IT WAS THIS HIGH

TitleIT WAS THIS HIGH
BrandYAHOO JAPAN CORPORATION
Product / ServiceYAHOO! JAPAN
CategoryB04. Use of Outdoor
EntrantHAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation 2 HAKUHODO INC. Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Kazuaki Hashida HAKUHODO Kettle Creative Director
Yasutaka Ide HAKUHODO Inc Copywriter
Yusei Kakizaki HAKUHODO Inc Art Director
Shoko Uchida HAKUHODO Inc Copywriter
Goichi Nagakawa Adsalt Designer
Akane Fujimaki Adsalt Designer
Ken Okada HAKUHODO Inc Account Director
Daiki Yamagata HAKUHODO Inc Account Service
Shinya Uchida Yahoo Japan Corporation Brand Manager
Yoko Wake Yahoo Japan Corporation Brand Manager
Hisaya Kato AOI Pro. Chief producer
Tomonori Nakamura AOI Pro. Production Manager
Hiroaki Maji AOI Pro. Production Manager
Miyuki Akimoto AOI Pro. Planning Director

The Campaign

The tallest tsunami resulting from the earthquake was 16.7m high. Everyone heard this number on the news and read it in the newspaper or online, but it’s tough to imagine in real terms. So, we used a huge billboard on the landmark in Tokyo and drew a line “IT WAS THIS HIGH” to etch this massive height into people’s memories and bring up the topic of disaster preparation.

Creative Execution

How we were able to make them imagine the height and fear of the disaster. 1. We used a huge and iconic billboard on the landmark in Tokyo. By placing this message in the middle of “people’s daily lives (where those who had not experienced the disaster could never imagine that tsunami would come)”, created attention and made them stop and see it. 2. Used just a simple red line “IT WAS THIS HIGH” plus a message to tell the importance of disaster preparation. By limiting the information given, we made people think and imagine how the fear of the tsunami was within their heads. Thus, our message stayed strongly in people’s memories.

The biggest achievement was that this single red line sparked the conversations about disaster preparation and reminded people of the importance of it. With $2.3 million organic media coverage, this single red line was spread and reached over 22 million people. 89% of them answered, “ It made me consider about disaster preparation”.

In order to raise consciousness toward disaster preparation, we needed to make people imagine the height and fear of the tsunami, which was 16.7 m high, caused in the Japan Earthquake. So we drew a single red line “IT WAS THIS HIGH” on the landmark in Tokyo. We made the most use of the single billboard from the viewpoint of its location, its size and its form.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Yahoo! JAPAN has and will always see March 11th as the day to raise consciousness towards disaster preparation, and the problem was that people who had not experienced the disaster has lower consciousness towards it. The key was, how we could make them imagine the height and fear of the disaster.