Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

This work doesn’t rely on conventional product placement to increase brand awareness and make it stick in people’s minds. The content experience centers around the brand product: Whenever people enjoy the content, the brand experience always comes along. And such brand activation experience has been seamlessly established as an entertainment.

Background

Pocky, a chocolate snack made in Japan, was not well-known in the global market. In late 2019 its global launch (ASEAN + US) was planned. To make its unique signature shape design and the brand name Pocky well known, we needed a creative idea and select a right medium with a limited budget.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Pocky was already there in the world of games! We discovered that there is a moment when the health gage looks like a Pocky stick itself. Discovering this as a core idea, we created a new play style for one of the game genres which requires fighters to strictly focus on their health gages: fighting game. The rule goes, fighters need to match their health gage to Pocky’s chocolate-to-biscuit ratio by taking just the right amount of damage before winning the match: ‘Pocky K.O.’, that’s what we call it.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

We took notice of eSports because of its good compatibility with snacks: players often eat snacks while playing and viewers while watching eSports. Plus, we considered non-verbal entertainment with global fan base is the key to make the global launch a success. Therefore we considered eSports/game market was an ideal domain. On the other hand, we knew that only a strong engaging content can gain world’s attention, not just co-sponsored placement, a lot of which are already out there. That’s how we produced a creative idea: ‘Play’cement, instead of ‘Place’ment.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Together with the world’s most played fighting game ‘Street Fighter’, we created a new way to enjoy it. The new rule: control your health gage to match up with the Pocky’s chocolate and biscuit ratio and when it perfectly matches, beat your opponent: Pocky K.O. In collaboration with Capcom, we developed and launched an original version of Street Fighter, ’Street Fighter V Pocky EDITION’, implementing Pocky K.O. UI specification. The first debut was at the Street Fighter’s World Tournament 2019. Professional gamers played it to celebrate its exhibition match and the excitement was streamed across the world and went viral. “Now any health gages just look like Pocky to me!”, said some participants. We also held user-interactive events and sold limited edition Pocky packages, all contributed to driving Pocky’s sales.

List the results (30% of vote)

To win, players have to maintain control over their own health gauge like never before, creating a totally new gaming experience. This campaign was rolled out in ASEAN countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and U.S. as well as Japan. It caused a ton of buzz over social media, word spreads throughout ASEAN, U.S. and beyond, reaching over a hundred countries without any ad spending. Most importantly, this campaign contributed to sales increase. ・Total Views 4.5 million（YouTube & Twitch） ・Total Online Readership 78.6 billion ・Pocky’s Sales increase by 120%