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Rishiri Town Makes Kombu Kelp Drying a Smartphone Experience
Kombu Hosu! Hosu! Virtual Kombu Kelp Drying is a 2019 digital campaign created by Geometry Japan for Rishiri Town, Hokkaido, that uses a smartphone motion mechanic to simulate the traditional process of drying three-metre-long kombu kelp, culminating in an invitation for users to take up seasonal drying work on the island, according to Adsoftheworld.
Rishiri Town occupies a remote island off the northern coast of Hokkaido, Japan, and its economy depends substantially on the harvest and processing of kombu kelp, a foundational ingredient across Japanese food culture. Published in May 2019 — precisely when the annual kombu-drying season begins — the campaign operates as a recruitment and cultural-awareness initiative rather than a conventional packaged-food advertisement. Its primary audience is younger Japanese people who have little direct familiarity with the physical demands and seasonal rhythms of kelp drying. The campaign carries a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100, reflecting its inventive use of digital format in service of a deeply localised social and economic challenge.
The campaign's core mechanic is disarmingly physical. Users hold their smartphone close to their body and shake it, replicating the motion a worker would use to dry a length of freshly harvested kombu on the shore. Once the virtual drying is complete, the experience transitions into a call to action, prompting users to consider applying for seasonal kombu-drying work in Rishiri Town, as documented by Ads of the World and reported by Branding in Asia, according to Brandinginasia. In this way, the digital campaign bridges the gap between urban Japanese audiences and a rural industry facing an existential labour shortage, using the ubiquity of the smartphone as a means of embodied, sensory education about a job that most city dwellers have never encountered.
Rishiri Town's kombu industry faces a structural labour shortage driven by an ageing population and sustained rural depopulation, according to Earticle. Toshiya Hiranuma, Supervisor of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Promotion Department at Rishiri Town Government office, stated directly, as reported by Branding in Asia and Ads of the World: "The whole industry has been struggling with labor shortage caused by aging and depopulation, according to Is Nri Co Jp. We really need our younger generation to join in, but didn't know how to." Hiranuma himself has dried kombu kelp since junior high school, giving the campaign an insider authority that distinguishes it from generic rural-recruitment messaging.
In Japan, traditional edible dried kombu sits within a mature and culturally embedded food category. According to Kombu Or Jp, Japan's annual kombu production is substantial, with estimates for 2025 placing output at approximately 47,000 metric tons; no verified production figure for 2019 is publicly available. The relevant competitive context for Rishiri Town is not a rival brand of packaged food but rather competing destinations and industries that also seek seasonal rural workers in Japan — a market dynamic that campaigns from regional agricultural bodies and the Japanese government's own rural revitalisation initiatives have increasingly sought to address through digital channels. Within this context, Geometry Japan recognised that abstract recruitment messaging would fail to connect with younger audiences who lacked any experiential reference point for what kombu drying actually involves.
The strategic insight powering Kombu Hosu! Hosu! is that physical familiarity precedes emotional commitment. By translating the embodied labour of kelp drying into a smartphone gesture accessible anywhere in Japan, the campaign removes the cognitive distance between urban prospect and rural opportunity, creating a form of pre-employment empathy that text-based job listings cannot replicate.
Geometry Japan built the Kombu Hosu! Hosu! experience around a single, repeatable physical gesture. The creative team identified that the motion of shaking a smartphone while holding it close to the body could credibly approximate the physical rhythm of kombu drying, transforming an everyday device into a surprisingly visceral simulation of agricultural labour. The experience visualises a three-metre length of kombu kelp responding to the user's movement, creating a feedback loop between digital action and physical effort that anchors the campaign's recruitment message in felt experience rather than description.
Executive creative director Fumitaka Takano and creative director, art director, and illustrator Katsuya Yamamoto led the creative development, with Hirohisa Fujiwara serving as copywriter and planner. PR responsibilities were handled by Shima Hayashi. Programming was delivered by Takashi Moriyama and General Incorporated Association Omusubi, with production managed by TCJ, as documented by Ads of the World. The visual language developed by Yamamoto draws on illustration rather than photographic realism, a choice that softens the barrier to entry for users unfamiliar with the kombu industry while preserving the warmth and craft associations that make Rishiri's product distinctive within Japanese food culture.
The campaign exists as a single digital media asset — a mobile and web experience — and was published in May 2019 to coincide with the start of the kombu-drying season in Rishiri Town, as noted by Ads of the World and Branding in Asia. That timing is itself a creative decision: launching at the precise moment when the work would be happening on the island connects the digital simulation to a real-world activity unfolding in parallel, lending the experience an immediacy that a campaign launched outside the season could not achieve.
No verified performance data for Kombu Hosu! Hosu! Virtual Kombu Kelp Drying is publicly available. Neither Geometry Japan, Rishiri Town Government, nor any third-party source has published figures for user engagement, seasonal worker applications, or media reach generated by the campaign. Assessment therefore rests on structural analysis of the campaign's design and objectives.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates three qualities that correlate with effectiveness in digital recruitment and awareness contexts. First, its mechanic is self-explanatory: a user who completes the shaking gesture has already demonstrated willingness to engage physically with an unfamiliar task, which is precisely the disposition Rishiri Town needs in prospective seasonal workers. Second, the timing strategy — launching in May 2019 at the opening of the drying season — maximises relevance and creates a natural news hook for coverage, as reported by Branding in Asia and Ads of the World. Third, by framing a labour shortage as a cultural story rather than a hiring advertisement, the campaign positions Rishiri Town as a place worth understanding rather than a vacancy worth filling, a distinction that matters considerably to younger Japanese audiences whose relationship with rural work is shaped more by curiosity than economic necessity.
The campaign's primary limitation is its single-asset format. One digital experience, however inventive, carries a constrained organic reach ceiling without paid media amplification or a documented content distribution strategy. Whether the Kombu Hosu! Hosu! campaign generated sufficient awareness among the younger Japanese demographic it targeted remains unverified by any public source.
Kombu Hosu! Hosu! is a 2019 digital campaign by Geometry Japan for Rishiri Town, Hokkaido. It uses a smartphone motion mechanic to simulate the traditional process of drying three-metre kombu kelp, then invites users to consider taking up seasonal kelp-drying work on the island, as reported by Branding in Asia and Ads of the World.
Rishiri Town's kombu industry faces a labour shortage caused by ageing and rural depopulation. As reported by Branding in Asia, Supervisor Toshiya Hiranuma stated the industry urgently needed younger workers but lacked a way to reach them. The digital campaign was designed to familiarise urban Japanese audiences with the physical reality of seasonal kelp-drying work.
Users hold their smartphone close to their body and shake it, replicating the physical motion of drying freshly harvested kombu kelp. The screen visualises a three-metre length of kelp responding to the gesture. Once the virtual drying is complete, the experience presents a call to action for seasonal work in Rishiri Town, as documented by Ads of the World.
Geometry Japan created the campaign. The creative team was led by executive creative director Fumitaka Takano and creative director Katsuya Yamamoto, with copywriting and planning by Hirohisa Fujiwara. Programming was handled by Takashi Moriyama and General Incorporated Association Omusubi, with production by TCJ, as documented by Ads of the World.
The Kombu Hosu! Hosu! Virtual Kombu Kelp Drying campaign received a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's inventive use of smartphone motion mechanics in service of a localised rural recruitment challenge, balanced against its single-asset format and the absence of publicly verified performance data.
Geometry Japan published Kombu Hosu! Hosu! in Japan in May 2019, timed to coincide with the opening of the annual kombu-drying season in Rishiri Town, Hokkaido. The campaign ran as a digital and mobile experience, as reported by Ads of the World and Branding in Asia, making the launch timing itself a strategic creative decision.
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