Simultaneous Release in Theaters, Online, and on TV? The Promotion Strategy for 'Rip Van Winkle's Bride'

The film " Rip Van Winkle's Bride," starring Hana Kuroki and directed by Shunji Iwai (who also wrote the original story and screenplay), premiered on March 26. From the production stage through content development and promotion, the project consistently focused on the premise of "enhancing the work's appeal." This approach enabled content distribution and media expansion uniquely suited to today's era of increasingly diverse media and devices.

We spoke with Tomoyuki Miyagawa, producer of the film and Programming and Production Director at Nippon Eiga Broadcasting (which operates the "Japanese Film Channel" and "Period Drama Channel"), and Sōzō Kikuchi of Dentsu Inc., who served as Creative Director for the promotional strategy, about the behind-the-scenes story. What does this reveal about the future of content and media that also applies to corporate marketing activities?

Filming Support: Eurospace
Interview Cooperation: PR Table※You can also read episodes related to this promotional case study on PR Table.

It's a movie, yet somehow real. Creating that atmosphere

――Typically, advertising agencies aren't heavily involved in movie promotions. What was the structure like this time?

Miyagawa: Since this isn't widely known, I'll explain the standard process for making a film. First, a production committee is formed. For this film, it included eight companies: Rockwell Eyes, Toei, BS Fuji, and others, including the Japanese Movie Specialty Channel.

※RVW Film Partners = Rockwell Eyes, Nippon Eiga Senmon Channel, Toei, Pony Canyon, Hikari TV, Kinoshita Group, BS Fuji, Papado Music Publishing

Then, once filming begins, a publicity producer is appointed. They develop the target audience and promotional strategy, and actually carry out the promotional activities using theaters, TV, magazines, and so on.

Kikuchi: I got involved much later in the process.

Miyagawa: Right. Initially, we were proceeding with promotion using orthodox methods, but as everyone started saying whatever they wanted, things got completely out of hand. We realized, "We need someone to pull this together, or we're in trouble." Right at the very last minute, the choice fell on you, Kikuchi-san.

Kikuchi: That was about three months before release, right? I heard they were soliciting promotion proposals from several companies, so I immediately went to pitch mine. Ever since encountering All About Lily Chou-Chou in high school, I've been a huge fan of Shunji Iwai. Maybe because I'd even had him direct a short film for me professionally, my proposal was like a heartfelt poem. I started right from my impressions of the film.

Miyagawa: That turned out to be really good. Kikuchi-san connected the scattered points of the story's charm and unique features into a single thread through a concept. Putting it into words, it was something like "This story has you in it" – a concept that loosely embraced the whole, rather than a rigid, prescriptive "it has to be this way" kind of concept. That was great.

――Besides establishing the promotional concept, what specific strategies did you develop?

Kikuchi: Since our target this time was women in their 20s, specific ideas included a project where we staged an event in Shibuya, a hub for young people. Women wearing wedding dresses formed a line and marched from the Scramble Crossing to Eurospace, where the film was screening. We also prepared not just one, but many different copy concepts to create creative work that people could relate to on a personal level.

Similar to the earlier concept, we created the main copy "You are in this story," deliberately leaving the interpretation up to each individual. The idea is that viewers can find their own presence within the story, and as a result, the entire narrative affirms everyone's way of life. The film itself also originally had copy conceived by Iwai-san saying, "You know, this world is actually full of happiness." I wanted to bridge these two ideas by sharing the story with young people.

Kikuchi: Also, social media plays a key role in the story. The film is packed with services people use daily and real-world elements, so I wanted to layer those onto everyone's everyday lives. I wanted to convey: "There are people living like this, and people thinking like that. Everyone can find themselves somewhere in this story, and it's a story that gives everyone a push forward."

Choosing ideals over profit. That's what gave birth to this five-hour work.

――This project involved several unprecedented attempts for the industry. Beyond the promotion you were involved in, what other aspects were different?

Miyagawa: First, the sheer length of the screening—three hours. This was ultimately decided to preserve the original work's appeal, and it significantly impacted our media strategy.

Kikuchi: I heard that originally, since the source material was also a short story, Mr. Miyagawa suggested, "Let's make a compact work around 120 or 90 minutes." But then Mr. Iwai personally expanded the original story, and it became clear that adapting it into a film would require a runtime of about 4 to 5 hours.

Miyagawa: Yes. If you start with the runtime in mind, you end up thinking about cutting three hours out of five. But Iwai-san's statement, "As the writer of the original work, cutting these three hours is unbearably painful for me," became the catalyst that set everything in motion.

For instance, when adapting a manga into a film, even splitting it into two parts often means discarding most of the source material's strengths, which can disappoint fans. Given that context, I suggested, "Well then, Iwai-san. How about we shoot the full five hours?"

――Was that you, Mr. Miyagawa, who said that?

Miyagawa: Yes. Conversely, Iwai-san proposed shooting five hours, turning one part into a drama and the other into a film. Since Iwai-san didn't see barriers between TV and film, he readily accepted this proposal.

Kikuchi: And you handled the negotiations with the TV station, right?

Miyagawa: Yes. It aired as a six-episode serial edition on BS SKY PerfecTV!, and the key person there was the producer of the film Love Letter (directed by Iwai).

――Going back to the earlier point, when producing any work, not just films, I imagine you often work backwards from the final form to plan the process. Isn't it difficult to start with the content and then change the final form?

Miyagawa: We made a three-hour version, and it was wonderful to watch. On the other hand, many people told me, "Your job is to get Shunji Iwai to make a two-hour version." But when he made the two-hour version, it just wasn't as interesting as the three-hour one.

The protagonist is like the narrator of a story—they're at the center, and the people around them build the narrative. If you cut away the protagonist's breathing room to make it two hours, instead of the audience empathizing with the protagonist and following the story, they only see the movements of the supporting characters, and it becomes completely uninteresting. It loses its resonance, you could say.

Kikuchi: When you think about it purely as a business, it makes sense to show more screenings in the same time for the same price. But you're defending the three-hour runtime to protect the work itself. I think that's really impressive.

Miyakawa: It's not exactly something to boast about, but movies used to be long, right? While it wasn't intentional from the start, I also thought it was okay for a three-hour film to exist in that sense. When faced with two "logics" – ideal and profit – I felt that if I was collaborating with Shunji Iwai, it was better to prioritize the ideal and find a way to generate profit from it, rather than sacrificing the ideal for profit.

――So prioritizing that ideal to generate profit led to creating a five-hour work split between the drama and theatrical versions, right?

Miyagawa: We also created a web-exclusive version and screened it in overseas theaters as another revenue stream. Incidentally, while the stories are the same, the climaxes differ. Iwai-san secretly hopes people who watch the film version first and then the drama version will talk about how "the climax is different" (laughs).

Kikuchi: And the day before the theatrical release, we did a live radio broadcast, right?

Miyagawa: Yes, that was really interesting. It was a project where Iwai-san, Kuroki-san, and others appeared live on the regular radio program "All Night Nippon," and that was simultaneously broadcast live as a TV program on the Japanese Movie Channel and BS SKY PerfecTV!. It was about watching a radio program on video. Since three broadcasters were involved, there were challenges like coordinating commercial timing, but in the end, everything lined up perfectly.

Creating mechanisms where media migration doubles the appeal of content

――Listening to you talk, I feel that adapting content for different media is also highly insightful as an advertising and marketing technique.

Kikuchi: At one point, I saw Iwai-san agonizing right up until the very end about what role the web streaming version should play compared to the theatrical version. That's when I realized, "This person might seem unconcerned with format, but as a storyteller, he's actually thinking about it more than anyone else."

Miyagawa: I think he wanted to create something where viewers experiencing different versions would feel like all the emotional impact came full circle. It's fascinating how the same story can reveal new discoveries, making the work deeply endearing. I suspect that's the effect he aimed for.

Kikuchi: While Dentsu Inc. has experts in web and TV commercials, I feel we surprisingly haven't truly mastered tuning content to fit its medium and delivering it in the optimal form. As an advertising agency, we should occupy a neutral position, unbound by affiliations like TV stations or web production companies. I hope we can pioneer approaches like this one.

――Amidst recent discussions about how media compete for or share consumers' limited free time, doesn't this reveal a different kind of potential compared to second-screen viewing?

Kikuchi: People say things like viewers are watching YouTube while watching TV these days. But rather than debating which to watch, it's interesting to create content that makes watching everything enjoyable. Implementing approaches like this one makes it fun for viewers to navigate across media.

Furthermore, I think the approach of not just deciding where to distribute a single video, but rather how to make it the best possible entertainment experience for each medium while keeping the core message unchanged, is novel. It made me realize that even in advertising work, it's acceptable to do things like having different endings.

Miyagawa: Thinking about various media not as competing for attention, but as collaboratively building one story is incredibly valuable and makes things more interesting. I want Dentsu Inc. to do that.

Kikuchi: It's not about debating whether web video makes TV obsolete. It's about creating an environment where having all these platforms together makes everything better.