サガミオリジナル | LOVE DISTANCE | 2016
The Distance of Love Is 0.02mm / Sagami Original "LOVE DISTANCE"
A couple in a long-distance relationship start running toward each other from opposite sides of the screen. A number starting at 1.2 billion millimeters keeps shrinking as they get closer. I never imagined that the number it ends on, 0.02, could hit this hard.
The problem
In Japan, it's hard to get condom commercials on TV. Sagami, which had just become the top brand with its claim of being the world's thinnest at 0.02mm, chose not to go for laughs or sex appeal. Instead they told the story from the heart of what the product really is: something that sits between two people who love each other.
The insight
Their approach was an online drama that ran for a month without revealing who was behind it. It followed a real long-distance couple, one in Fukuoka and one in Tokyo, as they ran toward each other to close a gap of 1,000km, building up to the moment they'd finally meet on Christmas Eve. Right up until then, nobody knew which company's ad this was. All viewers saw was the distance ticking down, and that was enough to hold everyone's attention completely.
The idea
The couple could only communicate through a blog, video calls, and text messages, and every bit of that communication was posted online for everyone to see. There were separate websites for the man and the woman, which merged into one on the day they completed their journey. People got so caught up guessing who the client might be that debates broke out in blog comments. The music was by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The final footage shows the distance at 7,034mm just before they embrace, then 0mm the moment they do, closing with the line: "And yet, there is distance in love. 0.02mm."
What happened
At the 2009 Cannes Lions, it won Gold in both the Film and PR categories. It also won at Adfest and picked up a Yellow Pencil at D&AD. It's also remembered as the first condom commercial to air during Japanese primetime television.
Afterthought
Without relying on sex appeal or jokes, this ad looked condoms straight in the eye and called them love. A real couple ran for a month straight, and the people behind the campaign, along with the client who backed their decision, pulled it all together into something close to a miracle. Just watching that number go from 1.2 billion down to zero makes you think about what love really means. A world where an ad like this can exist is a beautiful thing.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2009
