Working with Your “Passions” as a Weapon at SUNNY SIDE UP, a Company with Year-Round Recruitment: A PR Professional and Radio Enthusiast Discusses Their Career.

SUNNY SIDE UP GROUP creates “fun stirs” in the world using all kinds of communication methods, centered on a PR-driven mindset.

The background to why members with diverse backgrounds and interests gather and excel by leveraging their respective strengths is an environment where not only new graduates and mid-career hires but also second-career recruits can challenge themselves in a wide range of fields through their work. At SUNNY SIDE UP, we are looking for such second-career colleagues throughout the year.

For this interview, we spoke with Tsunakawa, a member of SUNNY SIDE UP who is involved in PR for entertainment facilities, SNS operations for commercial facilities, and the management of a radio program for the company’s own media, “SDGs MAGAZINE.”

We asked him about the excitement of the SUNNY SIDE UP environment and his thoughts on his work, as someone who has expanded his scope of work using his interests and “passions” as weapons while keeping PR at the core.

Fumiya Tsunakawa, Leader, Group 1, Department 2, Division 2, Public Relations Business Headquarters

Joined the company as a student in 2019, now in his seventh year. Initially assigned to a team responsible for SNS operations, he gained experience as both a digital communication director and a media promoter. Currently, as a group leader in the PR Division, he is engaged in a wide range of tasks centered on PR and digital. He is known within the company as a “huge radio enthusiast.”

An Environment Where You Can Seize Opportunities by Declaring Your “Passions”

I am currently in charge of various projects in Division 2, which focuses primarily on PR.

While PR is the core, I am sometimes involved in digital communication such as SNS, influencers, and the web, and at other times, I am involved in talent casting and event direction.

Recently, I was in charge of directing the opening ceremony for an entertainment facility’s launch project, welcoming general guests. I feel that a major appeal of SUNNY SIDE UP is the ability to expand the scope of one’s work as needed, without being restricted to a single method.

However, it is not as if all members are blindly expanding their domains.

You can dig deep into an area you want to make your strength, or conversely, you can expand your scope of work while keeping your expertise as the axis. I feel that both are permitted at SUNNY SIDE UP.

Also, a characteristic of this company is the environment where you can talk about what you want to do on a daily basis. In Division 2, where I belong, I have very flat conversations with the division director through 1-on-1 meetings and lunch opportunities. While pursuing departmental goals, we also engage in dialogue from the perspective of “what do I want to challenge?” and “how do I want to grow?” so we can create work together.

In fact, there are members who love geek culture and are expanding their work based on that interest, and others who leverage their knowledge as former TV directors to demonstrate strength in media proposals.

Voicing your “passions” and “what you want to do” leads to work. I have felt this environment since my first year at the company, and I believe it remains an unchanging appeal of SUNNY SIDE UP even after seven years.

How a “Passion” Led to Work: My Involvement with Radio

For me, one of the best examples of that was “radio.”

SUNNY SIDE UP is a company that creates buzz and empathy by generating information that forms the foundation of PR and delivering it to society through the media. That is why how we engage with the media is very important.

Within the company, there is an SR (Social Relations) Division that handles communication with the media, primarily consisting of younger members, and there are opportunities to engage directly with the media after joining. I myself faced challenges unique to a PR company in that department, such as “how can we make a client’s product or service a hot topic?” and “how can we lead it to media exposure?”

In that process, the weapon I found for myself through repeated trial and error was “radio.”

I have always loved comedy and music, and I routinely listened to various radio programs, whether AM or FM. Because I have engaged with them as a listener for many years, I think I understood in my own way the atmosphere of each program, what the personalities were looking for, and the points that listeners found interesting.

Because of that, I was able to plan projects not just by delivering information, but from the perspective of “there is a reason to do this on this program” and “listeners can truly enjoy it.”

Media Work Where You Can Expand Possibilities Through Your Own Planning

During my first year as a new graduate, I proposed a plan to a radio station that combined a client’s product with a fan’s perspective. As a result, they ran a special feature for about an hour on a segment of a program I loved.

Furthermore, that feature led to television exposure on a wide show featuring the same personality. It was an event where I strongly felt the excitement of PR work—how one media exposure generates the next topic and spreads.

It was also a memorable experience to have those activities recognized and to receive the “Best Publicity Award,” an internal annual award.

Currently, I am working as a PR director in the sales division, so I am a bit removed from the front lines of media promotion. Even so, because I regularly talk about my love for radio within the company, it still leads to work where I can utilize my “passion,” such as naturally receiving consultations about radio, thinking of tie-up projects with radio stations, and visiting the recording sites of radio programs we are involved in.

There is More Than One Way to Engage with the Media

Also, what I realize while working at SUNNY SIDE UP is that the ways of engaging with the media are truly diverse.

For example, in addition to “media approach work” where we consult with the media on plans to aim for exposure of client products, there is also work to create tie-up projects together with the media. In my case, I am sometimes involved in radio sponsorships, proposals for podcasts and sound stickers, and the production of the program planning itself.

In other words, engaging with the media is not just about “getting exposure.” You can also create the project itself together while involving the media as a partner. I believe the excitement of working at SUNNY SIDE UP lies there.

In fact, my relationships with people in the media don’t just end with work; I sometimes spend time with them in my private life. I’ve become so close with a director of a news program that we’ve even formed a band together (laughs).

People who want to be involved in TV, people who want to create web media, people who want to make SNS their strength, and people who want to master content planning. I think there is an environment where each person can expand their work in the direction they aim for, starting from their own interests and strengths.

Continuing to Expand the Scope of My Work Starting from My “Passions”

I still have many things I want to try and get more involved in, starting from my “passions.”

When I was a student, I considered finding a job at a radio station. But looking back now, I feel that my current position—continuing to be involved with radio not as an “insider” but as a third party involved in the media industry—is very much like me. In the future, I want to challenge myself with initiatives that contribute to the radio industry itself and create synergy between radio stations and PR companies.

Also, as a student, I majored in sports marketing and researched stadiums and arenas in the United States. Additionally, my interest in entertainment, including music, is behind why I came to love radio. Those interests of mine have led to my current work, and I am so engrossed in the PR for entertainment facilities that I am currently working on that I’ve become completely immersed in it.

From now on, I want to grow further so that I can deliver the appeal of such exciting entertainment spaces to even more people through the power of brand communication, while utilizing the strengths I have cultivated so far.

People who have something they love. People who love the media. People who want to connect their interests to their work. For such people, I think SUNNY SIDE UP is a very exciting environment.

Declaring your “passions,” using them as a weapon, and expanding the scope of your work.I want to continue embodying that way of working at SUNNY SIDE UP.