Tom Dixon’s lighting shines in the living room / The living room with the presence of luxury brand lighting. The spacious space also accommodates media interviews. The toilets and elevators are all gilded, and he laughs, “Isn’t it interesting, the mansion of a wealthy CEO? The True Face of an Astute Manager Seiji Nishimura is not a nouveau riche; he is an entrepreneur who achieved success through hard work and ingenuity. However, he reflects on a time in his youth when he was genuinely aiming to become a nouveau riche and was quite flashy. “When I was in my 20s, I had a mindset of ‘I’m going to get big on my own.’ I lived in Roppongi Hills, drove a Ferrari, and partied in Ginza and Roppongi at night. I longed for that kind of life,” Nishimura recalls with a laugh. Nishimura, who started his own business at 25 after working for a consulting company, didn’t immediately walk the path of success. His first venture, a voice mail business, didn’t take off, and within two years, he accumulated 70 million yen in debt. He went through a period of trial and error before the overseas Wi-Fi rental service, “Imoto’s Wi-Fi,” launched in 2012, became a huge success. “Before ‘Imoto’s Wi-Fi,’ we mainly focused on B2B (business-to-business) services, but we shifted to B2C (consumer services), and that clicked and took off. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we took a massive hit. Sales plummeted by 98%, and I seriously thought about bankruptcy—those two words crossed my mind, and my body was shaking,” he says. But Nishimura quickly saw an opportunity in the PCR testing business amid the pandemic. “In 2019, we established ‘Nishitan Clinic,’ originally a beauty clinic, and we were one of the first to launch a PCR testing service. Instead of going to a testing site, customers could collect saliva at home with a kit and send it back for testing. During the peak, we generated 1 billion yen in sales per day, and our total revenue exceeded 17.6 billion yen, making a V-shaped recovery in less than a year.” The commercials for “Nishitan Clinic” feature singer Hiroshi Go (69) and the comedy trio “3ji no Heroin” in glamorous outfits, singing and dancing wildly, while actor Eiichiro Funakoshi (64) and Hitomi Kuroki (64) repeat the phrase “Nishitan, Tan” in suspenseful drama-like settings. “My marketing theory is all about going for recognition. People feel more comfortable with products that are widely known, rather than those they’ve never heard of,” Nishimura explains. Nishimura’s strategy to go for recognition is thorough. While the commercials repeat the phrase “Nishitan, Tan,” they never explain the clinic’s services like beauty or diet support. “By repeatedly hearing the words ‘Nishitan Clinic,’ there’s no need to explain the details of the services. If people remember the name, they’ll definitely look up the clinic online if they’re interested,” he says. The result of this impact-driven approach is the use of famous celebrities in unique visuals and catchy songs, repeatedly playing the phrases “Nishitan” and “Imoto’s Wi-Fi.” However, due to the intense repetition, some viewers have expressed negative opinions, saying, “It’s annoying” or “I hate the repeated phrases.” “In today’s world, where needs are diversified, it’s almost impossible to create a commercial that everyone will accept. If you make a commercial with impact, some people will dislike it. But if you focus on that, you’ll only end up with something mediocre,” Nishimura asserts. Indeed, his strategy of ignoring universal appeal in favor of impactful commercials has paid off. “The CM Research Institute ranks commercials every two weeks, and out of over 2,000 commercials, half don’t score any points. This means that half of the commercials don’t stay in people’s minds. If you’re so concerned about not having a bad image, you end up with a commercial that no one remembers, which is pointless.” He believes that the existence of critics is a sign of high recognition. “When we aired the new ‘Nishitan’ commercial, if there were many anti-comments in the first three days on social media, I knew that commercial would become very popular.”