SPY×FAMILY wallpapers come with JA Kyosai car quotes

An original set of SPY×FAMILY wallpapers is being handed out to sell motor insurance in Japan. JA Kyosai's 自動車共済 quotation campaign opens on Thursday 1 October, and anyone who applies through it will receive one of four limited-design wallpapers, the anime's official site has announced.

Four wallpapers, one quotation

The giveaway covers four designs created for the campaign under the JA Kyosai and SPY×FAMILY logos, and the site describes them as guaranteed rather than a prize draw, so an application is enough to receive one. The quotation itself is for 自動車共済, the motor branch of the mutual-aid insurance scheme sold through Japan's agricultural cooperatives rather than through conventional insurers, which is why the campaign is being advertised to a family audience.

Why an insurer wants an anime family

SPY×FAMILY is Tatsuya Endo's manga, published by Shueisha, in which a spy assembles a fake family to carry out a mission. Its TV anime adaptation is in its third season, which was still adding broadcast partners in Japan as recently as 25 September. The property has become a regular partner for Japanese consumer campaigns, and the motor quotation push follows the same pattern: a household with a car, a form to fill in and a small gift at the end of it.

Our opinion

Insurance tie-ins are usually dull, so the interesting thing here is the property chosen for it. SPY×FAMILY is a story about a household performing normal life for somebody watching, which is roughly what a family buying car cover is doing, and Anya's face is doing the persuading. JA Kyosai is not really selling wallpapers to anime fans; it is renting the feeling of a well-organised household to get a form filled in, and charging nothing for the wallpaper because the quotation is the product. It is also the kind of campaign that will never travel, since the designs exist to collect Japanese motor leads and nothing outside that pipeline. Cheap, effective and completely uninterested in us.