The Japanese are well known having produced some of the best scary movies in popular culture. But what they aren’t known for all that well is producing scary films for the purposes of promoting health products. As strange as this might sound, Japanese ad agency Tokyu has developed a new short horror film with the aim of maximising the number of calories the viewer burns through while watching.
This unusual approach was used to promote the release of Docomo Healthcare’s ‘Move Band 2,’ a wristband that gives the wearer an indication of how many calories they are burning.
Research shows that the general intensity of watching a horror movie could burn around 200 calories, which in theory is equivalent of a chocolate bar. However, this wasn’t nearly enough for the team at Tokyu to make its point, so the agency solicited the help of professor Akiharu Sudo, a doctor of medicine from Kokushikan University, who studied the mechanism of how human beings consume calories through watching scary videos.
And his insights were then used to develop a story terrifying enough to vanquish viewers’ calories.
“With numerous experiments using professional calorie measurement equipment, they came up with the most powerful and effective filming and story technique, and by incorporating POVs of the main character in the film which is the current trend of scary videos, created a film which will consume your calories most effectively just by watching,” explains the writeup on the campaign.
While the viewer watches the video, a calorie counter in the right-hand corner indicates how many calories the viewer is burning through. However, these numbers are clearly exaggerated and are designed to rather make the point that we do also burn calories passively. That said, the video is entertaining, and it certainly beats doing sit-ups (subtitles are available).
