Tokyo is certainly plastered with ads from top to bottom, but ad culture in Japan is still quite traditional. More importantly, space is very limited, and to stage an interesting public event takes a lot of coordination and cash, and creative modern campaigns like Koke Kokko are outstanding just because the concept is so rare here.
However, there’s one spot near the Yamanote Line entrance in Shibuya Station that almost always has something interesting happening, and is used for everything from sampling to more innovative projects like the Smart Car vending Machine (below) we showed you a while back. Here are a few examples to show you the variety…
This campaign for Wonda Zeromax involved legions of staff handing out samples of the canned coffee to passersby. With such a high volume of traffic, passing out lots of samples without getting trampled is a feat in itself.
We haven’t blogged this product yet because we weren’t sure what to make of it, but the Media Port UP from Nikon is a wi-fi enabled headset with a built in screen for video and websurfing. It can be connected to your iPod, but also stream video over the net. This was a “tryvertising” stand set up so people could stop, sample the sound and video quality, and move on through the station.
Anyone in Japan who smokes is familiar with Taspo, the RFID enabled ID card that’s required tobacco purchases from vending machines. Despite being promoted for months and months, no one seems to want to bother with registering for it because it involves giving personal information as well as a photo (on top of the time involved). As a result, they’re spending lots of money to set up inside conventions and train stations where they take your picture for free and help you sign up quickly. Still, very few people seem to actually have the card…
Michael is the Editor of JapanTrends.com and Director of the 
