Background

Pocky sticks have been Japan's top-selling chocolate snack for decades, and are particularly popular with kids and teenagers, for whom the social interaction of sharing them with friends is a key part of their appeal. But sales to young adults were weaker, and our brief was to develop this underserved market segment by finding a way to make the product appealing to young adults. In addition, the brief called for us to achieve these results economically, without an above-the-line media campaign.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

Our creative idea was to reimagine Pocky sticks, which are traditionally packaged and sold like other confectionary products through supermarket and convenience store sales channels, and reposition them as a fashionable gift item for social media-conscious young adults. To support the repositioning effort we designed a new line of product packages, gift boxes, and carrier bags for use only at upscale gift shops and non-traditional sales outlets, and created posters and short movies that showcased the iconically branded new packaging.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

To appeal to the sophisticated design sense of adult consumers, our posters displayed the stylish new packages in a variety of colorful and artistic configurations. This not only maximized the visual impact of in-store displays, it also helped suggest ways that customers could create their own stylish gift assortments that they could photograph and post on social media.

List the results (20% of vote)

Working together with the other elements of our campaign, the posters increased brand visibility and helped us successfully transform a familiar snack food into a fashionable gift item, resulting in significantly higher sales to the young adult target segment where the brand had previously been weakest. The campaign also opened up totally new sales channels where the gift box assortment concept led to much higher unit sales per customer than traditional supermarket and convenience store outlets.