Major League Baseball
Creating Fans Half a World Away
Japanese players are having a huge impact on baseball in the US. To help promote these players, and MLB in Japan, a unique, location-based, augmented reality campaign was developed to showcase Japan's very own Hometown Heroes.
The challenge
MLB wants to build their fanbase in Japan, but therein lies an inherent challenge: when so much of baseball fandom revolves around the cities where each team is based, how do you build fans for teams and players half a world away? The answer: create personal connections for Japanese fans with the hometowns of baseball's marquee Japanese players.
Custom built, vibrantly painted manhole covers were created in specific locations unique to the neighborhoods and home towns where these players grew up: The subway station Shohei Ohtani walked through on his way to school. The library in Habikino that now carries Yu Darvish’s name. The factory yard in Machiya where Seiya Suzuki sharpened his swing hitting golf balls with a steel rod.
Each manhole cover launches an interactive augmented reality animation telling the player's story, and connecting the player to the exact location where the user stands. Japanese fans could now feel the swell of pride that comes with sharing the same hometown as a baseball legend.
The approach
One-Of-A-Kind Public Art
First and foremost, the manholes had to work as standalone art objects. Cast in a Hiroshima foundry and hand-painted; each one is designed by a different Japanese artist but all feature the same line around the rim:
ベースボールは唯一無二, baseball is one of a kind.
The covers exist as civic art whether or not anyone ever takes out a phone, which was the point: the artwork celebrates the location on its own, and the augmented reality is the reward for those curious enough to look closer.
The Manhole As The Marker
Each story had to be told standing on the spot where it happened, which meant the experience had to be easy to use, load quickly, and survive being outdoors, in public, regardless of location or time of day. The app needed to work in rain or shine, with any phone, and without needing to install an app or have a brand ambassador on hand to explain what to do.
A QR code beside each cover launches the experience, and the manhole cover is itself the tracking target, keeping the experience simple, elegant and durable, regardless of environmental conditions.
The web-based application locks onto the manhole cover, detects the ground around it, and opens a portal at the viewer’s feet. The animation launches off the pavement at the correct scale and always remains fixed in place, even while walking around the manhole.
Users were encouraged to capture their own clips of the animation and post it to Instagram, which entered them into a drawing to win a trip from JAL to watch their Japanese hometown hero play in the United States.
Seamless and Self-Contained
12 custom manhole covers were created, each with their own unique artwork and animated film. We designed the experience to be easy to distribute and easy to update, knowing that player rosters can change and we wanted to make sure our lineup could also be changed easily if needed.
Gimbal Cube provided turnkey digital services, creating the webApp, the AR experience and all 3D and UI elements. Created for MLB Japan with Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo. Story Animation by BluBlu Studios, production by Final Frontier.
The results
- 12Featured Locations
Each with its own unique experience.
- 2 minAverage Engagement Time
4X a typical phone-based webAR experience.
- 85%Of Users Entered Contest
During the contest window.
- 200K+Users To Date
And still going strong.
Press
- MLB JapanPlayer Manholes
- KSB瀬戸内海放送ドジャース・山本由伸投手がマンホールに！小学生の時に練習をしていた公園に設置
- 東海テレビ ニュースONEメッツ千賀滉大投手デザインの『マンホールのふた』出身地の愛知県蒲郡市に設置
- トラベル Watch日本人メジャーリーガーの「マンホール」全国12か所に
- 備前市デザインマンホール設置
Have a project of this shape coming up?
Tell us about it — we'll be honest about whether it needs a studio like ours.
Book a meetingReady to get started?
Have questions? Want to see more?
Need a expert to make the impossible happen?
Drop us a line anytime and we’ll get right back to you.
Our team is based in the US, Europe and Asia, with hubs in Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo.
Also, we travel.