PR played a big role in having a small activation in a few schools grow into a much larger one across schools in Gifu Prefecture. Without understanding that PR would be playing a major role in this execution, it wouldn't have had the success it enjoyed. PR was vital to getting the message out and having more school participate.

SEKIMILK is a regional milk producer in Gifu Prefecture in central Japan. It produces fresh, wholesome milk for a variety of kinds of stores in the area, as well as schools. In the elementary schools, where milk plays an important role in providing for the children's everyday nutrition, the schools and SEKIMILK were noticing that a large percentage of the kids weren't finishing their daily bottles. So, the school system in the area, concerned about the kids' daily nutrition intake, asked SEKIMILK what they could do to have them finish their milk. The budget was minimal at best, and the coverage would be across the Prefecture affecting some 40 schools.

SEKIMILK is a local brand in GIFU prefecture in central Japan. As it produces milk in the same area where it's distributed, the company takes great care to ensure quality in its products. And it also has great concern about the community and the health of the kids in that area. Therefore, as they came to understand that the younger kids weren't getting all the nutrition they needed, they looked for a solution that would help. Milk Manga became that solution—a true win-win which brought as much happiness to the kids, and it did good health.

In the case of schools in Gifu Prefecture, SEKIMILK is a strong and trusted brand for the target audience, which is the elementary schools and their students. And knowing the kids the way SEKIMILK does, the idea came about quite naturally.

Leveraging the kids' love for manga—or Japanese comics—the bottles were painted with 4 frames of comics, in white ink. Reading from top to bottom, which is how Japanese is traditionally taught to be read, the manga was revealed to the kids as they drank the milk bottles. In fact, to finish the comic strip, the kids would have to finish the bottle completely, which they gladly did.

From the beginning, we knew PR had to be at the center of this execution. But what could get the attention of the GIFU media? It has to be something interesting to the general public.

Fortunately, the idea of placing enticing, entertaining illustration on the bottle that could only be revealed if the milk was consumed was key to getting media attention.

The message was really based on, "the more milk kids drink the more fun is revealed." This idea, health-related, but with a heap of fun, became the draw for earned media.

The PR effort was really based around having 3 schools receive the initial bottles of milk, and then having those schools invite news media to come and cover the consumption and enjoyment of the milk by the kids. This earned media would have other schools wanting to join in, which they did.

Overall, the scale was within Gifu Perfecture in Japan, where SEKIMILK manufactures and distributes their milk products. The timing of going from the initial 3 schools to 30 was about 2 months.

In Gifu Prefecture, after 15 weeks of distributing the Milk Manga bottles, 95% of the children were finishing all of their milk, enjoying 100% of the milk's nutrients.

In addition, the earned media value from the new coverage the Milk Manga bottles received totaled US$2 million, encouraging 10 times the number of school, to speak with SEKIMILK about supplying their schools with the Milk Manga.

The other important addition would be that in Japan there is a strong feeling from residents in rural Japan, in places like Gifu Prefecture, that the health and living conditions of people in those areas isn't as important as those in Tokyo and the other large Japanese cities. This feeling tends to increase the local pride and bring about the desire to look after one another, which was certainly the case here with SEKIMILK looking after the children in Gifu.