Light Up Nippon Executive Committee: LIGHT UP NIPPON

Credits & Description:

Category: Charity and Not for Profit

Advertiser: LIGHT UP NIPPON EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Product/Service: FIREWORK EVENT

Agency: LIGHT UP NIPPON

Agency: VECTOR GROUP

Producer: Yoshitake Takada (Hakuhodo)

Producer: Atsuki Yukawa (Rock 'n' Roll Japan)

Copywriter: Naoki Ono (Hakuhodo)

Planner: Hiromasa Sasaki (Rock'n Roll Japan)

Copywriter: Yuta Iguchi (Hakuhodo)

Art Director: Ryota Sakae (Hakuhodo)

Designer: Yuhei Ito (Hakuhodo)

Film Director: Kensaku Kakimoto (Freelancer)

Asistant Director: Satomi Inagaki (Freelancer)

Technical Director: Seiichi Saito (Rhizomatiks Co.)

Web Director: Hiroyuki Hori (Rhizomatiks Co.)

Web Designer: Hiroyasu Kimura (Rhizomatiks Co.)

Pr Planner: Tomomi Suzuki (Vector)

Pr Planner: Erika Oyake (Vector)

Pr Planner: Yohei Arihara (Vector)

Pr Planner: Tetsuro Shinoda (Vector)

Media placement: Digital PR - PR Times - 1st June 2011

Media placement: Consumer PR - Jaran; Japanese Travel Magazine - 1st July 2011

Media placement: Event - in various media, TV,news paper, web, magazine - 11th June 2011



Summary of the Campaign

Challenge:

On 11th March, 2011, a massively catastrophic earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. More than 20,000 people were reported dead or missing, nearly 180,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, and the total damage throughout Japan added up to more than 30tr yen. The disaster wrought vast devastation to Japan. Our challenge was to light up the disaster-stricken areas in Tohoku, and our entire nation.



Execution:

From early times, fireworks have been a summer tradition, which can serve as a requiem. We hosted a simultaneous firework event called, 'Light up Nippon' to commemorate the victims of the earthquake, and revive the spirits of the survivors on 11th August - just 5 months after the disaster.



'Nippon' means 'Japan' in Japanese.



Result:

- Raised more than 70m yen of donations;

- Fireworks were launched in 10 afflicted areas along the coastline, where towns had completely vanished because of the tsunami;

- Featured in various media across Japan;

- Total media value added up to more than 2.5bn yen;

- Witnessed by more than 10m people;

- The fireworks lit up and delivered courage to the people of Japan;

- Light up Nippon will be hosted again in 2012.



Relevance to PR Lions:

As this project was done by all volunteers and as there was no budget for advertising this project and raising donations for the event, we could only used a website, Twitter and Facebook. So, to let as many people as possible know this project, strategic PR was the most important thing.



The Situation

On 11th March, 2011, a massively catastrophic earthquake and tsunami-struck Japan. More than 20,000 people were reported dead or missing, nearly 180,000 buildings damaged or destroyed, and the total damage throughout Japan added up to more than 30tr yen. The disaster brought vast devastation to Japan.



The Goal

The objective of this project was to light up the disaster-stricken areas in Tohoku, and our entire nation by a simultaneous-firework event called 'Light up Nippon'. The target-audience extended from the people in the disaster-stricken areas to the entire nation of Japan and all over the world.



The Strategy

We planed a 4-step PR strategy:



1. Publicity for the declaration of starting the project at the same time the official website was opened;

2. Publicity by informing media of how much was raised in the form of donations and how many places the event was being hosted at simultaneously, just before the event;

3. Publicity of how the day of the event went;

4. Publicity of how the whole project was realised, several days or weeks after the event.



Execution

This project appeared in media, newspapers and web news, for the first time on 1st June; at the same time, we opened our website. Magazines and other media followed them.



Many celebrities, like Ryuichi Sakamoto, the most famous musician in Japan, helped the project.



Over 100 companies, such as Nike and Coca-Cola, sponsored us and some of them hosted charity-events for this project, which were also featured in a lot of media.



The event was hosted on August 11th and a lot of media came. After the event, many documentary movies were made and shown on TV and in many magazines. (For example, web-magazines made feature articles.)



Documented Results

- Raised more than 70m yen of donations;

- Fireworks were launched in 10 afflicted areas along the coastline, where towns had completely vanished because of the tsunami;

- Featured in various media across Japan;

- Total media value added up to more than 2.5bn yen;

- Witnessed by more than 10m people;

- The fireworks lit up and delivered courage to the people of Japan;

- Light up Nippon will be hosted again in 2012.