The Campaign

In Japan, when the music contents tie up with the products it means that the song is just used as a BGM of the TV CM or some of the lyrics just mention the products.

Results

Furby’s promotion was implemented in Japan in time with its worldwide simultaneous release. Furby created a massive boom all over the world 14 years ago, but in today’s Japan, “new imported toys” is not enough to sell. We needed to create a topic and yet another boom. In order to localize Furby to match the Japanese culture, we rode the Japanese pop-idol wave, and developed Furby into a Japanese “kawaii” toy. To shift Furby’s position from “toy in the past” to “kawaii”, we matched it with the Japanese pop-idol social phenomenon. Idols have their original introduction songs, so in this project, we used the top idol group (Momoiro Clover Z). Focusing on the characteristics they share (chatterbox, music and dance, learning, big-eater, funny-face), a tie-up song and image video introducing both Furby and the members was created. The video was shown on YouTube and at stores. The song was made for everyone to sing at karaokes. It was also sung at the group’s concert, and 60,000 people enjoyed the Furbish song.

The audience was enthusiastic for the collaboration between Furby and artist, Momoiro Clover Z, which created the maximum level of "Kawaii" synergy. The users actively discussed about the meaning of the lyrics on You Tube and blogs. Moreover they are very eager to spread the content by themselves.

The song was a good pop-idol content, and at the same time, it included Furby’s introduction and Furbish. Enthusiastic fans helped spread the information, enabling to reach a wider range. As a result, YouTube was played more than 1,000,000 times, achieved 1st in Japan’s weekly ranking, 8th in world’s entertainment category, and on Twitter, the word “Furby” and “Furby’s CF” were featured in the trend ranking.