| Title | IT WAS THIS HIGH |
| Brand | YAHOO JAPAN CORPORATION |
| Product / Service | YAHOO! JAPAN |
| Category | B04. Business Citizenship / Corporate Responsibility & Environmental |
| Entrant | HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN |
| Idea Creation | HAKUHODO KETTLE Tokyo, JAPAN |
| Idea Creation 2 | HAKUHODO INC. Tokyo, JAPAN |
| 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 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 drew a line “IT WAS THIS HIGH” on the landmark in Tokyo to etch this massive height into people’s memories and bring up the topic of disaster preparation.
How we were able to make them imagine the height and fear of the disaster. 1. We used a huge and iconic 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”.
By drawing a single red line “IT WAS THIS HIGH” on the iconic landmark in the middle of Tokyo, we made people think and imagine the fear and the height of the tsunami caused in the Great East Japan Earthquake. People’s imagination sparked the conversations about disaster preparation and raise consciousness toward it.
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. We needed to create conversations about disaster preparation within both media and people. The key was, how we could make them imagine the height and fear of the disaster.