The Campaign

Searching for Saga’s uniqueness, we found inspiration in its fauna: A variety of rare animals inhabit the mudflats of the Ariake sea. A spectacle of nature only to be seen in Saga is the fights between the walking fish Mutsugoro and the fiddler crab Shiomaneki. However, even among the locals, only few know about the territorial reasons. Their combative nature is also rooted in Japanese entertainment: 80s hero series like Ultraman and The Power Rangers and many other classics are still vastly popular across generations. These shows are known as “Tokusatsu movies” (Tokusatsu roughly translates to “special effects” and refers to the Japanese monster or hero movie genre. It is one of the most popular forms of Japanese entertainment). So we applied this genre for our campaign and reimagined the Mutsugoro and the Shiomaneki as retro-style archenemies.

Creative Execution

In a press conference in Saga’s city hall on July 9th 2015, we launched twomusic videos in the retro Tokusatsu style known for its practical effects and low production costs, which helped to achieve great effect with minimum budget. The movies feature Mutsugoro and Shiomaneki, two species of the tidelands as archenemies. Music and lyrics spoof all-time classics of the Tokusatsu genre and get the smiling muscles working. All characters were casted locally: Hanawa, a famous Japanese comedian from Saga, played the part of the villain; the Mayor of Saga made an appearance. On the website, people can vote for their personal winner of the battle. The Mayor further supported the campaign in press conferences where he encouraged fellow citizens to synergize with the campaign by developing and selling own goods and services. The Mayor’s encouragement started a grassroots-movement of entrepreneurial citizens providing own goods and tourist activities.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

With zero media spend and 15,000 USD invested in mostly production (see “Budget Details”) our campaign achieved 101 media impressions worth a total of 6.015.998 USD (660.282.419 JPY) between July 9 and November 13: - TV coverage: 5,899,235 USD (over 1hr on prime time) - Newspapers: 71,053 USD - Online blogs & News: 44,726 USD - Radio: 984 USD Inbound tourism increased by 140% within 6 months, against 10% per year objective. –Our campaign kick-started a local entrepreneurial grassroots-movement as we let citizens participate and leverage the branding for their own services and merchandize targeted at tourist. They contribute to the intended organic growth of city branding. In Japan, the license holder and only lawful distributor of city promotion merchandize is normally the city itself. We left all revenue to them, so it is not possible for us to track sales and revenue of goods and merchandize developed within this campaign.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Our unorthodox promotion campaign for Saga City (Japan) featured two humorous music videos that sparked a wave of creative participation and grew organically to attract tourists and increase revenue for the city. With our promotion campaign, Saga has turned into a popular destination for family excursions. Since last year, visitors have increased by 140%. How we know our campaign achieved to connect and excite Japanese across generations? Switch on Japanese TV and you will see costumed children reenact our music videos at school events, bus tours, and merchandize with our branding – all operated and produced by Saga’s citizens.

We wanted to establish Saga’s tidelands as a domestic travel destination, especially for families with young children. To make the most of our limited budget, we aimed for organic growth: we empowered local citizens by providing them with a concept and for their own entrepreneurial and creative endeavors to support their city. To guarantee a successful campaign and citizen participation, the Mayor regularly supported the campaign in press conferences, on TV and with visits to events. With his encouragement, citizens to jumped on the campaign’s bandwagon. Massive TV coverage followed, with prime time variety shows sending their anchorpeople to Saga to explore the two bizarre animals and the hype surrounding them.