Most anime fans are familiar with the marketing campaigns that are associated with their favorite series. Typically, the sorts of campaigns that instantly pop into people's heads are rather tame. It could be a giant billboard, or even a bullet train getting a complete redesign to tie in with a certain series, as seen with the likes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Hello Kitty, among others. It's also common to see cut-outs of characters with outfits that tie them into certain brands, ramping up sales for the brand as well as drawing awareness to the anime itself.

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However, not all anime marketing campaigns are created equally. There are occasions where series go above and beyond with their ad campaigns, leaving a lasting impression on fans for how good — or sometimes, how strange — they end up being.

10 Evangelion Released A Strange Strawberry Christmas Cake, Complete With An Asuka Topper

Neon Genesis Evangelion christmas strawberry cake asuka topper

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be much that's particularly out of the ordinary when it comes to this strawberry cake campaign for Neon Genesis Evangelion. After all, Christmas cakes and anime tie-ins involving them are incredibly common in Japan, but it's what this particular cake is based on that makes it memorable.

This particular cake is referred to as the "LCL cake." It's filled with strawberry jam, and it's supposed to represent the fluid that EVA pilots get covered in while piloting their mechs. When fans remember that the fluid canonically smells like blood in-universe, the cake is rendered strange and unappetizing.

9 A Bread Company In Fukuoka Had A Decade-Long Ad Campaign With A Creative Lead Of My Neighbor Totoro

bread commercial by yoshiharu sato

Anime commercials that promote certain brands are nothing new. However, the length that this particular campaign had been running for makes it particularly noteworthy.

Yoshiharu Sato, the character designer and animation director of My Neighbor Totoro, has been creating a series of commercials for Francois, a local bread company, for over ten years now. The commercials themselves are beautiful, focused on a heartwarming love story between two characters, one of whom works at her mother's bakery.

8 A Magical Girl Duo Who Support Families' Insurance Needs Was Created For A Bank Ad In Okinawa

okinawa bank magical girl collab

The ad in question, made for Okinawa's Bank of the Ryukyus, is relatively short, only lasting a little over fifteen seconds. However, it's the effort and in-depth detail that went into the characters themselves that make this particular campaign stand out.

The two adorable magical girl characters, Rumi and Rura, were created just for this campaign. They were given rather exhaustive character sheets given how short their appearances are, including their birthdays, hobbies, and even their blood types.

7 Peninsula Tokyo Held A Pokémon Adventure Campaign That Let Kids Catch Pokémon Throughout The Hotel

Peninsula Tokyo pokemon ad

Pokémon tie-ins are incredibly huge, which is no surprise given just how popular and far-reaching of a franchise it is. One in particular that was hosted by Peninsula Tokyo and put together by the Pokémon Company stands out, though.

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Children ages five and older were given their own Pikachu hat and Poké Ball. They were then able to participate in a special game of hide-and-seek throughout the hotel, where various Pokémon were hiding out and the kids got the opportunity to "catch" them, letting them pretend to be real-life Pokémon trainers.

6 Nippon Airways Held A Special Travel Campaign Featuring A Pokémon-Designed Airplane And Themed Rooms

nippon airways pokemon collab

There have been quite a few anime airline tie-ins, but they typically don't go beyond perhaps giving out merchandise and jazzing up the outside of the plane a little. And while Nippon Airways' Pokémon tie-in does include merchandise and exterior branding, not only do they have two totally different plane designs, the promotion doesn't stop at the outside of the plane.

Nippon Airways also allowed passengers the opportunity to stay in Pokémon-themed rooms decked out from carpet to ceiling. Not only that, but there were figures, plushies, cards that detailed all of the Pokémon in the room, and even Pokémon board games to play.

5 Jujutsu Kaisen's Shibuya Station Advertisements Were Displayed Where The Series' Shibuya Incident Arc Started

shibuya station advertisements for jujutsu kaisen

Giant advertisement posters in underground train stations are nothing new, so it usually comes down to just how stylish they are that determines how well-received they'll be. In the case of Jujutsu Kaisen, every inch of its advertisement posters were dripping with style and intrigue.

What really made this particular campaign stand out is the fact that its location has an actual tie-in with the series itself. The location of the advertisement, Shibuya Station, is the same place where the series' Shibuya Incident arc started.

4 The Digital Advertisement For My Hero Academia Was Stylishly Terrifying

digital my hero academia advertisement featuring shigaraki

It's no surprise that My Hero Academia has advertised itself on billboards, but the creative way it made use of this digital space made it truly unforgettable. One ad campaign featured antagonist Shigaraki and had three different versions, all of which were striking and left a memorable impact.

Two involve quotes; the first is Shigaraki decaying quotes from the heroes, while another pictured him walking across the screen and changing hero quotes into villain quotes. The final variant is Shigaraki decaying images of the main characters, all of it was done in a hauntingly beautiful style.

3 KFC Made An Anime-Style Dating Sim Game Starring Colonel Sanders

kfc dating game marketing campaign

It's commonplace nowadays for real-world brands to use anime to attempt to attract a bigger audience. KFC completely shocked the internet with the announcement of the Colonel Sanders dating simulator that, yes, was indeed created by KFC themselves.

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The game prompts the player to try and earn a degree at a cooking university while simultaneously trying to impress and win the heart of Colonel Sanders. While it was wonderful as a joke experience, it begs the question of how many extra chicken sales this game actually contributed to.

2 Netflix Covered Shinjuku Station With Famous Anime Phrases — With An Extra Surprise For Picture-Takers

famous anime quotes campaign netflix

Netflix's Shinjuku Station campaign seems fairly simple at first glance. The streaming giant covered a giant billboard with famous quotes from various anime, and passersby no doubt ended up taking pictures — which is where the real magic of this campaign started to shine.

Whenever a picture is taken of the billboard, a picture of the series that it's from shows up alongside it. This made it easy for people who weren't too familiar with each individual series to delve into new show, as well as simply being an incredibly creative trick!

1 Taco Bell's Anime Commercial Had Fans Buzzing For An Actual Anime To Be Made

anime commercial for taco bell

Few commercial campaigns end up with viewers buzzing for an actual anime to be made out of it, but Taco Bell's anime-themed Nacho Fries ad is a special exception. It was a one-minute advertisement featuring the captain of the Fry Force, an elite squad of mech pilots.

It even included a rather heart-wrenching plot of Rei coming face-to-face with her long-lost brother, who was consumed by a primal hunger for the fries that forced the two to fight. And though much of the dialogue was as cheesy as one would expect from an ad, the animation was top-notch with an admittedly good plot for what it was.

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