With Japan’s political parties advertising in earnest for the July 12 elections to the upper house of Japan’s parliament. Japan’s leading political party, The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has named Dentsu Inc. as its main ad agency, while the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has chosen Hakuhodo Inc.

Total election-related advertising expenses, including spending by the Ministry of Home Affairs to persuade people to use their vote, are projected at about 7 billion yen.

In 1996, media campaigns suddenly became a major issue for the political parties with the establishment of the new one-seat-constituency and proportional- representation systems and the consequent need to rely on party name recognition. For the first time, this made the choice of ad agency important, as well.

In October 1997 the LDP set up a special PR committee that has been shaping strategy for the upcoming election. Instead of automatically using its old partner, Dentsu , the party held a competition. Dentsu won the competition anyway, and became the LDP’s lead agency.

Hakuhodo, which has traditionally refused to become embroiled in political advertising, also entered a competition and won the DPJ account. "We can’t afford to ignore political advertising, where budgets have grown so much," says a company executive.

This year will be the first that has seen Dentsu and Hakuhodo compete in the political arena. In product advertising, both have reputations for complete market research and quality ads, but quite a few party executives are dubious about the Japanese agencies’ abilities with political advertising.

"To effectively deliver the image of intangibles like policy ideas will require a new set of the highly sophisticated advertising techniques similar to those employed by corporations," says Issei Koga of DPJ’s PR manager.

Japan does not have a tradition of political image making where agencies are called in at an early stage to help with strategy and develop aggressive campaigns - as in the USA and UK. The role of large Agencies, like Dentsu or Hakuhodo, is usually to do no more than secure media space and time and arrange the design and production of posters and TV spots devised by the parties themselves, plus minor PR roles such as mini-event planning, election office decor, and candidate grooming.

Elections themselves are usually fought in a policy vacuum where issues are not discussed and politicians do little more than plead with people to come and vote for them. A typical pre-election scene is to see candidates driving around their constituencies saying "I’m so-and-so. Please vote for me. Thank you very much."

Two other parities also chose Dentsu agencies: The Liberal Party chose Dentsu Eye Inc. while, Komeito another party, is going with Ad Dentsu Tokyo Inc.

The Social Democratic Party will use Asahi Advertising Inc., and New Party Sakigake will be handled by Dai-ichi Kikaku Co.