Why Japan is laughing all the way to the bank

A simultaneous twitch of 43 face muscles, a sudden flood of endorphins and maybe a momentary flash of teeth: to most of us, it's just a smile. To Japan, it’s an industry worth hundreds of billions of yen a year.

The business of making people smile - or exploiting the spending patterns of those who already are – has emerged as a surprise priority for large sections of corporate Japan.



Overnight an economy that once espoused the value of limited displays of emotion has shifted tack. “Smiling schools” have begun training executives how to make their grins as convincing as possible, and a book on the judicious use of smiling to close business deals has become a bestseller.

Yoshihiko Kadokawa, whose smile consultancy educates the retail industry on how to increase profits with smiles, said: “Smiles are like bottled water and tea – things that, in the past, nobody expected to pay for but now realise they have to. People have come understand that the smile can serve as a lubricant in business, and companies have started to make it a key feature of their strategies.”