Rakuten, a leading loyalty rewards company launched a new North American media campaign, “Let’s Talk Rakuten,” in collaboration with its newly appointed agency of record, Standard Black. The first TV spot, which features NBA All-Star Stephen Curry, was unveiled in tandem with the start of the 2019-20 NBA season.
With additional spots slated to air through early 2020, “Let’s Talk Rakuten” will run on broadcast, cable, and streaming networks as well as on social and new media. The campaign also includes out-of-home executions including billboards, bus shelters, and station dominations of Hudson Yards in New York City and Montgomery BART in San Francisco.
Developed by design-driven creative agency Standard Black, the campaign showcases Rakuten’s consumer benefits for savvy shoppers. While past campaigns focused on introducing Rakuten to the market of North American, “Let’s Talk Rakuten” focuses on building a unique identity for the brand. To portray this, Standard Black produced a campaign illustrating specific, iconic situations with scenes and characters that were broadly relatable across a wide audience.
Michael Sharp, CEO of Standard Black said that “Once people experience Rakuten, they can’t help but talk about it. Our goal was to translate the feeling of social obligation to tell friends and family about how Rakuten can enhance the way you shop. It’s always exciting to have a campaign with a really clear direction, tone and story to tell, and a lot of room for improvisation and experimentation. We were really lucky to work with an exciting brand like Rakuten and an incredibly talented cast. We could just sit back and watch our ideas come to life.”
Trever Gregory, VP of Brand Marketing, Rakuten stated that “We were looking for a creative partner to build on our brand story and Standard Black’s vision drew us to them. We wanted to showcase our identity and demonstrate why our 13 million members love Rakuten. We think we accomplished this with our new campaign. It was the perfect trifecta of creative, direction and talent all coming together.”
Rakuten is an easy way to earn Cash Back on virtually everything you buy and is the largest loyalty program of its kind. In the last two decades, the company has paid over $1.5 billion in Cash Back to its members on purchases from more than 3,500 retailers and online services.