The Campaign

While still relatively new, use of branded entertainment has been on the rise in Japan, providing a effective platform for businesses and consumers to communicate. In particular, in the past decade, as the social media took root in Japan, the use of sharable video has been recognized as an engaging communication tool.

Results

The campaign aimed to raise consumer recognition and increase membership for Lenet, Japan’s first 24 hours a day, 365 days a year complete online delivery dry cleaning service. As a start-up in an emerging business field, Whiteplus thought customer recognition for its service Lenet was still low. With competition intensifying, Lenet needed to quickly solidify their position as market leader for delivery dry cleaning in Japan. The target audience was busy business people and young mothers who were too busy to go to the dry cleaners. Therefore, to generate buzz a viral YouTube video was produced which could be watched and shared by busy consumers anytime, anywhere. Central to the campaign was the theme of “cleaning”, with the emphasis being two-fold. In addition to the client’s dry “cleaning” service, the concept of “cleaning up crime” was also encompassed with the use of police detectives in the video. In order to convey this message, actor Shinobu Sakagami, famous for his detective roles and a well known “clean-freak” in real life, played the fictional “Detective Clean” in the short movie. The video was uploaded and a press conference was held on April 23, with the TV commercials airing from the following day. Within four days, the video amassed more than one million YouTube views and was reported by the media over 350 times, recording 476 million media impressions. New membership and sales from April to June expanded by 300% year-on-year, while membership reached 80,000 in July 2014.

When news broke that Shinobu Sakagami was returning to the center stage after years of supporting roles for this comedic commercial, it only took three days after uploading on YouTube for the video to amass more than one million views. The comedic approach employed, utilizing a famous actor known for his fictional detective roles coupled with his well documented real life obsession with cleanliness, was particularly effective in connecting with a mainstream audience.

When news broke that Shinobu Sakagami was returning to the center stage after years of supporting roles for this comedic commercial, it only took four days after being uploaded on YouTube on April 23 to amass more than one million views. The commercial which began airing the following day was also covered by various media more than 350 times, recording 476 million media impressions. Additionally, the news was also picked up in Yahoo! search rankings and even featured in Yahoo! News Topics, Japan’s most trafficked news portal page with 8.5 billion monthly page views. New membership and sales from April to June expanded by 300% year-on-year, while membership jumped to 80,000 in July 2014 from 60,000 recorded in April 2014.