The Campaign

99% of citizens cannot write the kanji characters meaning oyster. Japanese people start to learn Kanji from childhood, and it is natural for Japanese to be able to write "something familiar" in kanji characters. So, it is regarded as disgraceful or immature that if you only use kana (without using kanji) to write words that adults should write in kanji naturally. We utilized this culture. Hiroshima prefecture officially announced that “99 percent of Hiroshima citizens cannot write Oyster in Kanji” although it is a specialty of the prefecture. That made huge impact on citizens who believed that they loved oysters. Therefore, we developed “Oyster Kanji Workbook”. Normally, Kanji workbooks have various words, but this only has one word, “Oyster”. All sentences are oyster related and you can practice writing oyster in kanji even 100 times. People can learn various oysters' tips, histories, and cultures from scratch through producing this workbook.

Creative Execution

We did not use any budget for paid ads. We utilized only PR approach. We rolled out the plan in three steps, using the core idea that “99% of prefectural citizens cannot write oyster in kanji.” 1: Shocking announcement offcially: Informed that “99% of Hiroshima citizens cannot write Oyster in Kanji accurately” as an official prefecture's announcement. Many media in charge of prefectural matters featured the topic as a serious issue for the prefecture. 2. Released “Oyster Kanji Workbook”: After it has certified as official textbook by prefectural board of education, we delivered it to about 50 Hiroshima elementary schools as “winter break homework”. 3. Executed Kanji exam in schools after winter break: Almost all students become able to write oyster in Kanji. Hiroshima medias featured an information that “In Hiroshima, only students can write oysters in Kanji” and let adults in Hiroshima to give further shocks.

Results

These efforts were taken up in over 300 media, and an exposure value reached 2.8 million USD. It was 50.9 times better investment efficiency than a limited advertisement budget of 55,000 USD. Consequently, the quantity of oysters purchased increased 1.98 times compared with the previous year. Also, the number of restaurants introducing new oyster-based dishes by 117 in a year. And, this campaign had a good effect regarding oysters to both Hiroshima citizens and tourists. As a survey, 33.1% of Hiroshima citizens, and 63.6% of outsiders answered "I feel attractive about oysters as tourism asset in Hiroshima", and it was 10+ point higher than survey before campaign. And as a result of the campaign, at least pupils in the sixth grade in elementary school are now able to write oyster in kanji.

Hiroshima prefecture is known from home and abroad as a No.1 prefecture of producing Oysters for 700 years.?On this campaign, Hiroshima prefecture officially announced that “99 percent of Hiroshima citizens cannot write beloved Oyster in Kanji”. To not be able to write things that are attached to Japanese people was big damage to their pride, and we succeeded in making big chance for people to be interested in oysters by utilizing this damage. As a result, purchase quantity of oysters in Hiroshima increased by 1.98 times.

Mentioned above, Japanese people believe that it is natural we are able to express in kanji almost all things surrounded us. In Hiroshima, of course there are a lot of opportunities to see “oyster in kanji” everyday life. So the fact that “99 percent of Hiroshima citizens cannot write Oyster in Kanji” made huge impact for citizens and tourists. Also Japanese children generally grow up through practice writing Kanji over and over with kanji workbook. So we utilized Kanji workbooks as a motif of “learning oysters from the beginning” and created new Kanji workbook. Besides, without so called traditional advertising methods, we delivered this Kanji workbook to Hiroshima elementary schools as a prefecture authorized official textbook. As a result, we created a fact that “only elementary school students can write oysters in Kanji form”, and we succeeded to let adults in Hiroshima to give further shocks.