Trends in Japan - CScout Japan Blog » Chocotatsu campaign from Tirol

Chocotatsu campaign from Tirol

Written by: Rebecca Milner on September 26, 2008 at 12:28 pm | In Marketing & Ad Trends |

With all of the 30th anniversary campaigns lately (space invaders, slime, to name a few), it would take a lot to catch our eye. Tirol must have been thinking just that when it launched its “Chocotatsu” campaign as a lead up to the 30th birthday of it’s iconic chocolate square next year. “Chocotatsu” merges the words “choco” (the common word for chocolate in Japan) and “kotatsu,” the traditional heated table that most Japanese households pull out for winter. True to its name, it is just that: a kotatsu in the guise of a Tirol chocolate square, the original coffee nougat variety to be exact.

300 lucky(?) winners will be chosen by lottery from applicants who send a postcard with the correct answers to a quiz about Tirol chocolate. All of the quiz answers (to questions like “how old will the Tirol chocolate square be next year?”) can be found on the campaign website. Another 10,000 winners will receive a “necobag,” an ecobag with a cat emblem (cat is “neko” in Japanese).

Individually sold Tirol chocolate are typically found near the cash register in convenience stores and are just about the only thing you can get for less than a dollar (¥21 to be exact). New seasonal flavors are constantly released, with recent years seeing upwards several new ones a month.