CASE STUDY OF

YAMAHA Audio Series
Creative Communication

ROLE: Creative Direction, Art Direction, Copywriting

DELIVERABLE: CG Video, Key Visual, Tagline

DATE: JUN 2020

monopo Tokyo is proud to have directed the communication and strategy for the Yamaha Global Campaign, a CG film and product visuals to celebrate the company’s newest Sound Bar and AV receiver series. Yamaha – the iconic musical instrument and audio equipment manufacturer, was founded over 130 years ago in Japan. It now boasts a No.1 share of the global instrumental market, Yamaha is loved worldwide for its advanced technological innovation, from guitars and trumpets to speakers and amplifiers.

CLIENT BRIEF

  • To direct the global communication for the new product campaign.
  • To redefine Yamaha’s essential advertising communications from the customer's point of view.

OUR PROPOSAL

  • Marketing communication emphasizing each product's value under a shared concept of Yamaha’s ‘TRUE SOUND.’
  • Design of concept and tagline of the global campaign.
  • Production of a campaign film and key images to visualize the experience of the new products.
  • Assignment of creators who can deliver at an international standard.
PLAY

Communication & Campaign Concept

Feel truly, at home

Our mission was to revise the communication product-by-product, to a campaign that would express the quality shared across the new series. Therefore, we devised a campaign concept highlighting the experiential value of Yamaha's ‘TRUE SOUND’ – a sound that carries the immersive contrast between stillness and motion. Working closely with the client to create more customer benefit-based communications, we designed the campaign so that users with different levels of technical understanding can easily be directed to the product they are looking for.

For Yamaha’s new Soundbar and AV Receiver series, we proposed the concept: 'Feel truly, at home,' to convey the feeling of discovering the truest sound from the comfort of one's home. By emphasizing the original audio as if the artists were performing in the room, the user is immersed in the experience at their maximum comfort. We considered home enjoyment to be the greatest value offered by these products, especially by targeting a millennial audience with high demand for entertainment at home.

Campaign Video & Visuals

Clear visualization of the immersive audio experience

The Soundbar and AV Receiver can be connected to a TV to improve sound quality and power, optimize timbre and produce cinema-like sound. This key feature of these products is their ability to share ‘TRUE SOUND,’ a Yamaha-defined sound that reproduces the creator’s atmosphere as if you’re there with them as they are performing. The campaign film, produced in full CG, provides the truest expression of each whisper, explosion, and a delicate gust of wind through the trees. A powerful gun battle unfolds amidst a flurry of flying objects to portray a visceral immersion of sound and visuals.

The film was produced to an international-standard, where CG and sound were used in collaboration with top creators.

Visuals that explain the functions of each product were also created using CG. The visuals show how the product can be used not only for watching TV and films but also for games and other forms of media.

Production

Full remote production of world-standard CG

We decided to collaborate with overseas creators who are known to be the most advanced in the field of CG production. For example, we chose to work with Canadian director, Artem Skiy, whose expansive work also includes Hollywood productions.

The project was originally planned to be shot in Japan in live-action, but due to various COVID-19 restrictions, the project was abruptly re-envisioned as a CG production. Thanks to monopo's global network of top-level creators, we were able to produce high-quality CG film in a fully remote location with a limited time and budget.

Thorough confirmations at the initial stage of CG production are essential since once they are locked, it is challenging to modify. Therefore it is necessary to proceed through production utilizing low-quality CG, with each scene visualized in black and white— while ensuring close communication with the creators and clients to determine the finished product. This project demonstrated the true strength of monopo, a company that specializes in multi-lingual and remote production with creators worldwide.

Credits

Client: YAMAHA

Our role: Creative Direction, Art Direction, Copywriting

THE TEAM

Producer: Kensuke Tanaka (monopo Tokyo)

Art Director: Takayuki Yokoyama (monopo Tokyo)

Planner & Project Manager: Tsubasa Kamioka (monopoTokyo)

Copywriter: Aya Apton

Film Director: Artem Skiy

Film CG Designer: Alessio De Vecchi

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