Shibuya, one of Tokyo's most iconic neighborhoods, has been the center of youth culture in Japan for many years. But the City also wanted to become known as Tokyo's most energetic tech top spot; a sort of Silicon Valley of Japan that would attract high-tech oriented youth energy and forward-thinking companies alike.

Au (KDDI), Japan's biggest telecom, wanted to prove their tech prowess in providing the most advanced (5G) online services, while gaining a large amount of attention in earned media and social following.

We wanted to create new platform experience that could achieve what both these brands wanted in a mutually beneficial buzz-worthy solution.

The idea was to develop an entirely new virtual platform. One that could provide a variety of entertainment and lifestyle experiences, connecting visitors on an event-based basis within a virtual world that looks and feels connected to the real City they already loved: Shibuya.

We set out to create Japan's most advanced, most exciting metaverse out of Japan's most adored City.

This world, Shibuya Virtual City, welcomed avatars from a variety of sources, offered all kinds of top-name Japanese entertainment, including singers, comedians, movies, and exclusive stage shows, and introduced Virtual Commerce, or 'V-Commerce' for the first time in Asia, creating a metaverse bringing together both culture and commerce.

While there have been multiple audiences, the primary target has been Gen Z. Especially the more influential among this group; opinion leaders, artists, the creative communities. We wanted to inspire and provide the kind of new experiences that would encourage them to share and refer the platform to others.

Another target was tech-savvy businesses who make decisions about where they might locate a forward-thinking company, while encouraging leading companies already in Shibuya to put down roots there. And, a third target was the broadcast media, who could help the most in spreading the word about the new platform.

Our honed overall message was about building the future, fearlessly exploring new frontiers and contributing to the City for the next generation. And how au (KDDI) had the 5G prowess to make it all happen.

Shibuya City partnered with au (KDDI) to build, block by block, "Shibuya Virtual City", an identical digital twin to the physical City.

The best attended event was Shibuya Virtual Halloween. Due to the pandemic, the physical city, which had become 'Halloween-Central' in previous years, was all but shut-down. The pandemic made it the perfect occasion to create a virtual entertainment experience which turned out to be the biggest Halloween event ever in Japan.

After such a success, au (KDDI) and the City planned additional virtual events. Expansion into the Harajuku section of Shibuya brought V-Commerce to the platform through the Harajuku neighborhood's most iconic stores.

The Shibuya Virtual City platform has become Japan's largest and most advanced metaverse.

While welcoming an astounding 1,000,000+ visitors so far, the platform has broken various barriers. It has enabled access to the City from a wide variety of avatar generators, including the au (KDDI) brand's own Avatarium, which enabled easier access to more like-like avatars.

And, perhaps, most exciting, was how the platform was able to introduce the advanced V-commerce to Japan, through some of Tokyo's most popular stores. Fashion forward Laforet, a kind of sartorial center for the Harajuku district of Shibuya was shoppers flocking to its showroom, while Atmos, ground zero for sneakerheads, sold unique designs, exclusive to the platform's store.

The media exposure garnered for the platform has reached 25 times what clients had aimed for, with over US$50MM in earned media value, on Japan's biggest news and entertainment broadcast programming.