Animation and games are extremely popular in Japan, and the mascot characters used by large companies are very familiar to most people. One of these is “Docomodake”, the mascot character of NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest telecommunications carrier, which first appeared in 2005. As the face of this company, Docomodake has appeared in many commercials and has been incorporated into many products. However, with the appearance in 2015 of the bird character “Poinko”, this new character all of a sudden became very popular, with the result that Docomodake has since rather fallen by the wayside in popular estimation.

A letter was uploaded onto the brand website informing viewers of the disappearance of Docomodake. A “Search Campaign with a Reward” was then announced using social media and newspaper advertisements. Users visited the home-leaving website specially set up for use on smartphones and tablets and began searching.

The story involved searching for Docomodake from a large atlas of the world with the odd hint provided by a variety of characters who appeared from time to time. Docomodake was discovered five hours after the campaign got under way, and during the brief space of time 82,000 people took part in the search.