Japanese Celebrities Show Unbelievable Design Skills in Canva Campaign

Created for the Japanese market, ‘Make It Unbelievable’ shows the unexpected results of crafting incredible-looking visual materials on Canva.

UltraSuperNew Tokyo has just launched ‘Make It Unbelievable’, a multi-channel campaign that showcases Canva’s promise that anyone can use the platform to create impressive visual materials without the need for extensive design education, making creativity accessible to all. There’s only one problem, the campaign highlights the fact that people find it hard to believe that those with no prior design experience can make such brilliant designs.

‘Make it Unbelievable’ features iconic Japanese celebrities Takeshi Kitano, the world-known auteur celebrated for his comedy and action films, and Gekidan Hitori, a Japanese filmmaker and actor who recently made a biopic based on Takeshi’s life. Picked specifically for their well-known on-screen personas, they quickly revert to these when a proud Takeshi shows Gekidan Hitori a presentation he has created on Canva for his new venture. It’s of such a high standard, that Gekidan doesn’t believe Kitano actually made it himself and tells him so. Things go sideways from there and escalate to a dramatic degree, with both stars sticking to their versions till the bitter end. 

Launched in 2013, Canva is a free online visual communications and collaboration platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design. Featuring a simple drag-and-drop user interface and a vast range of templates ranging from presentations, documents, websites, social media graphics, posters, apparel to videos, plus a huge library of fonts, stock photography, illustrations, video footage, and audio clips, anyone can take an idea and create something beautiful.

Francois Claverie, group creative director said, “It probably would not occur to anyone to doubt anything Takeshi Kitano says, ever… But for this campaign, we needed someone to do just that, and Gekidan Hitori took one for the team. We and our lawyers are just happy that he remained unharmed.”

‘Make It Unbelievable’ is running on national Japanese TV, YouTube and Social Media channels. Media is handled by IREP Co., Ltd.