“Powderful^® Niseko” is a branding initiative for private enterprises in the ski resort of Niseko, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

The branding project has four parameters:

1. Promote Niseko as a winter sports location for international and Japanese visitors

2. Product differentiation of the famous quality of Niseko “light powder” snow, which is highly conducive for skiing and touted as the best snow in Eastern Asia.

3. Increase arrivals in the post-Covid-19 seasons and recreate the visitor base for the local property investment market.

4. Create a Branding universe that is bilingual in English and Japanese, to appeal to both domestic and international sports tourism.

The basic concept of “PowDerful^® Niseko” was created in the first half of October of 2020. The first promotional release, on T shirts on sale at Niseko hotels, started in the third week of October 2020.

The central slogan “PowDerful^® Niseko” was devised to combine the following:

1. Promotion of the famous “Niseko powder snow” which is known for being lighter than snow in other regions, for the purpose of traditional skiing as well as snowboarding.
2. Promotion of an image of strength in the tourism and property markets.

With the above objectives in mind, the slogan combines the English words “Powerful” and “Powder” into “PowDerful.”

The Japanese expression, “パウダー降る” pronounced “Powdafuru” is homonymic and cognative/equivalent in meaning to the English, with the written Japanese kanji meaning “(snow)powder is falling”

This combination of meaning and pronunciation makes the slogan and the wider branding campaign applicable to 120,000,000 Japanese-language speakers as well as more than 1,130,000,000 English speakers worldwide.

The main slogan of “PowDerful Niseko” is surrounded by the following elements:

A Diamond-shaped map of the island of Hokkaido, highlighting the geography and the value of property in the area.
Snowflake design that contains six arrow shapes leading to a meeting point in the center, signifying visitors converging on a snow-covered Hokkaido from six populated continents of the world: Asia, Australia, North America, South America, Africa, Europe.
Contrasting diamond-shapes highlighting the brightly-lit peaks and shadowed valleys of Hokkaido’s mountains
Figures of a traditional skier as well as a snowboarder.
Inclusion of the smaller islands of Hokkaido that were occupied by Russia at the end of WWII, yet still claimed by Japan as sovereign territory. These are represented as ice-like slivers just beyond the tip of the snowboard.
A floating letter “D” that has drifted into the word “powerful” in the same spirit as snow falling, or a ski lift gondola ferrying skiers to the peak.