Even as COVID-19 continued to make travel difficult around the world, major Japanese shopping center Lumine developed a new travel experiences brand designed to connect people. Our immediate goal was to help the brand explore the possibilities of meeting the needs of people wanting to travel when most major travel was restricted.

Targeting office workers who were discouraged from traveling or chatting while eating out because of COVID-19 restrictions, we designed a multimedia package that combined a bento that could be eaten in the office and an audio travelogue that linked directly to the dishes featured in the bento. We decided to sell the “audio-bentos” in Lumine’s shopping centers, located in buildings with direct links to major train stations, essentially using owned media to widely promote the bentos with minimal advertising. Our intent was to transform lunchtime itself into a medium for travel experiences.

We packed the bento with popular main and side dishes from the scenic region of Yamagata. The audio travelogue—accessible simply by reading the QR code on the bento packaging—featured sounds recorded in Yamagata and the area’s natives colorfully talking in their regional dialects. Through the use of vivid sound and delicious food that complemented each other, we sought to transport users to another place for a virtual lunchtime vacation—in the process, transforming lunchtime itself into a medium for travel experiences and solidifying the innovative image of Lumine’s travel experiences brand.

Despite a low-key advertising campaign made necessary by COVID-19 restrictions, the bentos sold out every day. As a result, Lumine’s new travel brand was able to quickly establish itself as a provider of unique travel experiences—an image that helped the brand’s subsequent remote tours also sell out. We were also able to introduce a novel audio-culinary experience that garnered great interest from regions across Japan; a second Audio-Bento was also produced.