advertising, which would sweep away the “pax Dentsua”: they have been utterly and serially wrong. As Ogilvy & Mather started to become successful in Japan – in media terms – it became apparent around 20 years ago that we should acknowledge Dentsu’s success. My own ex-Dentsu advisor arranged for me to make a courtesy visit there. It was important to show that we respected their role, and that we were happy to co-exist peacefully with their ecosystem. Polite conversation in formal armchairs it may have been – but a lifeline nonetheless. Since then, Dentsu has become – through an aggressive blitzkrieg of acquisitions – much more global. Kagami-san has been the creative face of that, himself working in and encouraging Dentsu’s shift around the world, and especially in Asia. He does it with passion. It’s not a duty he performs by rote. He marvels at the millennial, mobile mania of young Indonesia. He is fascinated – and also slightly scared – by China. He tells the story of how he detected a typo in one of his ads in China, and panicked. Then he discovered that the Kanji (Chinese) character he had seen was different but the meaning was the same. His Chinese copywriter said, “In Chinese you can find any Chinese character you wish to use so there is no concept of a typo!” He sensed the exaggeration here, but at the same time felt both Kyoi (wonder) and Kyõi (threat) – Kyõi is the homonym and has a radically different meaning – in what he saw as the bigness of this Chinese perspective. But the heartland – and the way of doing business in Japan – remains fundamentally unchanged. And this explains Japan’s unique take on the Digital Revolution. In one sense, it started here. When NTT’s Docomo first launched I- mode, it seemed like it was just another teenage fad. But in less than a year, it started to be treated seriously by Japan Inc. One of the early adopters was Shiseido. In 2003, Shiseido-mode started sending out personalized messages containing advice on food and cosmetics during the critical days of a woman’s menstrual cycle. It was anticipating the world of “mobile first” way before its richness could even be envisaged in the West. Dentsu the media broker was initially anxious about the arrival of digital media. Would these minnows escape the great fishing net, and grow up to be whales?