The Campaign

Last year we introduced the Odnaro-Dude, a fun-loving, yeti-like beast from Portland. For this year's campaign, he announced that he will be starting his own travel agency specifically designed to inform people about the weird and wonderful world of Odnarotoop. (Od-na-ro-toop = ‘Portland’ pronounced in Japanese, backwards) Japanese travel communication follows a strict format. To promote the city of Portland, we subverted the typical Japanese travel brochure format by creating our own featuring the Odnaro-Dude. In fact, the Dude wrote all the copy in his charming, broken Japanese and even made all the layouts using his D.I.Y. design skills.

Creative Execution

Since the Odnaro-Dude speaks broken Japanese and utilised his own D.I.Y. design skills to bring the agency to life, it was important that every element of the 24-page brochure seems handmade. The brochure was the foundation of the campaign. Once it was developed we utilised the aesthetic across all touch points. We made a website for the campaign that was centered around the brochure, made animations of the imagery for social media and outdoor LED screens, integrated into one of Japans largest travel agencies and even did a series of pop-up events in Tokyo and Osaka.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

• Since the launch of the Odnarotoop campaign, arrivals from Japan were up 9% in Portland, while arrivals from Japan for the rest of the US were down 4%. • The brochure was distributed in 15 partner travel agency locations in Tokyo and Osaka. • Over the course of three events, over 60,000 people had direct, in-person interaction with Odnaro-Travel Agency and brochure. • Facebook posts about the campaign had an organic reach of close to 40,000. • 29 publications covered the campaign and associated events.

The majority of travellers in Japan use travel agencies to book their vacations. The look and feel of travel communications in Japan is formulaic and ubiquitous. Our strategy was to take this look and feel, subvert it, and make a piece of travel communication completely different than anything anyone has read before at a travel agency.