Background:
The Japanese music industry, with sales dwindling to half of what it was compared to the golden age, is in a state of crisis. With this issue at hand, we took it upon ourselves to create an entirely new kind of music video for the hip hop idols "Lyrical School", and create some real buzz.
We found an interesting insight that the young generation does not watch music videos on TV or PC however, watches it on smartphones.
Idea:
Our idea was the world’s first native mobile music video.
It was tailored to be seen on your mobile device.
The artists perform their song within the realms of email, smartphone camera, SNS and other UI that the viewers use on a daily basis. The viewer experience is as if the artists themselves have hijacked their smartphone.
Target:
The target audience are youth in their 10’s and 20’s.
They enjoy connecting with the wider world and watching videos and movies, not via TV or PC, but via smartphones.
We also know that the target are enjoying movies daily on Twitter and Vine, not with a horizontal screen but vertical screens. We focused on this major shift in media enjoyment.
We cast away all previous notions of music video engagement and focused our targeting entirely on mobile users and their worldview. Our strategy was to create a vertical screen music video as platform.
Excecution:
The smartphone is the most universal and relevant media in this day and age. So therefore, the music video and its execution itself must bring about relevant surprises to viewers.
1. We used the smartphone for all filming to create and imbue a sense of familiarity and relevancy for the target/smartphone users.
2. Utilize the apps used by viewers every single day.
We utilized the app UI in production. The viewers are lulled into a sensation that their smartphone itself has been hijacked.
3. Placement of filmed footage on SNS.
All SNS posts seen on the video were real posts actually made. There is an undeniable realty in the footage.
4. Expression that can be recreated. There are no computer graphics at all. All of the footage can be re-created entirely on anybody’s smartphone. The viewers undergo an experience as if they themselves are controlling the video at their own fingertips.
Results:
Within the first 2 weeks of release, this video got 1,300,000 views.
(The average music video play count until now was about 80,000.) It got first place in Twitter trend rankings and shared more than 42,000 times.
YouTube, vimeo, and twitter official accounts showcased the video. We can safely say that we created a game changer for the music video field.