Anniversary House: a New Service that Makes You Feel You are “Glad to be a Fan” Helps Bring Momentum to IPs, Artists and Creators
stu inc, (Headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Takayasu Kuroda) announced a new partnership with Ubugoe (Headquarters: Shibuya, Tokyo; Representative: Kazuo Okada). On April 17, 2024, we launched our joint initiative “Anniversary House”, a new service dedicated to creating momentum on the occasion of popular IPs’ anniversaries and milestones, and create truly special celebrations for fandoms of anime, music, games, manga, movies, VTubers, creators, and artists.
Background
stu has been on a mission to “reinvent entertainment,” engaging in the planning, promotion, and production of entertainment across fields, including digital content, live shows, events, and world-class video production.
Ubugoe works with numerous IPs and artists, conceiving and financing projects in close collaboration with fandoms. It has successfully organized crowdfunding of many anniversary events, not only gathering funds but also making sure gratitude and support were expressed to each side, artists and fans.
stu and Ubugoe now form a highly multifunctional team, offering a one-stop solution that maximizes the potential of anniversary projects.
Anniversaries as an Opportunity
Anniversaries offer IP holders, creators and artists the opportunity to express their gratitude and anticipation for the future, providing an opportunity for fans and supporters to deepen their affection.
Additionally, anniversaries tend to attract significant attention from the media and industry, promoting momentum and further excitement around the content.
Required Resources and Challenges
To maximize anniversary projects, it is essential to integrate multifunctional capabilities organically. This requires not only the capacity to come up with unique concepts and high production quality but also:
- Versatile planning and production skills that are able to closely align with the content, as well as operational capabilities.
- Strategic capacities to procure necessary funds
- Detailed fan marketing and research capabilities.
Additionally, securing resources such as budget, personnel, and locations is a critical element.
Given these factors, the complexity of such projects is considerably high. Consequently, IP holders who struggle to maximize the potential of their content have sought help from stu and Ubugoe on various challenges.
Anniversary House’s key strengths to maximize the impact of IP anniversary projects are:
- Planning
Our teams conduct thorough content and fandom research to devise a comprehensive strategy. - Funding support
Beyond just providing estimates, we can help fund the project by facilitating partnerships and planning crowdfunding initiatives. Ubugoe sees crowdfunding as a strategic touchpoint to enhance fan engagement. - Production
We handle the production of events, merchandise, videos and social media content, maintaining a coherent direction. stu leverages its extensive production capabilities to drive creativity across various domains.
Future Outlook
Japan is known for producing some of the world’s most beloved entertainment and contents, creating global hits that have captivated children and adults alike. However, there remains some significant potential for market development. By leveraging fandom to maximize the potential of these IPs, we aim at bringing management of these intellectual property assets from a medium to long-term perspective and further the position of Japanese contents in the global market.
■About stu
stu is a pioneering company dedicated to “reinventing entertainment,” driven by a creative team fostering boundary-breaking ideas. By integrating cutting-edge technologies in 5G, XR, and the metaverse with innovative content development practices like writers’ rooms and previsualization, stu is shaping a new frontier in entertainment. This convergence aims to establish global standards in video production workflows, heralding a transformative era in the entertainment industry.
■About Ubugoe
Ubugoe is a company operating a crowdfunding platform with the mission of “Transforming Your Initial Impulse into Reality.” We employ a unique fee system where creators bear no commission costs. The platform is funded through a system usage fee from partners (backers), allowing creators to utilize 100% of the funds raised for their projects.
Please contact us for any media or business inquiries regarding Anniversary House.
shunenyasan@stu.inc