The animated film “Suzume” follows the journey of a young girl who must track down and close a series of mysterious doors that are causing chaos and disaster across Japan. While the film, directed by Makoto Shinkai, tackles topics of environmental calamity, grief, and renewal, it’s ultimately a fantastical adventure that reflects how we are transformed by difficult situations in life.
Director Shinkai has a massive following with anime fans. Two of his previous films “Your Name,” and “Weathering with You” are both critically acclaimed and established fan favorites among anime fans.
As the global distributor of the film (outside of Japan), Crunchyroll wanted to tap into this passion and anticipation to highlight the film’s major themes, create excitement and bring the world of “Suzume” to life for the anime community ahead of the film release. Crunchyroll designed a viral campaign tapping into the anime community collaborating with key influencers.
When the film trailer for “Suzume” was released, the featured song began to trend in Japan. Crunchyroll and TOHO strategically tapped into the organic excitement for the film and developed a campaign that empowered influencers to create their own content incorporating elements and themes from “Suzume” for their audiences. Crunchyroll identified influencers who not only loved anime, but also excelled at pushing the creative boundaries in visual effects, animation and art on TikTok and Instagram to tap into the film’s wider appeal towards the cinephile audiences and a future Golden Globes award run.
The “Suzume” team worked with music rights holders to allow creators to use the theme song from Suzume, written by Japanese band RADWIMPS, in their posts. The directive was to create transition-style videos - a huge TikTok trend at the time of the campaign - but with a thematic twist of using the door as that specific transition tool transforming themselves or entering new worlds through their own spin on the themes of the film.
Crunchyroll identified nine influencers to work with across the animation, VFX, fashion, anime and gaming space - Brknsergio (2.8M), K.Fel (2.1M), tamaradi (7.1M), Jess Chriss (4.1M), Emily Ghoul (1.2M), Lena Lemon (1.9M), Snitchery (5.9M), and Sushibae (5.5M).The resulting videos are personal, universal and uniquely authentic to each influencer’s audience. The videos show true transformation as creators filmed themselves in new environments, locations or even whole new worlds.
In particular, Brknsergio’s stand out video - where he transitions from IRL to animation and back to IRL - shot on-location in Shibuya, Tokyo - went truly viral and saw 22.3M views (not including the several repostings from other accounts).
The film’s campaign did not solely focus on bespoke content in Short Form. We also took a strategic creator approach around the film’s U.S. Premiere at the world-renowned Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ nearly 1000-seat theater in Los Angeles. We invited anime-loving influencers who specialize in a variety of content categories including anime, streaming, film, lifestyle, beauty and pop culture to not only attend the premiere, but fully integrated as VIP talent program, including walking the red carpet, being interviewed by press covering the event, and being among the first to watch the film. Recognizing that anime is driven by its global online community and that content creators are some of the biggest champions of the genre, Crunchyroll took an enhanced approach in how it elevates content creators and provides roles and access that are not always seen for influencers in traditional Hollywood red carpet experiences.
As a result, we saw over 30 influencers attend the U.S. Premiere of Suzume, with over 64 organic social posts being shared - completely organically. No creators were paid to attend or post about the premiere. Attendees included Ludwig Ahgren (4.3M), Karl Jacobs (26.2M), King Vader (7M), Justin Esteller (4.1M), Lily Pichu (3.5M) and more.
Crunchyroll campaign metrics underscored its effectiveness. The social campaign was positively received by anime fans and generated positive word of mouth for the film. The multi-pronged approach achieved our goal of showcasing the themes of the film in new and exciting ways and created authentic interactions.
The Film Premiere:
The Suzume transformation campaign
“Suzume” has become the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time in Japan and globally.
