KDDI | ポーター編 | 2001
Made 14 Years Ago, Still Makes Me Laugh Today / KDDI Corporate Ad "The Porter"
This is from 2001, starring Etsushi Toyokawa and Ryo Kase. Even back in 2015 when I first wrote about this, I thought it "hasn't aged a bit," and watching it again now, it really still hasn't. The casting and everything else feels completely natural, with no sense of dating at all. I think that's one sign of a truly great piece of work.
The insight
When KDDI was handed this nearly impossible puzzle of a brief—"KDD, DDI, and IDO merged together to become KDDI"—their idea was simple: just turn their own confusion into the commercial itself. That self-deprecating spirit is what makes it so good.
The idea
The scene is a hotel front desk. Ryo Kase plays the porter, and the back-and-forth with Etsushi Toyokawa is just perfect comedy—Toyokawa's flustered energy, Kase's slightly unsettling vibe, and that "Oops" thrown in partway through. There was a 30-second version and a 15-second version, and I vividly remember seeing it on TV at home and laughing so hard. I also just saw, for the first time, a version where Kase doesn't speak at all in the first half—and that one is great in its own way too.
Afterthought
KDDI was really something in this era. This was the period when Hiroshi Sasaki and Yoshimitsu Sawamoto worked together. This commercial is packed with the challenge of making something funny purely through sound. There isn't a ton of detailed information out there about it, but the humor speaks for itself the moment you watch it. I'd love to watch it again.
