サントリーBOSS | 働くって、いいもんだ。THE LAST TRAIN | 2017
Will anyone do this for me when I retire? / Suntory BOSS × Tokyo Metro "Working Is a Wonderful Thing. THE LAST TRAIN"
This is the story of a surprise staged for a station manager's retirement, at Akihabara Station after the last train had gone. On a platform where no one should have been at that hour, his coworkers were waiting for him. Just imagining someone close to you reaching their "last shift" is enough to bring tears to your eyes.
The problem
Station Manager Ishiyama of Akihabara Station was set to retire in March 2017, and Tokyo Metro and Suntory BOSS spent six months preparing a surprise for him. BOSS is a brand that has stood for "the working person's partner" ever since its launch in 1992. For the final night of one ordinary station worker, not a celebrity of any kind, they gave it everything they had.
The insight
The person behind the project said, "I was thinking of my own father." Being there to witness the end of someone's working life is actually something that doesn't happen very often. This project has the resolve to stand right on the line between documentary and advertisement, belonging fully to neither.
The idea
At Akihabara Station after the last train. A message from his coworkers suddenly appears on the digital signage. As the station manager, who knows nothing about any of this, is working and happens to notice it, his coworkers who had been hiding step out one after another, and applause rings out. Flowers, tears, smiles. All of it was captured on camera and turned into a web film.
What happened
It was released on a special website starting in March 2017, and a digest version also played at Metro stations. It won the Grand Prix at the JAA Advertising Awards, and a sequel, "THE 25 YEAR TRAIN," was made the following year, 2018.
Afterthought
Station Manager Ishiyama said, "This was the best moment of my entire working life" and "True happiness isn't about things or money." Everyone who saw this must have thought, "Will anyone do this for me when I retire?" There's no way to know if they will. But it makes you want to be the kind of person who could do this for someone else.
