Dentsu Inc. (Tokyo: 4324; ISIN: JP3551520004; President & CEO: Tadashi Ishii; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 74,609.81 million yen) announced today that Makoto Shinohara, a Dentsu creative director and television commercial planner, has been named the 2015 Creator of the Year by the Japan Advertising Agencies Association (Chairman: Tatsuyoshi Takashima).

The purpose of this annual award, which was established in 1989, is to publicly recognize the most outstanding work produced by a creative professional from any of the Association's member companies. This was the 27th time that the Creator of the Year award has been presented, and the 25th time that a Dentsu creative has won this award.

Shinohara's work including the "Santaro" campaign for telecommunications carrier KDDI's mobile phone brand au, which created a new television commercial likeability record and won the mindshare of a large percentage of the Japanese public, was highly evaluated by the judging panel.

Profile of Makoto Shinohara
Shinohara joined Dentsu Inc. in April 1995, and is 43 years old.
He is a creative director and television commercial planner in Dentsu's Creative Planning Division 3.

"I am delighted to receive this award, and to share my happiness with my clients, the members of my team, and my senior and junior colleagues. Honestly, I feel very lucky to have won this award. Going forward, I want to do even better work in order to live up to the high standards set by past Creator of the Year award winners."

Main Creative Works
●"Santaro" (the three Taros) campaign for KDDI Corporation au
●"Teach me, Mr. Try" campaign (translation of the Japanese title) and "Try IT" campaign for Trygroup Inc.
●"Hot Pepper Beauty" for Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd.
●"Photo surprise" campaign (translation of the Japanese title) for Fujifilm Corporation
●Corporate advertising and "Acroball" for Pilot Corporation
●"Letter Pack" for Japan Post Co., Ltd.

In addition to the Creator of the Year award, eight Creator of the Year medalists were named, and three of these were Dentsu creatives:
●Toru Tsuzuki, Creative Director, Client Business Division, Dentsu Chubu
●Shumpei Murata, Television Commercial Planner, Creative Direction Division, Dentsu Kyushu
●Masao Imanaga, Creative Director, Creative Direction Division, Dentsu Kyushu