Red Bull packages the Japanese summer for seasonal product promotion

Client: Red Bull

Agency: JKD Collective

Market: Japan

Details: To promote its special Summer Edition product for Japan, Red Bull worked with Tokyo-based JKD Collective to create a music video composed exclusively of the typical sounds of camping during the season. Entitled ‘Mosquito Slap’, the video runs for 1.5 minutes and evokes the atmosphere of summer by bringing together imagery and sounds such as the furin (wind bell), an ice box being dropped on the ground, a tent being zipped up—and of course someone slapping a mosquito that has landed on their face.

Shane Lester, who directed the video, explained that the sounds and visuals were recorded at the same time. “The challenge was to create total synchronisation of the visuals of fun summer activities you would do and the sounds that go along with those,” he said, noting that while some things looked good, they might not necessarily sound good, and vice versa.

Lester said Red Bull had shunned overt product placement, looking instead to simply create something that entertained and would hopefully go viral. Having just launched, the video has so far clocked up several hundred views on YouTube.

“We shot a lot of product [imagery], from interesting angles, but they didn’t want to show too much of that because they thought it felt too artificial and planned,” Lester explained. “The approach was to make a fun and cool video with the product and message subtly integrated into the background.

Campaign’s view: While we might associate beer more strongly with camping and summertime fun than Red Bull (or any other energy drink), the video is entertaining and skillfully put together. All in all, from a creative perspective, it does what it set out to do very well, and we appreciate the minimal branding.

CREDITS

Client: Red Bull Japan (Hideki Shimizu, Anna Sakagawa)
Agency: JKD Collective
Production: Robot
Directors: Mackenzie Sheppard, Shane Lester
Executive producer/CD: Bruce Ikeda
Producers: Satoshi Takahashi, Fumikazu Matsubara
Music/sound design: DJ Codomo
Director of photography: Senzo Ueno
Editor: Shane Lester
Planner: Mana Morimoto
Colourist: Masato Ota
Sound recordist: Takashi Hisamichi
Stylist: Kenichi Taira
Production manager: Noriyuki Imoto
PA: Daichi Tanaka