Campaign Creation Stories: How Pocari Sweat and Dentsu sent a heroine on a fantastic journey

How does a huge Pharma company, with a massive, well-established brand, in partnership with the nation’s largest and most well-established agency, find a completely new and different direction to drive growth?

In Japan, this was the challenge that Otsuka Pharmaceuticals faced with its Pocari Sweat beverage brand, alongside its partner, Dentsu.

In this episode of Creation Stories, we learn about how Otsuka put its faith and trust in Dentsu to find a new direction for the Pocari Sweat brand. This new direction focused on individualism and the role the brand can play in helping a younger target audience revitalise and 'Find your own way' in the challening post-COVID world.

The result is a remarkable TVC, where every element of production and execution has been crafted to the maximum, to truly go beyond expectations and deliver a message and impression which is highly distinctive and memorable.

Host Richard Bleasdale, with Campaign Japan's Tatsuya Mizuno providing translation, spoke with:

• Takanobu Ueno, manager of the promotion and advertisement deptartment in the.nutraceuticals division of Otsuka Pharmaceuticals
• Yuya Furukawa, chief creative officer at Dentsu Inc
• Sotaro Yasumochi, creative planner at Dentsu Inc

See the ad and the full conversation about its genesis:

Editor's note: Because this episode is bilingual, it will not be presented in podcast form.