au | SYNC YELL | 2015
The Moment They Stepped Off the Train, Their Phone Buzzed and the Tears Came / au "SYNC YELL - A Surprise Cheer From Home the Moment You Arrive in Tokyo"
There was no time to wonder how much of this was set up and how much was real, because the tears were already coming early on.
The problem
In spring 2015, KDDI ran this surprise project as the second installment of "SYNC PROJECT," aimed at young people moving to Tokyo to chase their dreams. It's a documentary-style film following three young people from the moment they say goodbye to their hometowns to the moment they arrive in Tokyo: Chihiro Kuramoto, who leaves Fukuoka hoping to become a model; Saki Kitahara, who leaves Tochigi to start university; and Yoshifumi Saito, who leaves Kyoto to pursue entertainment work. The goal was to use the power of communication to support people in that mixed moment of anxiety and hope that comes with leaving home.
The insight
The filming was a genuine surprise, capturing the three young people's real, unscripted reactions. The idea was to take the feeling of caring about someone, of wanting to give them a push forward, and turn it into something tangible, into a service, delivered to them while losing as little of its purity as possible. Using iBeacon technology, the system detects the person's smartphone and switches the footage on a large display at the station to a video message from home. It's striking how naturally this connects technology and emotion.
The idea
As the young people step off the train at a station in Tokyo and pass through the ticket gate, a large display at the station detects their phone, and a surprise video message from family and friends back home appears on screen. When the message ends, holding the phone up to the display lets them receive that cheer from home inside the app. The music choice is perfect—when you want to make someone cry, a piano really is the way to go.
What happened
The video was viewed more than 2.89 million times (over 1.2 million on YouTube, over 1.4 million on Facebook), drawing comments like "So moving!" and "I cried!" from around the world. Among people who saw the video, favorability toward the au brand rose by 13.5%, and intent to switch from other carriers rose by about 20.0%. The campaign was covered by 399 domestic and 105 overseas web media outlets, with the estimated PR advertising value at about 170 million yen.
Afterthought
There was no time to wonder how much of this was set up and how much was real—the tears were already coming early on. Taking the feeling of caring about someone, of wanting to give them a push forward, and turning it into something tangible, into a service, delivered while losing as little of its purity as possible. And the music choice is perfect—when you want to make someone cry, a piano really is the way to go.
