BAMBOO SWEETS

TitleBAMBOO SWEETS
BrandLIFULL
Product / ServiceLIFULL
CategoryG07. Corporate Purpose & Social Responsibility
EntrantPEAK Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation LIFULL Tokyo, JAPAN
PR LIFULL Tokyo, JAPAN
Additional Company PEAK Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Kohei Kawasaki LIFULL Executive Officer / Chief Creative Officer
Takaya Masuda LIFULL Art Director
Yongbom Seo PEAK Inc. President
Toru Kayama PEAK Inc. Project Manager
Mai Kaneda Freelance Copy Writer
Akihiro Kuwahara LIFULL Designer
Yoko Mori LIFULL Designer
Mikiko Goto LIFULL Designer
Riku Yakushijin Freelance Chef
Shiho Sakamoto Freelance Chef
Hisaya Kato ELNIDO Creative Producer
Saho Yamaoka LIFULL PR Director
Shoko Nojiri LIFULL PR Director
Maki Horiuchi LIFULL PR Director
Megumi Sakamoto PEAK Inc. PR Director
Akira Yoshino One Story PR Planner
Hirokatsu Goto One Story PR Planner
Hiroshi Maruyama ALLBLUE PR Planner
Yohei Ohno ALLBLUE PR Planner
Takahiro Natsukuri tko Event Producer
Yasunori Shioda tko Event Producer
Kurumi Furuno AOI Pro. Event Production assistant
Satoshi Funakoshi Uoo Event Production Designer
Kyoichi Shibukawa HOEDOWN Film Producer
Kurando Furuya HOEDOWN Film Director
Daiju Yoshida HOEDOWN Film Production Manager
Koichi Takagi HOEDOWN Director of Photography
Satoshi Ueno LIFULL Frontend Engineer

Why is this work relevant for PR?

“Bamboo Sweets” drove people by creating a new innovative brand that transforms abandoned bamboo into sustainable food and created an eco-system to solve the issue of abandoned bamboo. The press event we held attracted a large attendance and marked a great success, earning a lot of coverage in prestigious media from both in and out of Japan which featured the novelty of our sustainable solution addressing abandoned bamboo incidents.

Background

Bamboo has been essential material for the lives of Japanese, being used for buildings and crafts. On the other hand, bamboo is facing a decline in demand, and with the aging of its producers, now the bamboo forests are being abandoned. What has this brought? Destruction and disaster to the eco-system. For the Sustainable Development Goals, LIFULL, a leading real estate information company in Japan, brought a solution to this issue.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

“Bamboo Sweets” is the world’s first series of sustainable sweets made of abandoned bamboo. LIFULL collaborated with bamboo producers, researchers and chefs, to develop a sustainable eco-system supporting production of the new idea. LIFULL offered the eating experience at its own restaurant, as well as through online and offline stores. Our sweets use bamboo for more than 20% of its ingredient. The more customers buy and eat Bamboo Sweets, the more consumption of the abandoned material reduces the cases of bamboo incidents and supports a sustainable ecosystem. 

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

The audience for this communication is those who want to incorporate social contributions into their lifestyle. In order to attract their interest, we properly communicated the actual situation of the bamboo damage problem. We have also developed a sophisticated design that makes them want to convey their contribution to others. We delivered our messase, Eat Bamboo, Save the Earth, at all touch points and caught the attention of the audience.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

The press event we held in September 2019 attracted a large attendance and marked a great success, earning a lot of coverage in prestigious media from both in and out of Japan which featured the novelty of our sustainable solution addressing abandoned bamboo incidents. It was notable how the topic was picked up not only by news outlets specialized in environmental support, but was strongly supported by culture-oriented media such as Vogue. Eating bamboo is a completely new culture. The newness of our idea is about how we created a way to encourage people to be part of saving the environment in a sustainable and active manner. The sweets products sold out immediately after its online sales launch. We are currently working to increase production capacity to fill the back orders and make further significant contribution to solving the bamboo damage issues.

List the results (30% of vote)

The press-event we held attracted a large attendance and marked a great success, earning a lot of coverage in prestigious media from both in and out of Japan. The newness of our idea is about how we created a way to encourage people to be part of saving the environment in a sustainable and active manner. Earned coverage in a 200+ number of media, which made advertising value equivalent to $110.000. Next steps are planned in order to further tackle the bamboo damage problem with sustainable approaches such as: - Geographical extension of the project to work with local governments that are seeking solutions to their bamboo damage challenges - Sales partnership with hotels and high-end specialty stores - Collaboration with globally renowned sweets brands - Cooking classes of recipes featuring bamboo ingredient - Work with cooking schools to launch courses of abandoned bamboo food - Create new menus of bamboo food beyond sweets and introduce them at the private restaurant In addition to above efforts, we have kick started another initiative to discover new food ingredients, the next after bamboo, which we can EAT TO SAVE THE EARTH.

Please tell us how the brand purpose inspired the work

LIFULL is a leading real-estate information service in Japan, who aims to support and empower the many different ‘LIFE’s in the world to be ‘FULL’ of joy and safety, by solving social issues through their business serving the areas of housing, food and lifestyle. For the Sustainable Development Goals, LIFULL brought a solution to the bamboo damage issues.

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