Cross-border Delivery to Japan: Workflow and Requirements

Overview

This article outlines the workflow for placing and delivering TV commercial orders to Japanese broadcasters from outside the country via Cape Advanced TV. This process ensures smooth delivery, compliance with Japanese broadcaster requirements, and avoids last-minute delivery failures or rejections.

Cross-border deliveries to Japan involve collaboration between our international clients (who upload the commercial) and the Japan Customer Success team, who manage the final delivery to Japanese broadcasters.

Campaign Settings and Additional Details

Follow the steps below to place your order:

• Log in to Cape Advanced TV
• Create your campaign
• Create your Ad. Select the country Japan and fill in the required fields
• Select the destination Japan HD Tape Delivery - General
• Click Send and then Confirm
• Email your local Customer Success Team with the following information:

- Your media plan

- The contact details for the Local Agency who will approve the file and register it to CMDeCo

- The Media Agency and their contact details (including full name) who will handle the actual delivery from CMDeCo

- Credit Slate information: This is required for creating your Ad's slate. Please use the Credit Slate Template attached in the below of this guide, and ensure all information is accurate to the following requirements.

Slate Requirements

The slate (called “credit screen” in Japan) consists of two sections of information. The top MANDATORY section contains 6 fields for mandatory information which must match with the same information on the broadcaster's schedule. 

Please note: Any deviation or mismatch from what's been used by the Media Agency to book airtime, even as minor as an extra blank space or uncapitalized letter; broadcasters will reject the delivery. Extra care must be taken to ensure complete accuracy for these 6 fields:

1. Advertiser Name
2. 10 Digit Code (Version ID)
3. Title
4. Duration
5. Audio Type
6. Closed Captioning

The bottom OPTIONAL section contains 5 fields; but it's strongly recommended we complete these:

1. Product Name
2. Creative Agency (almost always specified)
3. Production House (sometimes unspecified and left empty)
4. Special Note (Version Notes)
5. Rec Date (Date TVC was made)

 MANDATORY:

Furthermore, permitted character usage for each field is regulated to a subset of the JIS-X0208 standard which requires understanding of the Japanese language and beyond the scope of documentation here.

However, non-compliance will be detected at metadata QC performed by Japanese Cape.io team allowing us to raise this with the client and get a compliant alternative.

As an example, the image below presents an actual slate image from a live job:

Please Note: 

• Only particular special characters are accepted
  View special characters list
• If your Ad file contains closed captioning, you must add the prefix 【字】 to the beginning of the title metadata and 字幕 symbol in visual content for the first 5 sends

eg:

• Only 2-byte characters are permitted on the slate. You can convert 1-byte characters to 2-byte characters using this free online tool
• If a campaign contains multiple assets, each asset must have a unique title
• For international delivery, the final video file mastering and inclusion of slate is done by Japan Cape.io Team (D&A Music), there is an additional mastering cost of GBP250 to the client for this service