Why is this work relevant for PR?

Coffee is exposed to low-cost competition as a daily FMCG, and the consumers can easily switch the brands at the store. Nescafe tried to change the game: Not to compete over the differences in price and subtle product specifications, but to satisfy customers' spiritual satisfaction and to increase the number of Nescafe fans. So, we tried to have a deep grasp of the situation where the target women are placed in society, to solve the problems they face. And we tried to let them recognize through social and earned media that even a cup of coffee can empower working women.

Background

Nescafe Ice-Crema Coffee is a product that allows consumers to enjoy the quality of a full-fledged cafe in their office or home. As a brand that encourages working women to take a break from work, it has entered its third marketing season. In Japan as well as in the world, when women advance into society and play an active role, the balance between work and family, the division of roles of working couples, and barriers due to past customs are the cause of their busyness. In the survey, 33% of working women are too busy to have their own time. At those case, there was data that if they have a small habit of feeling happy, they can increase their vitality by 21%. Nescafe thought that a brief coffee break in the middle of a busy job have to become a habit to change their mind and encourage them.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Nescafe has started a project that uses AI to produce a new work by Japan's most famous poet, who died 28 years ago. His name is Aida Mitsuo (1924-1991). He left many poems that affirm and praise human as it is. “It's ok even if you stumble, we're only human.” “All happiness depends on your own mind.” etc... His words gently wrap up those who are distressed, and there are a lot of persistent fans still now. We realized the revival of Aida Mitsuo by combining two AIs. First, the sentence-generating AI learned more than 500 poems and created 8000 new poems. Then, the emotion-analysis AI diagnosed deep psychology from the characteristics of women's voices, and graphed the degree of joy, sadness, anger, calmness, and energy. We have completed a system that gives each person the best poem according to their analysis results.

Describe the strategy (30% of vote)

We named this poet program as AI-da Mitsuo and made it a mascot character preferred by Japanese women. Many new poems that give freedom to women's hearts were generated. “No one can grade any others.” “Your heart isn't complete. There's nothing wrong with you.” etc... PR strategy was planned with the key messages of “AI, but it is more human than humans” and “Aida Mitsuo really revived in the 21st century”. We set the main target as women in their 30s and 40s. An event at a cafe where working women can stop by during their work, and a website were the center of the campaign. In both touch points, women could receive the AI-generated words, and the word of mouth was expanded. Then, we focused on TV information programs which they check in the morning and evening, and Twitter which they frequently check alone on weekday nights and holidays.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

In PR event at the café, we installed an experience device with a statue of AI-da Mitsuo. When women talked to AI-da Mitsuo, it analyzed the hidden subconscious from their voice and distributed poems on the latte art according to their psychological state. Visitors were surprised at and convinced the analysis, and enjoyed coffee with poems. On the website, we started a service that uses the microphone function of smartphones to perform psychological analysis using voice and give each woman a fitting poem. At the same time, we announced this campaign on the millions of product package. In addition, we distributed the digital contents designed with the character of AI-da Mitsuo to let women sent the poems to their friends on SNS. All of the activation measures were integrated from the point of purchase to the web and real event.

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

The PR event was featured in TV programs and online news, then 300 medias reported it immediately. Furthermore, on the first day of the event Mr. Aida Kazuto, the son of Aida Mitsuo, was invited to the cafe. He highly appreciated the poem generated by AI, media exposure has increased further. On Twitter, a number of comments are posted along with generated poems, and then spread quickly. “These words are so deep to me!” “What a clever campaign! I want to drink this coffee!” “I think this analysis is true! Thanks for the nice words! “I got a little bit better, Mitsuo!” and so on. In this way, Twitter impressions reached over 14.2 million. Aida Mitsuo's persistent fans were pleased with this service and contributed to the expansion of Nescafe's targets. The service on the website was experienced by 340,000 people, and the digital contents were downloaded by more than 600,000 people beyond our expectations. Ice-crema coffee sales are also strong, recording a 10% increase over the previous year, even during the campaign. Through a series of PR campaign, the brief coffee break of working women has steadily become an opportunity to switch their minds. It changed women's coffee habits and enhanced the engagement between targets and the brand.