The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2009–2010
Uniqlo's Lucky Switch turns any blog into a lottery — Spikes 2010 Digital Grand Prix
A blog widget that flips every image on a website into Uniqlo lucky tickets — winners got tote bags, losers got Uniqlo ads.
Uniqlo (Fast Retailing)
What it had to solve
For its 31-day year-end lucky-bag (fukubukuro) campaign of daily limited goods, Uniqlo wanted to reach Japanese bloggers without buying media. The answer had to live on other people's sites, not Uniqlo's own.
How it works
In late 2009 Uniqlo was running its year-end lucky-bag (fukubukuro) sale as a 31-day campaign of daily limited goods, and wanted the web to notice without buying banners. Instead of renting media, Uniqlo and Dentsu built a widget that let bloggers volunteer their own sites as the advertising space.
The 'Lucky Switch' was a small piece of code embedded in a blog. When a visitor flipped the switch, every image on the page was instantly turned into an online lottery ticket. Winners received an original Uniqlo tote bag, the blog owner received one too, and every losing ticket became a Uniqlo banner ad showing that day's limited goods.
The mechanic made the campaign spread on its own: the widget created Uniqlo adverts 2.8 million times in one month. It took the Grande Innova Lotus at ADFEST 2010, won the Digital Grand Prix at Spikes Asia 2010, and Uniqlo was named Advertiser of the Year at the same festival.
Why it lands
- The media was the audience: bloggers embedded the widget voluntarily, so the campaign travelled through personal networks instead of paid placements.
- The mechanic was self-rewarding — winning the lottery was itself the prize, so people played the ad for fun.
- Every interaction produced branded content: winning tickets and losing tickets both carried Uniqlo, so no impression was wasted.
- It put Uniqlo's brand on other people's sites — a cheeky, ownable move that competitors could not copy without looking derivative.
What it did
The widget created Uniqlo adverts 2.8 million times in its first month. It won the Grande Innova Lotus at ADFEST 2010 and the Digital Grand Prix at Spikes Asia 2010, where Uniqlo was also named Advertiser of the Year.
What you can take
Give people a toy they want to install and your ad media multiplies itself: when the audience volunteers their own pages, every impression also carries an endorsement.
Since then
After the 31-day campaign, Uniqlo kept experimenting with the same pattern, following Lucky Switch with projects like the Uniqlo Calendar, and D&AD archived the work as a case study. At Spikes Asia 2010, where Lucky Switch took the Digital Grand Prix, Uniqlo was also named Advertiser of the Year. The widget's 'flip a switch and turn someone's site into your store' mechanic became a reference point for blog-era advertising.
Sources
- Uniqlo wins Innova Grande, Moro wins Grande 360 and Yubari City Project wins Grande Lotus Roots at ADFEST 2010
- Spikes Asia '10 announced the winners, Direct Mktg. category gets maximum awards
- UNIQLO Lucky Switch (D&AD Awards Archive)
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