Dear Internet: These handles do NOT light up, and we never said that they do. Where on earth did you get that idea?
To promote the new Star Wars “The Complete Saga” Blu-ray DVD boxset release that went on sale from Sept 16th in Japan, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Japan are running a very cool campaign on Tokyo’s trains. For a period the train’s railings have been transformed into life size lightsabers.
It is the first time that the hand rails have been used in an advertising campaign in Japan, and is a fantastic use of promotional real estate. The effect is very well thought out and was generating a bit of chatter on the train amongst those riding. Whole trains are often taken over for large campaigns where captive audiences can be targeted during their commute, and can cost up to ¥10 million.
It is rumored that George Lucas himself was shown the campaign images and loved the idea…well if it drives sales of his products why wouldn’t he! With so much of advertising going digital and hi-tech these days, it is nice to see new and imaginitive ways where simple design can also generate as much return as those more costly campaigns.
Related Posts:
Ice Cream Campaign Creates New Age of Celebrities?
Beer on the Rocks
Coffee Campaign Lets You Be a Baseball Star
Darrell is a contributor at ShiftEast.com. 
May the Force be with you! Yep, you’ll need it during the rush hour! Looks cool though.
Which line is this? And does it go all the way to the Death Star?
What a great idea! Would love to see this as a huge Star Wars fan. Would look cool at night :)
Nice idea. Do they light up?
Sorry, with hindsight that was a stupid question, these surely are just stickers which go round the rails therefore they won’t light up.
Really nice idea! ;-)
This is cool! Do you know what agency did it? Or was it an in house thing?