Hatsune Miku and Domino's Pizza
Summary
Domino's Pizza of Japan launched a collaboration campaign between itself and Hatsune Miku in March of 2013. The campaign involved distributing a custom version of the Domino’s ordering app, with menus drawing inspiration from various Vocaloid music videos. The app also featured an AR function, which allowed users to view a virtual performance by Miku when the camera scanned a Dominos pizza box. The campaign was highly successful, with Dominos running out of the Miku-themed pizza boxes within the first week after launching the campaign.
Custom-designed decals were also applied to Dominos delivery bikes, prominently featuring the Dominos logo and Miku on all sides of the vehicle. This form of decoration is known in Japanese is called “itaibaiku”, combining the words “itai” (painful) and “baiku” (Bike/Motorcycle/Scooter). This expression is used because it is painful to look at for anyone who is not a hardcore fan.
Origin
On October 23rd, 2012 Domino's Japan asked Hatsune Miku fans to contribute art and music through the Vocalo Creative Club. Domino's would then use the submissions to produce their own song with Miku. Domino's also launched a series called Road to VocaloidP which lasted a couple of months where they uploaded updates and progress videos to YouTube and Nico Nico Douga. As a result, three songs were written through this process by December of 2012.
Campaign Release
On March 6th, 2013 Domino's released a YouTube video, announcing their collaboration with Hatsune Miku. The video featured Scott Oelkers, the CEO and President of Domino's Japan at the time. It was uploaded to the Domino’s Japan Nico Nico Douga page the next day. The announcement attracted nearly 760,000 combined views by August 2013. Several Domino's employees who were involved in the creation of the Vocaloid songs were also highlighted by the video. In addition, it was revealed that the collaboration would feature special Hatsune Miku-themed pizza boxes.
Domino's released the Domino's App Featuring Hatsune Miku which allowed users to purchase pizzas directly, watch the music videos that had already been made public, and featured AR (augmented reality) in its infancy. By pointing their phones at the specially-designed Hatsune Miku-themed pizza box, users would then be able to see Hatsune Miku dancing and singing to some of her most popular songs. The app was downloaded over half a million times and received mostly positive reviews on the iTunes and Google Play stores. It has since been discontinued since the end of the campaign.
Popularity in the West
Although the campaign was held in Japan, the global Vocaloid fanbase caught wind of it from the commercial with Domino's CEO Scott Oelkers. Western fans quickly started memes due how Oelkers was perceived as not a fan but still advertising Hatsune Miku, with his pronunciation of her name in particular being a primary topic of focus of parody. Throughout the campaign's lifespan, although the commercial was parodied many times, much fan artwork was also created and uploaded to popular sites such as pixiv and reddit -- the latter helped continue seeing the campaign's popularity soar overseas.
Interest in "Domino's Hatsune Miku" peaked during the campaign but has continued to be searched with the final months of 2019 and early months of 2020 revitalizing searches.
Popular YouTuber Nick Robinson created a 15-minute video in May 2018 which detailed the campaign at length but also showed his quest to find out what ever happened to the campaign and the CEO. Robinson also traveled to Tokyo and visited the Domino's Japan headquarters in order to find answers. The result of his research was that Oelkers had resigned from company.
By January 2020, the video had been viewed over one million times and had an over 97% like ratio.
The following year, Robinson would release a video of him unboxing his Silver Play Award (awarded for creators with over 100,000 subscribers), and he placed it on a Domino's Japan headquarters shelf.
Links
Domino’s Commercial (Archived)
Japan Today
Anime News Network
Know Your Meme