Transforming an Adorable Long-Established Mascot into a Demonic Bird.
Because the character was so long - established, we had to provide its motive for turning evil
How did the idea to transform Nissin’s popular mascot character into a demon originate?
Actually, the idea originally came up in our first meeting with Nissin Foods. Its brand of chicken ramen instant noodles has a long history, so its customer base is made up of families and relatively older consumers for the most part. For that reason, Nissin Foods wanted to attract younger consumers by creating an exciting new brand of spicy ramen called Akuma no Kimura. That was the context for the original idea.
A lot of ideas came up during our presentation, which was attended by the president of Nissin Foods. As the discussions grew more and more animated, we started talking about transforming the Hiyoko-chan character into a demonic bird. With that concept as the basis of the campaign, we thought that using an aggressive heavy metal song as a soundtrack for the chicken ramen commercial would be a compelling means to express that transformation.
We took the idea back to Dentsu, and under the direction of our creative director, Kota Tohata, our team decided on how to depict the mascot’s metamorphosis into a demonic bird in the TV commercial. Specifically, the commercial shows the Hiyoko-chan character raising a bowl of the Akuma no Kimura instant noodles up to the sky to summon the demon, and then suddenly undergoing a demonic transformation. Incidentally, we adopted the idea of summoning the noodles for three minutes (the time of waiting for the instant noodles to cook after filling the bowl with boiling water) based on a suggestion in the presentation. Using the specific term “Summon for three minutes” for the action of preparing the noodles made it easier for us to create a buzz on social media sites. We also incorporated this idea in the backing track of the commercial. - Noriaki Onoe
By itself, the TV commercial depicts the character’s sudden transformation without providing any context. That would have been too abrupt for fans of Hiyoko-chan to accept because this character has been popular for such a long time. Therefore, we created a background story in advance of airing the commercial to provide the reason for and the process of the metamorphosis. It was important to explain Hiyoko-chan’s motive for turning evil. It’s funny, but I had always felt sorry for the mascot because it is a chicken doing commercials for chicken ramen. It was also shown using eggs to make meringue cookies in a character book published in the past.
How was the background story of the character’s transformation created?
Around that time, many users of Twitter in Japan had been accidently posting private tweets on their public accounts. By having Hiyoko-chan do the same thing on a Twitter account, we thought such tweets would attract some interest. Indeed, Hiyoko-chan had only been tweeting like a good mascot until then, so if it suddenly started tweeting some nasty things, people would take notice.
We began by having Hiyoko-chan post a long “caw” to get attention, followed by a string of shocking tweets declaring “I’ve had enough,” “This farce is over,” and “How can a chick be advertising chicken ramen?”
After seeing these posts, many of Hiyoko-chan’s followers checked Nissin Foods’ chicken ramen website to see what was going on, only to discover the mascot’s resignation letter declaring “No more goody - goody!”
After that, other Nissin Foods product webpages were defaced with Hiyoko-chan’s rough graffiti. We also created a special website in collaboration with the magazine Mu, which specialises in the occult and unexplained mysteries, featuring content that confirmed and explained the main reasons and events leading up to the character’s transformation.
We took great care to create every detail of this campaign. Because the character is so long-established, changing it to a demon was audacious. It could even trigger a negative reaction. In that regard, if numerous aspects of the content were unclear or ambiguous, I think people encountering the campaign would, indeed, view it critically. Such criticism, however, would be unlikely if the story of the character’s transformation was explained in detail, the content left no room for other interpretations, and the overall production was strong enough to exceed people’s expectations.