Responsible Publicity and Advertising
Corporate publicity and advertising make brands, products, and services more widely known within society. However, they can also adversely impact general consumers due to expressions and images that lack diversity and consideration for impressionable children. Furthermore, with the development of social media, such effects are likely to spread globally, not only in the country or region where the advertising or promotional campaign activities are carried out.Therefore, companies must maintain high normative awareness and ethics in their communications.
Policy
Providing accurate and honest information and communications to customers and society at large is the starting point for gaining trust from the same and is essential in both protecting and growing the brand’s value. Based on this recognition, the Panasonic Group Code of Ethics & Compliance stipulates the following policies regarding our communications with society.
- We provide fair and accurate information regarding our products, services and technologies through our corporate communications, public announcement and advertising, with the aim of better informing our customers and other stakeholders and enhancing our brand. We communicate openly about our Basic Business Philosophy. We continually listen to and learn from customers and society as a whole. We reflect the feedback we receive in our business activities.
- We base our corporate communications on accurate facts. Our corporate communications respect diversity, do not discriminate against any social group, defame or undermine the personal dignity of any person.
We have also created various sets of rules and guidelines, such as the Panasonic Group Basic Rules for Brand Matters, Operational Rules for Digital Media, Panasonic Group Social Media Guidelines, Basic Rules for Intellectual Property Matters, and Operational Rules on Information Security. Our policies and guidelines require the Group to respect the intellectual property, identities and privacy of third parties in the execution of our corporate communications activities.
Principles concerning Advertising Activities
We continue to follow Our founder, Konosuke Matsushita’s idea that “if manufacturers can make good products, they have an obligation to communicate that quickly, widely, and correctly to their customers, and that is what advertising does.” In addition, today we see an important social responsibility in communicating widely, not just about our products but also about the full range of our activities as a corporation. Our efforts to achieve this are informed by the same kind of thinking. The following basic guidelines are based on the philosophy of our founder and reflect our attitude and approach to the day-to-day production of advertising (creating TV commercials, newspaper ads, digital ads and so on).
- In the context of our business activities, publicity and advertising fulfill an important social mission.
- It is an activity that conveys the “heart” of our company.
- Facts must be told truthfully, in ways that are easy for our customers to understand.
- We do not cause discomfort or annoyance.
- Always use a creative and innovative approach.
- Approach our work with a high level of insight, competence and passion.
Additionally, the media used in all our publicity and advertising campaigns are selected based on their general acceptance in their respective regions, their promotion of brand familiarity, and their cost-effectiveness.
Responsible Executive and Framework
Publicity and advertising comes under brand strategy and communication strategy, which is directly managed by the Group CEO (as of August 2024).
Brand communication divisions of Panasonic Holdings Corporation and Panasonic Operational Excellence Co., Ltd. are responsible for corporate advertising for the whole Panasonic Group. Similarly, advertising personnel at each operating company are responsible for their organization’s corporate and product advertising. Such personnel all work in cooperation with one another.

Promoting Fair and Honest Publicity and Advertising
We have set up mechanisms that allow us to check all the publicity and advertising we produce against the relevant laws and industry regulations in each global region, to avoid misunderstandings or misconceptions on the part of customers. For example, in Japan, we train and deploy personnel specialized in publicity production, accumulate experience and expertise in expression and risk avoidance, screen risks with production partners, review expressions with media and advertising agencies, and conduct preliminary studies. We comply with the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations and other legal regulations concerning advertising, as well as various self-imposed media guidelines companies use to evaluate their advertisements, including the Japan Advertisers Association’s ethics code, and we seek review from the Legal Department as necessary. We also avoid using expressions or performances that undermine childhood education, or that may hinder children’s sound learning and growth. When employing child actors in advertisements, we comply with all the relevant laws and regulations.
To ensure we can maintain this compliance, we will continue to conduct OJT on a day-to-day basis and to hold special training sessions for major revisions to relevant laws to ensure that the persons responsible are fully informed. We will also continue to participate in training and seminars conducted by outside organizations and seek consultations with outside experts when necessary.
In Japan, we have introduced constant monitoring to be able to quickly detect and respond to prevent recent problems of fraudulent advertising, etc. on the Internet and SNS. With this we are striving to quickly find any fraudulent advertising that misrepresents our company together with the sites hosting it, dispel incorrect information and related comments, and proactively prevent the spread of such criminality. In addition, we are taking appropriate measures in cooperation with internal stakeholders such as our legal, information system, and branding departments, while liaising with industry groups and the authorities.
In fiscal 2024, we received reports of the below violations at a Group company in China (a consumer electronics division) and paid an administrative fine of approximately RMB 32,000 to the authorities. We will strive to avoid a recurrence in future by strengthening education at the relevant departments and agent companies to ensure legal compliance, and by having third party organizations carry out constant monitoring of operational platforms.
(1) March 2023:
The campaign period for an E-commerce promotion of lighting equipment was not shown and was only discovered when reported by a customer
(2) July 2023:
Legal violation due to the promotion of comparisons with other companies in live commerce for shavers on a local SNS
(3) August 2023:
Error in price shown in advertisement for microwave ovens on local social media