Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

During the Covid-19 pandemic when it is easy for stress to build up, the campaign put together a collection of vignettes about stressful events in daily life, inviting people to identify with them. Using the vehicle of the three-minute timer, the campaign offered the brand message of making life fun through food.

Background

Chicken Ramen Akuma no Kimura is a crave-inducing, spicy kimchi-flavored product. We created a new TV commercial timed with the March 2020 redesign of the package and contents. At the same time, we launched an online campaign to build excitement for the product redesign.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

Since people say that stress is good for relieving stress, we proposed the idea that if you build up stress before eating the “stress” of Akuma no Kimura spicy ramen, it will make the ramen taste even better. Then we created a three-minute timer of the worst user moments that cause irritation to build up, for use during the time from adding boiling water until the product is ready to eat. GIFs of the mascot character Hiyoko-chan getting irritated were posted to the product’s official Twitter account and became a trending topic. The stress-inducing timer was released three days later. As the timer ticks down, Hiyoko-chan’s stress reaches its limit and Hiyoko-chan transforms, with its transformation shown in the TV commercial released at the same time. Of course, the product is promoted during the timer’s countdown too.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

We assumed that the consumers who are the target of the product are people who feel stress and use Twitter and other social media. We designed the campaign to use the brand’s mascot character, who has always engaged in buzz-generating communication in the context of online culture, to spread the campaign message in tweets from the official account and create online buzz. At the same time, the redesigned product was launched in a TV commercial, aiming for further campaign spread.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

In this time when people are experiencing built-up stress from the Covid-19 pandemic, we jumped on the trending online topic and had Hiyoko-chan, the Chicken Ramen mascot character, post tweets from the official Chicken Ramen account about feeling stressed out. The sudden change in the character’s temperament became a topic of online news. Keeping with this flow, the account began posting GIFs taken from the stress-inducing timer. One GIF was posted a day, and the stress-inducing timer and TV commercial were released three days later. The campaign is designed so that something bad happens to Hiyoko-chan every five seconds during the three minutes the timer counts down. Hiyoko-chan’s irritation builds until it reaches its limit and Hiyoko-chan transforms in the TV commercial.

List the results (30% of vote)

People identified with the vignettes of daily irritations and the campaign became a trending topic, especially with people feeling stress from the Covid-19 pandemic. Total views: More than 9 million Total shares: More than 165,000 Total likes: More than 300,000 The campaign was featured in news stories and also contributed to product sales.