The Brief

When you think of BAD, you think of its music video. For the BAD 25th Anniversary Edition, how could we recreate his magic in 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. This project generated a huge buzz on TV and in social media, and sales in Japan reached No.1 worldwide.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

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.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

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.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Because many people instantly think of the “BAD” music video when they think of BAD, we decided that we could generate a huge buzz by producing a new version of that video 25 years later. And the approach of bringing his fans together in place of the dearly departed Michael to recreate the dance lit a fire in people’s hearts.