Why is this work relevant for PR?

Lotte's Ghana chocolate 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. To encourage these teenagers to show their mothers the appreciation they deserved, we presented them with the Mother's Day Spokeswoman, who acted out almost 30 video messages that were uploaded on a specially created website. We hired Naomi Watanabe—the biggest superstar among young Japanese—to play the role. Her involvement helped us gain a huge amount of earned media that brought a significant number of people to the website.

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 the survey 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 (20% of vote)

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 (30% of vote)

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 (20% of vote)

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

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.