HANDS ON SEARCH

TitleHANDS ON SEARCH
BrandYAHOO! JAPAN
Product / ServiceYAHOO! JAPAN
EntrantHAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN
Advertising Agency HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN
Production Company AID-DCC Osaka, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Kazuaki Hashida HAKUHODO Kettle Inc. Creative Director
Kyosuke Taniguchi Dot By Dot Inc. Creative Director
Shota Hatanaka HAKUHODO Kettle Inc. Planner
Yusuke Tominaga Dot By Dot Inc. Planner
Chiharu Shimizu HAKUHODO Kettle Inc. Planner
Saqoosha Dot By Dot Inc. Technical Director
Takayuki Kitai Katamari Inc. 3d Printing Director
Yuichi Takatani Katamari Inc. Art Director
Kenjiro Nakayama Katamari Inc. Designer
You Tanaka Katamari Inc. Design Engineer
Kenji Mori/Yuka Hatae/Kiki Hasegawa Katamari Inc. Developer
Takanobu Izukawa Katamari Inc. System Engineer
Masashi Ohashi Katamari Inc. Sound Designer
Kenichi Seki/Keitaro Kamijo/Kojiro Matsumoto AID/DCC Inc. Producer
Hiroshi Kondo Movie Director
Toshiyuki Takei TOKYO/TAIYO KIKAKU Co./Ltd. Movie Producer
Ryosuke Toyama/Takahide Uchibori/Hiroshi Kondo Camera
Akari Tatsumi TOKYO/TAIYO KIKAKU Co./Ltd. Mixer
Audio Force AUDIO FORCE Music
Hiroaki Sakai/Takashi Uno/Saeko Kawano TOW/P/Point Event/Pr Director

The Campaign

What is the future of search? To answer this question is our challenge. Yes, big data predicting what we want might be convenient, but our vision involves a more rudimentary sensation – a search system with the human touch. What if a spoken word turns into a physical object? The search could be more exiting. We invented Hands On Search that makes imagination real and gives us inspirational and tangible realities, not just informational results. It was developed by combining the idea of human touch with common 3D printing technology. We offered it first to those who need it most – children with sight impairments. Without vision, these kids “view” the world through their hands, recognizing objects via touch. Through the search technologies, Yahoo! JAPAN wants to bring more innovation to the education field.

Success of the Campaign

At our suggestion, Yahoo! released Hands On Search as an open source application. Yahoo’s passion moved the government enough to get involved. Led by Tsukuba University, the Ministry of Education agreed to provide funds to convert the 3D data into official study material. Now, what started as an internet innovation has become an educational one. We might have created a single service, but it’s quickly taking on the role of a vital piece of social infrastructure that is very much the essence of Yahoo!. Support results are as follows. *3D database now contains over 100,000 entries *More than $ 1,000,000 in publicity in Japan. No figures for worldwide publicity but project reported on in several media. *According to research, 92% of people who engaged with this project have increased loyalty to Yahoo! JAPAN.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

This project was carried out with three schools for the blind over six months. Many people kept an eye on related activities through PR events and the website. On the website, things the children touched were reported on with comments, and things they wanted to touch but were not saved in the search database were uploaded. The things not in the database were turned into Yahoo advertisements, allowing many people, organizations and companies to upload the data. This means the website also functioned as an aggregator of 3D data for the children. Also through videos on YouTube, press releases and other PR activity, the project gained lots of publicity and recognition in both Japan and the rest of the world.