| Title | THE SAME NAME PASS |
| Brand | PUBLIC VIEWING IN KOKURITSU STADIUM COMITTEE |
| Product / Service | 6.4 2014 FIFA WORLDCUP BRAZIL ASIA FINAL QUALIFIERS |
| Category | B02. Consumer Services |
| Entrant | DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN |
| Entrant Company | DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN |
| Advertising Agency | DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN |
| Name | Company | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Takaya Tokuhara | Plag Inc. | Designer |
| Syuhei Nagatani | Dentsu Inc. | Planner |
| Syunsuke Baba | Dentsu Inc. | Planner |
| Hirosuke Yoshimori | Dentsu Inc. | Art Director |
| Ken Yamada | Dentsu Inc. | Creative Director |
We were required to draw spectators to the relatively unknown public viewing event for the Japan national football game (Charged) on the next-to-nothing budget. As the ideas for generating buzz and raising awareness of the event, the unique campaign, which gave free tickets to people who shared the same last name as Japanese national team members, was launched. Consequently, the number of spectators reached record high only through social networking, official site, and press release.
A budget surplus had be achieved by getting at least 10,000 spectators (the maximum number of spectators in the past was about 12,000 at the public viewing event for the football match against N. Korea).
The word of mouth explosively grew mainly through social networking. It was instantly spread in online sources such as informational website. It attracted a lot of attention even before the announcement of the national team members and instantly over 13,000 people accessed to our site on the actual selection day. There were many comments like “I feel lucky that my name is same as Mr. Honda’s,” “Whoever has the same name as the national team member, please marry me,” and “I will join the event with my family since we share the same name!” In fact, 542 people, nearly 3,000 if including those who came with the qualifiers, participated in the campaign. Even with its next-to-nothing advertising budget, the number of spectators reached record high of 15,225. It was shown on TV news programs as well.
With the next-to-nothing advertising budget, we advertised it through official Facebook, Twitter, web page and press release for the public viewing.
As the game was held in Saitama which is only 30 km away from Tokyo, we were asked to draw spectators to the relatively unknown public viewing event (charged).
The campaign, which gave free admission to people who shared the same last name as the Japanese national team members, was launched. We generated a buzz and raised the awareness of the event mainly via social networking. Because Japanese family names are extremely varied and there are nearly 300,000 surnames in use today, Japanese people have a strong attachment towards people who share the same surnames. The greater dispersion of word-of-mouth was expected especially if those were the horned national team players.