[The story of NOAH's rebranding began with the president's comment, "NOAH will become the wrestling organization that sells the most merchandise.]

CyberFight has developed a new brand guideline and tagline (a strong and short message that expresses the brand's will) for the professional wrestling organization NOAH in December 2022. Yosuke Sato, who is in charge of creative at CyberAgent, says, "In order to majorize professional wrestling, which has a core audience, in the current era, it is essential to enhance the brand value through creativity. In this article, we interviewed Mr. Sato and CyberFight's Narihiro Takeda to learn about the rebranding method and its effects.

[A Message Suddenly Received from President Fujita]

MarkeZine Editors (hereinafter referred to as "MZ"): First of all, please introduce yourselves.

Sato: I am an executive officer in the creative area at CyberAgent. Currently, I am mainly in charge of the media business, and about 80% of the projects I am involved in are ABEMA. I am involved in hiring and training creators and controlling the quality of output.

Takeda: I represent Pro Wrestling Ring Noah ("NOAH") at CyberFight, CyberAgent's professional wrestling business company.

Takeda: NOAH is a professional wrestling organization founded by Mitsuharu Misawa in 2000, which joined the CyberAgent Group in January 2020 and became a CyberFight affiliate in July of the same year.

Takeda：NOAH has a wide range of fans. For example, about half of the visitors to Korakuen Hall are women, but at the Tokyo Dome level, there are many men in their 40s and 50s, so the audience varies greatly depending on the event.

MZ: In December 2022, CyberFight developed NOAH's brand guidelines and tagline (a strong, short message that expresses the brand's intent). Can you give us some background?

Sato: One day in 2021, I received a message out of the blue from Fujita, the president of CyberAgent. He said, "I want you to make NOAH the best-selling wrestling organization in terms of merchandise. He asked me if I could help him to add value to the NOAH brand, including the creative for NOAH's programs broadcast on ABEMA.

[Creativity has the power to change the value of things.]

MZ: Why did you focus on creativity when aiming to improve the value of your brand?

Sato: At CyberAgent, we believe that creativity is an important competitive strength of the company. Also, in branding, we place importance on "rarity", so even if it's just a logo, my team is notified when employees use it. That's how much the company values creativity, and we believe that creativity has the power to change the value of things.

Sato: I think Fujita wanted to change the value of wrestling through creativity. In order to make professional wrestling, which has a large core audience, a major player in the current era, it is essential to improve the brand value through creativity, and I think that while watching NOAH at ABEMA, he thought, "I think I can make a little more jump with creativity".

I personally felt the power of the NOAH wrestlers to break through the stagnation of the current era. I strongly felt that I wanted pro wrestling to spread more widely.

[Survey highlights overwhelming differences with other organizations]

MZ: Did you immediately start working on brand guidelines and taglines after receiving the president's offer?

Sato: At first, we decided to start with the creative for the NOAH programs broadcast on ABEMA. At the time, creative direction was being done for each of the multiple programs, so while the programs had a distinct feel, they lacked "NOAH-ness". The creative guidelines only defined the white space in the logo.

Sato: In order to make NOAH the best-selling wrestling organization in terms of merchandise, we thought it was necessary to redefine the business concept and incorporate it into the creative process, not just the surface level, such as key visuals and tickers. I told Mr. Takeda that I wanted to systematically create a brand for NOAH while involving the staff on the ground, and this is how we began formulating the brand guidelines and tagline.

Takeda: I had great expectations for Mr. Sato's words. After joining the CyberAgent Group and experiencing the broadcast of the program on ABEMA and the tournament at the Nippon Budokan, the next step was to renew the creative process. I felt that "something unprecedented was about to begin".

MZ: You worked with Bannister, a firm specializing in brand strategy, to develop brand guidelines and taglines. Could you tell us about the specific process?

Sato: We set up a research phase that lasted about three months to gain a fact-based understanding of NOAH's targets, which we had been getting a firsthand sense of. Through the survey, I became acutely aware of NOAH's position in the industry. When asked the question, "Which wrestling organization do you prefer?

Takeda：Although we knew this to some extent before conducting the survey, we were confronted with the numbers once again.

[The key is "fans who are interested in new challenges".]

Sato: Next to the research was the strategy phase. We spent about three months on this phase as well. Based on the survey results, we identify the issues that NOAH is facing today and formulate a hypothesis. We looked at the data from various angles, such as "What is the difference between users who like groups other than NOAH and those who like NOAH?"

As a result of our discussions, we decided to define "NOAH's target wrestling fans" in a new way, rather than simply wrestling fans. In addition to the existing NOAH fans, we also identified the desires of the new fan base that will drive NOAH in the future.

Sato: If we can utilize the technological capabilities that CyberAgent has cultivated to date, we will be able to enjoy professional wrestling in a style that has never been seen before. For example, we may be able to try a new distribution format with ABEMA, or visualize matches with data. We discussed ideas to expand the fan base that respects traditional wrestling and is interested in new challenges.

After going through the research and strategy, we entered the tactical phase. The tagline "Gong your soul" was created as a result of thinking through a single word that would convey to users the future direction of NOAH. It expresses our desire to be an organization that can give a boost to those who have seen our wrestling.

Takeda："Gong your soul" is the culmination of many different ideas.

Sato: Actually, "gong" and "soul" were candidates early on. We thought of various words after that, but in the end, everyone's opinion gravitated toward "gong. I think "your" came up because we listened to what fans wanted from NOAH during the survey phase. Many wrestling fans say that they enjoy NOAH because they project themselves onto the wrestlers. In other words, they get into the story. That is why Gong "your" soul fits so well.

During the tactical phase, the brand statement and brand graphics were determined in addition to the tagline.

[Merchandise sales were up approximately 3.5 times from the previous year!]

MZ: It hasn't been long since you released your new brand guidelines and tagline, but at this point, have you seen any effect or response both internally and externally?

Takeda: Due in part to Keiji Mutoh's retirement match at Tokyo Dome in February 2023, ABEMA's program viewership and SNS reach have been very strong recently. It makes a difference when the brand's worldview is unified, because if the worldview is disparate depending on the destination, such as the website or e-commerce site, customers who have come all the way here may leave.

Takeda: Many people become fans of an organization because of a particular player, but I feel that the tagline makes it easier to foster a kind of attachment to the NOAH brand and organization.

Sato: Wrestling is a sport with a lot of variety. Even matches sponsored by the same organization may seem disparate at first glance, as each tournament has a different theme, but now that the axis of the organization has been established, a sense of unity has been created. The foundation is beginning to be laid to make NOAH the best-selling wrestling organization in terms of merchandise.

Takeda: In fact, merchandise sales have been strong: at the tournament held at the Nippon Budokan in January 2023, merchandise sales were up approximately 3.5 times from the previous year. Furthermore, at the Tokyo Dome event held the following month, combined with the impact of Muto's retirement match, sales were up about 5 times from the previous month's Nippon Budokan.

[Creators need marketing muscle, too.]

MZ: Finally, what are some of the challenges you two would like to take on in the future?

Takeda: In the wrestling business, we would like to once again hold a tournament at the Tokyo Dome, and since the February tournament was the main event of Muto's retirement match, we would like to do so in a way that further publicizes the tagline and brand guidelines that NOAH has revamped.

Sato: As the person in charge of creative for CyberAgent as a whole, including NOAH, I feel the importance of "creating a sophisticated strategy". I believe that creative strategies can be further developed than they are now, and I would like to create an organization that can nurture a large number of designers who are good at strategic planning.

Creators are not only required to be concerned with superficial creativity, but also to be able to determine the purpose of creativity and produce output that will be most appealing to the market - so-called marketing muscle. The era in which creating something cool is all that is needed for it to be popular is already over. More and more creators will be focused on "how to deliver" their creations. In order to lead them, I believe that I must grow as a creator myself.