Asahi Wonda AKB48 Wondaful Race‏

Asahi promotes its Wonda line of canned coffees by holding AKB48 Wondaful Races. The 29th such race was held at the end of May. AKB48 is a girls group created in and named after the Akihabara area of Tokyo. They have 64 members and in these "races", which appear to be online games, the group breaks up into 10 teams of 5 (not sure about the remaining 14 members) and compete against one another. Several of us tried to figure out what was going on, and it appears the more fans one team has the faster that team's car goes and the race lasts 24 hours. Fans of the winning team have chances at prizes which include Wonda projection clocks (projects a clock face on a nearby wall). It does not sound all that exciting to me, but when the target market is men and the contestants are cute girls, I suppose it draws attention and that's the point.

https://wonda-akb48.com/top.go?sd=18537

Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.