SK-II’s #CHANGEDESTINY purpose celebrates the human stories of women overcoming limitations to take destiny into their own hands. With this in mind, we saw the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 as an opportunity to leverage a global platform to further inspire women to Change Destiny via the launch of SK-II's animated series, the VS Series.

When the pandemic hit, the physical, star-studded premiere was cancelled, like many other global events, but we still aspired to reach and inspire all women who were facing similar anxieties and personal challenges, just like the cast of the VS Series.

With the traditional red-carpet premiere out of the question given the pandemic effect in the world and in Japan, we pivoted efforts to bring the ‘VS’ cinematic universe to our audience via live stream on YouTube and Twitter, by orchestrating the coordination of 17 world-class athletes and celebrities across 6 locations to create the biggest beauty livestream ever in Japan.

We brought some of the biggest female athletes onto one stage: from table tennis champion, Kasumi Ishikawa, to pro-surfer, Mahina Maeda, to Olympic gymnast, Simone Biles – each one from a different background, ensuring a diverse set of voices. They were joined by SK-II brand ambassadors: actresses Haruka Ayase and Kaori Momoi, plus singer-songwriter, John Legend.

With uncertainty around the Olympic Games due to the pandemic, we needed an approach that would not only allow us to reach a wide audience, but be able to bring together a diverse cast and crew from Japan, the US and China. The live stream format was the perfect stage to execute this vision, while remaining true to the goal of inspiring women around the world through the real, never-heard- before stories of our cast.

To ensure that our message was truly relevant to SK-II's broad target audience, we were selective in choosing the right talent and stories. Each story featured was chosen to resonate with all women – particularly Asian women who faced similar challenges to the cast of the VS Series.

SK-II’s #CHANGEDESTINY purpose celebrates the human stories of women overcoming limitations to take destiny into their own hands. With this in mind, we saw an opportunity to launch the VS Series in a way that empowered all women who faced similar personal issues to those faced by the athletes and cast of the VS Series.

From set designs to choosing the right hosts to having a special performance by John Legend who wrote and composed an original soundtrack for one of the films, the ‘VS’ Series Live Stream brought together some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment to inspire the world with their stories. The live stream aired on both YouTube and Twitter.

In order to resonate with our diverse audience, we ensured our segments had something for everyone: from Athlete interviews to never seen before behind-the-scenes footage of the ‘VS’ Series. Hosted by Naomi Watanabe, Japanese comedian and SK-II Brand Ambassador, and YouTube Star kemio,

the live stream dove deep into each guests’ personal stories, while sharing their own relevant experiences.

In a mammoth effort to bring this idea to life, we executed 8 remote shoots in a span of three weeks, across US, Japan and China, including a riveting music video production by singer-songwriter John Legend.

On the day of the live stream, we coordinated the event from Singapore with the help of production houses in New York and Tokyo.

To further leverage the premiere, we crafted a social content plan, revealing easter eggs and quotes from the ‘VS’ athletes and SK-II ambassadors on the live stream, to continue inspiring our fans long after the premiere ended.

Our efforts paid off with an astounding 1.2 million live views, achieving the highest number of total live views among the TOP 5 beauty live events in 2020-2021 on Twitter.

In a world where people skip ads after 5 secs, we got our viewers to spend an average of 7:34 mins on the livestream, driving overwhelmingly positive mentions on Twitter.

Our content continued to drive conversations even post-broadcast, showing a deep impression on our audiences with conversations around the ‘VS’ series growing by +740% in the week post-broadcast.

The premiere also generated 339 earned stories, including coverage by major broadcasters - Hayadoki, Asachan, MezamashiTV, TBS and Yonchan TV.