Background

En-courage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping students find jobs, and Dentsu Youth Study, a thinktank created to rethink Japan’s student recruitment system, developed an online internship program called 47 INTERNSHIP. The program required one student from each of Japan’s 47 prefectures to be hired—a groundbreaking choice designed to level the playing fields between students in rural and urban areas. However, to make the program a success, we needed to create visual assets that would make it look attractive to students, while also clearly conveying the goal of the program.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

For the key visual, we created an animated gif portraying a 47-person video conference, with participants depicted in minimalist black and white imagery and a red circle for a face. Each participant is depicted uniquely—one participating on the go via smartphone, one with a blurry background, etc.—but slowly the black elements fade away to reveal 47 Japanese flags: a symbolic representation of a level playing field. By creating a gif instead of a video, we made it easy for students to share this visual asset via social media. The iconic artwork in the gif also made for striking standalone visuals for use in press releases and ads.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

We developed 47 INTERNSHIP, an online internship program requiring one student from each of Japan’s 47 prefectures to be hired—a symbolic choice designed to emphasize the program’s goal of leveling the playing field between cities and rural areas. We also got six major Japanese companies on board to make the internship more appealing to students.

List the results (20% of vote)

The gif’s topicality and shareability earned the program over one hundred media mentions.Over 1,500 university students from all over Japan applied for a position, 47 of whom were given an opportunity to work with six of Japan’s top companies: AGC, Glico, Sapporo Breweries, JTB, Dentsu, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking. Some companies reported hiring interns from prefectures where they had never hired before. As a result, we were able to organize a second program in 2021 and continue our efforts to ensure equality in the job market to every young Japanese person.