SYNC DINNER

TitleSYNC DINNER
BrandKDDI CORPORATION
Product / ServiceTELECOMMUNICATIONS PROVIDER
CategoryA05. Branded Live Experience
EntrantSIX Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company SIX Tokyo, JAPAN
Contributing Company SIX Tokyo, JAPAN
Contributing Company 2 HAKUHODO CREATIVE VOX Tokyo, JAPAN
Contributing Company 3 HAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN
Production Company TYO INC Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Takayuki Hino SIX INC Creative Director
Kenta Ikoma HAKUHODO CREATIVE VOX Creative Director / Copy Writer
Ken Okamuro Hakuhodo Art Director
Fumio Shiosaka TYO inc ID div. Web Director
Kyoichi Shibukawa TYO inc Producer
Yoshihiro Yano TYO inc Production Manager
Kazuma Kitada TOKYO Film Director
Shingo Ikeura Cinematographer
Hiroki Kurihara Lighting Director
Aki Kasai CARNIVAL Production Designer
Naoki Yamada Stylist
Keiko Osada Hair-make
Yuuri Hasegawa OIP Casting Director
Thomas Suess audioforce Music
Masayuki Narum ACTIVE CINE CLUB Offline Editor
Chitoshi Murata IMAGICA Online Editor
Eiichi Shimoda Run-Hun,sha CG Designer

The Campaign

Our target: Smartphone users in their 20s and 30s. These are people who enjoy contents more on the Internet rather than TV. They don’t listen to radios. They don’t read magazines and newspapers. But on the other hand, they are keen to engage with new experiences, for example by trying out new shops and stores, and to share their experiences via the social network. In other words, they are keen to enjoy contents both in the real world and online. On Christmas occasion, our contents provided them the exact benefit that they were looking for – a new experience, to be moved and inspired, and to make new memories.

Results

The creative goal was to boost brand likeability by building a hearty bond between the users and the brand, so that the enterprise could become the first player to free itself out from competition on prices and specifications. To achieve this, we decided to transform “telecommunication” which is invisible, to something emotional that everybody can tangibly experience. Unlike in other countries, many Japanese couples take Christmas Eve as an opportunity to have a romantic dinner. In that sense, it's more like the Valentine's Day. However, many Japanese couples in long-distance relationships cannot get together on Christmas Eve because they are too busy with work. Therefore, AU (a major Japanese communication enterprise) with its company theme, “connecting people’s hearts together”, offered the couples a desirable opportunity. We opened two interactive restaurants - one in Tokyo and another in Osaka, both being major cities of Japan. These restaurants connect couples living 400km apart by bringing them together to virtually one dinner table. We connected them with a mobile communication line, which transmitted video chat proceedings that projected onto a life-size screen. Furthermore, by using various technologies such as AUGMENTED REALITY and MOTION SENSOR, a special experience was provided to make couples feel as if they are in one place together. Some examples how this is enabled: Despite the actual physical distance, a guest (he) on one side of the table can blow out the candle on a Christmas cake on her side of the table. The pneumatic sensor senses the wind he blows, and turns on the air emitter on her side. Another example is, the motion sensor analyzes the couples’ movements as they propose a toast, and makes a clinking sound as if the glasses actually touched. This idea also proposed a challenge to the future possibilities of telecommunications.

Smartphone users in their 20s and 30s. These are people who enjoy contents more on the Internet rather than TV. They don’t listen to radios. They don’t read magazines and newspapers. But on the other hand, they are keen to engage with new experiences, for example by trying out new shops and stores, and to share their experiences via the social network. In other words, they are keen to enjoy contents both in the real world and online. On Christmas occasion, our contents provided them the exact benefit that they were looking for – a new experience, to be moved and inspired, and to make new memories.

The restaurant was booked solid instantly. As couples, wives and husbands, parents and children experienced their dinners, this restaurant became the most talked-about place during the Christmas season. Its promotion video was played more than 1 million times in one week, which was accompanied by great exposure on TV and WEB media. More than anything, we were able to prove that this novel way of connecting hearts can provide a completely new type of memory in the minds of the participants.

The major difference between this work and the Traditional Advertising is the fact that this restaurant was actually physically constructed. We can say that this is truly a Branded Content because course dinners were served to the guests, providing them the experience of feeling “zero distance” with the help of communication technologies. Also, we developed videos of the guests experiencing the dinner. The footages became a secondary content that stimulates a high degree of empathy to viewers who are also in the same situation – living apart.