The Campaign

Since there are no football stadiums in central Tokyo, we turned one of the busiest intersections in the city into a lively football stadium on the season kick-off weekend for the Japanese football league. We created the “DAZN Human Billboard”, an interactive outdoor campaign that incorporates both a traditional/human billboard and digital display, placed on opposing ends of the intersection. With the participation of passersby in the Goal Challenge against the goalkeeper on the digital display, the human billboard transformed the entire intersection into a “football stadium”. Additionally, by integrating the mannequin challenge that was a timely trend at the time, we drew more attention towards the human billboard.

Creative Execution

The “DAZN Human Billboard”, a campaign to create hype around the Japanese football season kick-off, is an interactive outdoor campaign that incorporates both a traditional/human billboard and digital display placed on opposing ends of an intersection. On the 3.5mx8.5m billboard designed to look like a stadium stand, 18 football fans sat motionless like the mannequin challenge. Passersby were invited to come up on stage to play a digital penalty kick game, where they would flick the ball on a tablet screen towards the large digital display on the other side of the crossing. A goalkeeper would appear on the screen and try to defend the goal. The moment the challenger took the shot, the 18 fans on the billboard would suddenly start singing football chants slotting the challenger’s name and applauding them for their challenge. By involving the entire intersection, we recreated the liveliness of a football stadium.

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

Over the two days of the season opening weekend, we created a campaign for 100 participants that resulted in over 60,000 pedestrians experiencing the “stadium atmosphere”, as well as reaching a wider, mass audience via coverage on various media channels and social media posts. We received comments from participants such as “they stopped by after watching the game at the stadium because they saw the campaign on social media” or “they participated to show support for their favorite team”.

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

The “DAZN Human Billboard” is an interactive campaign composed by the participation of three parties. The first is the 18 football fans dressed up in the 18 different uniforms of the league’s clubs, sitting motionless on the billboard. The second is the goalkeeper in the digital screen across the street from the human billboard, defending the goal behind him. The third is the challenger (passerby) that we invited on stage to participate in the Goal Challenge.The collaboration of these three parties worked in recreating the liveliness of a football stadium at one of the busiest intersections in Tokyo.

The primary target for our campaign was potential football/sports fans who did not actively watch football because of the lack of convenient access to the sport. We also placed focus on the how widely we could reach with our billboard as well as how deep in terms of understanding towards the trending shift to streaming services in Japan. Based on these conditions, we set up our campaign at the Jingumae Intersection, one of the busiest crossings in Tokyo. The area is also one of the biggest tourist spots in the city, hence reaching potential fans from all over the country and outside. We recreated the liveliness of the football stadium by including the entire intersection, interactively reaching an approximate of over 60,000 people over one weekend.