SLEEPING DRUNKS BILLBOARDS

TitleSLEEPING DRUNKS BILLBOARDS
BrandYAOCHO BARS
Product / ServiceBAR
CategoryB05. Fundraising, charities, appeals, non-profit organisations, public health & safety, public awareness
EntrantOGILVY & MATHER JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company OGILVY & MATHER JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Advertising Agency OGILVY & MATHER JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Production Company BABEL LABEL Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Ajab Samrai Ogivy/Mather Japan Chief Creative Officer
Ajab Samrai Ogivy/Mather Japan Group Creative Director
Ajab Samrai Ogivy/Mather Japan Executive Creative Director
Federico Garcia Ogivy/Mather Japan Creative Director
Yasuhito Imai Geometry Global Japan Creative Director
Junkichi Tatsuki Ogivy/Mather Japan Art Director
Federico Garcia Ogivy/Mather Japan Copywriter
Kentaro Shima Babel Label Director
Ichiro Ota Geometry Global Japan Agency Account Director

The Brief

Japan is probably one of the hardest working countries in the world. So, at the end of the week, japanese men and women like to let their hair down, with very particular consequences: Drunk Sleeping. Low alcohol tolerance means hundreds of people will drink until they drop. Men and women can be found sleeping on the streets just about anywhere. In Tokyo this is considered normal behavior. Our client, one of the biggest bar chains in Tokyo, decided to address this issue in a unique and surprising way.

Creative Execution

Japanese people are completely used to finding sleeping drunks on the street every Friday and Saturday night, in the most crowded and busiest crossings in Tokyo. Among others, in the Shibuya crossing, where 5000 people cross the streets every minute. There, we turned these sleeping drunks into our human posters for our campaign, giving the japanese people the kind of ad they have never seen.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

The idea was to turn the sleeping drunks into anti-drinking human billboards. Armed with nothing more than duck tape and printed headlines, we turned every sleeping drunk into an anti-drinking billboard, completely hijacking the attention of the pedestrians with almost no budget whatsoever. On the billboards, we included a hashtag to encourage people to share the pictures throughout social media. As honor is paramount in Japan, we shamed people into behaving or risk becoming our next Sleeping Drunk Billboard.

Results

With little budget (just a roll of duck tape and several printed cardboards) we hijacked one of the most advertising-crowded streets in Tokyo and maybe the world. Hundreds of pictures of our sleeping drunks where shared throughout social media. After that, we released a video-case of the idea, generating global buzz, getting featured in some of the most important media in the world and kick-starting a national debate about this issue. The video reached a quarter million views within days of its launch. With a total investment of $5000 we generated millions worth of PR buzz.