Title | THE BIG NIGHT |
Brand | SUBARU |
Product / Service | SUBARU FORESTER |
Category | A01. Best Fictional Program, Series or Film where a client has successfully created a drama, comedy or miniseries around a product or brand |
Entrant | ADK JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN |
Entrant Company | ADK JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN |
Contributing Company | ADK JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN |
Production Company | GREAT GUNS London, UNITED KINGDOM |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Dave Jenner | Noah | Writer |
Belinda Grew | Absolute London | Post Production Producer |
Matt Turner | Absolute London | Telecine |
Gordana Kazic | Bas Production | Art/Props |
Katja Soltes | Bas Production | Production Designer |
Sid Baarnhoorn | Sid Baarnhoorn Music | Music Composer |
Alenka Protic | Bas Production | Line Producer |
Rok Ban | Bas Production | Executive Producer |
Jerome Robert/Ian Foster | Great Guns | Dop |
Masahiro Kobayashi | Asatsu-Dk Inc. | Account Executive |
Jun Takahashi | Asatsu-Dk Inc. | Account Director |
Keiko Oda | Asatsu-Dk Inc. | Coordination Director |
Hideyuki Ichikawa | Asatsu-Dk Inc. | Agency Producer |
Simone Nesti | Great Guns | Editor's Assistant |
Max Thomas | Great Guns | Production Assistant |
Sheridan Thomas | Great Guns | Producer/Writer |
Jeremy McWilliams | Great Guns | Head Of Global Partnerships |
Jeremy Haccoun | Great Guns | Director/Editor/Writer |
Tatsushi Kataoka | Asatsu-Dk Inc. | Planner |
Yoshihiro Miura | Asatsu-Dk Inc. | Creative Director |
Rob Yescombe | Great Guns | Writer |
This campaign was produced in 9 languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish for markets outside of Japan, where Subaru does not have sufficient media budget for TV. Since these markets differ greatly in terms of what people find entertaining, an innovative interactive system was chosen to offer enormous combinations of choices that decide how the story develops. This proved to be effective for a movie that will be seen by people of various markets where the perception of the Subaru Forester differs and is quite broad.
CHALLENGE Since Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI), the headquarters for the Subaru brand had mostly been producing campaign material that centered around the car itself, the client felt the necessity to provide their distributors with promotional material for the Forester that will be more engaging. However, this was their first attempt to commission a global interactive movie. OBJECTIVE So the objective was to produce an interactive film for the Subaru Forester that will be entertaining for various markets around the world, and also one that will be highly interactive and engaging. The aim was also to provide distributors with product communication material that will contribute to giving the Subaru brand more emotional value. STRATEGY The agency worked with the production company on a script that would be entertaining, and would also be appreciated by people in various countries. In order to keep people interested, and to encourage them to come back, the script was developed to offer various selections, resulting in a seamless story that branches out into 40 different endings. EXECUTION production Company had experience not only in production of car films that require various locations, but also in production of online games. This is how we were able to produce an interactive experience that was so seamless, with so many different outcomes. The story was kept very simple and clear, but to offer a truly interactive experience, the script for this narrative-branching interactive experience turned out to be 45 pages long. And the decisions that people made throughtout the movie, by clicking on anything red (or missing it) would result in 98,304 permutations. The subtle interface proved to be very engaging, but the complex decision tree that was devised meant there would be 174 individual film segments to navigate.
The link to the interactive movie was posted on the Subaru global website: http://www.subaru-global.com/special/2013forester/ Since the timing of the launch of the Forester differed among the various markets, it was up to the distributors to create a link to the interactive movie from their local websites at the timing appropriate for their market. Therefore, there were no proactive promotional activities for the interactive movie conducted by the client, the global headquarters.
The client was very happy to be able to provide an entertaining interactive film to their distributors in Asia, Russia, Europe, and South America. Even though the film is approximately 9 minutes long when played till the end, overall user engagement has been around 80%, and average time visitors stay on the video is around 13.4 minutes. This comes out to an average retention time of about 150%. The film has received very positive coverage in quite a few online publications including Campaign Asia, UK, & USA, Marketing Week, UK Motor News, etc. The Subaru Forester is doing extremely well in sales, and the client, Fuji Heavy Industries, is experiencing 20% increase in sales in their overseas markets.