Sakurazaka46 1st anniversary project

Latest Update (2022.01.05)

Hello and thank you for opening this page!

As you know, Sakuzaka Central had talked about several projects for Sakurazaka46 1st Anniversary on December 9, 2021.

The project we will be doing fully depends on the amount we raised from fundraising with the main goal being an ad display at New York Times Square. We were fully aware that this project was very ambitious, however after 6 months of planning and fundraising, we managed to not only display the ads at New York Times Square but also get acknowledgement from both the members and management regarding the project.

This is a summary of the whole project.

Planning and Fundraising

Sakuzaka Central has put out an interest form from May 20 – May 27, 2021 to gauge interest on the project and the results from the survey are seen below.

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Around June, we started to collect funds for the project with Ko-fi as our main donation method and several fans helped with local donations. Fans from Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Greece, Germany, Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Russia and many others have supported this project which we are really grateful for. In November, we reached 100% of our funding goal for the billboard and closed donations at the end of November.

https://twitter.com/sakuzakacentral/status/1406499556783710213

Sakuzaka Central Accounting Management

Permission from Management and Ad Space Confirmation

After reaching the goal for a smaller billboard, in late October we have reached out to Sakurazaka46 management, Seed & Flower, LLC via email and requested permissions to use publicly available materials in this advertisement; Name and Logo, Member Profile Photos and Artist Group Photo for the 3rd Single and Sakurazaka46 Music Videos. On November 12, we received official permission from Seed & Flower, LLC to use the official contents for the Times Square project.

https://twitter.com/sakuzakacentral/status/1459153452257267715

At the end of November, we closed donations for the project and after discussing with the advertising agent, we managed to lower the price from $10,000 to $7,000 for the ad space with less time at Thomson Reuters Building Digital Billboard in New York Times Square. We confirmed the booking and paid for the ad space during early December.

https://twitter.com/sakuzakacentral/status/1466255216831971330

Anniversary Day and Members’ Reactions

On December 9, the premiere of the advertisement was streamed live by our staff who went to the location, watched by dozens of people on Twitch — and we later learned that staff also called over several members to watch it in real-time as well.

Shortly after the premiere, Sakurazaka46’s official account tweeted in English, acknowledging the project and thanking the international fans for their support. It was then followed by Moriya Akane posting a thank you on her Instagram account. On December 10 morning, Sugai Yuuka also posted a thank you through her Sakurazaka46 group mobame room.

https://twitter.com/sakurazaka46/status/1468847166651527169

https://twitter.com/SMR_info/status/1469334574451007489

After the Anniversary Live, we received multiple acknowledgements from members from multiple different ways, be it blogs, SHOWROOM, or meet & greet when asked by fans regarding the project. We made a thread of members’ reactions on our twitter.

https://twitter.com/sakuzakacentral/status/1469559569735053313

Giveaway

As the Sakurazaka46 1st Anniversary Project has ended and as promised we have announced the winner for our giveaway here and on January 5, 2022, we have confirmed the winner has received their giveaway prize.

Announcement Tweet

Winner’s Tweet 

Sakusen's closing note

Thank you for reading this!

As a closing note,  we are grateful to say that the project has been a great success, way beyond what we imagined it would be. Without the cooperation of both international and japanese fans, this project wouldn’t not be successful. We hope that it may leave something special not just for us as a fan community, but also for the members and the staff to commemorate their 1st Anniversary as Sakurazaka46.

From Sakuzaka Central Team