The Brief

To generate a buzz around the launch of a free tabloid paper titled “3TIMES PRESS”, created with a concept to “energize office workers in their 30’s who are in most expensive time in their life”. Our challenge is to energize the Japanese economy, by making office workers spend money, as they did before the recession.

Creative Execution

Advertised on major commuter trains. Readers were asked to take a picture of the receipt addressed to 3TIMES PRESS by mobile phone camera, and send the picture with a reason for purchase. Reasons included a gift bought for a daughter whose dad was too busy, buying drinks for a colleague who split up, a business book purchased for a helpless new employee, all of which went up on the campaign website and commuter trains. The campaign received wide coverage by the news media thanks to the real stories of tough office life told by the real people in the office.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

The 3TIMES PRESS staged a campaign inviting its readers to send their “miscellaneous expense” receipts addressed to 3TIMES PRESS, to be reimbursed by the paper instead of their employers who were tightening corporate expenses due to the economic recession. Our main goal was to get a lot of good word of mouth and a lot of page view with a small budget.

Results

“Receipts” became a medium portraying the sad yet funny realities of office life, made even worse by the recession. Real stories of hard office life, shared for a good laugh, generated strong emotional engagement. The campaign buzz spread through newspapers, online news, Twitter and the like, contributed to a successful distribution of the inaugural issue of 200,000 copies. More than 100 episodes were posted, and the site got 18,734 page view in two weeks. Stating “3TIMES PRESS” every time receipt was issued, which is required for any receipts to be reimbursed by employer, helped build name recognition of the brand new publication.