クラシエホームプロダクツ | 日本の四季 | 2023
For 80 Days, a Camera Kept Watching One Cherry Tree / Kracie "Ichikami" "Four Seasons of Japan"
A camera slowly circles a cherry tree as the seasons pass by. There's a commercial that took over 80 days to shoot, all for this one tree. The moment I heard about the plan, I thought, "This is going to be tough" — and I found myself admiring the trust it took to actually pull it off.
The problem
Ichikami launched in 2006, but its core users had aged into their 30s and 40s, so the brand needed a renewal aimed at today's 20-somethings. In a competitive pitch, Akihiro Fukube of Hakuhodo/catch and his team proposed this idea: transplant an actual cherry tree and shoot everything on location, without using CG.
The insight
Ichikami is a hair care brand built on ingredients drawn from Japan's four seasons, like rice bran and ashitaba. So Fukube said he wanted to capture the passing of the seasons itself on film, overlapping it with the beauty of Japanese hair.
The idea
Filming began by transplanting a cherry tree to a highland area in Mogami, Yamagata Prefecture. Starting in autumn 2021, the team used a fixed-point camera to capture a time-lapse of the changing seasons, and also shot footage that slowly circled all the way around the tree, moving by the millimeter. The cinematographer was Gen Ito. The shooting crew spent over 80 days, and the production team spent over 100 days, all on this single commercial. Under the cherry tree in full bloom, the film depicts a parting and a reunion, starring new image character Mei Nagano.
What happened
The ad was released in September 2022. Along with behind-the-scenes footage, it drew a response from a wide range of generations, and the renewed product's initial sales were about 130% of the previous year's. In 2023, it won the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Award and the ACC Grand Prix in the Film Craft category at the 63rd ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS.
Afterthought
Fukube said it was only possible because of the trust they'd built up over time. Trusting each other enough to see a wild idea through to the end — I think that's ultimately the most precious part of making advertising. I'd love to build that kind of trust myself.
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