Results and Effectiveness

We brought innovation to the storefront, instead of avoiding it or focusing on digital-only campaigns. As a result, the campaign attracted a great deal of attention from not only Japanese brands, but also foreign competitors and retail marketing industry. Marionettebot took consumers by surprise with its fresh combination of marionette and robotics. People lined up in front of the store, and sales increased by 130 percent from a year earlier. The initiative created a great buzz on SNS, with the brand’s SNS media share increasing by 2,812 percent compared to that before the campaign.

Creative Execution

The strategy was to create a complete campaign that would engage potential customers on the street, motivate them to shop, and also encourage them to share the experience online. The target consumers are fun seekers who have a very high digital literacy. Therefore, we aimed to develop a campaign using digital and entertainment that can generate WOM on SNS. In addition, we tried to strengthen brand engagement by providing the consumers with an interactive experience involving the store rather than simply showing the display. We also incorporated some sales promotion plans that directly contribute to sales so that it does not end up with just an entertainment.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Stores themselves are facing more and more competition for traffic, losing customers daily to online shopping sites. While selling online grows, Japan’s largest apparel store Green Label Relaxing wanted to make better use of its real world assets – and bring people into the store to experience the brand firsthand. Located in heavily trafficked areas, the logical choice was to re-invigorate that old media of fashion – the show window. So we launched a campaign to innovate the show window – but not just to ‘digitize’ it – we wanted to bring it to life. We developed the world’s first interactive mannequins by incorporating Kinect sensor technology into a marionette. While show windows are less and less effective these days, we used the latest technology to turn the traditional media “show window” into a most innovative – and effective - medium. The core communication target was ‘20-something shoppers’ out and about looking for fashion.