NISSIN FOOD | hungry? | 1993
When asked "hungry?", everyone turns into a caveman / NISSIN FOOD "SYNTHETOCERAS"
At the Cannes festival, someone shouted "Hungry!" In 1993, Moa and Synthetoceras won the Grand Prix together, two films at once. Even across 60 years of Cannes, it's one of the legendary moments.
The problem
1992, the year after Cup Noodle's 20th anniversary. In an age of abundance, with food choices only multiplying, it was time to return to the basics. The starting point: being the brand people think of first the moment they feel hungry.
The insight
When you're hungry, think Cup Noodle. Not through logic, but by speaking to a feeling the body already knows. The answer they landed on was prehistoric times, a world before civilization or choice existed.
The idea
A stop-motion hunt where cavemen chase down a Moa (an extinct giant bird) and a Synthetoceras (a beast with Y-shaped horns). The whole thing rides on a single line: "hungry?" With the product as the star, it's an early example of "product graphics" — ads that win purely on the strength of the footage itself.
What happened
In 1993, both the Moa and Synthetoceras films won the Grand Prix at Cannes at the same time. Even at a 2013 screening of past Grand Prix winners, they still got applause, twenty years on.
Afterthought
It doesn't make you laugh, it makes you want to shout "Hungry!" It throws away all logic and hits you with nothing but the raw feeling of hunger. Watching it now, it hasn't aged a bit. If anything, now is exactly the time to watch it.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 1993
