earth music&ecology | 合唱 | 2015
Who's supposed to carry "Nobody is right"? / earth music&ecology "Chorus"
Aoi Miyazaki singing Miyuki Nakajima's "Nobody Is Right" — that alone could have carried the whole commercial. And yet something about it bothered me.
The insight
I believe the message "Nobody is right" was simply too heavy for a brand and a celebrity to carry. The timing of the ad's release happened to overlap with the period of the security legislation debate, which stirred up a lot of public noise. But I think branding only gains real strength when it's backed by facts and genuine necessity.
Afterthought
Earth has kept casting Aoi Miyazaki since 2010, building recognition by showing "a side of Aoi Miyazaki you've never seen before." Her singing The Blue Hearts really was fresh, and that approach worked. But this commercial feels like it's right on the edge — right on the edge, but just barely over the line into not working. That's just my personal take, and I don't have a clean, tidy way to put it into words. Still, it's a piece that makes you stop and think about what a brand actually is.
