86 the onions make ubiquitous campaign for NEC Japan

NEC Corporation has launched a branding campaign U can Change conceived and produced by 86 the onions, featuring killer cows, cocoons masquerading as sleeping bags and rainbow-like effluences, not to mention a lot of people named Dave.

"NEC's buzzword is ubiquitous and it represents a concept that the company wants to own throughout the marketplace", said Kunihiko Inoue, managing director at Robot Communications Media Switch, the creative consultancy firm for NEC. "We chose to collaborate with 86 the onions because they are underground enough to show a young, international audience exactly what ubiquity means and above ground enough to do it in a professional way."

Underlying the "u can change" films is the idea that NEC allows businessmen and women to work anywhere, anytime and to experience the euphoria associated with this freedom. Hence kiler cows, and middle-aged butterfly men flying off into the sunset. We asked Chad what every envious creative wants to know: How on earth do you present a campaign like this to a client?

Chad Rea replied: "It was it was a good brief. Not as good as say Nike's Art of Speed or Diesel's Dreams--we had to work with "Ubiquitous" and the tagline "U Can Change"--but it was good. Our goal was simply to build awareness for the brand, appeal to a younger consumer, and generate an interest in "ubiquitous" (as in NEC's technology allows you to do business from anywhere, anytime, and the emotions that are the result of that). If the films ask questions, which they do, the website has all the answers. So, really, you don't have to get them. You just have to get there, if you know what I mean.

Additonally, what we presented to the client on paper and what got made are pretty fucking close. We had time on our side, or lack thereof.
Really we had about 24 hours to write scripts. We presented 18 scripts. The client had no problem picking the 7 they asked for. In fact, they wanted to make 9 of them. Also, our recommended 7 and the one's they chose were only off by one script.
Amazing. Go Japan! The client wasn't involved in any pre-production which meant they couldn't really change anything. That said, they were really happy and have asked us to come up with all kinds of wacky ways to promote them. (Stay tuned.) Maybe they trusted us. It could be because we're from the U.S. The Japanese market seems to think that's still pretty cool, even though the rest of the world might hate us...especially now. "

DB: Another one, at least I want to know this.... Who the hell is "and one and two, c'mon ladies live the fantasy.." at the end of "Wedding"? That cracked me up!

Chad Rea: "That is Ian. He's one of our designers. He did the motion graphics on "Rainbows".
We're hiring. So, if anyone has dreams of designing and acting, 86 is the perfect place. Ha!"

The films: NEC - Wedding

NEC - Cocoon

NEC - Dave

NEC - Diorama

NEC Grass

NEC - Human Karaoke Ball

NEC - Rainbows

86 the onions credits go to creative director/copywriter Chad Rea and art directors Mark Sloan and Ian Lyman. For Robot Communications, the creative consultancy firm for NEC, Kunihiko Inoue is the executive creative producer/managing director and Kiyoshi Kodama is the lead consultant. Dentsu, Inc. is the agency of record.