Spikes Asia
TUGBOAT, Tokyo / YOKOHAMA DENA BAYSTARS BASEBALL CLUB, INC. / 2019
Overview
Entries
Credits
Background
The event is organized by “Yokohama DeNA Baystars”, a professional baseball franchise based in Yokohama, Japan. We carried out a campaign that distributed the special uniforms for the events to enhance a sense of unity among the fans to make it a special event.
YOKOHAMA STAR NIGHT has been held every year since 2012, which is the year when the franchise was newly established, and it has become one of Yokohama’s major summer events. The purpose is to serve as a moment of excitement through bringing together the town of Yokohama and the team. This uniform is worn by players as well as the stadium staff during the event.
Idea
To attract customers and to acquire new fans, nearly 300 million Yen was spent for the events to hand out uniforms, which could also be used permanently. For example, we distributed over 90000 uniforms at YOKOHAMA STAR NIGHT in 3 days. This service of handing out free uniforms not only served as an appealing promotion for stadium spectators, but it also helped to make people visit the stadium more casually by wearing the uniform on regular match days as well.
The annually distributed uniforms can become a collector’s item, which will make people visit the following year to get the new uniform.
Execution
YOKOHAMA STAR NIGHT is designed under the image of “Voyage to the Universe,” which is an event theme, and expresses the universe expanding from Yokohama in various blues, including the team color “Yokohama blue” that in used in the logo mark of the baseball club by using concentric circles of the solar system as an image source.
Outcome
The stadium occupancy for the first Star Night in 2012 was around 73%, however it reached over 90% since the distribution of uniforms that began in 2013. Currently the occupancy is close to 100% every year. Additionally, tickets are almost immediately sold out after being placed on sale, and even members of the fan club struggle to get seats unless they have gold membership, making it an extremely popular event. Live viewing is also held, which gathers approximately 10,000 people.