| Title | SMASH: BORN TO BE DESTROYED |
| Brand | K'S JAPAN |
| Product / Service | GUITAR STORE |
| Category | B01. Corporate Image & Information |
| Entrant | HAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN |
| Entrant Company: | HAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN |
| DM/Advertising Agency: | HAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN |
Credits | |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| JIN SAITO | Hakuhodo | Creative Director/Film Planner/Copywriter/Product Developer |
| SHOKO AKUTAGAWA | Hakuhodo | Creative Producer/Copywriter |
| Kenta Ikoma | Hakuhodo | Planner |
| Kentaro Harano | Hakuhodo | Art Director |
| Hidenori Sakai | Hakuhodo | Copywriter |
| HIrofumi Nobuta | Hakuhodo Products | Producer |
| Michikazu Sakata | TYO Productions | Producer |
| Hirose Ichinose | ANSWR | Web Designer |
| Reiko Owada | ANSWR | Web Producer |
| Takashi Matsuyama | GH9 | Sound Visual R&D Director |
| Hiroaki Kawakami | Monstar Lab | iPhone Application Producer |
| Haruhiko Tanabe | AlegreSol | PR Producer |
| Tomoyuki Hakamata | Hakuhodo Products | Director |
| Manabu Terao | Manabu Terao | Director |
| Takuya Sasaya | Hakuhodo Products | Director |
| Yusuke Oka | Hakuhodo Products | Photographer |
| Takahiro Kojima | Hakuhodo Products | Director of Photography |
| Keiichi Motoyama | Hakuhodo | Interactive Planner |
| Naoya Morisako | Hakuhodo Intersolution | Producer |
To make K’s JAPAN, a small guitar company famous as a cool rock guitar brand. They had no name value and people were not enthusiastic about rock like they used to be in the golden era because other music like hip-hop became just as popular. K’s JAPAN needed to expand its consumers to those who are not core rock fans.
We developed an extreme guitar for the following 4 reasons: Reason 1: Because our promotion was in form of a real product, SMASH directly delivered K’s JAPAN’s rock spirit “Destroy to Create” as a direct experience of playing and smashing. Reason 2: The rock spirit “Destroy to Create” embodied by SMASH, attracted not only rock fans but also people fed up with recession. Reason 3: Because SMASH was a performing tool, as people played SMASH in the media and liveshows, these performances automatically expanded K’s JAPAN’s advertisement.
Instead of a normal ad, we developed to sell a hyper product to excite people and engage them with K’s-JAPAN. We made SMASH! SMASH is meant to be destroyed in its structure, recycle system and price. It can be played too. It’s an extraction of rock spirit, “Destroy to Create!”- Destroy rigid systems to create a new world. With this spirit, we aimed to attract not only rockers but also people fed up with recession. We advertised SMASH with virals, flyers, posters, launching events. Media picked up SMASH as exciting news, creating free publicity.
K’s JAPAN’s sales went up 400% in March 2010 compared to March 2009. $3 million worth of free publicity with 0 media fee. K’s JAPAN became no.1 search-word in one of Japan’s biggest search engine, goo. No.1 sales ranking at Amazon’s new instrument category. No.1 topic in Japan’s biggest SNS, mixi, more talked about than Olympics and ipad. No.1 in “Things I Want Ranking” in MONO, the most issued shopping magazine. Marty Friedman, ex MEGADETH commented on SMASH as an ideal rock guitar. Bounce rate of SMASH’s website hit 1.5%. MTV did a 1 week program on our event.