HIGH SPEED SUSHI-GO- ROUND QUIZ

Short List
TitleHIGH SPEED SUSHI-GO- ROUND QUIZ
BrandVISA WORLDWIDE.
Product / ServiceVISA CARD
CategoryB13. Content Led Engagement & Marketing
EntrantBBDO JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation BBDO JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Tatsuro Kumaki I&S BBDO inc. Copywriter
Yukina Oshibe I&S BBDO inc. Planner
Takeru Nagasaki I&S BBDO inc. Planner
Yoshihisa Ogata I&S BBDO inc Executive Creative Director
Risa Taoka I&S BBDO inc. Planner
Shinichi Ikeda I&S BBDO inc. Senior Creative Director
Shuhei Ishikawa BBDO Japan Planner
Tetsunori Watarai BBDO Japan Account Executive
Takashi Nonaka Candy Film inc. Producer
Kouji Suzuki Candy Film inc. Production Manager
Takeo Murata Candy Film inc Director
Nobuhiro Kuroishi Candy Film inc. Cameraman
Shiroh Matsumura Candy Film inc. Lighting
Tomohiro Niiyama Candy Film inc. Sound Director
Chizuru Nakano Candy Film inc. Video Engineer
Daisuke Arakawa BBDO Japan Web Designer

The Campaign

A crucial part of the idea was to generate maximum conversation and to get people to know about Visa’s new acceptance location. So Visa introduced the “High Speed Sushi-Go-Round Quiz”, a series of online quiz films where people tested their sushi-selecting skills by quickly identifying what kind of sushi flashed on screen. At the end of each quiz, Visa revealed that selected sushi chains now started to accept Visa and surprised the audience. This would challenge conventional thinking by showing that, thanks to Visa, sushi dining and its payment had just got SWIFTER than ever before.

Execution

Five quizzes of varying difficulty were launched just before Japan’s “Conveyor Belt Sushi Celebration Day” (November 22nd, 2015). The quiz started with straight-forward answers and gradually got harder as answers became trickier to fool people who thought they could get it easily. This was guaranteed to make people think twice, but in an intertaining way. The quizzes were distributed through Visa’s YouTube channel and website. These were amplified by Facebook sponsored posts and promoted tweets. In order to fuel conversation on Visa’s new acceptance and get people to respond effectively to the films, a press release was issued to acquire huge coverage across online news outlets and TV programs.

With close to a million views in a month, the quiz was widely covered by local TV programs and online media around the world, generating significant amounts of social engagement and conversations. And, importantly, Visa could also open discussions with more conveyor belt sushi restaurants chains. The nominal budget – 1.5 million JPY - saw a return of over 30 million JPY worth of free media coverage. Visa effectively spread the news of their newest acceptance locations – high speed payment for a high speed meal.

The Situation

Visa needed to change cultural norm that has lasted for centuries. But with only a nominal budget, maximum impact was needed to bring awareness of their new acceptance and break conventions in sushi dining. PR was deemed to be the most suitable vehicle. Visa believed that if this story was picked by news outlets and TV programs, which in Japan still have high levels of trust and engagement, this would spark a lot of conversation. As a result, Visa would be able to accelerate this cultural change.

The Strategy

Changing behaviors is never an easy task. Japanese are habitual creatures and tend to stick to proper manners. Over the years, eating sushi has developed its own etiquette. Quickly eating and quickly paying with cash was proper sushi etiquette, which is why cash still remains king at these restaurants. For the Japanese who still believe that cash is the default payment, using their Visa card would be a big cultural change. So how do we change behaviors that have lasted hundreds of years? We needed to use other symbols that Japanese people were familiar with, or equally ingrained into their culture. One of these would be quizzes! This is a massively popular format. There are quizzes on TV programs, in ads and even hundreds, if not thousands, of apps.

Links

Video URL