One of Japan’s largest annual sporting events is a high school baseball tournament, Koshien, held over two weeks every August.

Uber Eats is seen as a cool and modern, but foreign, OFD (online food delivery) brand in Japan and people sometimes question how well it ‘belongs’ in the region. This results in audiences showing brand preference and deferring to their hyper localised competitors.

Families have been identified as a key growth audience for Uber Eats in Japan to build on organic adoption from younger SINKS/ DINKS following launch into the market in 2016. Therefore, we set out to find a creatively interesting connection between the high school Baseball phenomenon of Koshien, Uber Eats and Japanese Families to reposition Uber Eats from a global, western brand aimed at a younger audience to a brand that is tapped into and understands Japanese families and culture.

In the 30” film, we see a number of ‘mega hungry’ teenage baseball players, their coaches, parents, friends and spectators from the immensely popular Japanese high school baseball tournament, Koshien, eating a range of delicious and craveable looking foods like bento, fried chicken, noodles, curries, Gyoza and more.

As teenage hunger can never be satisfied, an online food delivery driver appears with more delectable foods for the teams and spectators to enjoy so that the celebration of Koshien are never interrupted.

Our Koshien campaign drove significant uplift across all of our key channel measures where consumers were asked if they perceived Uber Eats as a “local brand” - Instagram +4.6.%, +3.8% TikTok, +3% CTV.

August 2023 set the record (excluding during COVID) for FTEs (First time eaters) since the brand launched in Japan in 2016 and 52% of these FTEs driven by direct participation in offers from the campaign.