It’s been a while since we heard or spoke about Star Wars especially here on this site. Perhaps we got a little carried away with all the developments taking place in Social Media or all the upgradations that take place with each new OS that is announced.
Every product, application, gadget or service always has a supporting ad campaign and big companies spend handsome amounts of money to get a campaign right. Star Wars has sort of become an antique, if we were to be honest and if we were to consider today’s teenagers. They would rather watch movies that have much blood and gore in them, and rival science fiction production houses are not spending any less either. Thus, when it comes to doing an ad run for the new Star Wars “The Complete Saga” Blu-ray DVD box set release, Lucas Arts and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Japan have done an impressive job at targeting the right audience. The ad guys decided to use Tokyo trains’ railings as the medium of choice for this particular ad campaign that involves converting them into life sized lightsabers.
In a country like Japan where everyone eats, drinks and breathes technology and geek-culture, Star Wars are more popular than you could ever imagine. Thus, running an ad campaign right on Tokyo’s mass transit could just be the wisest and smartest idea the ad guys could have come up with. It is interesting to note that for the first time in Japanese advertising history, hand rails have been used in a campaign. Usually, companies pay millions of Yens in order to run ad campaigns on mass transits anywhere in the world. When we are talking about Tokyo’s trains, and that too to run an ad campaign of this measure Lucas Arts and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment must have spent a huge fortune.
It is not clear which ad agency took up this campaign, but no matter who it is, they can rest assured that they would get more clients in the future, and certainly Tokyo Train authorities and Lucas would love to work with them again for their next ad campaigns. Tokyo rail authorities can look forward to an increased number of commuters on the trains as the word spreads around, and Lucas can look forward to more number of Blu-ray DVDs sold, as these people get off from the trains. We would love to know who is behind this innovative lightsaber ad campaign! You could also take a look at Twitter’s controversial In-stream Advertising. You might also want to take a look at 17 Bus Stops that have used advertising to make waiting for buses slightly more tolerable. Maybe it is time to go and check which ad campaign is being run on your city’s mass transit!
