People famous on social media, like YouTubers, Instagrammers, Tiktokers, have begun to gain a social status, and are now idolized by the youth today.

The young people today are occupied to increase the number of likes and followers on their social media accounts. As a result, every 1 in 7 people are said to be diagnosed as “social media addiction”.

Y!mobile, a mobile carrier mainly targeting them in Japan, realized that this is a new social issue derived from how smartphones have become a standard in our lives.

With how popularity on social media has become a scale for the youth to measure their value, Y!mobile aimed to make their targets reconsider with how they should be facing social media with a new digital wellbeing campaign.

“More Than Likes”

A science fiction film in which a schoolgirl was addicted to social media winds up in “the same classroom in another world”, where one’s popularity on social media determines their hierarchy in class.

In this classroom, the students’ hierarchy is set based on the number of followers on their social media accounts. For example, the nerd of the class is now the popular guy, and the queen bee is now the bullied girl.

In a world where only popularity on social media defines the “value” of people, our protagonist begins to realize the true values of people that cannot simply be measured by the number of likes and followers.

Teenagers, who are Y!mobile’s target and those that the brand message should be delivered to, have no interest in boring manuals or lectures.

That is why we purposely wanted to draw them in with a fascinating Sci-Fi film showing their ideal world where popularity on social media would determine the value of people in order to have them reconsider how they should be facing social media.

In addition, the story was adapted to many forms of entertainment like web drama series, film, novels, animation and music which the youth are familiar with, spreading our message to more of our target audiences.

“More Than Likes” was initially streamed online as a 20 episode drama series.

With the drama’s success, it was also adapted into a movie which was played in many theaters including Tokyo and Osaka where many young people rushed to the premiere.

In addition, in order to reach out to more of the youth, we used different channels to communicate our story to them.

The story was adapted into a novel and was stocked in bookstores throughout the country and also on Amazon.

It was also adapted into an animation piece by a popular illustrator.

“More Than Likes” was distributed in many forms of entertainment like music, online TV shows, advertisements which the youth are familiar with, making our target audience to reconsider how they should be facing social media.

“More Than Likes”, produced by a mobile carrier company became an unprecedented digital wellbeing campaign. It raised questions on the values of the youth today, generating debates on how they should be facing social media.

Detailed results are as follows.

- Exceeded a total of 33 million views on Theaters and YouTube.

- Gained over 130 million social impressions.

- Gained over 34 million brand engagement.

- Became a trending topic on Twitter and YouTube in Japan.

- The brand interest increased by 161% compared to last year.

As a result, the number of subscribers increased by 21%, making Y!mobile the no.1 low-priced mobile carrier service in the first half of 2019. The brand became strongly connected with the youth.