Today we would like to share the 5 most memorable social media campaigns in Japan so far.
1. Dove Japan – Real Beauty
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q72ff7_HLG4[/embedyt]
Dove ran a campaign encouraging teenage girls to enhance their own self-esteem by noticing their inner beauty. They found that only 7% of Japanese teenage girls feel confident about their appearance, and it’s actually the lowest number in the world. Dove therefore involved Japanese teenage girls studying at secondary school to like/dislike their appearance, through the interviews the girls realised their true beauty. The interview video was published on YouTube 7th March 2018, and has already got approximately 3 million views and lots of positive comments.
2. Nestle KitKat Japan – Virtual KitKat
On Valentine’s Day In Japan, girls typically give chocolate to boys, but these days people give chocolate to their friends too. Nestle KitKat Japan offered a Virtual KitKat between 1st February and 30th April 2018 (this includes White Day). Last year, they made this campaign a huge success: Virtual KitKat was shared over 150m times. People can send Virtual KitKat as well as request to get it through Facebook, Twitter and LINE. There are 16 animated characters with messages to select when requesting on the social media platforms. If you have have a certain amount of Virtual KitKat, you can get the actual KitKat at the KitKat Chocolatory.
3. Softbank – #お父さんとあそぼ (Oto-san to asobo)
Softbank ran a social media campaign to make fun of their customers on Twitter, running the campaign between 23rd to 27th April 2018. Participants needed to select one of the images on Softbank’s website and give one funny and unique sentence that match the image selected. They then upload the image and the one sentence on their Twitter account with a hashtag #お父さんとあそぼ (Oto-san to asobo means play with dad). Softbank will select 27 participants and give a 50,000 yen gift voucher to them.
4. Fanta – カンパイボトルCM選手権 (Kanpai Bottle CM Senshuken)
Fanta Japan is running a Twitter campaign that involves Japanese YouTubers making a fun Fanta video to promote the drink. You don’t need to make a fun video to take part in this campaign, all you need to do is follow Fanta Japan’s Twitter, select one of four videos you think it is the most funny and retweet! This campaign run until 6th May 2018.
5. Three Former SMAP Members -Kusanagi, Inagaki and Katori
We assume it was quite shocking news for Japanese people that SMAP broke up last year. Three out of five members – Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Shingo Katori and Goro Inagaki left the agency where they used to work for many years, and they became online influencers. Kusanagi is a YouTuber, Katori is an Instagrammer and Inagaki is a blogger. In particular the YouTuber, Kusanagi, is the one who seems to do lots of challenging stuff such as bowling with a 1-ton ball, experiencing working at McDonald’s and collaborating with YouTubers. Most of his videos have got about 1 million views. Katori’s Instagram has over 1m followers and Inagaki’s blog has 650k followers. They could be one of influencers we might want to work with in the future!
Developing unique Japanese social media campaigns are the key to stand out from the crowd, and with the national knowledge about social media in Japan, FIT Digital can help international brands produce an effective social media campaign and work with social media influencers! Get in touch if you need our help!!
