876 articles · page 7 of 19
キリン 午後の紅茶 | あいたいって、あたためたいだ。18冬 | 2018
This series began in winter 2016, and apparently this is its conclusion. It's the kind of project where the casting alone practically guarantees success, but using the same actors across multiple years takes it even further. You can clearly see, right there on screen, what's been lost and what's been gained, and in that sense a different kind of charm emerges.
三井不動産 | 芝浦アイランド | 2015
SMAP appeared in this commercial as voice-only talent, which was quite a lineup. In the ad, they say "please search for Shibaura's island," pointing viewers toward the brand's website.
ライオン | 働く女性への応援歌 | 2016
It's a train at night. Women heading home begin to sing, one by one. Set to a reworked version of the song "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido" ("That Wonderful Love, Once More"), the new lyrics quietly unfold: "I worked hard today, no excuses."
ナイキジャパン | ざわつかせろ | 2016
If someone stood up to give the opening oath at Koshien and said, "Please pay attention to me," the whole stadium would start buzzing. Nike knows exactly how to pick a fight.
BGH | Dads in Briefs | 2015
Summer in Argentina is brutally hot. Without air conditioning, dads at home start wandering around in nothing but their underwear. It's every family's worst nightmare. BGH turned this exact phenomenon into an ad.
Metro Trains Melbourne | Dumb Ways to Die | 2012
I believe this one swept multiple Grand Prix categories at Cannes, and I ended up watching it so many times I nearly died. It got me thinking there must be some kind of formula for a film that can withstand being watched over and over. Music is probably a huge part of it, and this campaign has an incredibly good song. Which makes me realize that ad planners can't just be experts in how a film scene is crafted—they also need to know music inside and out. It really is a total art form. Amazing stuff.
キリン 午後の紅茶 | あいたいって、あたためたいだ。 | 2016
A quiet train platform. A high school girl with white headphones suddenly bursts into song, loud enough to reach the skies over Mount Aso. There's a bit of a puzzle about whether Moka Kamishiraishi's character could actually hear the sound of a drink dropping from the vending machine, which leaves you a little unsettled—but even setting that aside, this is still a wonderful piece of work.
Nike | Write The Future | 2010
I just watched a three-minute film. A single moment at the World Cup can turn into glory, or it can turn into ruin. The moment they showed Rooney gone to fat, unshaven, and living in a caravan, I nearly fell out of my chair.
三菱自動車 | Heart-Beat Motors | 2015
Cars that make your heart race, cars that make you excited. That's really the heart of it, isn't it—something that stirs your instincts. Honestly, I think it's fine for cars to be about that.
マクドナルド | 家族といっしょに。「僕がここにいる理由」 | 2021
7/20/1971. The day Japan's first McDonald's opened in Ginza. In 2021, it turned 50. This commercial wraps up those 50 years into a single story. Miyako Miyazaki plays two roles: "a junior high school girl on a date at McDonald's 50 years ago" and "the same woman today, eating a Big Mac with her grandchild." A 62-year-old playing a junior high schooler. Just that alone is enough to make you tear up.
ソフトバンク | ブラッド・ピット&キャメロン・ディアス シリーズ | 2006
I remember the first time I saw this on TV, I actually said "whoa" out loud. You could feel the sense that SoftBank had bought Vodafone and was coming out swinging at the market, and then boom, there's Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz. It's a commercial that's purely about looking cool, nothing else. And it taught me that sometimes just being cool is enough.
読売新聞 | 僕の走れなかった道 | 2012
"When we were kids, everyone wanted to be an athlete." That opening line feels like it could spark real debate. But Yomiuri Shimbun ran with it anyway. And that's exactly where the strength of this campaign lies.
Google | 100 Billion Words | 2019
The most translated words in the world are "How are you?", "Thank you", and "I love you." Google decided to show that with data.
ミエライス | いただきます、ミエライス | 2016
A local commercial that feels truly local. Honestly, that alone tells you everything - I think this is exactly what I'd been wanting to see.
ポカリスエット | でも君が見えた | 2021
A clever debate over "Is it CG or not?" matters a hundred million times less than that first "whoa" the moment you watch it.
P&G | Thank You, Mom – Best Job | 2012
At the 2012 London Olympics, P&G called itself the "Proud Sponsor of Moms" — the official sponsor of mothers everywhere.
Harvey Nichols | Sorry I Spent It On Myself | 2013
At Christmas 2013, the upscale department store Harvey Nichols came right out and said, "Sorry, I spent it on myself." It was an ad that threw the whole idea of Christmas being a season of sharing straight out the window.
HONDA | 試す人になろう | 2015
This ad just seemed to appear out of nowhere. It runs 120 seconds, calmly showing people working at Honda's research facility, nothing more. And yet somehow it has this strange power to make you think, "I want to work here."
Canon | A picture of you | 2016
In an age when a "photo" isn't really about capturing "truth" anymore, this film grew out of the question: how should Canon redefine its value?
TNT | Push to Add Drama (A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square) | 2012
The brief was simple: make a launch campaign people would talk about. So TNT set up a red button in an ordinary town square with a sign that said "Push to Add Drama." Then they just waited.
東山堂 | TOSANDO music「披露宴」篇 | 2014
A familiar situation, a familiar song. And yet it makes you cry. There's no surprise twist, no clever trick—so why does it grip your heart so tightly? Because everything lives in the acting and the direction.
トヨタ | Loving Eyes | 2016
A story about a father and daughter, released for Father's Day. Ads about fathers and daughters aren't exactly rare, but the turn it takes in the second half will definitely make you cry. The first half alone is pretty intense, but once the song starts playing in the girl's voice partway through, it's completely over for you.
ライオン | チャーミーグリーン | 1992
I was washing dishes just now when this suddenly came back to me out of nowhere. Songs really do stick in your brain in a scary way. Along with that tune — "Using Charmy Green makes me want to hold your hand~♪" — the image of a married couple holding hands and dancing while they shop comes rushing back, and even now, more than 30 years later, I can picture it vividly. Just that alone tells you this ad was a win.
日清カップヌードル | SURVIVE! | 2013
In 2013, Nissin went and did something wild. A young office worker in a suit of armor charges into a Western army, shouting "Nice to meet you!" before getting blown away by a cannon. A job-hunting student gets grilled by a polar bear interviewer in a blizzard, and at the beach, a monstrous shark attacks people, demanding "likes!" It's completely absurd, yet it captures the mood of 2013 exactly as it was.
富士通テン ECLIPSE（イクリプス） | Father's Drive | 2017
I stumbled on this while looking into something else, and ended up watching the whole thing without meaning to. It's an experiment where blindfolded kids try to pick out their father's driving from among three different drivers. The way the question is set up is great — it sits right on that line of "hmm, could they actually do it?"
Microsoft Surface | 夢中って無敵だ | 2017
In spring 2017, a web movie was released for incoming university students. Under the main line "Being Absorbed Is Invincible," it shows students chasing their dreams while working part-time jobs, students drawing on rooftops, and students running around with friends late at night.
smart | The Dancing Traffic Light | 2016
Waiting at a crosswalk is boring, so people cross on red anyway. smart figured: why not make the waiting itself fun?
SANKO（三幸興業株式会社） | 電車は転職できない。 | 2015
A train that looks like something out of Thomas the Tank Engine is singing. The cute, cozy visuals are soothing on their own, but then one word—"but"—suddenly turns the whole thing bittersweet.
ジョージア | 明日があるさ | 2000
On 8/26, 2000, Coca-Cola Japan's canned coffee brand GEORGIA used Kyu Sakamoto's song "There's Always Tomorrow" in a commercial, and it became an unprecedented revival hit. Both the commercial and the campaign turned into a huge talking point. When it was later made into a TV drama, the first episode pulled a 29.0% rating — the seventh-highest debut rating ever for a commercial broadcaster's drama series, and the highest ever on Nippon TV. That's how big this was.
Coca-Cola | Security Cameras | 2013
It wasn't until my third watch that I realized how clever it was to use security camera footage this way — the first time, I just cried, plain and simple.
ホットペッパー | アフレコCMシリーズ | 2002
There's a world here that I, not being from Kansai, could never have come up with on my own, and I deeply relate to that. But at the same time, I don't think this is something only a Kansai person could make—I think it's something only one genius, Takaaki Yamazaki, could have made.
Getty Images | From Love to Bingo | 2016
What do you even show in an ad for stock photos? The answer: shoot a movie using nothing but photos. By stringing together 873 still images, they packed love, family, bingo—basically all of life—into one minute.
Under Armour | I Will What I Want | 2014
A world-famous supermodel punches a sandbag. Kicks it. On the wall behind her, cruel comments people wrote about her appear—and vanish with every hit.
JRA | 20th Century Boy | 2011
No celebrities, just horses, just a riff — who knew it could look this cool.
リクルート | 山田悠子の就職活動 | 2015
A crowd in blue uniforms is shouting "Yamada! Yamada!" at a giant screen, just like soccer fans cheering on Japan's national team. But what's on screen isn't a match — it's Yuko Yamada, in a job-hunting suit, going through her job search. Her awkward face during an interview, getting her ID photo taken — it's all up there on the screen, and the crowd is cheering for every bit of it.
資生堂 | あたらしい私になって | 2006
She just got dumped. She's on the verge of tears. But she washes her face, pats on some lotion... and little by little, you can feel her starting to turn hopeful again. This corporate commercial, released by Shiseido in the summer of 2006, talks about the value of makeup not from the "makeup" side of things, but from the "skincare" side. Kumaki Anri's simple, warm singing voice was as delicate and beautiful as the footage itself.
MERCEDES E-CLASS | RHINOS | 1996
1996. The year the Mercedes E-Class debuted with a new face, there was an ad featuring a rhino. The title was "RHINOS." Pretty much says it all.
JR東海 | クリスマス・エクスプレス | 1989
When this commercial came on TV, it was nothing but pure excitement. Breathing in the air of the 1989 bubble economy, set to Tatsuro Yamashita's "Christmas Eve," Riho Makise dashes through Nagoya Station. It's only one minute long, but it leaves you with the happy afterglow of having watched a short film. Even now, the scene where 17-year-old Makise hides behind a pillar, waiting, hits with incredible force.
東京メトロ | TOKYO HEART | 2015
Whether Gakki is cute or not doesn't really matter here (though she totally is) — what you should really pay attention to is the high school girl's acting at 0:32.
SOYJOY | 低GI | 2009
In a SOYJOY commercial from around 2009, a woman doing yoga has such a beautiful body that I just stopped and stared. Instead of "filling that little hungry gap," I think this direction is overwhelmingly better.
ホンダ | オデッセイ「いいクルマが好きだ。男ですから。」 | 2008
George Clooney just walks coolly through the streets of Milan. That's all it is, and yet it's absolutely captivating.
家庭教師のトライ | Try IT はじまる | 2016
Dancing to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," all kinds of people shake their phones and dance along. This is the launch commercial for Try IT, a free video lesson service. Heidi, Peter, and Grandfather all dance too, in a bright, fun world.
東京ガス | 家族の絆 おばあちゃんの料理 | 2020
Everyone has some small regret. A word you blurted out back then. A line you can never take back. Sometimes that kind of thorn stays stuck in your heart for years without you ever pulling it out. This commercial carefully draws out that exact kind of pain over 90 seconds. By the end, you'll want to cry, and you'll want to go see someone.
ACジャパン | ライバルは、1964年 | 2017
2016 was the year of Gen Hoshino. His song "Koi" became a massive hit through the drama "Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu," making him the pop icon of the era. It was exactly at that moment that this AC Japan commercial aired.
BEAMS | TOKYO CULTURE STORY｜今夜はブギー・バック(smooth rap) in 40 YEARS OF TOKYO FASHION & MUSIC | 2016
From 1976 to 2016, a single unbroken shot races through 40 years of Tokyo in just five minutes. It's simply overwhelming.
スタッフサービス | オー人事 秀吉編 | 2017
The whole thing plays out in totally predictable, cliché territory, but there's a split second where you think, "Wait, is it really okay to lump him in with monkeys?" before it settles into a reliable, familiar punchline. This is the period-drama version of the "Oh, Jinji" series that defined an era.
H&I | 屋上の少女 | 2016
Cinderella, the Frog Prince, the Ugly Duckling. The heroes of fairy tales speak up: "But the story isn't over yet."
GEICO | Crushed | 2017
In the frozen food aisle, the walls slowly close in, squashing both the people and the products. The idea here is to physically "shrink" a pre-roll ad.