Makaira KK (Headquarters: Chiyoda City, Tokyo; CEO: Koichiro Fujii; COO: Akira Takahashi), a leading public affairs consulting firm, announced today that it has been awarded the “Strategic Communications Award” at the “PRCA Platinum Awards 2025,” hosted by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), the world’s largest professional body for public affairs, PR, and communications.

PRCA Platinum Awards 2025 Finalists: https://prca-uk.prezly.com/prca-platinum-awards-2025-winners-announced

About the PRCA Platinum Awards

The “PRCA Platinum Awards” are organized by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), the world’s largest professional body for public affairs, PR, and communications, recognizing excellent public affairs and PR activities worldwide.

The award is distinguished by its strict eligibility criteria, open only to campaigns that have won or been finalists in other major PR industry awards within the past 12 months. It is known as an extremely high-level competition that determines the “Winner of Winners” on a global scale.

Makaira was nominated following its achievement of winning the “PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP” category at last year’s “THE GOLD STANDARD AWARDS 2024.” After competing with excellent projects from around the world, Makaira was selected as the winner of the “Strategic Communications Award” in this competition to decide the “Winner of Winners.”

About the Winning Project

The award-winning project is “Makaira’s Transformative Electric Scooter Project in Japan,” which supported the rule formation and social implementation of micromobility, such as electric scooters, in Japan.

In the initial phase of the project, Makaira served as the secretariat for the industry association “Micro Mobility Promotion Council (MMPC)” and supported consensus building with regulatory authorities, local governments, and other industries. While the introduction of new mobility comes with safety concerns, we fostered consensus through data-driven discussions and pilot experiments spanning over a year and a half. These experiments collected objective safety data over a travel distance of more than 3.63 million kilometers. As a result of evidence-based policy proposals, the project achieved the creation of a new vehicle category, “Specified Small Motorized Bicycles,” under the amended Road Traffic Act enforced in July 2023.

Even after the enforcement of the amended Road Traffic Act, we have continued to coordinate details with various stakeholders toward the social implementation of micromobility. Learning from overseas examples (such as in Paris and Singapore) where the free-floating model led to abandonment issues and subsequent regulations or bans, we promoted a unique “Private Land Port Model” in Japan. This model, which involves setting up and managing ports on private land in specific areas in collaboration with local governments and real estate companies, functions as a “micromobility promotion strategy that harmonizes with the city” by preventing disorderly abandonment while enhancing convenience.

As a result of this strategic approach based on “Dialogue” and “Design,” the service area has now expanded to 24 prefectures nationwide, with over 13,000 ports and over 4 million app downloads, becoming established as a new social infrastructure. This award recognizes this entire process, which aims to balance innovation with social order, on an international level.

Award Comment

Following our recognition at ‘The Gold Standard Awards’ last year, we are truly honored that our efforts have been evaluated as the pinnacle of ‘Strategic Communications’ at the PRCA Platinum Awards, where winning projects in public affairs, PR, and communications from around the world gather.

Makaira has long dedicated itself to careful dialogue with various public and private stakeholders to facilitate consensus building for the social implementation of micromobility. As a result of repeated evidence-based dialogue and consensus building, we achieved the amendment and enforcement of the Road Traffic Act. Furthermore, even after the legal amendment, we are building a sustainable form of social infrastructure—Japan’s unique Private Land Port Model—together with various public and private stakeholders, using issues related to electric scooters overseas as lessons.

This award is a testament to the ‘Co-creation’ with operators, administration, local governments, and all related parties who have worked hard together toward the social implementation of micromobility.

We remain committed to environmental improvement and enlightenment so that various users can coexist and use the ‘Public Space’ of roads safely and comfortably.