Viral Videos and Regional Revitalization [1]"Related Population" as a Hint for Regional Revitalization
Hello, I'm Kazuhito Ochi, a Communication Planner. I'd like to share my thoughts on regional revitalization using PR videos, which have gained momentum since the year before last, drawing on the example of Kobayashi City in Miyazaki Prefecture. I previously had a dialogue with the Mayor of Kobayashi, and I'll delve a little deeper into it over several installments.
Kobayashi City's Initiatives in 2016
Kobayashi City is my hometown.
Thanks to the PR video "Ndamoshitan Kobayashi" released in 2015, the city gained significant recognition among many regional cities. The number of relocation inquiries nearly doubled, and the amount of hometown tax donations increased from 130 million yen to 720 million yen.
While I don't believe the video alone was solely responsible, these results suggest that online videos can be a highly effective means of gaining recognition, even for local governments without abundant budgets, provided they are crafted with ingenuity.
Last November, Kobayashi City released a new PR video.
It's titled "Survival After School." Please take a look.
This time, the protagonists are local high school students.
Twenty-nine students became commercial planners, divided into seven teams, and engaged in a fierce planning battle to capture the local charm in storyboards. The website also features video storyboards from the teams whose ideas were unfortunately not selected.
The project manager originally wanted to hold video production workshops with citizens from a career education perspective. Since the first attempt gained sufficient recognition, I thought the next step would be great: creating PR content based on the experiences and ideas of citizens and students through workshops. Actually, we made a PR movie with high school students the previous year too, so this "Survival After School" project is our second-year initiative.
What did the high school students take away from this?
This project consisted of a five-month commercial planning workshop. We adopted a strategy combining "video works + documentary program" content. Multiple TV stations followed the workshop process, and the initiative was aired on terrestrial broadcast. The students brought perspectives completely different from us adults, resulting in a collection of very unique projects.
Finally, everyone voted to award Gold, Silver, and Bronze prizes, along with additional awards like the Instructor's Choice, Teacher's Choice, and Student Choice. We carefully explained what made the selected entries stand out, what worked well in each project, and where they could improve.
Unfortunately, some students on teams that didn't make it to the production stage were incredibly disappointed. However, I believe that feeling of disappointment and the experience of competition are all valuable lessons.
Particularly memorable was the story of a female student who had already decided to attend a childcare vocational school. One day, she came to the teacher in tears for advice. She seemed to have enjoyed this class immensely and was struggling with the thought, "Maybe I actually love planning and expressing things through video. Is it really okay to just follow the path I've already decided on?"
From the perspective of someone running the workshop, nothing could be more gratifying. While I felt a bit sorry for her, I also believe it's incredibly important for young people to think deeply and wrestle with their future like this.
I myself am one count toward the "related population."
The PR video project started two years ago, and this is actually the fifth video we've produced (I'll cover the other projects separately).
When we first discussed this with Mayor Kobayashi and the staff, we agreed that videos alone wouldn't be enough to attract people to move here. We planned to take a phased approach:
This approach targets not just outsiders or insiders, but also aims to turn the attention of those who have moved away back toward the city. In other words, it's a strategy to increase the "related population."
The concept of "related population" suggests that people who have left their hometowns to live elsewhere but still support their local community in some way—through hometown tax donations, workshops, career education, or other means—should also be counted as part of that municipality's population.
While relocation or returning home is ideal, the barriers are high. Introducing the concept of "related population" as an entry point for regional revitalization feels very fitting for today's times.
The development of social media and the ability to exchange diverse information online has been a driving force behind this concept. In fact, since the first installment of "Ndamositan Kobayashi," many people who grew up here have reached out asking, "Is there anything I can help with?"
And I myself am undoubtedly one count in that relationship population.
Local Revitalization, Not Regional Revitalization
I'm by no means a professional in regional revitalization, but since the Kobayashi City project, I've received many inquiries about local PR videos. However, regarding the Kobayashi City work, I believe it was more an example of "local revitalization" than "regional revitalization."
I think uncovering a region's charm is difficult unless you're from there, have actually lived there, or have some connection like a hobby that brings you there frequently. Even if you think you understand it intellectually, grasping it intuitively is surely harder than you'd imagine.
Specifically, things like: How far can you push the humor? What's the local character like? What are the common local quirks? And I think a big part of sustaining your own passion and building relationships with the local government officials comes from the fact that the municipality you're working with is your "hometown."
As an aside, I've heard that a certain long-established cabaret in Ginza has a system where customers can request a hostess from the same hometown as themselves. The idea is that they can bond over dialects and local inside jokes. Stories like this show how a shared "local" connection can be a major factor in smoothing communication.
There's no manual for Kobayashi City Hall's video production
This holds true for all our projects: Kobayashi City's staff truly possess high literacy and grit. One reason, I believe, is that they themselves are rolling up their sleeves and taking on the challenge of regional revitalization.
Starting with the dialect posters, and including dialect T-shirts, dialect stamps, dialect karuta cards, and more—all of these were created by a workshop team made up of city staff and citizens working together.
We often get asked, "How can we create a case like Kobayashi City's?" But I firmly believe none of these initiatives would have been possible without Kobayashi City's collaborative system.
First, working with local governments often involves significant distance issues, and it's unavoidable that a large portion of the budget goes toward production staff travel expenses. However, Kobayashi City's staff members conducted location scouting with unimaginable agility, coordinating seamlessly with us through chat. Furthermore, they covered nearly all the tasks that required being on-site, like casting local residents and handling negotiations, which made filming proceed extremely smoothly.
Particularly noteworthy was their extraordinary mindset and skill in production: they reviewed our shooting schedule, declared "This can't be done in one day, so we've revised it," and perfectly restructured the schedule. When weather prevented shooting a starry sky scene, they later flawlessly captured the footage using a still camera with time-lapse photography and provided the material. He always says, "We don't have much time or money, so we'll do everything we can to make up for it." He simplifies approval processes and consistently creates a production environment that minimizes our burden.
But does simply handing over money guarantee a perfect result? I don't think so. I believe there are things that can only be created by pooling our wisdom, sweating it out, and overcoming those hardships together.
For example, to save on vehicle costs, we always use city hall's official vehicles to move between locations. During those trips, the city staff and our crew naturally start chatting. By the time filming wraps, they've become good friends.
Thanks to this, the sense of teamwork on Kobayashi City projects is off the charts.
Video effectiveness isn't measured by views alone
Finally, I'd like to discuss measuring the effectiveness of PR videos.
In Kobayashi City's case, we collectively track and compile metrics from TV programs, newspapers, magazines, SNS exposure, and more. Last year, we analyzed metrics like relocation consultation requests, website visitors, number of featured programs, exposure value, and hometown tax contributions, while also examining qualitative outcomes.
Also, while acknowledging that going viral without spending money is fundamentally difficult, we aim for maximum exposure and awareness. This approach involves the municipality and production team working together to achieve results. We set reference values and clarify objectives, but we don't discuss specific targets like "we want this much effect..." Instead, we execute, analyze the results calmly, and use that for the next project.
After a video's release, the primary focus is often view counts. And many local governments still primarily use YouTube. While social media and web media often frame things as "went viral" or "didn't go viral," I believe we should be cautious about using the term "went viral." In other words, can we really measure whether something "went viral" or was effective based solely on YouTube view counts?
Take the case of "Ndamoshitan Kobayashi." Its 2 million views aren't actually that large a number in the viral video world. So why did it succeed? I believe it was overwhelmingly due to being featured on TV programs, which formed the basis of its recognition. Moreover, it was significantly helped by being covered for over a year in the context of "local PR videos are gaining traction!" alongside videos from other municipalities.
(As a reminder, the fact that multiple views aren't reflected in YouTube's metrics is also a possible reason why the view count seems low compared to its impact).
We often talk about "reach," but for web videos, there are various ways people can be reached: those who read an article, those who watched the video, those who saw the program it was featured on. However, accurately measuring and quantifying all these combined is not yet systematized. That's why, for now, video views are very often used as the metric.
For example, when videos are uploaded directly to Facebook or Twitter, the YouTube counter naturally doesn't increment. Yet, reach is undoubtedly achieved through these social networks. Ideally, the total combined view count should be the metric. Recently, there are also cases where videos reposted by ordinary users go viral. While this doesn't reflect in the original video's view count, whether to consider this a positive outcome seems like an important judgment point.
Furthermore, even if view counts don't increase, there are plenty of effects that can't be measured by view counts alone. For instance, a specific company might take an interest and develop new initiatives, local people might take action, or the amount of hometown tax donations might increase.
For example, with "Survival After School," we faced a timing issue where regional PR videos were becoming saturated, making it difficult to gain views. So, we first set a YouTube target of 100,000 views, matching the "Deep Mountain" edition created in last year's workshop. Then, we used the public event of holding the workshop as material to reach audiences through TV programs (one local station, one national station). Additionally, we had a student with 7,000 followers tweet about it.
As a result, we were featured on over 10 programs, including news shows, and the video was retweeted over 20,000 times on Twitter, enjoyed by many people.
When creating regional PR videos, I believe it's crucial to clearly define your purpose and choose methods that align with it. Furthermore, to sustain healthy community development, it's also vital to pay attention to outcomes that aren't reflected in the numbers.
Of course, buzz does correlate with view counts to some extent, so a massive spike would be ideal, but that's still quite difficult.
Well, that was a long one, but I'll wrap it up here for now.
Next time, I want to dive deeper into the behind-the-scenes of "Ndamoshitan Kobayashi"!
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Author
Kazuhito Ochi
Dentsu Inc.
My primary areas of expertise include visual expression, digital media, and PR. By combining these skills, I solve problems through neutral communication design that transcends specific methodologies.
Video-Based Regional Revitalization for the FutureViral Videos and Regional RevitalizationDentsu Lab Tokyo × Dentsu Craft Tokyo The Delicious Relationship Between Technology and IdeasWeb Dentsu Inc. × WASEDA NEO — Hope Lies Beyond Learning —Hitachi, Ltd. × Dentsu Inc. × Dentsu Digital Inc.: Tackling Social Issues with Generative AI!
