Attack on Collaboration! What are the key points for communication using anime and characters?

Japanese manga and anime enjoy broad appeal across all ages and genders while also harboring highly passionate core fans. Interest from companies continues to grow year after year.

What exactly is the appeal of the increasingly common "collaborations and tie-ups with anime characters"? How do these partnerships help solve corporate challenges?

In this article, Kitio, who handles "Attack on Titan" at Dentsu Inc., unravels the key points for successful collaborations between companies/brands and anime works, using tie-up examples from the anime "Attack on Titan" (※), in which Dentsu Inc. participates in the production committee.

*Attack on Titan
The popular manga by Hajime Isayama and its TV anime series adaptation. Following its anime adaptation in 2013, the series achieved even greater success, instantly captivating fans worldwide. The anime "Attack on Titan: The Final Season," which began airing on NHK General TV in January 2022, is also being streamed globally, continuing its triumphant advance worldwide.

<Table of Contents>
▼Achieved 106% of previous year's sales volume! WONDA collaboration cans leveraging "collectibility"
▼Surpassed 1.5 Million Views Immediately After Release! "Fan-First" Approach with Men's Skincare Brand "uno" Tie-In
▼Establishing a Dai-ichi Life office on risk-ridden Paradis Island!? Benefits told from the characters' perspective

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Achieved 106% of Previous Year's Sales Volume! WONDA Collaboration Cans Leveraging "Collectibility"

Asahi Beverage "WONDA & Attack on Titan 2020 Campaign"

The first "Attack on Titan" tie-in case study we're introducing is Asahi Beverage's "WONDA" "collaboration design cans".

Utilizing designs from the original manga, WONDA's "WONDA Morning Shot" and "WONDA Gold Lightly Sweetened" launched a full lineup of 20 different collaboration design cans. The highly collectible designs, irresistible to complete the set, captured the hearts of "Attack on Titan" fans. In the fiercely competitive canned coffee market, the "Morning Shot" variant achieved 101% of the previous year's monthly sales volume, while "Gold Lightly Sweetened" reached 106% of the previous year's monthly sales volume.

The limited-edition cans, featuring illustrations of characters like protagonist Eren Yeager, Mikasa Ackerman, and Armin Arlert, became a major talking point among "Attack on Titan" fans. Collecting all designs and posting photos on social media became a tradition, tapping into fans' desire to complete the set.

Among these, the "rare cans" that recreate famous scenes from the original work when two designs are placed side by side attracted attention for the fun of searching for them and collecting them.

The "rare cans" that complete a single illustration when placed vertically or horizontally. They appealed to the fan psychology of "just wanting to complete the set."

Additionally, a limited-time "WONDA & Attack on Titan" campaign was held, allowing entry with each purchase of a qualifying product. This offered a chance for 1,000 winners to receive collaboration-exclusive items like original reproduction artwork from "Attack on Titan." This created an incentive for fans to continue purchasing the products, going beyond just collecting the collaboration design cans.

As a result, campaign entries exceeded 300,000. Combined with the highly collectible designs, this led to a dramatic surge in product sales.

Collaborations with anime and manga not only enhance a product's brand power and recognition but also significantly impact sales through the passionate activities of fans, often referred to as "supporting their favorite characters."

Beyond "Attack on Titan," WONDA has collaborated with popular manga series: "Lupin the Third" in 2019, "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo" in 2020, and "One Piece" in 2021. This has firmly established its "collaboration design cans" as a staple.

As a result, WONDA has evolved into a brand beloved not only by its traditional main target audience of men, but also by a wide range of new customers, including female character fans.

Surpassing 1.5 million views immediately after release! The "fan-first" approach of men's skincare brand "uno" tie-up

Fine Today Shiseido "Attack on Titan × uno"

Next is a collaboration case with "uno," the men's skincare brand developed by Fine Today Shiseido.

The brand's core message was: "uno's All-in-One series prevents skin troubles before they start." Rather than delivering this message directly, they incorporated it into a parody video using memorable scenes from the anime. This approach successfully spread the content among "Attack on Titan" fans, generating significant buzz.

Three collaborative videos were released, including "Eren Who Knows No Skin Troubles"

For example, one of the collaboration videos, "Eren Who Knows Nothing About Skin Troubles." In this video, the protagonist Eren is told by his former comrade Reiner, "The reason Eren developed skin troubles was because he didn't do skincare." Eren then resolves to use "uno" and transforms into a Titan to eradicate skin troubles.

A scene that was extremely serious in the original anime was transformed into a surreal dialogue-driven drama. Combined with the passionate performances of popular voice actors, it generated huge laughter and reactions, especially on social media. The official tweet announcing the collaboration videos received approximately 50,000 likes, and total views across platforms including YouTube surpassed 1.5 million in just three days.

The key point here is that these weren't original videos produced specifically for the collaboration. Instead, they were "dubbed" videos using existing footage from the main anime series, with the original voice actors providing lines related to the aforementioned skin troubles.

The more popular an anime is, the higher the barriers to producing entirely new original footage due to scheduling and cost constraints. This makes utilizing "scenes from the main series" for collaboration videos a common approach.

"Attack on Titan" is a work known for its serious narrative, yet it has also fostered a beloved culture of "official parody content," including works by its original creator, Hajime Isayama. Meanwhile, "uno" is a brand that not only promotes a cool worldview but also engages in witty communication to connect with men in society.

This collaboration between "Attack on Titan" and "uno" resulted in a surreal dialogue play where serious scene lines were replaced with conversations about skincare. This was positively received by the "Attack on Titan" fanbase. Providing fan-first, high-energy content that resonated with fan psychology ultimately became the key to generating buzz.

The source of this surreal humor and appeal lies in the "gap" between the serious scenes and the message: "uno's All-in-One Series prevents skin troubles before they start." By having the brand's message itself drive the humor of the parody content, it strongly impressed the intended message while simultaneously boosting brand favorability.

This isn't merely a case of "becoming a hot topic because we collaborated with a popular anime." It's an example of positively engaging content fans, creating a chemical reaction that sparked new communication between fans and the company/brand.

Establishing a Dai-ichi Life office on risk-ridden Paradis Island!? Benefits told from the characters' perspective

No matter how strongly a company communicates its message, it's hard to catch the attention of people who aren't interested in the brand's products.

Dai-ichi Life, which had long felt the challenge of "reaching younger demographics," successfully expanded its contact points through an unexpected angle by collaborating with the world of "Attack on Titan."

The campaign was aptly named the "Attack on Insurance" collaboration.

Dai-ichi Life "Attack on Insurance" Collaboration Campaign

Fundamentally, it's a standard campaign where "all applicants receive original wallpapers & virtual backgrounds, plus a chance to win luxurious limited-edition products through a lottery."

However, the core of this collaboration lies in the "Character Diagnosis" content, open to everyone. It features a mechanism designed to make "life insurance" feel more relatable to younger audiences.

Popular character Levi establishes a Dai-ichi Life office on Paradis Island, the setting of "Attack on Titan." Participants enter the content as new recruits assigned to this office, where Levi asks them to decide whether to join the battle against the Titans.

Moving further through the stages, users can then challenge the "Character Diagnosis" under the guise of battling Titans. The Character Diagnosis (Battle) features relatable, playful questions that initially seem unrelated to insurance. It creates the feeling of participating in a game from the original anime, providing an entry point to consider "risk management" – essentially the gateway to understanding insurance(※).

※Risk Management = Controlling various life risks to avoid losses as much as possible and minimize risk exposure. "Insurance" is used as a means of financial compensation for losses.

Character Diagnosis: Risk themes are set based on the character's traits.

Typically, having characters speak for advertising is the essence of content collaborations. However, this campaign deliberately avoided "proposing insurance products." Instead, it focused on creating unique, fun play content that allowed participants to immerse themselves in the work's world, naturally making "life insurance" feel more relatable to younger audiences.

Notably, when this campaign was announced via email to existing customers, the open rate was approximately double the usual rate. This case demonstrates how an unexpected approach not only helped reach new audiences but also led to "reactivating dormant customers" and "enhancing customer satisfaction."

That concludes our brief overview of three tie-up examples with "Attack on Titan."

As seen here, collaborations with content like manga and anime can enhance corporate/brand value, become a key to solving challenges, and even serve as a communication tool to strengthen customer relationships.

Simultaneously, for content holders, tie-ups offering exposure and promotion for their IP (intellectual property) are highly attractive. To generate buzz, delivering creative content that resonates with the work's fans is essential.

In other words, to make content tie-ups successful,

• Companies/Brands
• Content holders, including original creators
• Work Fans

must achieve a win-win-win situation.

We believe that the win-win-win relationship is achievable precisely because Dentsu Inc.'s Content Business Design Center possesses both perspectives: the client-side viewpoint focused on solving corporate challenges and the content-side viewpoint gained through participation in anime production committees.

In future installments of this series, we will continue exploring how manga and anime content can collaborate with companies and brands. Stay tuned!

For inquiries regarding Dentsu Inc. Content Business Design Center, please contact us here
cbdc-info@dentsu.co.jp