Calculating How Far the Original Song Would Reach / Cup Noodle "Try the Laksa"

The insight

The original song "Show Me Your Phone" was a hit with Gen Z but basically unknown to other generations — choosing it took real nerve. Rather than aiming to reach everyone, they went for hitting deep with their target audience, and that choice must have come from accurate research. Factoring in just how big the generational gap is makes for a much more interesting approach than simply chasing total view counts.

The idea

Laksa has the highest repeat rate of any Cup Noodle flavor — it's the one people get hooked on — so the commercial just straightforwardly repeats the message "eat the laksa and you'll get hooked." But a plain parody song alone has no hook, so they built in the bizarre story of a woman who gets so addicted to laksa that she turns into a Cup Noodle-shaped buzz-cut man. The illustrations were newly drawn by NAKAKI PANTZ, who does MAISONdes' artwork, and the singing was handled by Hashi Melo. The buzz-cut character was apparently made by mixing a real buzz-cut model with CG, based on the actual buzz cut of the man playing the role, Atack Nishimoto. It genuinely makes no sense, but that lack of sense is exactly what makes it work.

Afterthought

On social media, a lot of people reacted to the buzz cut, but apparently almost nobody noticed that his comedy partner Kamichii also appeared in it. And that's fine as is. Nissin's work is always like this — instead of trying to get everything across, there's a kind of acceptance that if it lands on just one point, that's already a win. I didn't know the original song either, but I learned it thanks to this commercial.

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