Why is this work relevant for Direct?

We homed in on two key insights—that children were increasingly stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that there was no edutainment being created specifically for the toilet—to produce a calendar designed to be hung on the back of the toilet door and offer edutainment to children while they use the toilet. We then distributed these to our clients as well as our customers—children and their parents—to directly engage them in presenting our transformation from amusement park developer to edutainment producer, as well as our outside-the-box approach to edutainment.

Background

After operating amusement facilities in eight countries around Asia, Aeon Fantasy decided in 2020 to rebrand itself as an edutainment producer. They are currently developing content and facilities designed to bridge the gap between education and entertainment. In order to win over both the children who are their target demographic and their parents, Aeon Fantasy needed to reintroduce themselves to the world—and to their own employees—with a product that was both attention-grabbing and a clear demonstration of the company’s outside-the-box approach to edutainment.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

Every month of the Whose Poo? calendar is represented by a colorful illustration showing the digestive tract of a different animal, inside which various foods get digested over time until they plop out of the digestive tract at the end of the month. The animal is only revealed on the back of the page—along with humorous descriptions of the animal’s diet and the shape, color, and smell of its poo. This design allows children to play at guessing what animal the illustration is depicting and to then deepen their knowledge of that animal when they flip the page to find the answer.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

With so many children stuck indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we focused on edutainment for the home—and homed in on the toilet. By developing a product tailored to an unconventional place of study like the toilet, we believed we could deliver a strong first impression and cement our status as a company that can turn any place or situation into an edutainment opportunity. This immediately led us to our second idea: producing an edutainment calendar. Like many companies in Japan, we send calendars to our customers as a New Year’s greeting, and these are often hung on the back of the toilet door as a decoration in lieu of artwork. Combining the two ideas, we came up with a calendar made specifically for the toilet: a Whose Poo? calendar for teaching children about various animals through the contents and products of their digestive systems.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We prepared 30,000 copies to distribute among our customers. Anyone visiting one of our 430 amusement facilities could get a calendar just by filling out a survey. We also sent out copies to our clients for New Year’s, allowing them to double as a seasonal greeting and as a product sample designed to entice future collaborations. We also hung copies in all our offices and amusement facilities to increase awareness among our employees about our new brand image as an edutainment producer.

List the results (30% of vote)

Following the launch, the calendar was covered by over 40 media outlets. As a result, we immediately ran out of our initial run of 30,000 copies. Many schools and public organizations requested copies of the calendar, which we distributed to over fifty preschools and daycare centers.