monopo Tokyo designed, planned, and directed the communication for yama—a new generation singer who is gaining traction and popularity, especially across SNS platforms. monopo Tokyo’s promotion coincided with the release of '偽顔' (Nisekao), a song from yama’s 3rd album 'awake & build'.
CLIENT BRIEF
The concept of "awake & build", will be experienced by fans directly
OUR PROPOSAL
Create an incident that engages fans and generates enthusiasm
”Hack” yama and create a “fake” yama
The first 100 people who successfully “find” the real yama, are awarded tickets to attend a "First Come, First Served, 100 Attendees Guerilla Live" performance by the real yama, in person.
OVERALL DIRECTION
With the daily flood of information regarding new music releases, we wanted fans to experience and enjoy this album and its music as an experiential content, rather than just as a typical delivery of information. To achieve this, we set the axis of our direction to create "incidents" that fans would notice and become involved in, rather than one-way advertisements. Through this incident, we aimed for the fans themselves to experience the album title and concept of "awake & build.”
CONCEPT & IDEA
Stemming from the keyword "Deepfaker” or "偽顔” (Nisekao), which appears many times in the song, the concept of hacking yama, and turning it into a “fake” was developed to paradoxically encourage fans to think for themselves, "What actually is the real yama?" The concept is linked to the dialogue movie "What is yama?" which was released in conjunction with the album and the artwork which depicts the trademark mask running wild.
EXECUTION
On the morning of the day before the pre-release of "偽顔," yama’s X/YouTube/Instagram/TikTok profile images, as well as hair color on his YouTube thumbnails suddenly changed, creating a small yet “strange” atmosphere across the daily timelines of SNS users. Fans who gradually came to notice the incident began gathering their reactions.
At that same, something unusual was also taking place in Shibuya. Five fake yamas with hair that matched the digital thumbnails suddenly appeared and paraded around Tokyo to areas related to yama.
Nineteen YouTube videos with different thumbnails left cryptic messages from the fake yama, a garbled series of text and strings of alphanumeric characters to be decoded into a message. This message revealed to be a certain time and place which led fans to discover their opportunity to participate in a guerilla live performance and meet the real yama. As the audience was limited to the first 100 fans who were able to decode the message, this performance was entitled, “First Come, First Served, 100 Attendees Guerilla Live” On the day of the event, communication continued as hints were posted through the official X account, and many people actively participated in the promotion, including fans who even took the bullet train to arrive at the venue.
Artist
yama
Creative Director/Planner
Ryo Miyakawamonopo Tokyo
Art Director
Takumi Kawamoto (Sony Music Solutions)
Creative Producer
Chiaki Watanabe, Riko Miyake, Hiroto Miyata (Sony Music Solutions)
Production
PFE inc (Takumi Nakamura, Akane Sugita, Saki Muranaka, Kanae Hashimoto, Kouji Nakaniwa)
Stylist
Miku Ikeda (in the pink), Amano Takimoto
Hair&Make
Mirai Uejo, Natsuki Takahashi, Arisu Shodai, Momoka Imura
Photographer
Yu Matsumoto
Videographer
Teruto Toda