キリン | 企業広告「応援する者」篇 | 2014
Every Human Life, Without Exception, Contains a Drama / Kirin corporate ad "The One Who Cheers"
This commercial, released on June 2, 2014, covers everything from a birth to Shinji Kagawa pulling on the national team's number 10 jersey, all in just two minutes. Only two minutes. But every single second of it is packed with feeling. You might think, what a luxury to tell a story this way—but then again, maybe you need exactly this kind of luxury to get this far. At the edge of the frame, always in the eyeline of whoever is sending their support, is the back of a boy's head, his back, slowly growing up. That's why it's so easy to feel for him.
The problem
The project grew out of the idea that "almost everything in sports is built on people cheering each other on," and was made drawing on Kirin's more than 30 years of supporting soccer. It was released to coincide with Shinji Kagawa's participation in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil that June. Filming took place in Kagawa's hometown of Hyogo Prefecture and other locations, with people connected to Kagawa himself appearing in the film. We see him as a restless little kid, getting scolded by a neighborhood man, his heart racing over a pretty girl, a troublemaking but good-natured classmate—all of it building the sense that this man, who since his Cerezo days has become someone almost unreachably admired, lived through the same kind of youth we did. That shared feeling is what turns into the power of cheering him on.
The insight
To get across the message that "Kirin is a company that supports people, connected to them through drinks," the ad was built around the structure of tracing a star player's life story. It's not just parents and friends—there's a delivery worker, a truck driver, people he'll probably never see again, each offering a brief moment of care. Every player surely has a story like this, without exception, and I genuinely wish someone would pay to make one for every single one of them. Put another way: since every human life, without exception, contains a drama within it, everyone has the right to wish for their story to be told. I want as many of those stories told as possible.
The idea
It opens with a birth, follows a boy who's had a ball at his feet since he was small as he grows into a professional soccer player, gets named top scorer, and transfers to a famous club overseas. It ends at the National Stadium, which closed its 56-year history on May 31, 2014, with a man wearing the number "10" standing on the pitch. In the scenes depicting his Cerezo Osaka days, Hiroaki Morishima also appears. By centering the story on one person, the structure shows how an accumulation of small, fleeting moments can build into something this powerful. The music used is "The Entertainer."
What happened
Kagawa posted on Twitter, "It turned into a really great commercial!" On YouTube, the view count passed 230,000 within just a few days of release. Comments on Hatena Bookmark included "Wonderful!!", "I love it," and "Even if you're not a superstar, everyone out there is being cheered on by someone, somewhere"—it became a talking point, with people saying they were moved to tears. The only thing I wonder is whether the opening staging was really necessary, but that's just a matter of taste—this is an overwhelmingly great piece of work.
Afterthought
Just two minutes, but every single second of those two minutes is filled with feeling. As Masachika has said, working on the actual production was a happy, enjoyable time spent with professional colleagues, and that passion comes through in every part of the film. Every player surely has a story like this, without exception, and I genuinely wish someone would pay to make one for every single one of them. Put another way: since every human life, without exception, contains a drama within it, everyone has the right to wish for their story to be told. I want as many of those stories told as possible.
