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Onitsuka: Product Makes Model, Makes Ads, Makes Art, Makes Product
Advertising, Books, Illustration
Posted by Patrick Burgoyne, 20 February 2008, 13:12 Permalink Comments (7)
More evidence of the "new" advertising: the centrepiece of Onitsuka Tiger’s marketing over the coming year will be a meter-long model of a trainer-shaped mini-city created using Rapid Prototyping technology. The model appears in a commercial and in print ads, but copies will also tour in an exhibition and be made into promotional merchandise. Plus - and here's where it gets really Ad2.0 - Onitsuka is going to bring out a range of trainers based on the model later this year...
"It was essential that the idea that would allow us to explore traditional and non-traditional media opportunities," explains Richard Gorodecky, executive creative director of agency StrawberryFrog Amsterdam, who conceived the idea. "Alongside the one-metre shoe sculpture there’s a tour, a print campaign, a 30-second animated film, a font, retail installations, limited-edition key rings and there’s even a light-up shoe-shaped USB stick."
The model, which was made by Freedom of Creation, features “highways filled with cars, high-rise buildings, market signs, trains, and the tongue is a replica of Tokyo Narita Airport,” says Gorodecky. “There’s even a vending machine selling miniature Onitsuka Tiger shoes in the heel. The whole thing is lit up by 300 LEDs and neon rope, and there’s a hidden speaker and iPod dock that plays city sounds.”
Breaking out the mould to reveal the model inside
Spray-painting the model
This Making Of movie shows how it was done
“Fundamentally it’s a tribute to Onitsuka Tiger’s unique and authentic heritage,” he claims. “The shoe sculpture pays homage to Tokyo’s cityscape, its vibrant city lights, the architecture and, of course, its energy. The shoe is, quite literally, Made of Japan.”
The shoe model will feature in print ads (one above) as well as a 30-second commercial (shown below). But that’s just the start. An additional seven 70cm-long sculptures, encased in their own bespoke glass cabinets, will tour the main European markets, Asia, Australia and the USA, while 15 40cm-long versions will be displayed in stores worldwide.
And later this year Onitsuka will produce a shoe inspired by the model. “It’s incredible really; advertising inspired by product becomes a product inspired by advertising,” says Gorodecky. “A special rendering has been created for a limited edition shoe. They’ll incorporate reflective and light-emitting materials in their design. There are also t-shirts using light reflective inks. They’ll be in store in the summer.”
Creative team: Andrew Watson, Richard Gorodecky. Model designer: Freedom of Creation. Photographer: Satoshi Minakawa.
7 Comments
The USB docks look very neat. Just looking at their campaign from this angle makes me want one!
I take it the shoes are already out as they are being sold on eBay.
I like visual impact the shoe has, makes a change to the regular TV/Poster ads
2008-02-20 16:57:13
Oy Mercy. That shoe is pretty "HaHa" lets say...
I think new technology is difficult to manage, since it opens so many opportunities, formally. So I recognize the challenge it poses. T
hat said, I'm far more convinced by design firms that leverage this new way of making to produce new types of aesthetic spirit. I think the shoe above is a kind of kitschy collage that need not be done through such innovative technology..
2008-02-20 21:29:38
Clever and beautiful.
It's by pushing technologies -- once by artists and almost invariably now by designers -- that we open up new possibilities, both good and bad, as history repeatedly has shown. Satelites that allow communication also watch us, rocket propulsion that puts them there, also turns around and fires right at us. A relative hyperbole to a 'cool' ad, but let's be clear there is a connection.
Sadly this is to sell shoes. Where are these shoes made and by whom? Thankfully there are dedicated people using technology as a vehicle (people powered) to drive us forward, rather than putting us all in advertising's shoe box. It appears those who innovate are unfortunately those at the nexus of the commerce / public interface.
A keyring, a usb port, an installation, a video ad, vending machines, websites... the list extends over all media. The coverage is so total now, I worry that I might read a book on the lavatory and find they have somehow infiltrated the bookmark with Flavin lights and quasi-concepts. The relative security of one's home is not enough: advertorial stealthily appears on the door mat and whether we accept or reject, we are confronted.
There is no web 2.0, no adpseak or advertising 2.0. We are a society in technological and consequently social transition. If printing B2C ads on toilet-paper became the best way to target spending-machines, our noble agencies would be dropping their pants to research, quicker than you can say diarrhea. Let's not applaud.
The fact that commerce embraces technology is driven by money. More exposure, more sales.
Aspects of the project are aesthetically beautiful -- deviously so -- but ultimately vacuous.
I wear the same trainers, but they fit uncomfortably.
2008-02-21 13:24:07
Oh c'mon guys, the shoe looks awesome!
Big props to the agency for having the vision.
I love the concept of the hybrid campaign and can't wait to wear the shoes.
Finally someone has done something original to talk about.
In regards to the above posters, no this isn't evil just innovative.
2008-02-22 13:17:36
"Oh c’mon guys, the shoe looks awesome!"
=
"Oh c'mon... f**k thinking!"
How unfortunately ignorant of you Thomas. My soul and consumer habits are certainly not whiter than snow but it is sheer intransigence not to accept that past the pretty lights, the clever modelling, there exists something that cannot be described in many other ways than as YOU quite indelicately but truthfully put it: evil. I had no intention of launching a fullscale attack on capitalism. I am as complicit in it as the next man.
What bothers me is the incessant backslapping of kooky ways to sell blood products and cool mongering of a shoe as art. It's delicious banality, tasty and rotten.
I wish more worthwhile causes had the budgets to innovate...
2008-02-22 14:11:48
"Blood products"
Mmm, black pudding...
2008-02-22 14:28:56
Great job picking up this story and splashing it so effectively, Patrick -- the photo-laden splash really conveys a strong creative vision and brilliant execution. Personally, I just hope the real sneakers light up like the model. I can imaging my 4-year-old son waking up in the middle of the night just to walk around the house in these babies....
2008-02-22 16:54:20
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