WEARABLE TOMATO

TitleWEARABLE TOMATO
BrandKAGOME CO.
Product / ServiceTOMATOES
CategoryB01. Fast Moving Consumer Goods
EntrantHAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company HAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN
Advertising Agency HAKUHODO Tokyo, JAPAN
PR Agency MATERIAL Tokyo, JAPAN
Production Company X1 INC. Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
NOBUMICHI TOSA Maywa Denki Artist
YOSHIFUMI TAKEDA Hakuhodo Inc. Creative Director / Planner
GEORGE MORO Hakuhodo Inc. Planning Director
TOSHIYUKI FUJITSUKA Hakuhodo Inc. Creative Planner
YU KATO Hakuhodo Inc. Creative Planner
TAKANORI OONO Hakuhodo Inc. PR Supervisor
KAI MASUMOTO Hakuhodo Inc. PR Planner
SHUN OGISO Hakuhodo Inc. PR Planner
DAIMA KAWAMURA X1 INC. Executive Producer
MASATO SETO Padme Film Producer
YUSUKE TAKUNO P.I.C.S CO.,LTD Film Director
TAKAO YOSHIDA P.I.C.S CO.,LTD Film Producer
AKIRA KUMAGAI MOST VALUABLE PARTNER Web Director
NATSUKI TAKIMOTO MATERIAL INC, PR Planner
YURIKA HOTTA MATERIAL INC, PR Planner
KENTA YAMAGUCHI MATERIAL INC, PR Planner
TAKAHIKO MISONO / HIROTO KITAI Hakuhodo Inc. Account Director
SHINSUKE NISHIMURA KAGOME CO.,LTD. Client Director
YOKO UKIGAYA KAGOME CO.,LTD. Client Supervisor
SHIGENORI SUZUKI KAGOME CO.,LTD. Developer

The Campaign

Kagome is Japan’s leading producer of fresh tomatoes and manufacturer of tomato-related products. After many years of research, Kagome discovered that tomatoes help people recover from their fatigue when doing sports. By re-launching tomatoes as a sports food like bananas, Kagome hoped to improve the value of tomatoes. We discovered the reason that tomatoes are not well recognized as a sports food: Tomatoes lack mobility; they are not easy to carry and to eat. Hence, people have not often seen sports players eating tomatoes during sports. To solve these problems, we identified the Tokyo Marathon, which is sponsored by Kagome, as an excellent opportunity for a PR campaign. Accordingly, we created the world’s first wearable robot that feeds tomatoes to a players during sports. We revealed this robot and a promotional movie at the reception. In addition, in the race, a Kagome’s employee ran wearing this robot and eye-catching scenes of eating tomatoes were presented to media as news. As a result, media impressions are 100 million in 62 countries. 20 features were shown on domestic national TV news. Moreover, this news was reported by the Guardian in the UK, Le Monde in France, NBC in the US and in other leading media internationally. A market survey showed that acceptance of tomatoes as a sports food had increased 93%. Sales of Kagome's fresh tomatoes increased by 50% when compared to last week.

The Brief

Our goal is to spread awareness to sports lovers around the world, that tomatoes are a "sports food," which can help recovery from fatigue when doing sports. In order to do this, we have made it our objective to expose these facts to a large number of news medias, both domestically and internationally.

Results

Output: - 100 million media impressions. - 20 domestic TV national news stories. - The campaign was introduced during a live TV broadcast of the marathon. - About 1000 online articles in 62 countries around the world. - It was reported by The Guardian and Independent in UK, The Wall Street Journal and NBC in the US, Le Monde in French, and other major news media in various countries. - Almost all the articles introduced that nutrition in tomatoes reduces fatigue during sports. - Worldwide advertising value equivalency is 17million USD. Knowledge/Consideration: - Views of online related videos totalled 1.5 Million. - The number of shares of related online articles on social media sites was 300,000. - Among the audience aware of the campaign, 93% accepted that tomatoes have positive effects on sports performance and 83% indicated their intention to eat tomatoes while doing sports. Business impact: - Sales of Kagome's fresh tomatoes after the campaign increased by 50% when compared to last week.

Execution

We created the world’s first wearable robot that carries 6 tomatoes and feeds them to a player during sports. For this, we teamed up with the world-famous machine artist unit Maywa Denki and a Kagome employee with a PhD in Agriculture. One month before the Tokyo Marathon, we posted scenes of the development of this robot on YouTube as a teaser. This robot and a promotional movie were revealed at the Reception for Tokyo Marathon held three days before the race. In addition, at the race, a Kagome’s employee ran wearing this robot and striking scenes of eating tomatoes were presented to media as news in Japan and around the world.

The Situation

After many years of research, Kagome discovered that the citric acid and lycopene in tomatoes reduce sports player’ fatigue and help maintain condition during sports. However, generally speaking, it is bananas that are popular as a sports food all over the world. At the Tokyo Marathon, which is one of the world’s top six marathons and has been sponsored by Kagome for the last two years, another sponsor of the marathon, Dole, has run a unique PR campaign promoting bananas every year. In topicality and media exposure, Kagome’s tomato PR campaign has been inferior to Dole’s banana campaign.

The Strategy

Investigating the success of bananas, we gained an insight that few people perceive tomatoes as a sports food. Tomatoes lack mobility; they are not easy to carry and to eat. Hence, audiences have not often seen athletes eating tomatoes while engaging in sport. Accordingly, to solve the problem of tomatoes’ lack of mobility, we took inspiration from the wearable trend as represented by the Apple Watch and made tomatoes wearable for those who plays sports, and developed an eating method too. Next, by verifying this method at a sports event attracting worldwide attention, we planned strategies highlighting eye-catching scenes of athletes eating tomatoes while engaging in sport, aiming this at media and audiences with an interest in sport.