin when a young student with an entrepreneurial streak spotted his chance.

“I just spray-painted them and did them up,” says Mark Devlin, who literally pocketed the £400 proceeds before getting on a one-way flight bound for a new life in Japan.

Fast forward thirteen years and Devlin is checking the cover of the latest issue of a magazine he runs in down town Tokyo. A nearby computer screen displays an online service he believes will be the first to truly tell the world about Japan.

It’s a long way from his first experience of a city that had never encountered Scottish bank notes. “When I first got here, the cash I got from the tape recorders was all I had,” he says. “And half of it was Scottish notes. There was a bit of a scene at the bank. The staff had these big books out with all the world’s currencies on them. But there was nothing Scottish. So I had to phone my girlfriend back home to tell her I could only use ￡200.”

Mary McQueen-Molloy could have thrown the begging bowl back in her boyfriend’s face, but instead chose to leave her job in London to join him for a holiday that is still not over. The seed for their love affair with Japan was sown in a university engineering course that pointed to the country as the god of all things mechanical. Japanese night classes followed. “Then one day one of the guys on the course said he was going there to teach English and I thought that was cool,” says Devlin.

He also started out teaching before “blagging” a computer job which led to a more senior technology position at Jardine Fleming Securities. McQueen-Molloy, meanwhile worked as an IT consultant. But the nine-to-five lifestyle did not appeal, and when a man Devlin met in a club said he wanted to start an English language paper for classifieds adverts, the Scottish couple jumped on board. “If people wanted to get stuff in Tokyo, they had to find notice boards in places such as supermarkets,” says Devlin. “And that was just a pain.”

It was 1993, long before the arrival of the Internet, English language newspapers had not exploited the market and the only other English publication, Tokyo Journal, was monthly. The market seemed wide open.

And the enterprising gaijin soon discovered why. The Japanese were not familiar with the idea of classifieds. “There is no real second-hand market in Tokyo,” says Devlin. “People just throw things away. I got my stereo from the side of the street, and it is a very good one.” The idea of a free magazine also presented problems. “They kept asking us how we were going to make money.”

The lifeline came in the form of expatriate community of more than 100,000. The first edition of Tokyo Classified was made up of adverts from shop notice boards printed on a four-page folded sheet of paper. The couple simply handed out copies in the street. It was a tough baptism. Six months in, with the company losing money, the founder announced he was quitting. But the Devlins, encouraged by the level of interest in a growing magazine, decided to fight on and bought him out.

From those humble beginnings, it has steadily grown to a glossy 64-page now distributed around Tokyo each Friday. Features, reviews and listings dominate a publication which, with an audited circulation of more than 30,000, has become one of the most prominent English language publications in Tokyo. These days it also goes under a different name, Metropolis.

“We changed it because people would be coming here and finding that the biggest English magazine was called the Tokyo Classified,” explains Devlin. “That didn’t say much about one of the world’s most exciting cities. Metropolis gives a much better impression.”

Metropolis is one arm of the couple’s company, Crisscross, which employs about thirty staff. Replying purely on advertising income, Devlin says McQueen-Molloy, (36) from Uddingston in Lanarkshire, is the sales brain behind the magazine’s success. While she pitches to advertisers, he takes a back seat role, sometimes checking the front-page picture, checking the weekly schedule.

The couple met on their first day at Strathclyde University. They have now been married for seven years. Their son, Aran, was born in Tokyo six months ago. Apparently comfortable and content in their adopted homeland, there are no plans to return home.

“I look up Scottish property websites about once every two weeks and I have a little dream of buying something there,” says Devlin, who spent his childhood in Irvine in Ayrshire.

“But this place has a real energy. The last time I returned to Tokyo after a holiday in Scotland I was so happy to be back. Even in that short time, Tokyo had changed. I took a walk down the street and it seemed like new buildings had gone up. Scotland’s a great place but there’s a real energy here. And we’ve still got a bit of work to do.”

His time and enthusiasm are reserved for an online venture launched just as the needle was thrust into the technology bubble in 2000. Japan Today, an online news service and business directory delivered in English, kicked off with a team of ten experienced journalists running the operation.

But, as confidence disappeared from the dot com sector, so too did investors. Today the project survives thanks to five angel investors who have stuck with the company. The operation still runs at a small loss but has been drastically slimmed down. Only two editors are required to operate a system that is almost fully automated. Annual company turnover is ¥300m (£1.5m), according to Devlin, with profit margins about 5%. Ambitions to raise those figures hinge largely on plans for the near future.

With a strong base of small and medium-sized advertisers, Crisscross is embarking on a concentrated push to entice more large companies. Devlin remains more than optimistic about the long-term prospects. Japan Today attracts more than 300,000 unique visitors each month using a business model Devlin says is more effective and cost-efficient than its predecessor.

He arrived in Japan just before the economy hit the floor a decade ago and believes that his company will grow stronger from the dot com clear-out. “The Japanese market is huge,” he says. “Our research shows that there are over 10m people worldwide on the Internet who have an interest in Japan. That’s a market we hope we can take full advantage of.”