The archive · PR & Stunts · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
Ajinomoto turns one 'stuck gyoza' post into a 3,500-pan product fix — ADFEST PR Grande
After a customer's post said its frozen gyoza stuck to the pan, Ajinomoto collected 3,520 pans from across Japan and relaunched a non-stick gyoza.
Ajinomoto Frozen Foods
What it had to solve
In May 2023 a customer's social post said Ajinomoto's frozen gyoza stuck to the frying pan — a direct hit on the brand's 'perfectly crisp' claim and its 50-plus-year 'continuous improvement' heritage. The company chose to answer with research instead of a denial.
How it works
In May 2023, a Japanese customer posted a photo of Ajinomoto frozen gyoza stuck to the bottom of a frying pan — a direct challenge to the brand's crisp, never-sticks promise. Instead of brushing it off, Ajinomoto Frozen Foods treated the post as a product-development brief.
The company asked anyone who had experienced the same failure to send in their frying pan. More than 3,500 pans arrived from across Japan. Ajinomoto 3D-scanned them into a public digital archive, cooked with 500+ of them to find out why gyoza stick, and shared the investigation's progress on note. In early 2024 it relaunched a reformulated gyoza that reduced sticking by 26%; by February 2025 a second improvement reached 54%.
The 'Frying Pan Challenge' turned a customer complaint into a transparent R&D program — and won the ADFEST 2024 PR Grand Prix plus Gold and Bronze, along with Spikes Asia, ACC Tokyo, and SABRE awards. The collected pans were later recycled into new frying pans made by a Tsubame metalworking firm, keeping the project alive as a symbol of continuous improvement.
Why it lands
- Responding to a public complaint with visible research, not a denial, made the brand's 'continuous improvement' claim concrete and trustworthy.
- Collecting real pans (3,520) gave the R&D team genuine failure data that a focus group could never produce.
- Publishing the archive and progress reports let thousands of contributors feel like co-authors of the product relaunch, generating word of mouth.
- The improved gyoza itself delivered the resolution, so the apology was a better product, not an excuse.
What it did
The campaign became a national talking point and swept awards — ADFEST 2024 PR Grande, Gold and Bronze, Spikes Asia Golds, ACC and SABRE wins — while feeding real product data into two reformulated gyoza that customers could watch being developed.
What you can take
A complaint is a research brief if you invite the evidence in: collect the failed objects, publish the investigation, and let the improved product be the apology — critics become contributors.
Since then
The project continued past the relaunch: a February 2025 gyoza cut sticking by 54% versus the original, the collected pans were melted down and remade into new frying pans with a Tsubame metalworking maker, and the site remains a public archive of the 3D-scanned pans. The campaign kept winning awards into 2024–2025 (PR Awards Asia-Pacific, SABRE, IPRA) and became a textbook example of using social listening as R&D.
Sources
- Frozen Gyoza Frying Pan Challenge — HONDA OFFICE case page
- 'Frying Pan Challenge' Garners Highest Recognition at ADFEST 2024
- 冷凍餃子フライパンチャレンジ（プロジェクトサイト）
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