PLAY THE PING PONG

Silver Spike
TitlePLAY THE PING PONG
BrandTV TOKYO CORPORATION
Product / ServiceTABLE TENNIS
CategoryA06. Original Use of Music
EntrantDENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN
Contributing Company DENTSU Tokyo, JAPAN
Production Company WEEK'S Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
JUNTA YOSHIKAWA DENTSU INC. Creative Director
ERITO YAMADA DENTSU INC. Creative Planner/Copywriter
MOMOKA FUKUYADO DENTSU INC. Copywriter
ASAKO TAKI DENTSU INC. Art Director
HISASHI TANAKA DENTSU INC. Agency Producer
RYUHEI HOMMA DENTSU INC. Account Executive
TAIKI SHIBAHARA WEEK'S INC. Producer
NORIYUKI KATO WEEK'S INC. Production Manager
KEISUKE HAKOMORI Freelance Director
YUSUKE SUGA Freelance Cameraman
KAZUNARI WATANABE Freelance Lighting
MAYUKO OKANO TV TOKYO Art&Lighting,Inc. Production Designer
TOSHIYUKI HASHIMOTO aircord INC. Technical Director
DAISHI DANCE Freelance Music/Music Artist
TOMOKI SETO Palette Sounds Music
TOMOHIRO NISHIJIMA CAPRA INC Editor
MASAHIRO KATO Ray INC Editor
MASARU SHINAGAWA digital egg INC Sound Design Arrangement
AKIHITO NARITA ONPa INC Sound Effects
TACSHOW ARAI Freelance Table tennis supervision

The Campaign

In Japan, major sports such as baseball and soccer are broadcast on all channels, but table tennis is only broadcast on TV Tokyo. In addition, the viewers are largely elderly and the younger generation has few opportunities to view table tennis. In this situation, TV Tokyo needed to increase the popularity of table tennis by taking measures that caused those who had never had an interest in table tennis to give the sport a chance.

Results

For this project we developed and created the first “table tennis musical instrument”. The table was turned into an instrument using project mapping with sampling pads placed on the table. An infrared sensor detected the exact location of the flying table tennis ball, and judged the moment the ball hit the table - producing the sound programmed in the system. This was made possible through the precise control of the rally speed and position where the ball hit the table. Combining the force and delicateness of the Japanese national table tennis team, we re-created an original song by the popular Japanese DJ, DAISHI DANCE. Furthermore, this project was deeply connected to the world table tennis community and was featured on programs throughout the world through many versatile media.

For this project, we took advantage of the rhythmic quality of tennis table’s rallies and joined it with the electronic dance music scene that young people are so crazy about, to create a video full of impact. People who watched the video were able to naturally accept the force and precision of table tennis while enjoying the music.

As soon as the TV commercial was released, the video was covered in 100+ online news stories and blogs in and out of Japan. Table tennis athletes from around the country responded with comments like they had received the courage to continue playing table tennis. Comments came in even from those who had not had any interaction with table tennis before saying things such as, “my image of table tennis changed” As a result, viewer ratings of the world table tennis championship increased by 1.2 times.

After Tokyo was chosen as the host city for the 2020 summer Olympic games, interest in sports has been on the rise in Japan. Our goal was to utilize the opportunity of the upcoming Olympics to increase the image of of table tennis within Japan. If we were only to show people the technique of table tennis, they would likely not have an interest, so we created a musical performance that can only be achieved by table tennis athletes that gained much interest throughout the country. To achieve our goal, we created the world’s first “table tennis musical instrument.”