Introducing the Soba Allergy Tattoo Checker, saving foreigners from dangers of buckwheat noodles in Japan
Ad agency J. Walter Thompson has created a solution for foreign visitors to Japan who are allergic to soba, which is found in the popular buckwheat noodles.
The agency has developed a sticker in collaboration with a dermatologist that, when applied to the skin after being dunked in soba noodles water, will detect whether or not the wearer is allergic to soba (the skin will turn red).
The sticker comes in the form of a temporary tattoo, called the Soba Allergy Tattoo Checker, which contains distinctive Japanese imagery.
The idea was for a group of soba restaurants known as the 230 Soba Street Promotion Committee who “saw the need to raise awareness of soba allergies to keep tourists safe,” according to a press release from JWT.
Two hundred “quick and easy” Soba Allergy Tattoo Checkers were handed out at a restaurant in Hokkaido in March, according to the release.
Keizo Mugita, senior creative director, J. Walter Thompson Japan commented that, with the depreciation of yen, there are many more tourists visiting Japan, so he hoped the idea would be rolled out across the country.
The campaign comes the week after JWT claimed to have created a special ink that can help blind people read in Thailand.
‘Touchable ink’, which JWT developed with a Thai university, the Thai Association for the Blind, and client Samsung, enables braille printing on normal paper with regular printers to substitute a braille embosser that is far more expensive.
Earlier today in Australia, Mumbrella Asia’s sister site reported on an idea by J. Walter Thompson Australia involving the world’s first “smart peg” for OMO which detects when it’s time to bring the washing in.
April is the time of year that agencies tend to unveil an array of innovative ideas in time for the deadline for ad awards show Cannes.
And for their contribution to real ads…we have….tadaaa….
Listerine
http://youtu.be/laOP5C0mRSc
ReplyScam is a 4 letter word.
ReplyLooks like JWT is competing with Grey for the title if most shameless award season agency.
In the lead we have Grey’s quite horrific abortion scam, the gamer blood donors and the dengue umbrella.
Catching up fast is JWT with this effort, which can be added to its hard hats/plant pots project, also in Japan, which Campaign Asia Pacific amazingly took seriously.
Mumbrella needs to introduce its own award show category for shameless award show entries. Then we can watch the industry truly eating itself as agencies celebrate the win.
ReplyI’m waiting for an agency to create an App that cures cancer.
ReplyHahahah.. That made me LOL and choke on my morning coffee 🙂 Maybe Grey would like to create an app that prevents coffee throat burns.
ReplyI live life on the edge. I eat my soba noodles without wearing a soba allergy tattoo sticker. I do laundry based on whether the sun is shining or not.
Separately, I know that earlier attempts at using multilayered ink as a substitute for braille imprinting failed because the ink starts rubbing off on the readers hands and eventually (quite quickly) disappears. I had several blind friends back when I was in college and if you see a blind person reading Braille you realise they really press down on the paper and need to feel the impression quite clearly to be able to read… not that easy to substitute.
Disappointing that so many big agencies with all their big fancy CEOs and CCOs and other such resources consistently produce this kind of cynical garbage. Unfortunately, given that there are more awards shows than agencies, some of this crap will still win awards so we’ll continue to enable this behaviour year after year.
ReplyInteresting to note that the JWT ECD from a few years back subsequently moved to Grey a few years back…usually these kinds of patterns can be traced to just a few culprits.
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