TOKYO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — August 27, 2013 — Dentsu Inc. (TOKYO:4324) (ISIN:JP3551520004) (President & CEO: Tadashi Ishii; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 74,609.81 million yen) announced today its participation in the upcoming Anime Festival Asia Singapore 2013, a Japanese pop culture event which will be held in Singapore from November 8 to 10. As a major investor and co-organizer of this festival, which is supported by local youth as a source of Japanese content, Dentsu will leverage its know-how and global network to further the promotion of the Japanese government’s Cool Japan initiative and contribute to increasing the presence of content providers and other Japanese companies in the region.

Anime Festival Asia (AFA) was first held in 2008, and Dentsu Singapore has played an active role in all the events to date. The annual festival has seen the number of local and international visitors grow from 25,000 in 2008 to over 80,000 last year, thanks to events such as screenings of the latest anime, talk shows featuring voice actors, concerts by Japanese pop idols and fashion shows that captured the insights of young people, as well as local promotional activities that utilized leading-edge digital technology. 2012 marked the first time that AFA launched satellite events in the region, with AFA Malaysia and AFA Indonesia held in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta in addition to the main event in Singapore. The three events attracted more than 160,000 visitors last year, making AFA one of the largest Japanese pop culture festivals in Southeast Asia.

Around 83,000 people visited the event in Singapore last year. In order to meet the growing needs of Japanese clients in the region, Dentsu decided to become actively involved from this year onward. Together with entertainment and youth-marketing agency SOZO Pte Ltd (Executive Director: Shawn Chin; Head Office: Singapore) and Zepp concert hall operator and event promoter Zepp Live Entertainment Inc. (President: Keiji Sugimoto; Head Office: Tokyo), Dentsu will participate in the event as an investor.

To further enhance the value of the event, Dentsu plans to utilize it as a platform to disseminate comprehensive information on Japan such as travel and food, in addition to anime, music and fashion. “Hello! Japan,” the Singapore-based international entertainment TV channel with popular Japanese content which began broadcasting in February this year will be used as one of AFA 2013’s official media outlets, and this will enable Dentsu to propose high-synergy solutions that combine the event with broadcasts to exhibitors and sponsors. Dentsu holds exclusive broadcasting and distribution rights on behalf of the three companies for all the on-stage and event-related video footage, and can therefore continue to explore promotional activities even after the event.

The Dentsu Group expects that the festival will provide opportunities to promote the Cool Japan strategy, increase the number of tourists to Japan, encourage the expansion of content providers and other Japanese companies into Southeast Asia, carry out local test marketing, and implement youth-oriented communication strategies by Japanese and local companies.