Japan's Upper-Management Sells Middle-Management - and the Company - Down the River

As Japan's economy has continued to crumble over these past years a trend has become visible amongst many companies in this country; And that is a trend where the older, upper management has sold the companies future and the well being of middle management down the river so that the company can show better performance in the short term to the harm of the companies long-term health.

The catch all phrase that has been passed down from upper management to middle management was that major mass media was to begin targeting the 50 ~ 60-year-old audience. This idea began about three years ago. The rationale was that the 50 ~ 60-year-old people were the ones with the money. Yes. That seems like a good idea on the surface, but a 62-year-old today is 65 in three years and then retired and has no more discretionary income.

This was madness at the beginning. And the drop in ratings and sales proves my point. To take a station that has targeted 20 ~ 40-year-old's for so many years and to then, suddenly one day, switch to people over 50 just didn't make any sense to most of us. (Especially since most of the 50 ~ 60 years old people were not targeted with any sort of campaign alerting them to the station's existence).

Besides that, it is against all common sense and completely against the rules of branding and marketing. Imagine, say, a youth fashion maker like Tommy Hilfiger deciding one day to start selling golfing clothes for the over 6o crowd? Wouldn't that ruin their business really quick?

Like I said, this didn't make sense to a lot of us.

But it does make sense when you consider this situation from the point of view of a 63-year-old president of one of these broadcasting stations. Here's the story: You get a fat cushy retirement pension as long as you can keep the company profitable until you retire. You are no fool; you hear the news about the bad economy and worry like everyone else. With this in mind, do you take the time to correctly brand and marketing a slow growth, long term strategy? Or do you call in all favors from old buddies and do whatever you can to float the ship? Remember, all this time you are hearing on the news about the world-wide financial collapse.

I think most people would look out for themselves first. It's human nature. And that's one big reason Japan is so messed up today.

The fact that the upper management are deliberately selling the future of the company "down the river" so to speak in order to get better short term sales at the expense of long term profitability.

Why would they do this?

Because, if a, say 62-year-old company president can keep his company floating for a few more years until he reaches retirement age, then he will get a full-pension for life.

Think about it. Here's a guy who has worked for 40 years for one of these broadcasting companies. He sees the writing on the wall. He sees the risk to his retirement. Will he sell off the future to make sure he gets "his"? I think he would.

I'd like to say that I would never do such a thing, but I think that 97% of all the people over 55-years-old would do the same. Why? They worked hard and suffered and the company always promised them that they would be taken care of. In fact, this sort of problem is everywhere in Japanese society today; all through the "economic miracle" the companies and the Japanese government promised the people that, if they worked hard, they'd be taken care of... But then the bubble burst and after twenty years of bad government policies the economy is wrecked and so are the savings of so many people.

I wrote on related subject to that here.

The others, in Japan, who might not do this sort of thing of selling out the company, could possibly take another way out. In fact, and this is conjecture on my part, but the 48-year-old president of Warner Music Japan committed suicide last week. You know he didn't do that because things were going well.

Groove Asia Reports:

Takashi Yoshida, the 48-year-old CEO and president of Warner Music Japan, suddenly passed away on the afternoon of October 7. Some sources are reporting that Yoshida hanged himself in his own home, and police are currently treating the incident as a suicide.


This is all part and parcel and symptomatic of Japan's slow decline. Once again, this is conjecture on my part, but if Mr. Yoshida were over 60, he wouldn't have done this.... He would have kicked the can down the road, like all other over-60-years-old Japanese management is doing and leave the problems for their next in line.


Japan is falling down. We are no longer #2 in economy and it looks like Taiwan will surpasses Japan in real GDP this year.... Couple all this with the government continually making the same mistakes with "stimulus" and buying of yen and - the older folks trying their best to hold on to the old way to the detriment of the future - and we are headed down a long slippery slope.


So when you look at the situation involving TBS, TV Tokyo, InterFM and many others keep this in mind.


The other day, one of my good friends who is a program director at TBS told me that several of the middle management producers at TBS told him, "We are really worried. We don't think TBS can last seven more years."


I asked my friend what he thought about that and he replied, "I think they are way too optimistic."


I do too.