CHALLENGE

The metropolis of Tokyo is a buzzing hive of activity with hundreds of thousands of distractions—so many in fact that visiting the famous Sunshine Aquarium, which has been around for 35 years, had fallen off many people's radars. To make matters worse, the Aquarium is located in an extremely dense part of the city and it's nearly a kilometer from the nearest station. We had to find a way to attract more visitors to the Aquarium and, just importantly, make sure they had no trouble finding it.

IDEA

Get the cutest aquarium inhabitant—penguins—to guide visitors to the Aquarium. We designed an augmented reality GPS system featuring penguins that lead the way to the Aquarium. Our GPS penguins walk and move exactly like real penguins. It was a world first: motion capture technology applied to penguins. Humans are naturally entranced by cute animals. With our App, all anyone with mobile phone has to do is follow the penguins. They lead straight to the Aquarium. It's so entertaining that all other distractions go unnoticed.

RESULT

Attendance at the Sunshine Aquarium increased 152% over the previous month despite no change in exhibition content. People who downloaded the App spent on average more than 9 minutes at a time playing with it. More than 32% of users opened the app more than 7 times and 93% of users planned to recommend it to friends/families. Penguins brought not only people to the Aquarium, they also brought smiles.

The originality of this creative work is walking with Augmented Reality (AR) penguins on the street and AR penguins taking you to the aquarium. Penguins are the main attraction in this aquarium. We set the penguin at the creative center.

Attendance at the Sunshine Aquarium increased 152% over the previous month despite no change in exhibition content. People who downloaded the App spent on average more than 9 minutes at a time playing with it. More than 32% of users opened the app more than 7 times and 93% of users planned to recommend it to friends/families. Penguins brought not only people to the Aquarium, they also brought smiles.