Francois Claverie | Executive Creative Director

Context
Anywhere else in the world, Duo, Duolingo’s mascot, is impossible to ignore.

But in Japan, where everything from banks to convenience stores has its own huggable mascot vying for attention, Duo’s unhingedness
is not enough.

So Duo decided to raise the stakes and take on the competition. Literally.

Idea
A tournament that pairs two of Japan’s greatest loves: sumo and mascots.

“Duo’s Sumo Showdown” kicked off with a social-first storyline revealing Duo as the descendant of a legendary sumo wrestler.

A few days later, Sumo Duo summoned Japan’s bravest mascots to enter the tournament and wrestle it out in the ring.

Eight of Japan’s most famous mascots, including Pac-Man, Sonic, and Donpen, answered the call, facing off in a chaotic showdown in Shinjuku, open to KOLs, press, and 150 lucky fans.

And though Duo lost in the final, he won something far more important: wider recognition and a place among Japan’s most-loved mascots.

Results
45+ million earned impressions

With this campaign for Canva, the world’s best free-to-use online graphic design tool, we sought to highlight the brand’s promise that with this highly intuitive platform, anyone can create professional-looking designs for posters, flyers, logos, videos etc.

But here’s the problem (and our creative hook): you’ll end up making things look so good that others probably won’t believe that you designed them yourself…

From there we simply went on to imagine the drama that could ensue, and naturally, we wondered, how would Takeshi Kitano react if one of his friends insisted that he could not have designed a beautiful presentation deck or social post himself?

The ‘Make it Unbelievable’ campaign was captured by the wonderful eye of film director Ryo Ota.

Oct’ 24 most attention-grabbing TVCs ranking
Cannes Lions Shortlist - Film category
Tokyo ADC Winner - Art Direction
Spikes Asia Silver - Film category

Problem
In Japan, where saving face is a cultural imperative, making mistakes is something to be avoided. But for Duolingo, allowing oneself to make mistakes is a critical part of learning a new language. Our challenge was to create an activation that invites potential learners to embrace their blunders and learn more about Duolingo, the fun, and most effective way to learn a language.

Solution
Duolingo's ‘Museum of Wonky English’ (MOWE) is the first exhibition in Japan to shed light on the art of mistranslation. Gathered from all over Japan and carefully selected, every piece in the collection demonstrates how mistakes can give surprising new meanings to otherwise mundane phrases, encouraging visitors to enjoy their mistakes rather than feel embarrassed.

Results
Picked up by 80+ media outlets worldwide.
Over 4 million views.
Earned Media Value of $88M for a media spend of $0 Duolingo’s most PR'd activation in Asia to date.

New York Festivals Bronze
One Show Merit

Problem
Pesky app notifications often prevent Duolingo users from completing their lesson, sending them down the rabbit hole of mindless scrolling instead.

Solution
We collaborated with Japanese inventor, Marina Fujiwara, a Japanese content creator listed in Forbes Japan 30 Under 30, famed for her useless inventions.

Together we created ‘The Concentrator 2000’: put your phone into the device, open the Duolingo app, and…no more being distracted. The device removes all alerts and notifications.

Results
The videos raised the eyebrows of nearly half a million people, hopefully getting some of them to be more mindful of their doom-scrolling habits.

Problem
In a hyperconnected world, where news, tweets, and notifications seem to gush endlessly, people have become so engulfed in their gadgets that even mealtimes are disrupted: 75% of Japanese consumers claim they cannot concentrate on their meals because of digital distractions, and 1 in 3 feels stressed over incoming messages or alerts while eating. How can we help them enjoy a precious break, while fully appreciating the healthy and balanced mackerel dish in front of them?

Solution
We created a plate that doesn't work: the ‘Balance Plate’. This seemingly useless piece of tableware comes with only one leg and will spill your food unless you stabilize it. How? By letting go of your phone and sliding it into the slit, specially designed to fit most smartphone models. Oops, now you have no choice but to disconnect and focus solely on your meal.

Results
Picked up by 100+ media outlets globally
61 million yen in earned media
2.7 million impressions

The ‘Tonight I’ll Be Eating’ (TIBE) campaign features unexpected celebrity duos, hanging out in somewhat relatable settings, with each scenario playing off of what only Japanese audiences can really understand about each celebrity.

The 3 duos, 9 scenarios and hundreds of deliverables created to date have propelled Uber Eats to nr. 1 in the food delivery market in Japan, and Nikkei ranked the campaign as the single most effective ad campaign of 2020 (out of 6,631 campaigns).

Challenge
How could TAG Heuer Japan grow its Instagram presence amongst the Japanese football fan community in a way that was engaging for them, but also conveyed the brand’s essence of ‘never cracking under pressure’?

Idea
’Pressure Free Kick’ turned Instagram Stories into a video game by giving the emoji slider a fresh, new use: a free kick power bar. 

Just like the shoot bars you find in football video game franchises, the once-useless slider challenged users to the ultimate test of skill: scoring the free kick that gives their team the winning goal. And scoring tickets to professional soccer matches in the process. 

How to play? 
Users simply needed to view the Story posted by @tagheuerjapan and choose the precise strength of their free kick on the emoji slider, considering distance, wind speed, and wind direction. 

The campaign ran for five days, each day featured unique free kick parameters. The correct power for each free kick was later revealed in a new story and users who’d nailed it won tickets to professional soccer games.

Results 
Instagram follower count grew by 43% in just 5 days.
93% completion rate (24% above the industry’s average in the single most important metric for Instagram Stories).
10,000+ free kicks were taken.

Village House offers affordable rental apartments throughout Japan. They’ve eliminated many of the hindrances that usually come with affordable rentals, such as the need for guarantors, paying agent fees, renewal fees, key money, security deposits, application lotteries…

We chose to personify some of the above rental conditions as they really are: an annoying, useless bunch, that people won’t have to put up with in Village House apartments.

In the nationwide launch campaign, the Annoying Conditions are simply shown doing their thing, annoying the hell out of the tenants of ordinary apartments, whilst the Village House tenants get to live in peace.

The second campaign is a parody of a popular Japanese appraisal TV show: families put up for auction the Annoying Condition that they’ve been living with for years, hoping it’ll fetch a high price. Unfortunately for them, and from Village House’s perspective, they’re all completely worthless: Village House doesn’t charge tenants for security deposit, renewal fee, key money etc.

Challenge
How could TAG Heuer Japan grow its social media presence amongst the Japanese football fancommunity in a way that was engaging for them but also conveyed the brand’s essenceof never cracking under pressure?

Idea
’Pressure PK’: shoot Penalty Kicks with a tweet, score soccer game tickets!
’Pressure PK’ is a 7-day long penalty kick shootout, and the first bot-enabled “Choose Your Own Adventure” video game on Twitter, played in real-time, within a single conversation.

In this cinematic 8-bit retro game, players tweet to aim their penalty kicks against the best keepers in the world. Those who scored won tickets for professional football matches all around the country.

Results
25,700 retweets
24,100 games played
4.1m organic impressions
6,100 Twitter followers gained

Instagram and Facebook videos created for the launch of The Get Down in Japan. The Get Down is a musical drama directed by Baz Luhrmann, set in 1977 NYC. The city was bankrupt, Disco was climaxing and South Bronx was giving birth to Hip Hop.

To generate interest for the title and reach beyond a niche Hip Hop audience in Japan, we wanted to show to ordinary Japanese people that "Everyone has a Hip Hop side", whether they know it or not!

The 杯音圏 event (reads Hai-Ne-Ken, meaning "Cheers Sound Area") was a blank canvas offered to Tokyo's city-shapers: Visual Artists, Dancers, DJs, MCs and Musicians all took over this space, making it their own, and getting a chance to showcase their collaborations to the world, courtesy of Heineken. See 杯音圏 on Twitter & Instagram.

The event, held at UltraSuperNew gallery in Harajuku brought together 100 artists and performers for 25 parties, resulting in over 2,500 visitors, reaching 700,000 Instagram users, 500,000 Twitter users and 108,000 Facebook users.

Millions of online shoppers suffer from ‘Hover Finger’. Even John Cleese.

The campaign kicked-off unbranded with the Tumblr page curehoverfinger.com, collating hundreds of #hoverfinger tweets and Instagram posts from sufferers around the region. Visa then came in as the ultimate cure for Hover Finger with this online film.