Advertising in Japan comes down to two decisions: which channels to buy, and how to label anything you pay someone else to publish. Japan’s ad spend reached ¥8,062.3 billion in 2025, and for the first time more than half of it, 50.2%, went to the internet, according to Dentsu. The labeling is where foreign brands can get caught. Since October 2023, hidden advertising has been unlawful in Japan, and in August 2026 the regulator issued orders over undisclosed paid posts to a Korean app company and the Japanese company that provides the app with it.
This guide is for marketers deciding what to buy, not a gallery of famous Japanese commercials. It also reports a check we ran on October 9, 2026, of how ten major Japanese online outlets label sponsored articles. Across 20 articles we found nine forms of label; 18 were labeled at the top, and 15 named the advertiser.
The short answer
Budget the way Japanese advertisers do. Search ads and social media ads each take close to 40% of internet media spend, video ads passed ¥1 trillion in 2025, and TV still takes ¥1,755.6 billion a year, more than newspapers, magazines, radio and outdoor combined. Buy search twice: Google Ads for Google, and LINEヤフー広告 (LINE Yahoo Ads) for Yahoo! JAPAN, which shows Google’s organic results but sells its own ads.
Treat disclosure as your job, not the outlet’s. Japan’s stealth marketing rule regulates the advertiser. Anything whose content you were involved in deciding must be recognizable as advertising, and the regulator’s examples of clear wording are 広告 (kōkoku, “advertisement”), 宣伝 (senden, “publicity”), プロモーション (puromōshon, “promotion”) and PR. Health and cosmetics claims fall under a separate law that applies to anyone who publishes them.
When you buy article advertising, write the label into the order. Our 20 articles were labeled with everything from PR and 広告 to AD, 提供 (teikyō, “provided by”) and “Sponsored by,” and five had no line saying who paid.
Advertising in Japan by medium
The standard estimate is Dentsu’s 日本の広告費 (Nihon no kōkokuhi, “Advertising Expenditures in Japan”), published for 2025 on March 5, 2026. Spend rose 5.1% to ¥8,062.3 billion, a record for the fourth year in a row. Internet advertising rose 10.8% to ¥4,045.9 billion, while newspapers, magazines, radio and TV together fell 1.6% to ¥2,298.0 billion.
| Medium | 2025 spend | Change from 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Internet, total | ¥4,045.9 billion | +10.8% |
| of which media spend (ad placements) | ¥3,309.3 billion | +11.8% |
| of which retail e-commerce platform ads | ¥244.4 billion | +12.5% |
| of which production | ¥492.2 billion | +4.0% |
| TV | ¥1,755.6 billion | −0.3% |
| Newspapers | ¥313.6 billion | −8.2% |
| Magazines | ¥113.5 billion | −3.7% |
| Radio | ¥115.3 billion | −0.8% |
| Outdoor | ¥304.2 billion | +5.3% |
| Transit | ¥173.6 billion | +8.6% |
| All advertising | ¥8,062.3 billion | +5.1% |
A joint analysis by CARTA HOLDINGS, Dentsu, Dentsu Digital and Septeni splits the ¥3,309.3 billion of internet media spend further. Search ads took 38.7%. Social media ads, counted separately by platform, took 39.5%, or ¥1,306.7 billion, up 18.7%. Video ads passed ¥1 trillion for the first time, at ¥1,027.5 billion, driven mainly by vertical video on social platforms. The cuts overlap: a video ad on a social platform counts in both.
Article advertising has no figure of its own, because the analysis counts tie-ups under “other internet advertising.” Dentsu’s commentary notes that tie-ups were among the steadier products for newspaper and magazine publishers’ digital businesses in 2025.
The channels foreign brands usually buy
Each channel has a Japan-specific detail to settle before the budget is split.
Search: Google Ads and LINEヤフー広告
Google Ads covers Google. Yahoo! JAPAN’s search ads are bought through LINEヤフー広告, whose 検索広告 (kensaku kōkoku, “search ads”) appear in Yahoo! JAPAN’s results for the keywords a user types. On April 1, 2026, Yahoo!広告 (Yahoo! Ads) and LINE広告 (LINE Ads) became LINEヤフー広告. The two engines are compared in Google vs. Yahoo! JAPAN.
Accounts still on the old LINE広告 platform have to move. LINE Yahoo stopped accepting new LINE広告 accounts on June 30, 2026, and its notice of September 25, 2026, schedules the end of delivery and editing for October 26, 2026.
Social and video ads
Social platforms take about 40% of internet media spend, mostly on social networking services (¥550.8 billion) and video-sharing platforms (¥512.6 billion), and video-sharing’s share is rising. The risk sits around the ads: paying or gifting creators to post, and reusing their posts on your own site, both fall under the disclosure rule below.
Retail media on marketplaces
Amazon’s Sponsored Products ads appear in and around its search results and on product pages. Dentsu counts advertising on retail e-commerce platforms as a separate line: ¥244.4 billion in 2025, up 12.5%. This spend sits next to the search work in our guide to Rakuten, Amazon.co.jp and Yahoo! Shopping.
TV, outdoor and transit
TV is still the largest traditional medium, almost flat compared with 2024, while outdoor and transit grew. Timing matters for these buys; the Japanese calendar, from the April start of the fiscal year to Golden Week, is in our content calendar for Japan.
Article advertising: how 記事広告 works
記事広告 (kiji kōkoku, “article advertising”), also called タイアップ (taiappu, “tie-up”), is an article about your product published by a Japanese outlet in its own format and marked as advertising. In our sample below they appeared as interviews, product tests, event reports and case studies.
The industry’s labeling rule predates the law. The recommended rules for native advertising issued by the Japan Interactive Advertising Association (JIAA) on March 18, 2015, ask outlets to label tie-ups clearly as advertising, with attention to position, size, color and shape, and to name both the outlet and the advertiser. They are recommendations, not law.
On the Japanese sites we run, every sponsored article carries a PR label (広告 or PR) at the top and names the advertiser in the text, and we remove the site’s automatic ads from it. We publish these PR-labeled sponsored features for foreign products on our own sites.
How Japanese media label sponsored articles: our check
On October 9, 2026, we fixed a selection rule before opening any article: ten nationally known Japanese online outlets (four business, three technology, three lifestyle), each with a public list of sponsored or tie-up articles, and one title per publisher. From each we took the two most recent sponsored articles in that list (n=20) and recorded the label wording, its position and whether a line named the advertiser. We read each page and checked label positions against the page source.
Five titles could not be used: four did not return a readable page to our requests, and one loads its tie-up list by script. We replaced them in order from reserve lists written at the same time, and added one more lifestyle title when that reserve ran out. For five outlets the list was a sponsored module or PR-marked items on the home page. Because we sampled articles the outlets themselves list as sponsored, this shows how labeled articles are labeled, not how many go unlabeled.
| Outlet (type) | Label on the article page | Where it appears | Advertiser named |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business A | AD; “[advertiser] 制作：[outlet’s brand studio]” (produced by the outlet’s in-house studio) | Directly below the title | 2 of 2 |
| Business B | 広告企画; one also “PR [advertiser]” | Below the title (one also above) | 2 of 2 |
| Business C | “Sponsored Content by [advertiser]” | Below the title | 2 of 2 |
| Business D | Branded-content logo (one with a line calling it 企画広告, “advertising feature”); “Promoted by [advertiser]” | Logo above the title; advertiser at the end | 2 of 2 |
| Technology A | “提供: [advertiser]” | Byline below the title | 2 of 2 |
| Technology B | 広告 | Beside the date above the title; again in the tags at the end | 0 of 2 |
| Technology C | “PR 提供：[advertiser]” | Above the title (one also at the end) | 2 of 2 |
| Lifestyle A | “Sponsored by [advertiser]”; the home-page listing shows PR | End of the article | 2 of 2 |
| Lifestyle B | PR | Beside the date above the title | 0 of 2 |
| Lifestyle C | PR; one also “Sponsored by [advertiser]” | Below the title (one also above) | 1 of 2 |
Ten outlets used nine forms of label: PR, 広告, 広告企画 (kōkoku kikaku, “advertising feature”), AD, 提供, “Sponsored Content by,” “Sponsored by,” “Promoted by” and a branded-content logo. Eleven articles used 広告 or PR, two of the regulator’s example words; seven used English labels only, and two used 提供 only. Eighteen placed a label above or directly below the title. The two articles from one lifestyle outlet carried their sponsor line at the end; the home-page listing that links to them is marked PR. Fifteen named the advertiser. In the other five, the products or places were named, but no line said who paid.
None of this is a finding that any outlet broke a rule. The regulator judges each case on the presentation as a whole, and it regulates the advertiser. What the check shows a buyer is that Japan has no standard label, so we’d recommend specifying one.
Japan’s stealth marketing rule
The part of Japan’s advertising law behind all this labeling is the ステルスマーケティング規制 (suterusu māketingu kisei, “stealth marketing regulation”). It is Cabinet Office Notice No. 19 of March 28, 2023, made under Article 5(iii) of the 景品表示法 (Keihin Hyōjihō, the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations), and in force since October 1, 2023. It covers a business’s own advertising that consumers find hard to recognize as such.
Who it applies to
The regulated party is the advertiser. The 消費者庁 (Shōhisha-chō, Consumer Affairs Agency, CAA) says influencers and affiliates who post at an advertiser’s request are not covered, unless they supply the product jointly with it.
What counts as advertising
A post or article is the advertiser’s own when the advertiser was involved in deciding its content, for example by asking someone to post along set lines for money or products. An outlet’s own editorial work, such as news or a book review, is normally outside the rule unless the advertiser was involved, for instance by paying far beyond ordinary interview cooperation. Your own website is generally outside too, but a page presenting comments you requested from experts or customers must make clear that they are your advertising.
How it must be identified
The CAA’s operating standards of March 28, 2023, give 広告, 宣伝, プロモーション and PR as examples of clear wording, as well as a sentence such as “I am posting this after receiving the product from Company A.” Their examples of unclear identification include a video disclosure too brief to notice, a label at the end where it is hard to see, small or faint type, and a disclosure buried among hashtags.
Enforcement so far
The sanction is a 措置命令 (sochi meirei, a cease-and-desist order) under Article 7(1) of the Act, published with the business’s name. The first was issued on June 6, 2024, and announced on June 7, to 医療法人社団祐真会, a medical corporation running a Tokyo clinic that discounted flu vaccinations for patients who posted five- or four-star reviews on Google Maps. It was ordered to stop, to tell consumers the representation broke the Act, and to prevent a repeat.
Two 2026 cases are closer to what many foreign brands do. On June 29, the CAA ordered 高光製薬, which gave two food products to people it recruited to post on social media, then showed images from their posts on its own website without making clear they were its advertising. On August 6, it issued orders to SNOW Corporation of the Republic of Korea and SNOW Japan, the Japanese company that provides the SNOW app with it, over paid posts on X. The Korean company had left decisions on its Japanese content to SNOW Japan, and the CAA treated the posts as representations of both.
Health and cosmetics claims
Products that touch health face a second law. Article 66(1) of the 薬機法 (Yakkihō, the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Act) bars anyone from advertising false or exaggerated claims, explicit or implied, about the name, manufacture, efficacy or performance of drugs, quasi-drugs, cosmetics, medical devices or regenerative medicine products. Because it applies to anyone, it can reach the outlet and the creator as well as the advertiser. An amendment promulgated on December 4, 2019, added a surcharge of 4.5% of the products’ sales for breaches, according to the health ministry. More in YMYL and expert supervision in Japan.
What to put in the order
Agree on these in writing, in the order or the creator brief, before anything is published:
- the label wording, such as 広告 or PR
- where the label sits: at the top, not only at the end
- whether and how your company is named
- who checks health and cosmetics claims
- reuse rights for the article or posts, and their label
- for creators, the disclosure wording and its place in the post or video
Common questions
Three questions buyers often ask before signing.
Does a sponsored article have to name our company?
The CAA’s examples of clear wording include the single words 広告 and PR, neither of which names the advertiser. The industry’s 2015 recommendations ask outlets to name both themselves and the advertiser in tie-ups; 15 of our 20 articles did. If being named matters to you, put it in the order.
Is a label at the end of the article enough?
The CAA’s standards list a disclosure at the end, where it is hard to see, as an example of unclear identification, and the agency judges the presentation as a whole. Eighteen of our 20 articles had a label at the top. For a specific campaign, ask the outlet how it labels and, if in doubt, ask counsel in Japan.
Our agency or Japanese subsidiary runs the campaign. Who is responsible?
The rule regulates the business that supplies the product, not the creator who posts. In August 2026 the CAA issued orders both to a Korean app company and to the Japanese company that provides the app with it, after finding that the Korean company had left decisions on its Japanese content to the Japanese one. Delegating the work did not keep the Korean company out of the order.
Working on Japan?
Nihongo Search is published by Amanaut, Inc., a small Japanese SEO and content company in Tokyo working with companies entering the Japanese market. For the organic side of search, see Yahoo! JAPAN SEO and our guide to SEO in Japan. More about how we work.
Sources
The labeling check and the description of our own labeling practice are our work. Everything else comes from the sources below.
- Nihongo Search, labeling check of 20 sponsored articles, October 9, 2026
- Dentsu, 2025年 日本の広告費 (Japanese), March 5, 2026
- CARTA HOLDINGS, Dentsu, Dentsu Digital and Septeni, 2025年 日本の広告費 インターネット広告媒体費 詳細分析 (Japanese, PDF), March 5, 2026
- LINE Yahoo for Business, LINEヤフー広告, 検索広告 and LINE広告 service pages (Japanese), and notice on the end of LINE広告 delivery, September 25, 2026
- Amazon Ads, スポンサープロダクト広告 (Japanese)
- Japan Interactive Advertising Association, ネイティブ広告に関する推奨規定 (Japanese, PDF), March 18, 2015
- Consumer Affairs Agency, stealth marketing overview and Q&A (Japanese)
- Cabinet Office Notice No. 19 (text) and the CAA’s operating standards (Japanese, PDF), March 28, 2023
- Consumer Affairs Agency, orders against 医療法人社団祐真会 (June 7, 2024) and the two SNOW app providers (August 6, 2026) (Japanese, PDF)
- Consumer Affairs Agency, legal actions and case summaries as of August 31, 2026 (Japanese), September 30, 2026
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 医薬品等の広告規制について (Japanese)
Last reviewed: October 2026.
