Eating the Backstreets: Osaka to Kanazawa
A six-part food series built to push visitors beyond Tokyo and Kyoto.
- 8.2M
- Series views
- 11.4%
- Engagement rate
- 412K
- Saves + shares
- 96K
- Guide page sessions
The brief
Visit Japan needed dispersal: same visitor numbers, spread across more regions.
The brief was to make secondary cities feel like a food destination in their own right, targeted at 25–40 year old travellers already planning a first Japan trip.
Eating the Backstreets — Episode 1: Osaka
Dispersal is a storytelling problem
Travellers don't skip secondary cities because they're unaware of them — they skip them because nobody has made them feel essential. Each episode was structured around one dish that only makes sense in that city.
Vendors first, scenery second
We cast the series like a documentary: eleven vendors, each interviewed before we shot a single plate. The food footage is better because we already knew what mattered to the person cooking it.
Written guides as the conversion layer
Video creates desire; guides create bookings. Every episode ended on a link to a written city guide with addresses, hours and transit — which is where the measurable session traffic came from.
“The regional tourism offices came to us afterwards asking how to get on the next series. That has never happened with a creator campaign before.”
Kenji Watanabe
Head of Digital Content, Visit Japan
