With the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was a year where we were all cut off from each other. Travel restrictions and stay home orders transformed cities into life-less towns. Even though the world must stay at home, we want people to continue smiling. With the goal of “Sharing happiness” to the world, Pocky’s brand message, we decided to construct a “Smile System” using the “Say Pocky” code—enabling family and friends to create the best smile. That is why we think this work relevant for brand experience & activation.

Bring back everyday life all over the world through smiles. 2020, smiles diminished across the world with many of us having to live life with restrictions. We want to bring back smiles to the cities and the world by people saying “Pocky” and smiling.

With the world living under restrictions, and the cities becoming lifeless, smiles disappeared from the daily lives of people. We created an experiential device which will bring back smiles to the cities and the world. Assuming that the effects of COVID-19 will linger, it’s a system that allows people to share smiles by staying home, coloring cities and making them more active through the unique web system.

With the world living under restrictions, and the cities becoming lifeless, smiles disappeared from the daily lives of people. We created an experiential device which will bring back smiles to the cities and the world. Assuming that the effects of COVID-19 will linger, it’s a system that allows people to share smiles by staying home, coloring cities and making them more active through the unique web system.

Since going out to the cities, meeting friends without masks and taking photos together was going to be impossible, we created a realistic experience online. Users will take selfies of themselves smiling, and upload/ drop them on Google Maps/ Google Street View as a Smile pin—enabling friends to share smiles to each other. We also created a Smile Relay where users can relay smiles through their Smile Pins, where cities across the world were colored in making them more lively. By spreading “Share happiness” through the Pocky Smile, we believe we were able to bring back the smiles of the world.

110,578,219 users smiling again, and sending smiles to the 11 nations of Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan. Campaign targeted towards males and females in their teens to 20’s, by them taking part in this and spreading their smiles, it brought back the smile/ livelihood of the cities. As a result, through the “Share happiness” we believe were able to bring back energy to the world.