A SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT EXAM - MOTHER'S DAY

TitleA SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT EXAM - MOTHER'S DAY
BrandSOGO & SEIBU CO., LTD.
Product / ServiceMother's Day Test
CategoryA04. Online: Non-fiction
EntrantDENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation DENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN
Production DENTSU CREATIVE X INC. Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
On Namiki DENTSU INC. Senior creative director
Hisao Ohtsuka DENTSU INC. creative director/planner/copy writer
Masahiro Toriumi DENTSU INC. Art director
Koutaro Hashimoto DENTSU INC. Agency Sales
Yasuhiro Natori DENTSU INC. Agency Sales
Eri Seitoku DENTSU INC. Agency Sales
Aiko Kurikawa DENTSU CREATIVE FORCE INC. creative producer
Hiroyuki Sagae DENTSU CREATIVE X INC. producer
Yuya Hayashi DENTSU CREATIVE X INC. production manager
Yutaka Obara DRAWING AND MANUAL. Director/photographer
Satoru Nishigaki Freelance Photographer
Temjin Shimizu IMAGE STUDIO 109, INC. Recording engineer
Masayuki Kubo Freelance Offline/Online editor
Kenichirou Miyake Pineapple Associates Inc. Location coordinator
Yota Ohsugi HandY Inc. Casting

The Campaign

We thought it was important to get children to want to express gratitude towards their parents for themselves. We prepared a hundred-question test that asked about everything from their parents’ profile to what they thought of their children. By creating a time in which children had to reflect on their parents, they would come to the realization that even though they were close, there were many things they didn’t know about them, and we hoped this realization would stir up feelings of gratitude. To parents, the test answers themselves would be a present that symbolized the time children spent thinking about them, and for children, the test would be an opportunity to express things they would normally be too embarrassed to say.

Creative Execution

Mothers Day Campaign (4/23/2018-6/30/2018) Released a web video showing 38 University of Tokyo students taking a Mother’s Day test, then calling their mothers to ask the answers and reacting to some of their unexpected replies. Father’s Day Campaign (6/8/2018-6/30/2018) We had 11 fathers grade their children’s Father’s Day Tests, had them tell their children the results, recorded the process and released a web video. Store Front Trial (4/24/2018-6/17/2018) 1600 people participated in a special store front test for parents and children.

The videos reached a combined 2 million plays and the project was picked up by 28 programs including NHK, and 24 publications including Nikkei. Beyond just showing the video, programs put spotlight on the plan itself, going as far as creating segments with street corner interviews in which individual Mother’s and Father’s Day Tests were carried out, resulting in more than 700 million yen of PR. We also uploaded test questions onto the internet, drawing participants that would post their results on social media and sparking conversations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. We succeeded in raising awareness of these two special days and are still receiving requests to do similar projects for other days of appreciation.

By having test participants share their answers with their parents, we created a situation in which they could convey thoughts they would normally be too embarrassed to say. We filmed the project without releasing the plan’s contents and didn’t offer any direction in order to get real emotional reactions from test participants and their parents, resulting in a moving new approach to Mother’s and Father’s Day.

Rather than simply prompting people to express gratitude, we created a country-wide Mother’s and Father’s Day Test to cause people to want to express gratitude for themselves. The campaign was carried out through videos, print, and store-front advertising. The test caused children to realize how little they knew about their parents and how grateful they should be for them. For parents, the test was a lovely present that symbolized the time children spent thinking of them, and for children, it was an opportunity to express things they would otherwise be too embarrassed to say. The idea was to make a “product” out of this special day for parents and their children. The campaign was a new approach to Mother’s and Father’s Day.

Links

Additional URL