SMARTPHONE POSTCARD

TitleSMARTPHONE POSTCARD
BrandJAPAN POST
Product / ServicePOSTAL SERVICE
CategoryB02. Promotional Item Design
EntrantASATSU-DK Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation ASATSU-DK Tokyo, JAPAN
Production BBMEDIA Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Osamu Tamura ADK Creative Director
Kaori Miki ADK Art Director
Tomoko Hamada ADK Art Director
Kanako Yoshimatsu ADK Planning Director
Jumpei Yoshida ADK Creative director/Planner
Kazumasa Kondo ADK Executive Producer
Katsunori Kitanaka ADK Account Executive
Kazuya Mishima ADK Account Executive
Tomotaka Mieno ADK Arts Event Director
Okuyama Tsukasa ADK Arts Event Director
Haruhiko Furuya ADK PR Director
Osamu Negishi ADK PRINT PRODUCER
Shunsuke Kashima ADK Associate Producer
Kodai Tanaka BBmedia Inc. Director
Ryo Atsumi BBmedia Inc. Executive Producer
Shinya Miyazaki BBmedia Inc. Film Producer
Chie Habara BBmedia Inc. Web Director
Keisuke Yoshida BBmedia Inc. Web Director
Nanae Noda BBmedia Inc. Web Director
Misa Matsukawa BBmedia Inc. Web Designer
Keisuke Yoshida BBmedia Inc. Coder
Masahiro Kashiwabara BBmedia Inc. Programmer
Yasuhiro Kobari BBmedia Inc. Visual Effect
Yang Xiaodong BBmedia Inc. Animator
Hidekazu Sakamoto BBmedia Inc. Music Composer
Hidekazu Sakamoto BBmedia Inc. Sound Designer
Hideki Maruyama BBmedia Inc. Sound Studio Producer

The Campaign

Christmas time was chosen as a time to share love and express feelings. There were two seemingly contradicting needs that spurred the idea: the urge to convey immediately what people felt then and there with their loved ones, plus the recognition of how nice it would be to physically send this as a handwritten message. By merging the smartphone and the traditional postcard, the idea of the world’s very first Smartphone Postcard was developed.

Creative Execution

A special postcard system was developed, where people could send the handwritten message through a QR code. The QR code would be pasted onto the postcard and sent physically through post. Upon receiving the postcard, the recipient would then place the postcard on their smartphone, tap Play, and the movie and personal handwritten message would appear. This was a method devised uniting the paper postcard with digital technology.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

This challenge gained high level of media exposure, worth 120 million JPY (1.17 million USD). The Smartphone Postcard was accepted as a new form of communication tool by the young and the old, people of all ages. Japan Post sees potential in this new business are, and is trying to advance the smartphone postcard to a new regular service offering.

The target audience was everyone who had forgotten the joys of sending and receiving handwritten postcards, and who now mainly use smartphones as means of communication. It was important not to regard the smartphone as a threat, but to utilize it as an opportunity. By combining what seemed like opposites, the old (postcard) and the new (smartphone), an experience that could not be achieved with just the postcard, or just the smartphone would be successfully created. The strategy was also based on insight that people still treasured handwritten messages, especially from their loved ones.