Background

Japan, a country of hot springs. Because of the popularity among inbound tourists, competition for hot spring towns has been increasing nationwide, making it difficult to raise awareness without large ad budgets or newsworthiness. Ito Onsen is located on the Izu Peninsula, one of the main hot spring areas in Japan. The City of Ito decided to attract visitors through a completely different PR approach from other popular hot springs.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

To give unique value to the City of Ito, we focused on a small event called Makuranage - pillow fighting. When we were children, everyone played Makuranage at Onsen Inns or stayovers. The Makuranage games originated in Ito-City. We positioned this event as a sport, and changed people’s mindset toward Makuranage to renew the image of the city.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

The campaign featured a former Gymnastics Olympian and launched dynamic visuals of Makuranage. The six unique rules as a sport were visualized and hung around the venues, stations and as OOH in the city. In addition, an original website was built with videos to spread Makuranage nationwide and recruit players. Also, a service was started to allow teams to make official Yukata uniforms with original design.

List the results (20% of vote)

This innovative promotion for a hot spring resort, Ito, generated buzz and brought many visitors to the city. ・$110,000 INVESTMENT ・$2.4M WORTH OF MEDIA IMPRESSIONS ・160% INCREASE of INQUIRIES on EVENT ・OVER 5,000 PILLOW FIGHTERS A YEAR ・10% INCREASE of VISITORS to ITO-CITY ・CITY APPEAL RANKING in 2018, Below 100th → in 2019, rose to 77th