Do you remember the little vending machines in which we put a coin and received a ball or some similar toy? Well, a Japanese airline was inspired by this idea and launched a very creative and fun campaign.
In Japan, in this type of machines you can find everything, be it food, clothes or books, but a very popular product in that country is gashaponsa variety of capsule toys.
Travel without knowing where
In Tokyo’s vibrant Shibuya district, airline Peach Aviation has installed a machine that dispenses gashapons. Only, instead of some toy, what you will find here is a surprise destination. That’s right, if you enter 44 dollars, you will get the equivalent of 53 dollars in the form of points, which can only be used to go to the surprise destination that you obtained.
What you can physically find in the capsule is a piece of paper with a code, which is used to redeem the points you earned and buy a plane ticket to your surprise destination. In addition, you will find a pin and a “mission” for the traveler when they reach their destination.
Although it sounds like a real coin, sometimes luck is on the side of travelers, as in the case of Chinori Ide, a 19-year-old university student who won a trip to Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, where her grandmother lives, whom he has not seen in two years due to the covid-19 health contingency. Another student, Mao Otani, also earned a trip to Hokkaido, but he went to the remote city of Kushiro.
I’ve never been there and I have no idea what I’m going to do, but still, I’m excited. I plan to stay for a week, I haven’t been on vacation for two years.
Otani’s mission is to make his own katte don, a popular seafood and rice dish sold at Kushiro Washo Market. Other missions have been dressing up as the famous Osaka clown and “eating until you pass out”.
constant innovation
Shuntaro Kosasa, responsible for this project, considers that this has been a success, since the initial goal was to sell at least one capsule a day, but they have sold more than 3,000 since the opening of the first machine in Osaka, in August. Although the economic benefit of the project has not been very great, the publicity that the airline has obtained is immense. While it is true that it is much easier to buy a ticket directly from the airline to a destination of your choice, Kosasa says that what people are really looking for with these surprise flights is anticipation and excitement, a feeling that was sorely lacking during the quarantine. .
We are constantly thinking of new ideas so that things do not remain static or boring. [Con esta iniciativa] not only do you have your ticket, but you get stimulation due to the excitement of not knowing which destination you will get. It was time to do something fun.