The secret to YOASOBI's popularity is that it fits into everyday life and always takes on challenges. Marketing and sound production strategy [CEDEC 2024]

On August 21, 2024, at the game developer conference "CEDEC 2024", a session was held by Yohei Yashiro and Hideya Yamamoto of Sony Music Entertainment, Ryo Watanabe of Bandai Namco Studio, and Takanori Kaneko of Konami Digital Entertainment. “YOASOBI marketing and sound production” was held.
In this session, Mr. Yashiro and Mr. Yamamoto, who are the label/management staff for the unit "YOASOBI" which has gained great popularity in recent years, will discuss a wide range of topics such as the origins and methods of music production, music video production, and global activities. The session consisted of explaining the themes of marketing and sound production, with Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Kaneko asking questions each time.

The theme this time is YOASOBI, a ``unit that turns novels into music'' by composer Ayase and vocalist Ikura. This project was launched as part of the novel posting site "monogatary.com" launched by Mr. Yashiro in 2017, and has achieved numerous streams, including his debut song "Yoru ni Kakeru" which became the first in Japanese history to reach 1 billion streaming times. It has become a popular content with a proven track record.

The first topic of discussion was marketing methods on SNS. YOASOBI and his staff actively disseminate information on numerous SNS such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok. This includes not only announcements of songs and events, but also behind-the-scenes content production, daily life that seems to be going viral, and real-time commentary on anime. This type of activity is said to be because YOASIBI aims to be an approachable artist who ``enters everyday life''.

What we are conscious of when operating in this way is not to send a message to the entire fan base, but to add a message that conveys an emotion that will touch a specific person. Since there are many patterns available, it is inevitable that the number of posts will increase. Also, he sometimes ventures into topics that are popular on the internet (such as so-called internet memes) to make them catchy.

The next topic was Branding for content called ``music that expands the story.'' All of YOASOBI's songs to date have been based on novels, and the songs have been created based on those novels. Furthermore, animated music videos are also produced, and by switching back and forth between them, you can enjoy each content even more.
Some of the original novels have been mixed with many media such as books, dramas, movies, and picture books, and one of YOASOBI's major characteristics is that it can develop developments that would be difficult to achieve with music alone.

According to Mr. Yashiro, music basically becomes passive content, but in the case of YOASOBI, by switching back and forth between music, novels, and music videos, it becomes something that can be actively enjoyed. That's what it means.

Mr. Yamamoto also mentioned that since the original novel is prepared, he will be creating songs in a wide range of genres to go with the novel, and that he is making use of this fact in his marketing as well.

According to this, in the early days of YOASOBI, after ``Yoru ni Kakeru'' became popular among young people, they changed the taste of their songs and tried to expand their age range. Once it was listened to by a wide range of people, Ayase expanded the range of his songs by emphasizing his areas of expertise and even changing genres.

Running at night

After that, we solidified the concept of ``turning novels into music'' through collaboration with Naoki Prize-winning authors, and now that we have solidified our foundation through these efforts, in recent years we have once again approached teenagers and taken on the challenge of singing songs with new nuances. It is said that they are doing so.

At this point, Mr. Watanabe asked the question, ``How can you continue to take on such challenges?'' In response, Mr. Yashiro replied that while the basic idea was marketing, it was essentially because the composer, Mr. Ayase, was ``a greedy and challenging artist.''

Furthermore, Mr. Kaneko asked the two of them, who have directed songs in a wide range of genres, what impressions they had on game music.
Here, Mr. Yashiro reveals that he has been exposed to a wide range of game music since childhood, including titles for consumer consoles, PC games, and doujin titles.
From that experience, he believes that game music is an area where the challenge and passion of creators can be strongly felt. He also said that in recent years there has been a trend in the pop music industry to give songs a background, and in that sense they are becoming closer to game music.

Furthermore, when directing music, Mr. Yamamoto says that he respects what Mr. Ayase and Mr. Ikura are thinking and what they want to do, rather than what is considered the best at the moment. He expressed his opinion that such aspects are similar to the production of game music that adds color to the main game.

At this point, the session switched to a question-and-answer session, and several questions were asked from the audience.

First of all, YOASOBI seems to have a very high resolution of what the world wants, but the question is how does it achieve that height?

In response, Mr. Yashiro said, ``I don't feel that the resolution is that high, and I have resigned myself to not being able to understand it no matter how far I go,'' and if I had to cite it, I would say, ``I don't feel that the resolution is that high, and I have resigned myself to not being able to understand it no matter how far I go.'' ” That is what he said.
In recent years, SNS has allowed other people's posts to be picked up without permission, and as a result, people have come across unexpected opinions, which has broadened their range of thinking.

The next question is about the intention of daring to write a new original novel without basing it on the original work when creating music for a work that has an original work, such as an anime.

Regarding this, he says that one of the interesting things about YOASOBI is that it can "create original novels." For example, for the currently airing anime ``Monogatari Series: His Off & Monster Season,'' for which YOASOBI is in charge of the ending theme, the original author, Mr. Isin Nishio, was asked to write a new novel for the song production. This is of course something that fans of the original work will be happy about, and it is a development that can be said to be the ``fun'' of YOASOBI.

UNDEAD

There was also a question about the game's huge popularity overseas.
YOASOBI has released English versions of existing songs, and some of the lyrics seem to be Japanese translations, but what kind of effect does this have? Also, the Japanese version is sung at live performances, but how should they be used?

Regarding this, Mr. Yamamoto said that he did not intentionally include the sora-mimi, but that he prioritized the rhythm of the Japanese lyrics, resulting in lyrics that sound similar. In the end, they wanted the song to be in Japanese, so they searched for lyrics that wouldn't feel strange when heard in both Japanese and English.

YOASOBI / Idol (“Idol” English Ver.)

Also, the reason why Japanese versions are sung at overseas concerts is simply because it is difficult to sing in English, but in modern society there are many opportunities to hear songs in foreign languages, and it is natural to sing in Japanese. This is because many people hear this. Apparently they wanted the song to end up being a Japanese song as mentioned earlier, so they chose to sing it with Japanese lyrics.

By the way, the truth is that he doesn't know why YOASOBI has become so popular overseas. However, although the trigger is unknown, the company quickly took action in response to hits, such as releasing English versions of videos and performing live shows overseas, and this may have been the reason for its further spread. , it was stated

Some of the questions included how did you prepare the strategy you talked about today?
Mr. Yashiro gives his honest opinion on this, saying, "80% of it was an afterthought." It is said that it is rare for a company to formulate and put into practice the strategies mentioned above in advance. However, it is said that they have conversations on a daily basis that form the basis of this, where they discuss things like what their goals are and, conversely, ``Let's stop doing this.''

Towards the end, questions arose regarding where the idea of ​​``turning novels into music,'' which led to the establishment of YOASOBI, came from in the first place.

Surprisingly, this was said to have been a desperate measure born out of a backwater situation.
Mr. Yashiro previously tried for two years to develop a plan for ``monogatary.com'' with the theme of ``turning a novel into XX'', but all of them ended in failure. Meanwhile, they thought, ``Since we're a music company, it would be a good idea to turn it into music,'' and the result was the project that became the prototype for YOASOBI.

In this session, we were able to learn a little bit about how YOASOBI, an artist that everyone knows, was born and how he has grown to this point.
Although the content of the session is not directly related to game development, games and music are inseparable. If you think about game development from a music approach, remembering the content of this session may give you some ideas.

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