SHIBUYA VIRTUAL HALLOWEEN

TitleSHIBUYA VIRTUAL HALLOWEEN
BrandAU BY KDDI, FUTURE DESIGN SHIBUYA
Product / ServiceSHIBUYA CITY, KDDI
CategoryA06. Not-for-profit / Charity / Government
EntrantGEOMETRY OGILVY JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN
Idea Creation GEOMETRY OGILVY JAPAN Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Doug Schiff Geometry Ogilvy Japan Chief Creative Officer
Yasushi Arikawa Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Director
Hiroyuki Furuta Geometry Ogilvy Japan Art Director
Eriko Tanii Geometry Ogilvy Japan Associate Art Director
Naoya Kataoka Geometry Ogilvy Japan Copywriter
Iori Hayakawa Geometry Ogilvy Japan Designer
Takuya Murakami Geometry Ogilvy Japan Account Director
Tadao Ieda Geometry Ogilvy Japan Account Director
Ikko Nakata Geometry Ogilvy Japan Senior Digital Producer
Junya Takahashi Geometry Ogilvy Japan Activation Director
Takehiro Shishido Geometry Ogilvy Japan Senior Activation Executive
Takehito Hikida Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Producer / Activation Manager
Morris Ku Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Video Director
Aki Sugawara Geometry Ogilvy Japan Creative Services Director
Satoshi Kuno CLIVER Executive Producer
Akihiko Narita Cluster Executive Director
Ryoya Ino Cluster Director
Masahiro Hashimoto Cluster Director
Juji Kawaguchi Cluster Director
Kazuki Nomura Cluster Director
Yuto Sano Cluster Director
Tomomi Shinohara Cluster Designer
Keita Shibagaki Cluster Designer
Akimi Miyamoto Cluster Designer
Naoki Tanazawa Cluster Designer
Atsunori Toshi A4A Film Director

Summary of the work

Shibuya City in the heart of Tokyo had everything to make it the world's ultimate melting pot of culture – it's world famous 'Scramble Crossing' a perfect metaphor for its unique magic. Shibuya has become a significant contributor to the culture of Tokyo and acts as a focal point for seasonal celebrations and events. Recently, Shibuya’s urban landscape was reaching a tipping point – increasingly over-commercialized – tilting Shibuya’s delicate balance, diluting it’s character, and in the process threatening the rich creative ecosystem that made it so special. Shibuya was at risk of losing it’s soul in the late 2010s. To address this challenge the organization Future Design Shibuya (FDS) was created as an innovation hub for Shibuya City. It’s aim was to explore the possibilities of modern urban development and create innovative projects to promote Shibuya as a model city of the future. But just as FDS was getting started Covid struck. We needed to bring Shibuya back to life and show the city as a beacon of cultural vitality in the face of Covid restriction and fear. Creative Idea Virtual Shibuya: Reinventing the trend-setting youth culture of Shibuya for the digital-first era. Our brief was to reinvent and enhance the creative and cultural magic of Shibuya. There were three main pillars in bringing Virtual Shibuya to life: Reinventing Place: We leveraged XR technology to reimagine the physical Shibuya environment in virtual world. Shibuya’s symbolic “Scramble Crossing” became center stage for Virtual Shibuya. We took the physical appearance of the streets and surrounding buildings to create familiarity with the location then utilized this new environment to enable spaces for events, media, and partner activation. Virtual Shibuya was then announced in an online press conference and through press releases under the moniker “UNLIMITED REALITY” – a name that helped frame the type of experience that awaited our audience. Reinventing Experience: With Shibuya taking shape in the virtual world we integrated an event platform to enable the city to come to life with immersive experiences including customization and gamified interactions. Once inside people were represented by their avatar and could freely explore. 3DCG was leveraged to create the event spaces and the stage for our celebrity avatar performers. Participating avatars could react to the experiences they enjoyed by cheering as if there in person. The experience was integrated to social channels where participants were given chances to win exclusive merchandise. Reinventing Events: Virtual Shibuya is set up as a mixed reality environment; providing digital experiences while enabling interaction in the “real world” and via social media channels and at-home AR. As a marketing ecosystem for events the integration of the experience and content with digital/social and traditional media is unparalleled. The existence of Virtual Shibuya has created a place for City of Shibuya to host music concerts, seasonal activations such as Halloween, and brand pop-ups to launch new products or entertainment content. This enables events with scalability, flexibility, and creativity beyond what was possible in the physical-only world.

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