THE MOTHER'SDAY SPOKESWOMAN

TitleTHE MOTHER'SDAY SPOKESWOMAN
BrandLOTTE CO., LTD.
Product / ServiceGHANA
CategoryA01. Food / Drink
EntrantDENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation DENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN
PR INITIAL Tokyo, JAPAN
Production TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION Tokyo, JAPAN
Production 2 KAKEZAN Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Michiko Sukai DENTSU INC. Creative Director
Junta Yoshikawa DENTSU INC. Creative Director
Yoshifumi Sato DENTSU INC. Copywriter
Tomoko Ishibashi DENTSU INC. Copywriter
Sakura Yamaguchi DENTSU INC. Art Director
Taishi Iwaki DENTSU INC. Planner
Honami Shimo DENTSU INC. Planner
Shinichiro Uewaki DENTSU INC. Planner
Yaichi Kubo DENTSU INC. Account Exective
Yasuwo Ugomori DENTSU INC. Account Exective
Kanako Tozawa DENTSU INC. Account Exective
Asami Ozawa DENTSU CREATIVE FORCE INC. Creative Producer
Takuma Sone INITIAL INC. PR Planner
Kei Maeoka INITIAL INC. PR Planner
Ryosuke Sato TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION Producer
Tasuku Abe TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION Production Manager
Fujimaru Totsuka Freelance Movie Director
Hiromitsu Uehara IMURA OFFICE INC. Photographer
Koji Yoshino LightNix Inc. Lighting
Ayumi Endo Freelance Prop Styling
Ayano Otaki Freelance Styling
Ayako Shimotake Freelance Hair & make up
Yuichi Miyata DADABI INC. Editor
Isao Yoshida Daruma Studio Mixer
Kohei Sato KAKEZAN INC. Technical Director

Background

Lotte's Ghana chocolate was the first Japanese chocolate brand to promote the idea of chocolates as a Mother's Day gift. Since then, Ghana has continued to encourage public appreciation of mothers. When Ghana discovered through a survey they conducted that almost half of all teenagers in Japan were too embarrassed to thank their mothers on Mother's Day, Ghana decided to find a way to encourage teenagers to give their mothers the appreciation they deserved.

Describe the creative idea

If teenagers were too embarrassed to thank their mothers directly, perhaps they would be more willing to convey their appreciation indirectly. That's how we came up with the idea of the Mother's Day Spokeswoman. We hired the perfect person for the role: superstar Naomi Watanabe, who is famous for her boisterousness and lack of inhibition. We had Watanabe act out almost 30 Mother's Day messages, from the straightforward to the cheeky and the humorous, and we uploaded them on a specially designed website. Visitors could select any one of the video messages and send it to their mothers.

Describe the strategy

Our target audience was the 50% of teenagers who indicated in our survey that they were unlikely to send their mothers a special message or gift on Mother's Day. We needed to encourage them to be more open with their mothers—but to effectively convey this message, we needed someone teenagers would listen to. So, we decided on Naomi Watanabe to play the spokeswoman. She is incredibly popular among young Japanese, as she has an exuberant personality and is often outspoken about subjects that many young Japanese are too reserved to talk about in public. By turning the annual ritual of thanking our mothers into a piece of entertainment, and involving a superstar who many young Japanese trust, we hoped to help teenagers break out of their shells and show their mothers more open appreciation.

Describe the execution

Three days before Mother's Day, we launched a special website featuring all the Mother's Day video messages starring Naomi Watanabe. The website was announced on all of Ghana's social media accounts. Visitors to the site could select a movie and simply press a button to send the video message to their mothers, either by email or by messenger app.

List the results

During the 4 days of the campaign, which culminated on Mother's Day, 70,000 people viewed the Mother's Day messages. Purchases of Ghana products increased 59% among teenagers during the 2 weeks leading up to Mother's Day, compared to the same period the previous year. The campaign also enjoyed widespread media visibility, with over 135 million media impressions.

Links

Social Media URL