Social Block Art
- Brand
- JAL
- Year
- 2012
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- BIRD LAND
- With
- No.9
- With
- Tokyu Agency
- With
- 1-10design, Inc.
- With
- Kyucon.com
Objective
In April 2012 Japan Airlines launched the first nonstop flight between Boston and Asia, linking Tokyo and Boston directly for the first time. Rather than simply announce the new route, JAL and Tokyu Agency wanted people on both sides of it — in Japan and abroad — to mark the opening together, turning the launch into a shared, borderless moment worth spreading on their own.
Solution
Visitors land on a shared building site and start placing blocks, clicking to drop one into a growing structure that thousands of other players are adding to at the same time. The collective build takes shape as an airplane bridging the two cities, flanked by skyline scenes of Tokyo and Boston, with everyone's contributions visible side by side so newcomers can see what others made and keep building on it. A running count of every block placed climbs in real time, turning each click into a visible, shareable stake in a structure no one person is building alone.
Results
Over 160,000 blocks placed in the first 24 hours after launch; 1,000,000 blocks reached by day 13; more than 3,300,000 blocks placed within two months.
- 1
The player opens jalboston.com, a special site marking Japan Airlines' new nonstop route between Tokyo and Boston, built for both Japanese and overseas visitors.
- 2
On a shared canvas, the player places blocks to build a personal block-art piece, contributing it to the collective scene.
- 3
Individual contributions accumulate into two shared structures: an airplane linking Tokyo and Boston, and cityscapes of both cities, which players from different countries build up together regardless of nationality.
- 4
Players browse each other's block-art, draw inspiration from other contributions, and collaborate on the same structures; the scene keeps growing as the total block count climbs into the hundreds of thousands within a day and into the millions over subsequent weeks.
