Australia’s low fares airline Jetstar has been selected as one of the 100 Best Brands in the ‘Breakthrough Advertising’ category in Japan at the 20th annual Japan’s Best Advertisers Awards Ceremony.

This is the first time any Australian company has been recognised in Japan in these awards. Previous winners have included Coca-Cola, Proctor and Gamble, Apple and Nestle.

Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan said that winning the award was a tremendous achievement and demonstrates the significant impact Jetstar has made on the Japanese market.

“Winning this award is a real testament to the strength of the Jetstar brand and our ongoing commitment to developing a strategic position in Japan as part of our pan-Asian expansion,” Buchanan said.

“It’s a real honour for our brand to be recognised on a global scale and for Jetstar to be now seen in the same company as some of the world’s leading brands.

“Being recognised with this award is another sign that our direct to consumer strategy in the Japan market is delivering real results, helping to increase visitation of Japanese customers to Australia,” he said.

Since the start of flights between Australia and Japan in March 2007, Jetstar has commitmentted to establishing and growing its brand presence in the Japanese market.

Jetstar launched an advertising campaign featuring one of Japan’s most popular celebrities, Becky, demonstrating Jetstar’s fresh personality while celebrating low fares to Japanese consumers.

The award is presented to the top-100 companies who achieved enhanced brand value over the previous year with effective outreach to their targeted audience through impactful, creative, and high quality television advertising.

The awards are conducted each year by Japanese research organisation CM Databank following the review of more than 17,000 television commercials from 9,472 brands.

The period of eligible advertising material for this year’s awards was April 2008 to March 2009, during which the organisation reviewed all television commercials on air in Japan from more than two thousand companies.  

Feedback was also gathered from thousands of Japanese consumers in order to present an integrated review of the advertising.