SMF Symposium - Success Strategy for "Sapporo Ideas City" ②
Beginning on February 7th at 2pm, a panel discussion called the "4th SMF Symposium - Success Strategy for Sapporo Ideas City ②; 'The future form of a creative city'" took place at a satellite campus of Sapporo City University.
In March of 2006, the Sapporo City Mayor announced the "Sapporo Ideas City Statement", stating that Sapporo will be a city with new industries, art and design will flow through the daily lives of the citizens, will be a place for creative people to grow, and a place where new ideas will always be accepted.
Sapporo Art Forum hosted this forum, speaking of examples like Yokohama City, a leader in creative cities, and new possibilities for companies to create brands through online advertisement. Through these topics, the possibility of connecting media arts, which creates a city, and social media, was discussed.
Masaharu Nakahara, Chief of Yokohama Creative City Headquarters Creative Implementation Department, gave a lecture about the future Yokohama City is working toward. He said artists were the ones who helped create a new kind of city.
Yokohama Creative City Headquarters Creative Implementation Department Chief, Masaharu Nakahara
Tomohiro Okada, director of Creative Cluster, an incorporated nonprofit organization, gave examples of two cities to aid Sapporo in becoming a major creative city. His theme was "Creative Cluster and Social Media".
Director of Creative Cluster, Tomohiro Okada
Many creators and students attended the event. Their attention was grabbed most by Koichiro Tanaka, who became well known when he took on the creative direction of "UNIQLOCK", a web-based promotion campaign for Uniqlo.
His concept of an ad called "The infinite 5 second dance clock" gained the support of users all over the world. The webpage has over 200 million views. According to Tanaka, the Uniqlock's strategy was not "To buy media, but to spread through users themselves", so he used websites like You Tube to create this explosive advertising effect.
Koichiro Tanaka gave his presentation on Uniqlock through Skype
Takemura Mutsuhiro, Professor at the Design section of Sapporo City University, coordinated the second half of the forum with a panel discussion including Nakahara, Okada, Araya from the Sapporo Citizen City planning section, art director Satoshi Hata, and SMF committee member, art director, and designer Hiroshi Maeda. The topic, "What is the goal of a Creative City?" was expanded upon.
A panel discussion followed the forum
From left: Takemura, Nakahara, Okada, Araya, Hata, and Maeda
Efforts to bring about a creative city have just begun. Stay tuned for the future of Sapporo.
The seats were filled
