Category :

Direct Lotus

Sub Category :

Direct Ambient

Title :

SMASH: BORN TO BE DESTROYED

Brand :

SMASH

Advertiser :

K'S JAPAN

Advertising Agency :

HAKUHODO Inc.

Creative Director :

Jin Saito

Copywriter :

Hidenori Sakai

Art Director :

Kentaro Harano

Agency Producer :

Shoko Akutagawa

Photographer :

Yusuke Oka/Takahiro Kojima

Illustrator :

Rei Owada

Computer Artist :

Muro Takeshi

Planner :

Kenta Ikoma/Keiichi Motoyama

Data Strategist :

Naoya Morisako

Film Production Company :

HAKUHODO PRODUCT'S Inc./TYO

Director :

Tomoyuki Hakamata /Manabu Terao/Takuya Sasaya

Cinematographer :

Takahiro Kojima

Film Producer :

Hirofumi Nobuta/Michikazu Sakata

Sound Production Company :

REDHILL

The Objective :

To make K’s JAPAN a small guitar company famous as a cool rock guitar brand. With rock not at its popularity peak as its golden era, guitar market is shrinking so K’s JAPAN needed to expand its consumers to those who are not core rock fans.

The Strategy :

Instead of creating a normal advertisement, we developed to sell an extreme product to excite people and engage them with K’sJAPAN. We made a guitar born-to-be-destroyed, SMASH! SMASH is meant to be destroyed in its structure, function, recycle-system and price, nevertheless it can be played as a normal guitar. It's an extraction of the rock spirit, “Destroy to Create!” With this spirit, we aimed to attract not only rock fans but also people wanting to breakthrough the stress of recession. We advertised SMASH with viral-movie, posters, launching-even etc. to make people experience K'sJAPAN' s brand and make buzz.

The Concept :

The concept behind our promotion, SMASH was: 1. Our promotion , in form of a real product, directly delivered K’s JAPAN’s rock spirit “Destroy to Create” as a direct experience of playing and smashing. 2. The rock spirit “Destroy to Create” embodied by SMASH, attracted not only rock fans but also people fed up with recession. 3. We made people and media come to us without using media fee. 4. Because SMASH was a performing tool, as people played SMASH in the media and liveshows, these performances automatically expanded K’s JAPAN’s recognition.

The Results :

Sales went up 400% in March 2010 compared to March 2009. $4 million worth of publicity with 0 media fee. No.1 search-word in one of Japan’s biggest search-engine, goo. No.1 sales ranking at Amazon’s new instrument category. No.1 topic in Japan’s biggest SNS more talked about than Olympics and iPad. No.1 in “Things-I-Want-Ranking” in the most issued shopping magazine. Bounce rate of SMASH’s website hit 1.5%. MTV did a 1week special on the event. SMASH was used in music videos, props on tv shows and as a weapon in pro-wrestling expanding K'sJAPAN's recognition.

Company Entering :

HAKUHODO PRODUCT'S Inc.

City :

Tokyo