YAMAHA × monopo

Yamaha Corporation, one of the world’s leading music companies, is always striving to challenge itself while protecting the tradition that has been a core of its foundation since 1887. The VKB-100 released in 2017 is a prime example — a Vocaloid keyboard which, through a dedicated application on the user’s phone, can transfer lyrics into the instrument and have the Vocaloid sing the song as you play on the keyboard. Moreover, their DTX402 Series electric drum models are capable of emulating the feeling of playing on real drums while also allowing the musician to experiment with different variations and sounds. Kensuke Tanaka, a producer at monopo and also an active musician outside the office, was responsible for producing the branding videos and website design for the Yamaha instruments. For this particular project, he worked with Rintaro Kane and Minako Shintake from Yamaha, and I have asked them to reflect on their work together this past year.

June 2017. Mr. Kane visited the Cannes Lions International Creative Festival to see what the world’s best creatives were currently working on. There, he bumped into monopo COO Shun Okada. The two immediately bonded over their shared interest in music, and left their conversation with the promise to meet up again in Tokyo. Keeping his promise, several days later Mr. Kane dropped by the monopo office to discuss working together to renew the website for their electric guitar REVSTAR as well as the video branding for the Vocaloid keyboard VKB-100. That’s when Mr. Tanaka stepped in, and was assigned to lead this project.

ー Among the many companies you could’ve worked with, why did you choose to work with monopo?

Kane: To put it simply, their team truly understands music and can comprehend it on a deeper level. Mr. Tanaka of course, but when I discovered monopo CEO Mr. Sasaki was also in a band, well, then the choice became obvious.

Tanaka: I agree, the fact that we shared a common language was probably an important point. Because there are definitely things that only musicians can understand.

Kane: In addition, the fact that the monopo team is very international and globally-minded was big. 70% of Yamaha’s sales are overseas, so it’s no good if the production team can only understand the Japanese market. Their ideas addressed this concern and they quickly proposed a concise plan, so I was able to give them the task with confidence.

A product which transforms singing into an instrument — how do you come up with a branding video when there are no precedents to draw ideas off of?

ーEspecially the VKB-100, there are no past instruments like it. How did you go about video production?

Kane: To start, I gave the team a basic orientation of our product, and then gave a bit of direction on what kind of concept and target we were hoping for. Then I gave them the actual keyboard and told them, “Just try playing around with it”.

Tanaka: For this project I was given the chance to experiment with it, and because it was an instrument I’ve never touched before, it was actually a lot of fun. Based on that feeling I got, I gave them a typically non traditional proposal to showcase the product. I was actually a bit surprised when the two didn’t oppose my idea and was instead very open about trying it.

— As Yamaha, was your team hoping to experiment with different modes of expression?

Shintake: Yes, in particular with the VKB-100. There was no instrument in the world that would play in a Vocaloid voice. The reason why we even developed this product is because Yamaha values challenging new ways of expressing music. That’s why I believed that the branding video would have to be unique too, to match the instrument.

— The completed video was done in one continuous shot, and it almost feels as if we are watching a music video.

Tanaka: The goal was to have the musicians perform with the instrument, rather than to demonstrate “Please use the instrument like this”. We felt that it would be better to create something that would make the viewer imagine, “Wow, it might be pretty fun if I tried playing around with it in this way”. That’s why we tried to present it in as many possible scenarios as possible. Show that it’s fun to just play at home, but you can also use it in a live performance if you want. But if you try to demonstrate these different scenarios in a bunch of small clips, it’s going to feel like a tutorial video. We really wanted to avoid that, so we decided to film it in one continuous shot.

Tanaka: Also, the main thing we wanted to stress was the Vocaloid part of the instrument, but if we focused too much on that it would be become a video about Vocaloid, rather than the VKB-100 instrument. That’s why we were careful to have the instrument be the heart of the performance. The musicians in the video are actually old friends of mine, and they really enjoyed playing around with this new keyboard.

Kane: As Mr. Tanaka said, we didn’t want to show the answer, but we wanted to present the possibilities. In fact, I think that this instrument which is capable of singing can connect itself to the musician. There are musicians in this world who don’t have the confidence to sing. In this way, it would be nice to have the VKB-100 be an instrument that these individuals can enjoy as well.

Visualizing the impulse of a young boy who wants to become a musician.

Starting with this VKB-100 branding video project, monopo and Yamaha were able to build an important trust with each other, and in 2018 worked together on another big project — this was the branding of the DTX402 SERIES.

— What kind of process was behind the branding production for the DTX402 SERIES?

Kane: To begin, we introduced to Mr. Tanaka the kind of branding image we were going for with our project.

Tanaka: We decided together that there would need to be a video, as well as a website for the product. We also determined that a guideline and tutorial would be necessary for this product, and I remember agreeing that content like this is part of the branding as well.

Kane: That was right. And so we brought up, “So who is a beginner drummer in the first place?”. We discussed in-depth what it means to be a beginner musician, and came to the conclusion that if you really think about it, a beginner drummer is someone who has already started playing drums. But with the DTX402 SERIES we wanted to make it available to an audience that has never even touched a drum set before. So to do this, it became clear that we had to showcase drums in general as cool, not just our instrument in particular.

Tanaka: So based off that, I did a bit of research on what was popular with young, western audiences abroad, and constructed a mood board.

Kane: Using that, we held a discussion within Yamaha, and came to the conclusion that “Popular music these days, they really don’t have the sound of drums in them anymore do they?”. With that in mind, we decided to shift our point of appeal.

Tanaka: I was very intentional about not focusing on functionality. Musical instrument advertisements tend to focus on things like “It sounds beautiful like this” or “It is able to do this”, but for someone who has never even touched an instrument, these sorts of qualities would probably be lost on them. Rather, I wanted to focus on creating a message that would make someone think to themself, “I want to play drums”.

Kane: That is something that we had to be careful about. As the manufacturer, the tendency is to want to talk about function and how the sound quality is different. But for this project, we made a big effort to look beyond these tendencies and focus on what the customer is looking for.

Tanaka: So for the video, we decided to start with a boy who was impulsively slamming down on an imaginary drum set. Everyone who thinks about wanting to start an instrument does this. It’s like how someone might use a broom to pretend playing a guitar.

— I would say that insight like that only emerges because you are a musician yourself and understand what it’s like to love music.

Kane: In addition, one of my favorite parts is when the boy does a little smirk at the end of the video. The video is primarily used to draw in a young demographic interested in music, but once we get them to visit the website, we were careful in making sure that we appealed to the functionality of the instrument. In the end, the ones buying the instrument are the parents, and they will probably be checking for this information.

— The assembly instruction video and functionality introduction video is also very sophisticated and well-made.

Tanaka: Many people on the team did not want to make another simple how-to video.

Shintake: Because many people look up videos on musical instruments, we wanted to create something that would be fun to watch, and not something that would make them bored and click out of. Also, because it’s a video introducing a musical instrument, it’s quite obvious to talk about sound quality, but our team also wanted to deliver interesting information beyond that. I think we were able to effectively deliver our key appeal points by taking advantage of the video medium.

In addition to these videos, monopo was also responsible for producing the creative guidelines for the DTX402 SERIES. This demonstrates Yamaha’s ambition to deliver their instruments in a unified, global context.

Kane: Up until now, there was a tendency for Yamaha to leave the advertising of a product to a regional team, and have the domestic firm develop a strategy. But as we strengthened our marketing department, we have begun to change our strategy so that our instruments are marketed as a global product, and not particular to a certain market.

Shintake: Currently, it’s not just video searches that are becoming more common, but also image searches. Our team realized that it was important to have the first product images that a customer will look at be aesthetically connected in some way, or else our value as a brand would look subpar. The fact that we were able to establish these aesthetic rules in time of our launch was a great accomplishment.

Tanaka: This project in particular, even the people of monopo thought it was really amazing. To be given the opportunity to start from constructing the creative guidelines is pretty rare.

To unite Yamaha and monopo, and one day earn a Cannes Lions Award together.

— Across this past year, I feel as though the relationship between these two companies has really deepened. I hope that these two teams will continue to work together on various projects in the future.

Tanaka: This year, we’ve worked together on a lot of projects involved in the light music genre, but I’m actually interested in classical music too these days.

Kane: I see. I think that’d be really interesting. Just that when it comes to classics, I feel like the mode is a bit different.

Shintake: Kane is incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to classical music, so I think he’d become very serious.

Tanaka: I see. Maybe I shouldn’t then.

(Everyone laughs)

Kane: But I would like to challenge different kinds of projects with monopo in the future. Our company is manufacturing-based, so we can’t help but think in terms of product functionality. I’ve always talked about with Shintake how we’d like to move away from that, and express the value of our instruments in terms of music. Like, if you can’t play the piano, to you it would just be this big black box. But the moment someone sits down and starts playing, the atmosphere of the room completely transforms. I would like for our story to be more about “how instruments can bring inspiration through performance”.

Tanaka: This might be a bit off-topic, but if you’re interested in trying to showcase music as a mode of inspiration, one suggestion is to do some live performances rather than focus on production.

Kane: I completely agree. This is a bit of an extreme suggestion, but I think it might be good to just do a live performance, record the sound from the event, take some photos, and that would be enough to express the value of our instruments.

Tanaka: Personally, I would really like to collaborate with Yamaha on a project and aim for a Cannes Lions. In fact, I recently attended a seminar that discussed the theme of “What does it take to earn a Cannes Lions?”, and the lecturer there spoke that “it’s very important to have chemistry with the client and develop a common sense of purpose”. I feel like to work on that level of understanding, it’s a pretty difficult thing to accomplish. However, I feel like that is something that could be realized with Yamaha.

Kane: You’re right. It would be excessive to say that I don’t consider us to have an agency-client relationship, but I definitely believe our collaboration together is more than that. I don’t even like the term ‘client’ really, because business together is not as simple as us shelling out some money and asking them to do some work for us. I think it’s vital that we work together as one team.

Shintake: In that sense, I think it’s good that we can communicate on a relatively flat basis. It’s not like either Mr. Tanaka or us are always agreeing to every idea that comes up. If we feel that something is not quite right, we feel comfortable enough to speak up. Being able to discuss our opinions in that way, by working together I think we could come up with something really amazing.

Yamaha and monopo, a team which has been able to co-produce multiple successful projects throughout the year. Their relationship together is now closer than ever, but this bond would not have been possible without Mr. Kane and Ms. Shintake’s trust. I hope that this team will work together on more projects this coming year, and win a Cannes Lions for themselves in the future.

How Yamaha Corporation and monopo Are Able to Realize Creative Solutions Together: “We’re… was originally published in monopo Tokyo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2018, monopo completed the total rebranding of the Japanese food-tech startup, COMP. The company’s product, complete balanced food “COMP”, is designed to help people who are passionate about their work or hobbies get the proper balance of vitamins and nutrients they need. It’s an easy all-around product created for a variety of situations and different needs.

<COMP> http://www.comp.jp/

While staying true to the current loyal customers and fans of COMP, in spring of 2017, we launched a rebranding mission to further develop and expand our client’s market. Our rebranding strategy consisted of developing a new product logo, package, image, website, and even a redesign of the EC (mail order) packaging material — anything and everything that represented the company’s brand. Mr. Suzuki partnered with monopo’s creative team, and through extensive discussions with monopo’s CEO Sasaki, who is also a producer, they came to the conclusion that their mission required more than just a product rebranding, but a comprehensive strategy that resulted in a redesigned, brand new product. I decided to look into the project’s background and development.

When rebranding, most companies will simply propose a superficial design change. COMP needed a partner who would dig deeper and truly capture the essence of their product.

Sasaki, who has also served as a producer, usually focuses on company management and business as part of his daily responsibilities as CEO. However, for this particular request, Sasaki decided that on top of his meetings with Mr. Suzuki, he wanted to commit on a much deeper level to this project. This is because Sasaki resonated with Mr. Suzuki and their shared understanding from a managerial point of view, that to expand COMP, a rebranding of their product was necessary.

ーMr. Suzuki, were you not concerned about entrusting your brand’s (COMP) fundamental identity to a different company?

Suzuki: No, not at all. In fact, I felt that consulting with external companies would be better because people within the company don’t have the same ability to view and think about the brand from an outsider’s point of view. To find a partner to help with rebranding, I visited and discussed with about 10 different companies, but it was very difficult to find a partner who would take the time to work specialized to our company needs… To exaggerate, most of the companies would simply propose that, “if you change your logo design, that’s enough”. But then I found monopo and Sasaki-san, who from the start showed that they would commit to providing a personal and unique rebranding strategy for my company, and I immediately felt that they were different from the others. Following that intuition, I decided to partner and collaborate with them on this project.

Sasaki: Because it’s now I can say this, but when I first met Mr. Suzuki I was incredibly nervous, haha. All of the sudden he would ask me with a serious tone, “Mr. Sasaki, what is rebranding to you?”

Suzuki: Haha, sorry about that. At that point, I had met with so many companies whose rebranding proposals were all superficial and surface-level, and I had become fed up. So I concluded that at least at the start, I would have to be firm with what I wanted.

Sasaki: But that firmness was actually strangely comforting. Because I knew from the get-go that Suzuki-san understood COMP’s rebranding as a managerial task. Recently I haven’t been really involved in client work, and I’ve been focusing on my own business and management, but COMP was the one project in 2017 that I decided I wanted to participate in as a producer. To put that much effort from a managerial level, and to reword what I mean, I felt that I could work on this project with the same amount of passion as I would my own company.

ーAfter you decided to rebrand, it ended up taking half a year to form a team with an art director, copywriter, an engineer, as well as others, before even moving towards working on the design, copy, and website renewal. Why were you so particular about the team you formed?

Suzuki: Before starting the project, I needed to understand the concept we were developing and the matter we were addressing thoroughly, and with that understanding, collectively reach those goals with the people who would help me. It used to be unclear what goals of COMP we were trying to communicate, and to solve that, we needed a team that would fully understand everything about COMP, or else we couldn’t move forward. To successfully brand, there must be a “change in logo”, “design renewal”, “catchphrase” etc, but I believed that having a team that has a shared understanding of the project in terms not limited to transient rebranding was also important, and that leverage would serve really effective long term.

ーTo cultivate that shared understanding, what kind of communication exchange was necessary?

Sasaki: Starting with his forthright question, “What is rebranding?”, I discussed their core concept, how to identify main customers, how to verbalize unidentified problems and challenges, how COMP wants to develop for the future, and then thoroughly went through components related to their goals as a company. After that, I was shown their P/L (income statement) and the balance sheet as well.

Suzuki: Normally that’s not something that I would show to someone outside the company though, haha. There are obvious risks to working with others, but it was clear to me that the CEO, Mr. Sasaki, was very serious about contributing to this project in a meaningful way, and in addition, I was convinced that if we collaborate, we could come up with a much greater proposal together.

Complete Balanced Food COMP’s Copy, “Completely Obsessed: Why We Didn’t Emphasize Functionality, and Instead Chose This

In this way, monopo and COMP formed a tag together. The brand idea of “Completely Obsessed” was proposed by Creative Director, Mr. Tatsuya Ishikawa, shortly after the project team was established, which became the axis to which the central branding concept design formed around.

Suzuki: Even before rebranding, we had core fans for customers, for example entrepreneurs who would not have time to have balanced meals for they were so concentrated on their work, but when we advertise our product from a strictly functional point of view, it comes off as too futuristic, that we are suggesting people do not have to eat because people can live without eating, almost like a dystopia, and that is not the goal of COMP we are trying to achieve. We needed a copy that could appeal to our customers’ emotions and inspire people to use COMP to challenge the possibilities of their life. When I explained this need, I was proposed the copy “Completely, Obsessed”. When I heard it, I instantly knew, “This was a good one!”. A few days passed, and the longer I toyed with the idea, I felt that we’ve developed something that could reach even deeper levels of what we were aiming for with our company. I am typically a cautious person, and the type of person to have many discussions before pursuing an idea, but that is the one moment where I immediately felt, “This is good!”. On top of enhancing the company’s awareness of logo and design, embodying our persistence is something I believe we’ve done with our new logo. If it didn’t capture our expanse, I wouldn’t approve of it; would you not agree that our current logo evokes potential and ambition? I believe our new design captures our ability for continued adaptation and development. I am very fortunate to have monopo, who has specially helped me develop a visualization of my ideas.

Sasaki: To have someone say that about my work, it really motivates me to continue working hard. To have Mr. Suzuki stand as representative director in this project, it reshaped rebranding as a managerial task and showed a deep commitment in the project, which allowed our production team to be involved from the core, and work to our fullest capacity.

Big Brands Have Ideology and Format Established. It Is COMP’s Desire to Manifest One Too

Then, the corporate identity we developed to capture our company’s core message is “To let your passions always move forward, anytime and anywhere”, and a straight line (COMP line) as a logo to visualize that idea. Coupling the renewal with a new product release, we saw an increase in users as well as a trending positive growth in sales.

ーWhat do you believe was the winning cause of your successful rebranding campaign?

Sasaki: This is related to what I was saying earlier but, having project team members that are actively tackling this project with their personal ambition is key. This is something I personally vocalize often but making clear your intention, “This is something I want to accomplish” and putting it into words, that is the most difficult part of any project. In addition, it is even more difficult to make a client project personal to you so that you fulfill that intention, and bring about value. Regardless, the members that formed our team all possessed an incredible vigour towards this case. And that is because everyone could truly understand and support the vision that Mr. Suzuki wanted to embody.

Suzuki: That spirit may also be related to my business’s origin. In the past, when I was working as a researcher, or would just spend lots of time completely engulfed in my work, I tried to save time by eating lots of commercially available balanced nutrition bars, but this caused me to get sick multiple times. As a result, I decided to establish this business and create something that would be better than those nutrition bars, a complete food that could provide for those who are completely enveloped in their passions. Something I developed for myself, I realized that other entrepreneurs like myself needed it as well, which was Phase I. Then I met the monopo team and formed a brand, and thoroughly discussed what form it would take, which became Phase II. I hope to expand much further from now on as well.

ーHow do you hope to expand COMP from now on? Also please tell us what you would hope from monopo, if anything.

Suzuki: This time, I was able to create something that would directly convey what I wanted without any hesitation. I would like to consider what the monopo team has cultivated for me as the beginning of my assets, and expand the brand awareness. In doing so, I believe my next big move will become clear. Although some things are still vague, I don’t want my measures to expand brand acknowledgement and communication to become a one-shot thing, and hope to prevent it from falling into that framework.

Sasaki: I think that’s really good. To use a famous case an example, food manufacturer brands like Pocari Sweat or Kit Kat have well-established ideologies and formats they adhere to. If you can establish that, you will have a campaign that will last 10 years down the line. It’s ideal to come up with a measure that is as concrete and consistent as theirs. Something that accumulates the longer you continue it. I wish to be able to embody that something.

The two who decided to go beyond what responsibilities they usually work within, beyond the title of company president, Mr. Suzuki and Mr. Sasaki both resonated with what redefining a company’s “brand” really requires. Even before establishing a relationship as supplier and contractor, they brought their visions together to satisfy each other’s ideals, and were able to bring back the essence of what it means to be creative.

I hope that in the future they will continue to collaborate and multiply the value they provide each other.

Interview by Midori Sugama(monopo)
Translation by Saki Ohashi（monopo intern）

Personalizing To Our Client's Work and Fulfilling Each Other's Goals was originally published in monopo Tokyo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Young Lions Competition, which is often referred to as “Young Lions”, as well as the Young Spikes Competition, is said to be the gateway into the advertising industry for young individuals. In 2018, monopo team members were nominated as a Media Division Gold candidate and a Design Division Finalist.

This year, Yoshi Sasaki (CEO/Producer) and Mélanie Hubert (Art Director) were selected to be the representatives for Japan in the Media Division — here are their thoughts!

What is Young Lions?

The Young Lions Competition is said to be the gateway into the advertising industry for young individuals. The international advertising festival known as Cannes Lions, hosts an official competition targeting advertising professionals under 30. One team of two representatives from each country participates, and based off a prompt given by the host, the team submits a video or proposal, sometimes a presentation, within the time frame and competes to win either Gold, Silver, or Bronze.

This year, two individuals from our company who received Gold at Young Cannes in the Media Division will be representing Japan at the finals at Cannes Lions: Our CEO Yoshi and Mélanie who joined monopo in 2016 after working at a London agency.

When listening to their stories, for them it wasn’t just about developing a unique idea, but I was able to understand that it was also about incorporating their own backgrounds and experiences.

“My aim was to develop a simple and strong idea” -Yoshi

ー Please tell me your thoughts on representing Japan at the Cannes finals!

Mélanie: I couldn’t believe it! But so happy! Winning gold among so many talented teams from all over Japan was something that sound impossible to me. It is the most important prize I ever received and I’m very proud to represent Japan in Cannes this year. This is definitely an achievement in my career.

— What was the prompt, and what kinds of ideas did you come up with?

Yoshi: Energy is the dominant contributor to climate change, accounting for arounf 60% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. But a small change in behaviour can mean a big change for the planet. The prompt was: how do you get households to change their old light bulbs into LED lights?

Our idea was to partner with PokemonGO to raise awareness of the consequences of energy consumption: “What if Pokemon were going extinct and the only way to save them is to switch to LED?”. The PokemonGo users start to receive alert notifications: many pokemon are in danger of extinction and become more and more rare.

Then, we send notifications to the players: “Switch to LED to save Pokemon”. We use an existing function of the game: the poke-stops and we update them with a new layer. They can now be switched from incandescent bulbs to LED. By doing this and with the efforts of all the players, we save Pokemon from global warming and they start coming back to the game.

We wanted to show the consequences of global warming that happens in the real world through the digital world of Pokemon that everybody knows.

We also supplemented our strategy to include an audience other than just game users through media partnership and micro-site, and also designed the campaign to involve real companies and organizations registered in the spots linked to the game location information.

“If I were the client, would there be value in investing in this idea?” -Yoshi

— What kinds of preparation was necessary to develop a winning idea?

Yoshi: It’s a bit unfair but because the prompt was the same for all divisions this year, we submitted our prompt to several divisions, haha. In the beginning, we were pushing our proposal for the PR Division, but there was not much active public participation and no points of debate and discussion, so at the last minute we extended our proposal to submit to the Media Department.

In addition, we consulted with our seniors at Dentsu or friends who have previously won the competition to develop our own rules for the competition.

A. What is the idea, and when you explain it, can you have it easily fit the statement: ____ will accomplish ____.

→ The judges receive a lot of submissions, so they are probably also very tired. It’s my belief that an idea that’s easily understandable is strong.

B. Is your interpretation of the brief expanding upon the prompt?

→ Figuring out how to get households to change to LED lights is not interesting at all. I always try to reframe the brief as a story that will touch on emotion and make people want to get involved. For this case, I concentrated not on how to change to LEDs, but to save with LEDs. The character everyone is trying to save is a character everyone knows. The enemy is global warming. And this is the story I tried to create.

C. Is it a campaign that will bring about more players?

→ Is the players’ ability to participate too narrow? Using some target action as the hook, it’s crucial to leave some margin so more players can join as the campaign expands. For example, is there some sort of system where not only game users, but also media and non-users can get involved? Are there big enough margins so big corporations or organizations can get involved? This is what I check for.

D. A balance of astonishing surprises and incentive design

→ I learned this from my former senior at Dentsu, who I have the utmost respect for. It seems that there are only two reasons which make people take action. For this case, I took careful attention towards balancing between the iconic shock that is the character’s extinction and the user incentive that the more LEDs there are, the more rare characters are restored.

E. Is there value to invest in this?

→ I am an investor, so if I’m the client, I always check what the cost is and what the return is at the end. For this case, I decided that the cost was overwhelmingly cheap because it’s only a matter of changing a bit of the original material and features and developing a press release for it. While preserving the worldview of Niantic and the characters in it, we appealed widely towards the iconic Ingress technology, and developed an appeal strategy to bring in a lot of active users.

— After winning the proposal component of the preliminaries, there was the final presentation component, but what kind of preparation did you do for it?

Yoshi: Because monopo has a lot of employees fluent in English, I practiced my presentation in front of them, held a Q/A session with them, gathered more possible questions via Google Form, and prepared for any possible response.

Mélanie: It was actually a lot of work and questioning to find the clearest way to present the idea so it looks easy to understand. We managed to do this in front of the jury so it’s a big achievement for me!

— What is something special about your design?

Mélanie: We managed to find an impactful idea that we can explain very simply: “Pokemon are going extinct, the only way way to save them is to switch to LED”, so I was very happy about that. This is always the most important and also the most difficult. But once we developed the idea, we also had the risk to water-down the concept but we managed to stay strong and simple with the main idea!

“I don’t come from an advertising background, but I’m glad I participated in Young Lions!” ” -Mélanie

— This is Yoshi’s fourth time participating, and Mélanie’s first time participating, but why did you two decide to participate this year?

Yoshi: This is already my fourth attempt at the competition, and only once in the past have I made it to the finals for the Japan preliminaries… even within monopo, other members have gotten Silver or Bronze and to be honest, I was becoming very anxious.

Mélanie: Actually yes it was my first time to apply to Young Lions competition! As I came from a digital production background, I always thought this competition was mostly for advertising creatives. But when I met Yoshi, he asked me if I would like to team-up with him and convinced me this competition was open for everybody. As we have very different skills and background, we are a very complementary team and it was a great set-up to try the competition! I realised that winning at Young Lions was very good for monopo’s reputation and this was my main motivation to prove our creativity to the creative industry!

— Please tell me about your favorite advertisement this year

Yoshi: Mine would be Adidas’ “Odds” campaign. “Odds” is Adidas’ first para-athlete advertisement, and what I really like about it is instead of showcasing the usual right-left pair of shoes, they sold them in pairs of two right shoes or two left shoes, a very simple yet strong message.

Odds by Adidas

Mélanie: To me the ad of the year so far is the video “Welcome Home” made by Spike Jonze for Apple. The concept is really awesome and innovative and everybody talked about it. It shows that advertising can be art and become an iconic piece!

Welcome Home by Spike Jonze for Apple

Thank you very much!

2018 Young Lions Japan competition Review vol.2 was originally published in monopo Tokyo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Young Lions Competition, which is often referred to as “Young Lions”, as well as the Young Spikes Competition, is said to be the gateway into the advertising industry for young individuals.

In 2018, monopo team members were nominated as a Media Division Gold candidate and a Design Division Finalist. This time, first-time Young Cannes participants Kenta Takahashi (Producer/Engineer) and Takuya Kenmoku (Art Director), were selected as finalists in the Design Division — here are their thoughts!

What is Young Lions?

The Young Lions Competition is said to be the gateway into the advertising industry for young individuals. The international advertising festival known as Cannes Lions, hosts an official competition targeting advertising professionals under 30. One team of two representatives from each country participates, and based off a prompt given by the host, the team submits a video or proposal, sometimes a presentation, within the time frame and competes to win either Gold, Silver, or Bronze.

This year, two individuals from our company who received Gold at Young Cannes in the Media Division will be representing Japan at the finals at Cannes Lions.

“I was conscious of conveying a message that could surpass language or culture barriers” -Takuya

Only two years after graduating, Kenta and Takuya face their first competition. Although they couldn’t make it to the finals, just the fact that they were finalist in the Design Division is an occasion to celebrate, and I received insight on their thoughts!

— What was the prompt for this year’s Young Cannes?

Takuya: The prompt for this year’s Young Cannes was simply “What should I do to change the lights in my house to LED lights?

Kenta:As a response to that, our idea was “venerate past inventions yet recognize a need for new technology, and represent that with a signature”. The title is “RIP INNOVATION”. RIP is a backronym for “Rest in Peace” and to put it simply, it means “Innovation, rest peacefully”.

— What kind of idea is “RIP INNOVATION”?

Kenta: When considering energy or environmental issues, it is apparent that incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent lights should be converted to LEDs. But the fact that incandescent light bulb use is so widespread causes us to forget that it is that invention that allowed humankind to lead such enriched lives.

We decided to focus our spot on that point, and while respecting the invention of the incandescent light bulb, we wanted to develop a solution which would clearly indicate action using advancements in technology, yet still be fitting to modern times. The VI (visual identity) uses the wire filaments from incandescent bulbs as motifs for the introduction line, and by signing the introduction line, the sign becomes the filament and appears as an electric light bulb. Our choice not only reflects respect towards past inventions, but also indicates an advancement from old technology to new technology.

— What part of the design did you spend a lot of time on?

Takuya: Because we were first-time participants, we borrowed a bit of help from our superiors and did a lot of research on previous Cannes’ prompts. Within our research we found that it is a trend for international issues regardless of race or country to be the proposal problem at Young Cannes, so we referred to case studies on designs that addressed similar international issues.

As a normal worker, I am primarily just a citizen of Japan, but I believe that my field of vision has expanded since I’ve begun to design for problems that address some target issue that could help several people.

Furthermore, as languages and cultures differ, in order to have the same meaning resonate for a global audience, we had to thoroughly calculate what we included, and we needed it to iconic, which is why we made our main motif “A human (celebrity) signature”.

It was important to have the signature look as if a light bulb’s filament, and I am quite proud of this component of the design. Also, in addition to having the sign be recognized as a language, it could be recognized through shape, and I believe it was effective in addressing an international problem where language barriers may rise… but truth be told, I can’t prove how effective it actually was, haha.

“Because it was my first appearance, I just did a lot of research. It was a good lesson, having had to explore a wide range of ideas” -Kenta

— During the challenge, you’ve investigated a ton of past cases. What is the “winning idea” you two found?

Kenta: This year, unlike the usual annual Japan preliminaries, the question was the same for all divisions, so we just gave out a bunch of possible ideas, and ultimately we adjusted our best idea towards the most suitable division.

Takuya: I felt that the winning idea was considerably different between the main competition and the preliminaries. In the case of the Japan preliminaries, I had the impression that big, grand ideas were preferred.

— Besides “RIP INNOVATION”, what kinds of ideas did you two have?

Kenta: Because we were first-time participants this year, we thought it would be best to compete with sheer quantity. We did a lot of research on previous examples, analyzed the structure of ones we thought were well developed, didn’t narrow our idea down until the very last minute to leave our possibilities open, and allocated most of our time to developing a bunch of ideas. So our ideas were not limited to the Design Divisiont, but they picked up several components.

「Iconic LED.」

We focused on the fact that a commonly used icon to indicate ideas is an incandescent light bulb. There are a lot of icons that use legacy motifs around us, and we believed that having one would be a useful starting point. For example, the phone icon we see often is still the black phone, or the sound icon is the megaphone, or the search icon is the magnifying glass, the key is a padlock, the phone battery is the dry cell.

As a theme, we thought it would be interesting to develop further, but even if we were to develop a design which would acknowledge the issue, we faced the problem of identifying an incentive or motivation which would persuade people to change their behavior.

「Who is next Luxo Jr.」

This is not some idea we scrapped, but a proposal we actually submitted to the Digital Division.

This project is, “Pixar is recruiting. What they are recruiting is Luxo Jr.’s new light bulb”

The hook is a job at Pixar, there’s the character Luxo Jr. who is recognized globally across generations, and the expectation that the winning light bulb would be actually adopted in Luxo Jr — I thought it was a beautifully put together proposal, but unfortunately it didn’t win. To be honest, I was more confident in this design than the Design Division submission, haha.

In addition, because the problem was related to environmentalism, I wanted to expand that prompt to include the universe, planets, time, so on, and make this a very personal project, but that would’ve been way beyond my scope and capacity. Although, if I consulted with Jonathan Nolan, I may have been able to do it, haha.

— As a young employee, what is the motivation for participating in Young Cannes?

Kenta: I think it is a great place where people of similar levels in the same generation can compete, have your work be recognized by accomplished people, and hone your own skills.

In addition, because this is the first time I’m participating, I took a lot of time researching past award cases, regardless if they’re Cannes proposals or not, and I ended up learning a lot. After all, cases that were highly regarded in the past or well-developed proposals still today. I believe that participating in Young Cannes is a good opportunity because your output is evaluated and you can systematically organize and shape the knowledge and input you gain from the experience.

“Next year we’re definitely going to win!” — Takuya and Kenta

— Did you struggle with anything, your first duo competition?

Takuya: Not particularly! On a normal basis, we spend a lot of time together within the company, so getting on the same page with each other was easy. It was a lot easier to stay motivated when you can laugh together about it, so it was a really fun experience!

Oh, but Mr. Kenta, his hair is super long… it gives him such a distinct character. If we were to get Gold (first place at the Japan preliminaries), magazines and media outlets might want to interview us. I was pretty worried how I should establish my own character…not wanting to lose all the attention to Kenta……..

— Haha, well anyways, tell me what you hope for next year!

Takuya: Next year I’m definitely going to participate, and we’ll win. For things like these international competitions, when you win, people recognize your name, which is a huge motivation for me. I want to become that kind of person where my friends can brag to others that they know me. To put it simply, I want to become a really amazing person, so much so that my friends will tell others, “Hey, you know I’m actually friends with that Takuya?” hahaha. Because my friends have been supporting me throughout my life!

Kenta: In the advertising industry Cannes is the most famous competition, so I guess winning here would open a lot of doors and opportunities. I’m going to work hard so next year, I’ll be able to participate in the main competition. Although next year I think I might just go with Mélanie (who participated in the competition with our CEO Sasaki in the Media Division and won Gold), haha.

Text by Saki Ohashi (monopo intern)

2018 Young Lions Japan competition Review vol.1 was originally published in monopo Tokyo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.