Sports participation in Japan amongst the youth is declining, and many don’t see the value it can bring to their lives. In addition, Japanese youth also have some of the world’s lowest confidence rates: only 44.9% vs. 83.8% of American/83.7% of Korean students. Our task was to find a way to inspire Japanese female youth to see sports as a powerful tool to create the world they want, igniting a conversation and celebrate sports at heart.

“The Future Isn’t Waiting” features three real-life footballers of diverse backgrounds who use the confidence from playing sports to challenge societal norms. One of the central norms they challenge is that Japan is a place of social harmony where issues like racism don’t exist. By featuring a half-Black and an ethnically Korean protagonist, we shed light on the discrimination they do face, especially within the context of Japan’s well-documented problem with school bullying. We also show the power of sports to unite and empower a generation that doesn’t yet realize its power to shape the future.

We interviewed over 20 women between 18-24 and asked them, “if you had a magic wand, what would you change about Japan?” It was bullying that topped their priority list. Bullying is a major problem in Japan, with cases in Japanese schools rising to an all-time high from 543,933 to 612,496 in 2019. Standing out for any reason can make you a target for bullying, and in a homogeneous society, with different ethnic or racial backgrounds, you often have no choice to stand out. Our audience expressed their desire to enact change but didn’t have the confidence to do it. What they didn’t yet know is that sports is a powerful way to gain confidence. When confidence grows, action follows. We wanted to celebrate those ahead of the game and who found strength and confidence through sports, inspiring others to follow.

The film release was Nov 28. Paid media focused on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter over a 72 hour flight and stirred up a storm of conversation that helped the film trend until December 3. In order to create conversation, paid media was our tool to break through the algorithmic silos of social media. We purposely avoided narrow audience targeting to focus on creating a single cross-cultural moment across timelines, feeds and recommendation engines. Groups interacted and debated other groups they would otherwise not cross paths with on their version of the internet.

45M+ Total Views, 102M+ Paid Impressions, 547M Earned Impressions, 184K Unique posts, 75K+ Comments, #1 Trending Tweet in JP 11/29

Impact was achieved on a national + international scale. The film and campaign generated multiple waves of conversation: 1) immediate reactions to the film, 2) national discussion on discrimination and racism and 3) international attention on the discrimination and racism in Japan.