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Coming into 2021, online streaming and broadcasting have become one of the major forms of entertainment and media publishing. The rise of Netflix over the years is one of the most concrete pieces of evidence for this shift in the broadcasting industry. To counter Netflix’s expansion, in 2012, Fuji Television Network (FujiTV), one of the major television networks in Japan, launched a new service named FujiTV On Demand (FOD). Over the years, FOD has evolved to become one of the major platforms in Japan, monopolizing the Japanese market.

With the addition of FOD Premium in 2019, FujiTV is set on its way to becoming the largest broadcasting network in Japan and in Asia.
To commemorate FOD’s ten years in service and to further evolve the platform, Fuji Television Network kickstarted project Fuji+, a conceptual project to build the foundation for FOD’s future and FujiTV’s shift toward online services.
Project Duration
June 2021 - January 2022
Team Size
6 Members
Primary Role
Creative Director
Function
Team Leadership, Strategy & Design
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Highlights
Key summary
The project in numbers
1m+
premium users
12%
increase in original content investment
1
adaptable visual concept
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Brand Strategy
One unified platform for all
Landscape analysis
To determine the best strategy for the brand, our first task is to dive deep down to truly understand the competitive environment of online streaming platforms.

Our strategy team conducted a Landscape Analysis, a modified version of the 3C Analysis framework, to identify FOD's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. For this analysis, we chose Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+ —Japan's three most extensive content streaming services. The image below shows a portion of the results from this process.
Sentimental analysis
In addition to learning more about the competitive environment of the Japanese market, our team also conducted an additional sentimental analysis to also understand more about the relationship between FOD (and FujiTV Network's services holistically) and its users.

Our team focuses our analysis on two primary dimensions: users' understanding of the brand (brand awareness & brand recognition) and brand loyalty. The following graphs show a portion of the results from this process.
Drafting a new positioning
The results from our analyses show that FOD and most of FujiTV Network's services suffer from users' lack of understandings regarding their offerings. The lack of focus for each service also contributes to the high management cost for the business.

To remedy this problem and to build a strong foundation for FOD as a brand, our team proposed a new business strategy and brand positioning that unifies all of FujiTV Network's services into one platform.
Selecting a new name & drafting a new slogan
With the new strategy and positioning, our team also selected a new name for the new unified platform. Different from other local branding projects, our team conducted a more comprehensive naming process, including negative checks across different languages to ensure that the new platform could be legally registered and expanded in markets other than Japan.


The project team also drafted a new slogan that is also culturally transferrable while conveying the new benefits.
Brand core values & design principles
To define the brand design principles for Fuji+, our team must first determine the core values that Fuji+ is offering. Through interviews and workshops with the primary stakeholders at FujiTV, our team was able to define the three brand core values which Fuji+ is offering: Adaptive, Principled, and Leading.

Based on these three core values, the team defined the three brand design principles for Fuji+: Simple, Modern, and Opened.
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Creative Development
A unified, yet flexible identity system
Logotype development
Inspired by the service’s mission to “Foster Communities of Like-minded Audiences,” the new logotype for Fuji+ was designed with “broken pieces of different shapes and sizes” to represent the different communities of audiences that come together through the service. This motif emphasizes the service’s core idea of becoming “a service made by the audience, for the audience.” All the shapes were designed strictly based on a geometrical grid to ensure the balance of the final letters and the harmony between them. The same grid was also used for the kerning, helping to shape Fuji+’s new logotype into a visually attractive design.

The design team also chose Fuji Exciting Red (Pantone 2035C) and Fuji Calming Bold (Pantone 419C) from the brand’s color palette for the coloring so as to further add another layer of meaning to the logo while maintaining the legibility and recognizability of the final design throughout different applications.
Color palette development
Based on the defined brand core values and design principles, together with the logotype, the project team also defined a new color palette to distinguish Fuji+ from other brands and services. Resultantly, the project team chose Fuji Exciting Red (Pantone 2035C) and Fuji Calming Bold (Pantone 419C), two colors with different characteristics, as the primary and secondary colors for Fuji+.

Furthermore, the team also chose a set of extended colors to add more variety and create a dynamic color environment for Fuji+. These colors include Fuji Violet (Pantone 2070C), Fuji Blue (Pantone 2370C), Fuji Green (Pantone 2273C), and Fuji Orange (Pantone 717C). The chosen extended colors are also expanded into different tints and shades to accompany the neutral gray tones defined from the Black and White colors.
Typography system development
Once the color palette and the logotype had been defined, the project team proceeded to define a typography system for Fuji+.

For English-oriented applications, we chose Gilroy, a geometric sans-serif font designed and published by Radomir Tinkov. Optimized for excellent legibility, Gilroy features balanced glyphs with a modern, progressive, and neutral appearance, making the font a perfect choice for Fuji+.

Based on Gilroy, we also chose Source Han Sans, an open-source font from the Adobe Originals program, to support applications in Korean, Chinese, and most importantly, Japanese.
Sub-graphic system development
As the final touch for Fuji+, the project team created an extended sub-graphic system to compliment the service’s primary visual identity.

Based on the structure of the "+" symbol, the project team employed a simple "rectangle" (a single stroke from the two strokes required to create the symbol) as the service's primary graphic motif. By combining this "rectangle" with a defined grid system, the project team successfully created a design structure that is easy to implement and powerful enough to separate Fuji+ from competing services. Furthermore, the project team also devised an additional set of six patterns using simple shapes and movements to add more variety to the final system.
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Credit
A special thanks to the project team