The Campaign

Inakadate is a small village in northeast Japan, Aomori, with population of around 8000people in total. The village started making rice more than 2000years ago, and it has been there main industry till now. Since Inakadate village is placed in rural countryside mostly famous for rice,("Inaka” means countryside in Japanese) the village was struggling with an aging and declining population along with drop in sales of rice, since Japanese eating habits have shifted away from rice toward a more westernized food. Nevertheless, the village’s main industry and income source remains rice. Of course it was a place that the press rarely come and reports, but the village challenged to make a branded entertainment with their “rice,” the most initial resource, to a huge art piece. Moreover, to lead the people bringing back rice for souvenir to re-energize the village, we creating a fusion of agriculture and digital technology called “rice-code.”

Results

【Challenge and Objective】 A small village in northeast Japan famous for rice, Inakadate, was struggling with aging and declining population along with drop in rice sales, since Japanese eating habits have shifted away from rice toward a more Westernized food. Nevertheless, the village’s main industry and income source remains rice. So we tried to re-energize the village by creating a fusion of agriculture and digital technology. 【Strategy and Execution】 We created huge art pictures in our rice field by planting different colors of rice. We then developed a new technology called “rice-code”, which let visitors scan the rice art with their phones like a QR code and purchase the rice. “Rice-code” transformed a scene that people naturally want to photograph into a brand new selling place.

When people fist saw the rice art, they were drawn into the quality and scale of the art made out of different color of rice. One of the motif was Geisya, so the detail of Kimono(traditional Japanese costume) was sensitively recreated with the different color of rice. Also, since the rice art is drawn in perspective, made to see from the upper angle from the observation deck, the impact increases climbing up. People was surprised by the technology of “rice-code” too, when the apps directly leads them to EC site for rice harvested there just by taking the picture.

The project successfully attracted 251,320 visitors, about 30 times the population of the village and sales jumped. “Rice-code” met both consumer and client needs, that rice was too heavy for the visitors to bring back home for souvenir but the village also wanted to sell rice to revitalized the village. This whole movement even moved the government to build a special train station for the visitors. Also the homepage access of the village increased 8 times more than the usual times. Ground, the men’s most primitive outdoor media, became the newest. This new branded contents changed the depopulated village to a totally new sight seeing spot.