REVIVING MJ

TitleREVIVING MJ
BrandSONY MUSIC JAPAN INTERNATIONAL
Product / ServiceBAD 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (CD&DVD)
CategoryA06. Best Use of Special Events And Stunt/Live Advertising
EntrantDENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN
Advertising Agency DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Sukeyasu Mochizuki Imagica Mixer
Minoru Noma Imagica Editor
Shiho Etori Freelance Editor
Kazutaka Sugitani Airman Choreographer
Kazuki Yuzuki Yuzuki Office Stylist
Saburo Hashimoto Drop Animator
Kenji Kubo Freelance Art Designer
Tetsu Moridera Light Laboratories Lighting Director
Masaya Nakahara Freelance Photographer
Sho Yanagisawa The Directors Guild Film Director
Tatsuya Kuwano Geek Pictures Producer
Yuji Ozawa Geek Pictures Producer
Kei Terasaki Dentsu Agency Producer
Ryu Tamogami Dentsu Planner
Takashi Sakuma Dentsu Creative Director

Results and Effectiveness

This amazing music video and its story was covered by all TV news media (26) and generated $1 million worth of publicity. It was liked on Michael’s official Facebook page over 20,000 times and showered with comments of praise on social media. Our idea of recreating the late Michael’s dance with his fans was a huge success. By recreating the BAD sensation 25 years later, sales in Japan exceeded targets, pushing it up to No.1 worldwide.

Creative Execution

We used 1000 enthusiastic fans of MJ as media. Step 1) We produced 1000 designs of T-shirts printed with Michael’s dance moves. Then we gave them to 1000 fans in a campaign. Step 2) We shipped the shirts to winners along with invitations to a music video shooting event. Step 3) For the BAD 25th music video shoot, we filmed each fan over 27 hours. The 1000 fans and 1000 t-shirts made a new video that recreated Michael’s moves.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

When you think of BAD, you think of its music video. For the successful sales of BAD 25th Anniversary Edition, we decided that we could generate a huge buzz by producing a new version of that video 25 years later. But sadly, Michael Jackson was no longer with us. How could we recreate a new video without MJ? The idea is "You are Michael Jackson." We printed 1000 designs of T-shirts with images of Michael’s moves, gave them to fans, and invited them to a music video shoot. Along with 1000 fans, the 1000 t-shirts created a flipbook-style animation that recreated MJ’s dance for the video.