Snickers in Japan needed to find an authentic way to engage our core 16-24 year old audience – not just with mass media, but with authentic PR-driven content that they could discover naturally. Our campaign idea was the global ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ idea – which focuses on the mental and social consequences of hunger, and we wanted to build a really compelling Japanese event around that.

In Fall 2012, we created the irreverent and humourous “Apology Grand Prix” event geared to appeal to our younger audience, and used PR to spread word of the event through digital and ATL media.

Our “Apology Grand Prix” was chaired by the notorious Japanese celebrity Yuya Uchida, who was well known for bad behavior and elaborate public apologies. We announced in the press and online that Yuya was looking to find the best public apologizer in Japan. He solicited entries online, and a short list was created for a live apology event. Invitations went out to the mass press and youth-skewed press (both online and offline), and thousands watched the event live in person and online.

Yuya judged them all as person after person bowed in contrition in front of a cluster of microphones, confessing a terrible deed, and saying they just weren’t themselves because of hunger. At the end, the best apologizer was crowned by Yuya, and he told everyone that next time, they should just go eat a Snickers.

Coverage across media both online and off was broad, and tracking measures showed an increased sales rate and affinity with our core target. Finally, the PR-event and mass campaign increased annual sales 120% & gained over one million US% PR media exposure.

We created a one-off social comedy event – “The Apology Grand Prix” – and centred it on the Yuya Uchida who was a well-known Japanese outsider. Famous for his shocking behaviour and elaborate public apologies, Yuya announced in the press and online that he was searching for Japan’s best apologizers. He solicited entries online, and a short list was created for a live event. Invitations went out to the mass press and youth-skewed press (both online and offline), and thousands turned out to watch the event live in person and online.

Yuya judged them all as person after person bowed in contrition in front of a cluster of microphones, confessing a terrible deed, and saying they just weren’t themselves because of hunger.

At the end, the best apologizer was crowned by Yuya, and he told everyone that next time, they should just go eat a Snickers.

50 media outlets covered the event, including:

• TV show, has best rating in Sunday morning: Sunday Japon

• Biggest sales tabloid News paper in Japan: Tokyo sports

• Internet news media: Yahoo! News(has biggest viewer), Naver Matome(Biggest news blog) , Owarai Natalie(Biggest news blog amongst teen)

・Participants from more than 50 countries.

・1,232,500 Twitter impressions

・2,650,000 media impressions

・Daily sales recorded the highest number up by 150% from average sales.