The archive · PR & Stunts · Product decision · 2024–2025
Mynavi's 'It's OK to Sit' gives Japan's cashiers a chair — ACC 2024 Grand Prix
Mynavi Baito builds a dedicated cashier chair to overturn Japan's 'cashiers must stand' norm; 250+ retailers adopt it within a year.
Mynavi · TBWA\Hakuhodo
What it had to solve
In Japan, register work means standing all shift — treated as polite service. Part-timers quietly suffer, yet employers and customers treat standing as normal.
How it works
In Japanese retail, standing through an entire register shift is treated as normal, even polite, service — and part-timers quietly endure it. Recruiting site Mynavi Baito turned that 'common sense' into a product problem: what if the cashier simply had a chair? In March 2024 it launched the 'It's OK to Sit Project' (座ってイイッスPROJECT), co-developing a dedicated 'Mynavi Baito Chair' with furniture maker SANKEI that is light, compact, clean-looking, and easy to perch on between customers.
The project deliberately avoided preaching. Mynavi Baito published the gap in numbers — only 23% of part-timers could sit on the job, while 73% of employers said sitting was fine and about 80% of customers said they wouldn't mind — then spread the 'it's OK to sit' message on social media, offered the chair free to participating companies, and showed in job listings that stores with chairs recruited and kept staff better.
Real workplaces did the persuading. Don Quijote trialed chairs in 11 stores, then expanded to 19; supermarkets, drugstores and shopping malls followed. Within a year more than 250 companies had adopted the chair. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare began surveying standing-work burden and cited the project as a case example.
The work was recognized with the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award / ACC Grand Prix (PR division) at the 64th ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS — 11 of 14 jurors voted for it — and the Grand Prix of PR Awards 2024.
Why it lands
- It replaced a moral argument ('be kind to workers') with a physical object that makes the new behavior instantly visible and testable.
- It used the client's own asset — a part-time job platform — as the distribution channel, so adoption and recruitment data reinforced each other.
- By giving chairs away and publishing numbers, it lowered the switching cost for stores and let peer examples (Don Quijote) do the selling.
- The idea is self-replicating: every adopting store becomes proof that seated service is normal.
What it did
Within a year, 250+ companies adopted the chair (170 companies, 431 stores, 1,037 chairs by Nov 2024); Don Quijote grew from 11 to 19 pilot stores. NHK plus 200+ media mentions, 40,000+ SNS posts, and Japan's labour ministry cited it as a standing-work case example. It won the 64th ACC TOKYO PR Grand Prix and PR Awards Grand Prix 2024.
What you can take
To overturn a social norm, don't fight the argument — build the physical artifact that makes the new behavior visible, prove it with data from real workplaces, and let employers recruit on it.
Since then
Adoption compounded after the awards: by late 2024, 170 companies, 431 stores and 1,037 chairs; within a year, 250+ companies across supermarkets, drugstores and malls. Media coverage exceeded 200 items including NHK; the opinion box collected 1,500+ comments and SNS posts passed 40,000. The labour ministry cited the project as a standing-work relief case and began its own survey; Don Quijote later designed its own register chairs. It also took a quasi-Grand Prix at the 17th Japan Marketing Awards and was shortlisted at Cannes, Spikes Asia and Clio.
Sources
- 【マイナビ】座ってイイッスPROJECT (Mynavi: It's OK to Sit Project)
- PRアワードグランプリ2024発表、グランプリはマイナビ「座ってイイッスPROJECT」
- 2024 64th ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS 入賞作品リスト PR部門
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