Hiroshima is a prefecture located in the western area of Japan. There are two World Heritage Sites (Itsukushima Shrine and Hiroshima Peace Memorial) but other tourist attractions are not widely known.

The goal was to highlight the true beauty of Hiroshima and its attractions, to raise positive interest towards Hiroshima, and to increase the number of tourists.

All the Hiroshima attractions are “almost” there but frustratingly, not quite…

Why not take advantage of that “almost-ness” to draw attention to Hiroshima?

With “Hiroshima, almost there!” as the tagline, we launched the self-deprecating PR campaign called “Oshii! Hiroshima”.

Since our target market was quite young, we needed an edgy approach with surprises that the young people would not expect to see from a conservative Japanese bureaucracy.

This had attracted objections within the government offices and parliament. We produced a PR video that featured Hiroshima locals who were confused and were against this “almost-there!” concept.

We also made a sequel, recreating the heated debate in the prefecture assembly.

These videos generated a lot of buzz-talk.

We also started digital signage, posters and street screens in Tokyo, Osaka and other big cities.

As a result, the number of tourist marked the highest in Hiroshima history, still increasing by more than 3 million people since launch of the campaign.

Inspired by these movements, some towns and a group of students made some parody ads. Resulting in the “almost-there!” concept became widely accepted as a Hiroshima key word.

With “Hiroshima, almost there!” as the tagline, we launched our PR campaign.

We started with digital signage, posters and street screens from March 25 to March 31 in Osaka and Fukuoka.

From June to September, we collaborated with destination campaigns, launching posters at hub stations all over Japan.

Press conferences were held between August 2 and August 19 for “Hiroshima, almost there!”

We then launched a 2nd viral video on August 8 on the special website, followed by station billboards and digital signage.

The number of tourist marked the highest in history, still increasing by more than 3 million people since launch of the campaign.

Many companies launched new tie-up products.

Smaller towns and high schools started making parody ads, resulting in the 'almost-there!' concept become widely accepted as a Hiroshima key word.