Motocracy, a free newspaper introducing the Asahikawa area, won the grand prize at the Japan Local Information Contents Awards 2020, which honors outstanding media from town magazines and free newspapers submitted from all over Japan.

We love our hometown and are loved by our hometown. We interviewed the people who produce "Motocracy," a community-based local media.

Motocracy vol. 4" won the grand prize at the Japan Local Information Contents Awards 2020.
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The Creators of "Motocracy

The creators of "Motocracy" are members of the Tourism Planning Division of Asahikawa Express Corporation, which has an office in Higashikawa Town, a neighboring town of Asahikawa City.
Motocracy is a local media that introduces information mainly related to tourism in the area that can be reached by a day trip from Asahikawa Station. It is surprising that not only the reporting, production, and distribution of the free paper, but also the production and updating of the website, events, and tours are done by these three people.

From left: Momo Kono, Manae Ogawa, Kazuhiro Hayashi

How "Motocracy" was born

Mr. Hayashi coined the term "motocracy" in 2015.
Here, "I want to introduce people who live locally (jimotoguraci) and the hidden places that even locals don't know about (lighthouse motokuraci)." This is the idea behind the project.

When introducing local information such as experiences and stores, the Motocracy style is to focus not only on the "content" of the information, but also on the "people.
Therefore, they don't just sell sightseeing plans on the Internet and call it a day.

One of the questions they are always asked is "Which restaurant is the best?
Which restaurant is the best? What kind of souvenirs do you have? What do you recommend?
What kind of souvenirs do you recommend?

I would introduce them directly to the customers I dealt with, or even better, I would go with them to lunch or to a souvenir shop and say, "I recommend this cheese! I would go to the souvenir shop with them and introduce them to the customers.
However, as a motocracy, the number of customers we could directly engage with was limited, so we said, "If they are asking so many questions, why not have something we can introduce to them?

Furthermore, at the same time, work began on managing the shuttle bus service to the ski resort. There was nothing on board to provide information like the "in-flight" magazines on airplanes, he said.
I thought to myself, 'If there is something on the bus shelves, people going to the ski resort will surely pick it up, and maybe there will be an advertising effect there.'

Then I thought, 'Let's make something that will introduce the local area to our customers,' and two winters ago, we started the free newspaper that won the grand prize this time.

Published in the winter of 2018, Motocracy vol. 1

Sticking to "not serving up".

What is important to you in creating Mot ocracy?

Momo Kono

What I am particular about in creating Motocracy is that I don't "serve up.
To be honest, I think it's easy to raise the expectations of a community if you just say what you want to say.
However, we want to convey the people, community, taste, and experience of the restaurant as they are, so we are conscious of never adding to or subtracting from the content.
We are conscious of never adding to or subtracting from the content, so that when readers go to a place, they can experience and taste it as it is there, and we are particular about conveying this in a sincere manner. Although we can adjust and enhance the photos as much as we like, we are also conscious of photographing them in their original colors as much as possible.

Maae Ogawa

We set our target audience as women, so we created the website based on a "simple and cute" Scandinavian design. We added illustrations to the design to make it more cute and friendly.
One of the best things about the design process was that all three of us like the same designs. That's why we put so much thought into the design."

Kazuhiro Hayashi

I place importance on "not lying. I don't write about things I don't think or don't know.
For example, when we make a promotional video, we don't use things we can't actually experience, see, or meet when we visit an area.
That is why Motocracy shoots even when the weather is bad, does not use models, and does not use footage shot with a drone.

We believe in communicating what we can experience in our own words, so the experience of our guests may exceed their expectations, but it will never be less than what they expected. Without such a pleasant encounter or discovery, they will not come back again and again.
Repeat customers are all about "people. No matter how delicious the food, how beautiful the scenery, or how wonderful the design, if there are no "people" there, there will be no fans. Based on my own experience as a tourist guide, I use the same style in my publications.

Motocracy was started from a "tourist's point of view," and now, two years later, the locals are more interested in it than the tourists.
I felt that their attitude of communicating about the local area in their own words and with love has spread to the local community, and Motocracy is gaining more and more fans in the community.