FACE TO FACE

TitleFACE TO FACE
BrandOTSUKA PHARMACEUTICAL CO.
Product / ServiceEDUCATION OF MENTAL DISORDERS
CategoryD01. Health & Wellness: Corporate Image & Communication
EntrantTOPPAN PRINTING Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation TOPPAN PRINTING Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Takuya Hoda Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. staff
Rina Wakabayashi Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. staff
Shintaro Ono Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. staff
Keisuke Noda Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. staff
Yosuke Suzuki ERZ Photographer
Haruhiko Jinbo BEATNIK INC. Designer
Eiji Tanaka Zephyr co,ltd Space Production
Yuji Kanematsu TOW CO.,LTD Producer
Takuya Akutsu TOW CO.,LTD Producer
Shigeki Seki NPO Silver Ribbon Japan Representative
Jin Hasegawa SPADE INC. Film Director
Ryohei Nagahara DPARK INC. Producer
Shinji Okubo NEXT-SYSTEM Co.,Ltd. Programmer
Yukihiro Kimura NEXT-SYSTEM Co.,Ltd. Producer

The Campaign

We held a portrait exhibition through which visitors could simulate the experience of coming face-to-face with people with mental health problems and helping in their recovery. Based on the photos taken, we created a life-size portrait panel of each person with an eye-tracking sensor installed inside. When a visitor came face-to-face with a portrait, stories of how the subject suffered as a result of lack of understanding of people around him/her would appear. As the visitor read the stories, the face of the person shown in the portrait changed, eventually smiling when the visitor reached the end. Then a story appeared explaining how being looked in the face and receiving the understanding of family and friends helped in the person’s recovery.

Creative Execution

To create an atmosphere appropriate for a photo exhibition, we constructed a white-cube museum-like space. We designed five panels measuring 2m long by 1.5m wide in which to place life-size portraits of sufferers and installed a 4K display in the facial area of each portrait. When a visitor sits in front of each portrait, the eye-tracking sensor automatically locks on to the visitor’s line of sight. Then, four sets of random letters appear on the display. As the visitor faces the display, the letters gradually form readable sentences relating how the person suffered from the poor understanding of people around him/her. As the visitor reads the stories sentence by sentence, the face in the portrait becomes brighter and brighter, and finally smiles. At the end, the person tells how his/her recovery was helped by the understanding of his/her family and friends. We spent about nine months developing this program.

• During the period of the four-day exhibition, 1,056 visitors experienced the program, with a total of 1,969 plays for the five signage displays exhibited. • The visitor questionnaire found that about 40% of the respondents have close acquaintances who suffer from mental disorders, and added positive comments like, “I did not know how I could help them but I have decided to contact them.” • About 55% of respondents to the questionnaire reacted positively to the program, saying, for example, “I want to know more about the illnesses and those who experience them,” “I will try to look them in the face,” and “I want this exhibition to be held in other places.” • Over 40 media outlets reported on this exhibition.

Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. manufactures medications to treat mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. This campaign aimed to enhance our corporate image by improving the QOL of people experiencing such disorders rather than promoting our drugs. The target was those who have family members or friends suffering from mental health problems. In Japan, around one in every 10 to 15 people are said to be suffering from depression, which is equivalent to at least one person in every school classroom. We therefore assumed that many people have already had some contact with the disorder and so planned an event that would encourage them to engage in closer communications with sufferers. We held the event on the first floor of a building next to Tokyo Station, Japan’s central station.

Links

Supporting Webpage