Red Bee Media took inspiration from an ancient Japanese art form to refresh two modern Japanese channels.
The Challenge
JSTV is the only Japanese satellite channel in Europe, the Middle East, Russia and North Africa. The network delivers the best of Japanese TV content across two channels covering live news, drama, sports, and award-winning films and includes some of the best content from Japan’s public-service broadcaster, NHK. The two channels, JSTV1 and JSTV2, offer similar content but at different times of the day, and target Japanese emigrants and travelling business people.
The network was moving its playout operation to Red Bee Media as part of an effort to upgrade its transmission and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade the brands to ensure the identities matched the high quality of the content and to look and feel like high quality Japanese brands. As there is a lot of overlap in content and audience across JSTV1 and JSTV2, there needed to be visual synergy across the brands.
The Solution
We were inspired by the Japanese tradition of gift-giving and wanted to present the channels as a gift to audiences who are living far from home. In our animation, a series of windows open to give you a glimpse back home. The final window opens to show you a gift the channel is giving you, the viewer. The animation is inspired by Mizuhiki, an ancient Japanese art form that uses colourful twine made from rice paper to tie elaborate knots on gifts. These elements combine to emotionally appeal to the Japanese emigrants who want to keep connected with their roots by experiencing the news, culture and entertainment of their homeland.
The Result
The new channel brands launched successfully in Spring 2012.
"We are very happy with the Red Bee creative team and how they brought new life to our channels. They made a real effort to understand our brand and our culture and we were very impressed with their professional approach." Mr Masafumi Mochizuki, Managing Director, NHK Cosmomedia Europe