Brief Explanation

Hiroshima Prefecture is the largest oyster production site in Japan. However, the consumption of oysters is dropping year after year. To increase the consumption of oysters and make them into a local asset, we need to encourage the citizens to change their indifference into love toward oysters. First, the prefecture announced the shocking fact: 99% of the citizens cannot write oyster in kanji (characters traditionally used in Japan), despite oyster is the local specialty for a long time. The shameful fact made them realized the lack of affection toward oysters. Also, we launched an original kanji workbook as an official assignment for Hiroshima’s students. This workbook prompted citizens to learn about oysters from scratch by letting them to practice writing kanji 100 times! This campaign was appeared over 300 media despite the limited budget of USD 55,000. Then, the consumption of oysters increased 1.98 times from the previous year.

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.