The Japanese Trade Union Conference: JAPANESE NATIONAL COMPLAINING CHAMPIONSHIP

Credits:

http://www.kaibutsu.jp/awards/booing_e/

Summary of this campaign:
Due to the subprime crisis that has been spreading across our world, the economic recession, high costs of living and spread of unemployment have all undeniably been becoming harsher and harsher social issues for the people of Japan to cope with.

The Japanese Trade Union Conference, a.k.a "Rengo" has been faced with resolving these matters and they want an opportunity to talk more intimately with people about their daily problems. As a solution, we created a campaign on the internet, in the form of a "Japanese National Complaining Championship" that gives everyone an outlet to voice their stress. Any user that is a qualified victim of stress is given the opportunity to write down any kind of complaint he or she has, and that has been growing inside of them.

As a metaphor to what we hope will become of this stress, we created a character called "Tobuta," that will take your problems away, literally. He inhales your complaints, fly up high into the air and delivers them to a far and off place. The distance of his journey is determined by one's mouse-clicking skills and the weight of the complaint entered.

About the site:
Entering the site, you will face “Tobuta”, a pig-like character who will suck up your complaint and fly away.
Type your complaint in the corner below, select your age, sex, type of job and the category of your complaint(e.g. work, tax, love, everyday life and so on).
After filling out the form, “Tobuta” will fly up in the sky by your mouse click. The distance of his flight will change by your mouse-click timing and the weight of the complaint you entered and so does the variation of “Tobuta”’s flight.
When the flight is over, you can replay and watch the flight again, or you can watch your stats by showing the distribution map. In this map you can read other complaints which were dropped recently by other participants.
The website's aesthetics, layout, typography, and character were all designed to provide a playful, and stress-free atmosphere that provides a comfortable, stress-relieving outlet for the public. Keeping to the core therapeutic purpose of this site, Rengo will review the complaints, send feedback to their users, and utilize the collected data to further aid the people for the turbulent times we have ahead of us.

By the way, the sound of the pig’s “oink” is described as “boo” in Japan. That’s the reason why the site’s character looks like a pig.

The result:
The site launched in Sep. 08, quickly became a national success. The site appeared in over 2,000 blogs, top of Yahoo! Japan news, national newspaper, magazine and TV news network. The site recorded over 1 million views and 550,000 users, 150,000 comments (which all are complaint) by the end of Jan. 09.

Rengo believes that the people need to be distanced from the pollutive stresses such as panic and paranoia that are leaking from the world's crises. Rengo's fundamental aim with this campaign is to give the people a actual sense of peace and ease during these harsh periods.

Agency: Tokyu Agency Inc.
Account: Ken Miyashita
Planning: Yoshio Tsuda
Creative director: Keigo Nakanishi
Interactive: Teppei Shiina
Others: Kenichi Kikui