The Dentsu Japan-China Project
~Helping China Develop Advertising Expertise~

Partner

Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China
China Scholarship Council
Chinese universities

Project Overview

Dentsu supports the education of advertising professionals in China in partnership with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, which oversees the country's educational administration.

The Dentsu Japan-China Project was launched in 1996 in response to a request from China to help train and develop advertising professionals, with the aim of deepening friendship between China and Japan through this contribution. Dentsu has provided Chinese universities teaching advertising with a wide range of support tailored to their practices and needs, including accepting trainees at the Dentsu Head Office, holding advertising classes and seminars in China, conducting research on consignment, and publishing educational materials.

Between 1996 and 2004, this support was offered to just six universities in Beijing and Shanghai that had advertising departments. Over an eight-year period, Dentsu brought instructors from the advertising departments of those universities to the Dentsu Head Office for training, and sent Dentsu employees to six Chinese universities to give advertising seminars to students. In 2005, Dentsu began a new phase of the program with the establishment of the Japan-China Advertising Educational Exchange Project in cooperation with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. This project expanded the Dentsu program from the original six universities in Beijing and Shanghai to all universities in China with an advertising program. Dentsu continues to widen the scope of its activities to meet the needs for advertising education in a new era in China.

More than 1,500 Dentsu employees have been involved in this program over the more than 10 years it has been operating, making it a truly company-wide effort. Dentsu's support has helped to enhance the level of advertising education in China, and has been highly regarded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China as an example of successful collaboration with an overseas corporation.

In August 2006, a special event was held in Beijing to celebrate 10 years since the start of the project, at which Dentsu received awards from the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China for its decade-long contribution to fostering advertising education in China. Dentsu received a Special Award for Meritorious Contributions in the Field of Education from the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, while Yutaka Narita, Principal Advisor and the then Chairman of the Dentsu Group, was honored with a Commemorative Award for Contributions in the Field of Education. Dentsu was the first Japanese company receive this award from the Chinese Ministry of Education, and this was the first time that two awards were presented simultaneously to a single company.