Why is this work relevant for PR?

The RED RESTAURANTS LIST is essentially a PR project that changed people's perception of the restaurants from “irrelevant, worthless and simply old” to “valuable, scarce, and worth visiting right now.”

Background

Takasaki city, Japan. Left behind from the excitement for the upcoming Olympics, the town was getting desolate with an aging population. With this impacting the food industry, more and more private restaurants were closing down. Amid the receding customer and lack of successors, our objective was to save the old restaurants in this town.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We created the world’s first gourmet guide, RED RESTAURANTS LIST that conserves “endangered restaurants.” The conditions to be selected for the RED RESTAURANTS LIST, the owner has to be old, the restaurant has to be worn-out, and have no successor. The food has to be so good that we want to keep it alive for generations to come.

Describe the strategy (30% of vote)

When people hear about the fact that the “good old restaurants” are closing down, they rush to eat at the store and the media picks that up. So we designated these just old private restaurants as “valuable, scarce restaurants that people should go to right now.” This is how we created a new gourmet rating guide similar to the Michelin Guide. We have two types of targets. One is citizens of Takasaki. We needed them to know that there are many good old restaurants and be proud of them. The other is people who live outside of the city. We need to let them know the unique food culture of this town and attract them to come to the city. In order for us to take this gourmet guide and effectively reach those various targets and media, the guide expanded into a website, books, tools and even television programs.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We introduced these restaurants that have been in town for years as “valuable restaurants that people should eat at and preserve” through gourmet website, book, and through national television program. Furthermore, in order to preserve the taste and flavor for future generations, recruitment ads were posted for the restaurants to find long-awaited successors to protect the diminishing restaurants in the city.

List the results (30% of vote) – must include at least two of the following tiers:

The unprecedented project received attention across the country, popularizing the rural town. As the result, this PR project brought huge economic effect to this local town. Detailed results are as follows. （Media Outputs） - Publicity Exposure: $15 million - Trending topic on Twitter and Google and Yahoo! in Japan （Target Audience Outcomes） - Social Mentions of the city: 1200% Increase compared to last year - About 60% of citizens said that their love and pride for the town increased - Visitors to the city: ＋400,000 compared to last year （Business Outcomes） - Restaurants Sales: 30% Increase on average　 - Economic Effect on the city: $5 million Furthermore, by posting recruitment ads, multiple restaurants found long-awaited successors. The RED RESTAURANTS LIST change the people’s behavior in other prefectures of Japan, as well. The conservation activity is now in action across the country.

Please tell us about the brand in relation to the locality or market where the product/service is distributed

Currently, the major cities in Japan are pushing a large urban development project in preparation for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Takasaki is a rural town with a population of 400,000 people. Left behind from the excitement for the upcoming Olympics, the town was getting desolate with an aging population. With this impacting the food industry, many local restaurants that have been around for generations are having to close down one by one and this has been a serious point of concern for the city. The people therefore wanted Takasaki City to revitalize the old local restaurants in the area.