When we were tasked to launch Onitsuka Tiger in Europe, we thought how does a small Japanese sneaker brand take on the giants of the sneaker world? We realized we could beat them in an area in which they can’t compete. By being Japanese. Onitsuka Tiger has Japan in its DNA - a fact that makes them super cool in Europe. So our campaign, MADE OF JAPAN took advantage of this. Starting with the world’s largest sneaker built out of Japanese collectibles.

We had a tiny media budget so we needed something with good PR value to get sneaker-heads talking. So we built the world’s largest sneaker out of thousands of Japanese collectibles. We seeded the idea with leading sneakerheads. Very soon the sneaker community was abuzz with the coming of the big shoe. We successfully unveiled the sculpture at a sneakerfreaker party in Amsterdam, followed by a tour of street culture events across Europe. We also ran mainstream press. While online we created viral film and a portal to everything Japanese - a shoe made up of thousands of Japanese links.

The results were excellent. For a tiny budget we got huge coverage. Our sculpture was featured on most major sneaker sites. While articles on our project appeared in Vice, Sneakerfreakr and Lodown. Increased sales activity have led to Onitsuka Tiger opening several more concept stores across Europe. But the thing that made us most proud is our campaign has not only proved a hit with the European kids but also with the kids in Japan. To date, we have received several offers from Japanese galleries to purchase our sculpture.