Bringing Switzerland to Tokyo

SwissDays

Promoting 150 years of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Japan

  • Brand Strategy
  • Event
  • Graphic Design
  • Naming

Design, produce, broker funding and market an official launch event for a year of events celebrating the relationship between the two countries. We had a year.

In March 2013, Eat was awarded the project by the Embassy of Switzerland, and so began a long journey that culminated in a four-day celebration of everything Swiss in February 2014.

From the outset Eat developed the event as a brand – defining the values and principles against which all aspects of the project could develop. The challenge was to generate a visual identity capable of holding its own alongside two powerful country brands, as well as a host of global corporations.

Generate a visual identity capable of holding its own alongside two powerful country brands, as well as a host of global corporations.

Some items were a challenge to get through customs

Eat’s approach was to take inspiration from the most powerful of Swiss icons – the Swiss cross. By changing the cross’s scale and physical presence, the icon that was the essence of Switzerland was transformed into a structural symbol with architectural scale. With typical Swiss precision, the event image became informed by modular cubes. The layout of the venue itself was arranged within an imaginary square grid onto which six-meter high three dimensional crosses would be positioned to form a core installation, a stage and sponsor booths. The centrepiece of the installation was a 10.6 metre high projection mapping screen onto which a specially commissioned 10 minute movie would be projected.

Another essential cultural engagement for the event was to introduce the Japanese audience to Swiss food and drink. Eat was instrumental in identifying, commissioning and installing the businesses that represented the very best of Switzerland’s food and wine.

Eat partnered with PR agency Sunny Side Up, who were tasked with media relations. The media roll-out strategy included a core website and Twitter campaign, Facebook page and a media gathering. Combined with regular press releases on a wide variety of event related topics, we achieved media coverage that exceeded our expectations, with EAV of over US$1.7m.

The President of Switzerland at the opening ceremony