Title | YUKIMI DAIKUFU |
Brand | LOTTE CO., LTD. |
Product / Service | YUKIMI DAIFUKU |
Category | E05. Sponsorship & Brand Partnership |
Entrant | DENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN |
Idea Creation | DENTSU INC. Tokyo, JAPAN |
PR | PLATINUM Tokyo, JAPAN |
Production | TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION Tokyo, JAPAN |
Production 2 | PUZZLE Tokyo, JAPAN |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Junta Yoshikawa | DENTSU INC. | Creative Director |
Eriko Ishibashi | DENTSU INC. | Creative Director/Copywriter |
Iyoda Chie | LOTTE CO., LTD. | Art Director |
Satoshi Takahashi | DENTSU INC. | Communication Planner / PR Planner |
Shinichiro Uewaki | DENTSU INC. | Communication Planner |
Yoshihumi Sato | DENTSU INC. | Social Planner |
Sara Tembata | DENTSU INC. | Communication Planner |
Yaichi Kubo | DENTSU INC. | Account Executive |
Ryo Ito | DENTSU INC. | Account Executive |
Yuma Shibata | DENTSU INC. | Account Executive |
Kanako Tozawa | DENTSU INC. | Account Executive |
Yumeno Suzuki | DENTSU INC. | Creative Producer |
Yuya Hamamura | VECTOR INC. | PR Director |
Nozomi Watanabe | Platinum, Inc. | PR consultant |
Takuma Sone | Platinum, Inc. | PR consultant |
Ai Shibahara | Platinum, Inc. | PR consultant |
Masao Ode | TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION | Producer |
Ryosuke Sato | TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION | Producer |
Takashi Kobayashi | TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION | Producer |
Naomi Izumida | TOHOKUSHINSHA FILM CORPORATION | Director |
Atuko Okada | puzzle inc. | Producer |
Ami Furukubo | puzzle inc. | Production manager |
Tomo Yamazaki | puzzle inc. | Production manager |
Toshinori Obuchi | puzzle inc. | Designer |
Tomoka Morita | puzzle inc. | Designer |
Shummu Ikeyama | puzzle inc. | Engineer |
Hiroyuki Mikami | puzzle inc. | Engineer |
Yusuke Kawakami | puzzle inc. | Engineer |
While looking for the next big idea for Lotte's Yukimi Daifuku ice cream, we discovered the idea right in the name--switching the "f" and "k" gets Daikufu, which means "big idea" in Japanese. This inspired us to launch a side brand called Yukimi Daikufu dedicated to big Yukimi Daifuku ideas that may be hiding in plain sight. When other food brands began to show interest in this scheme, we created an official alliance with over 20 brands and promoted food pairings that involved Yukimi Daifuku and their own products, offering consumers new ways to enjoy the classic product.
For 40 years, Lotte had been trying to keep things fresh with their classic Yukimi Daifuku ice cream--two vanilla ice cream balls, each covered in a thin, chewy layer of mochi--by coming up with new flavors (over 50 at this point). But with interest in the product dropping and the company running out of ideas, there was an urgent need to come up with the next big idea--something that went beyond the company's existing communication framework and would really take the world by storm.
It turned out, this big idea was sitting right under our noses. By switching the "f" and "k" in Daifuku, you get Daikufu, which means "big idea" in Japanese. That made us wonder what other big Yukimi Daifuku ideas were hiding in plain sight. Inspired by this discovery, we established a side brand called Yukimi Daikufu dedicated to big Yukimi Daifuku ideas that we may have overlooked--but which the public might already know about.
We initially targeted general consumers. By offering simple examples--maybe a savory Yukimi Daifuku flavored with olive oil and salt? An even sweeter Yukimi Daifuku covered with whipped cream, bananas, and chocolate sauce?--we lowered the hurdle for potential ideas and made the new side brand feel approachable. When other food brands started submitting ideas as well, we developed a new strategy to target such brands and approached them for official tie-ups with their products.
We announced the new side brand with a launch video featuring the popular Yukimi Daifuku rabbit and postings on social media. Ideas submitted by consumers were presented on a dedicated website, with submissions searchable by a variety of criteria. Submissions on social media were given the hashtag #YukimiDaikufu to make them easy to find. When over 20 food and other brands agreed to create tie-up ideas, we set up a press conference to commemorate this historic alliance. Finally, we opened a Yukimi Daikufu Cafe where we served the three most popular ideas submitted by the public, further deepening the public's affinity for this new side brand. In this way, we created a self-sustaining ecosystem for generating new big ideas for the product that fully involved consumers around the country.
Over 1,400 individual consumers and over 20 food and other brands submitted ideas for this new side brand. As a result, mentions of Yukimi Daifuku on social media rose 105%. Yukimi Daikufu--the side brand--trended on Twitter twice. The side brand was covered by 443 media, providing us with over 300 million JPY in earned advertising. Finally, annual sales of Yukimi Daifuku broke through the 10 billion JPY barrier for the first time in the brand's 40-year history.