Emotion
315 articles
PAINT | COLOR FOR THE COLORBLIND | 2016
For the 300 million people worldwide with color blindness, a paint company found a way to "show" them color. Sounds impossible, right?
キリン | メッツ | 2015
Just go with it. That's basically the whole approach, and there's something refreshing about how committed it is. When Kirin Mets relaunched in 2015, this "Entrance" ad is what came out of it. Dragon Ball, Dempagumi.inc, Nobunari Oda, Gachapin... pop culture icons dance, burst with energy, and belt out "We want Mets!" over and over in this 30-second spot. It strips away almost every detailed message, throwing nothing at you but the sheer presence of "This is Mets!"
ファンタ | ファンタだよ！TVに出よう | 2015
Collecting the "wouldn't it be great if..." wishes of teens in their 10s and then airing the chosen ones as nationwide TV commercials is quite the ambitious move. The boy who drew a face on his belly and ate marshmallows was great, but this one is also incredibly funny.
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.
東京ディズニーリゾート | Where dreams come true 夢はつづく | 2015
You see a lot of commercials these days that fast-forward through someone's whole life, but this Disney one really stuck with me. It's all animation, and the fact that it manages to capture one woman's entire life in just 30 seconds is enough to bring tears to your eyes.
江崎グリコ | オトナグリコ アーモンドピーク | 2015
This ad turns a pitch competition between ad agencies into the ad itself. Nanako Matsushima and Satoshi Tsumabuki play creative directors from rival agencies, fighting over Glico's business, in this behind-the-scenes story. You get a peek into the industry (surely exaggerated quite a bit), and that alone makes it fun to watch.
Marc Dorcel | #HandsOff | 2015
If you want to watch porn, keep both hands on the keyboard. I had to laugh at that one. A porn site telling you not to let go of the keyboard — that twisted, mischievous logic is just perfect.
John Lewis Insurance | Tiny Dancer | 2015
A girl who's a bit chubby, wears glasses, and isn't even that good at ballet dances through the whole house. That's all it takes to win millions of hearts.
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.
高橋酒造 | SHIRO Cheers System | 2015
The cuteness here is just unreal. I love the casting, the choreography, the song, the direction—everything—so much that I've lost count of how many times I've watched it. It might honestly be the video I've watched the most so far this century. Yuichi Kodama really is something else.
ジョージア | 男ですいません | 2015
"Sorry for being a man." The moment I saw this line, I let out a groan. This copy is just too perfect. You can't quite say "Being a man is the best!"—but you also kind of think "I'm glad I was born a man." This line wraps up that subtle, conflicted feeling of modern Japanese men in a relaxed, self-deprecating way.
JINS | はじめてのJINS | 2015
Just three seconds. But those three seconds are incredible. Yui Aoi's expression from 0:15 to 0:18 is simply irresistible.
BUYMA | A Kind Drone | 2015
Two completely naked ballet dancers move beautifully while four drones chase after them, covering up exactly the parts that need covering, for a solid minute and a half. This absurd little world is a perfect example of "doing something stylish." Maybe it rode the wave of a popular "don't worry, it's fine" catchphrase of the time, but this video, made by Dentsu, goes so far over the top it stops being a joke and starts being art.
CERVEZA SALTA | TOOTH IMPLANT | 2015
A rugby player loses a tooth during a match. It happens all the time. But this campaign actually implanted a 'tooth that doubles as a bottle opener' in place of the lost one. The surgery, the bottle-opening scene—it's all real. This project won a Titanium Lion at Cannes Lions 2015.
CBC | ABLA FAHITA | 2015
A puppet made for an ad got investigated by the state on terrorism charges, and still went on to win the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes. This actually happened in Egypt.
JOHN LEWIS | Monty the Penguin | 2015
Every November, the whole of Britain starts getting restless. That's because it's the season when John Lewis's Christmas ad arrives. The star of 2014 was a stuffed penguin named Monty. Why did this two-minute tale of friendship with a boy named Sam strike such a chord?
NTT DOCOMO | 3-SECOND COOKING | 2015
A shrimp flies through the air, passes through flames, and becomes shrimp tempura in 3 seconds. For the dumplings, the ingredients collide in midair and come together in 2.244 seconds. No CG, all real footage. The only thing you can say watching this video is "what is DOCOMO even doing" — and it still walked away with three Golds at Cannes.
JOHN LEWIS | The Bear and the Hare | 2015
A bear who sleeps through winter had never once seen Christmas. So his best friend, a hare, gives him an alarm clock so he won't miss it—a story told in just two minutes.
JOE BOXER | INACTIVITY TRACKER | 2015
The world's first tracker for recording "not moving" was born. At a time when Fitbits covered every wrist, Kmart's pajama brand did the exact opposite.
Duracell | Moments of Warmth | 2014
Hold hands and the heater turns on—that's all it takes. In the dead of a freezing Montreal winter, this experience landed at exactly the right moment.
キリン のどごし〈生〉 | 夢のドリーム プロ野球 | 2014
I cried watching the making-of for the baseball edition. The Jackie Chan edition was fantastic too, but this one really gets me. Watching a celebrity take on something huge is moving, but somehow it's even more moving when ordinary people chase an ordinary—or maybe slightly oversized—dream. I think it's because the people at the center feel so much closer to us.
江崎グリコ | smile.Glico | 2014
Satoshi Tsumabuki, dressed up as a clown, goes around turning grumpy people from all over the world into smiling ones, one after another. Because it's a long-form video, watching it leaves you with a feeling like you just finished a movie.
COCA COLA | HAPPY ID | 2014
Turning the photo on your ID card into an ad campaign. And then actually building it into a national system. This campaign, which won the Grand Prix in the Media category at the 2014 Cannes Lions, expanded what we even mean by "media."
COCA COLA | A Rainbow for the Rainbow Nation | 2014
In 2014, South Africa marked 20 years since the end of apartheid. Coca-Cola made a rainbow. Not as a figure of speech — they made an actual rainbow appear in the sky over Johannesburg.
BEATS BY DRE | THE PILLS | 2014
A speaker grew arms and legs and started talking. Its voice belonged to the likes of Eminem and Chris Rock — a pretty star-studded mouth.
COCA COLA LIFE | Parents | 2014
This is a parenting ad with zero soft focus and zero shots of sleeping babies. It's a 60-second film that opens with a father writhing in pain after stepping on a toy — and it won Gold at Cannes.
キリン のどごし〈生〉 | 夢のドリーム4 カンフー篇 | 2013
This is the best one. The one at the top of the list I look at whenever work gets so rough I think I can't go on. Mr. Ishida, his junior, Shoko Nakagawa, Jackie Chan, the production team, and above all the client who greenlit this whole thing—everyone involved here is the best.
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.
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.
WestJet | Christmas Miracle: Real-time Giving | 2013
It looks like it's using some amazing technology, but the real secret is just a live camera and 175 people doing the legwork. Here's what makes WestJet's Christmas campaign work so well.
SINGTEL | Old Phones Give New Life (Project Silverline) | 2013
All it took was loading five special apps onto old, unused iPhones. That alone reconnected more than 1,000 elderly people living alone with the world around them.
FUNERAL INSURANCE COMPANY DELA | Why Wait Until It's Too Late | 2013
A funeral insurance company stopped talking about funerals and started saying "say it today" instead. And that's what won the Media Grand Prix at Cannes. An ad that reaches this far without ever mentioning the product.
METROPOLE ORKEST | METROPOLE TWEETPHONY | 2013
A Dutch orchestra on the verge of disappearing due to budget cuts had a full 52-piece orchestra perform a song live that was composed entirely on Twitter. You didn't need an instrument, just 140 characters.
OLD SPICE | DIKEMBE MUTOMBO'S 4 1/2 WEEKS TO SAVE THE WORLD | 2013
According to the Mayan calendar, the world was supposed to end on 12/21/2012 (December 21, 2012). Old Spice picked its savior: Dikembe Mutombo, one of the greatest defenders in NBA history. And the whole idea of saving the world through an 8-bit game is already pretty absurd.
SMART FORTWO | OFFROAD | 2013
A tiny car takes a spectacular tumble off-road. Instead of hiding what's normally seen as a flaw, this ad shows it off proudly, then drops one line at the end: "SMART is as useless off-road as an SUV is in the city." That shameless confidence is just great.
MERCEDES BENZ | THE INVISIBLE DRIVE | 2012
This piece won the Grand Prix in the Outdoor category at Cannes Lions in 2012, and the first time I saw it, I just went "wait, what?" A car that's transparent — what does that even mean? But it really is see-through. Literally.
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.
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.
CANAL+ | THE BEAR | 2012
A bearskin rug lying on a living room floor becomes a Hollywood film director. It sounds ridiculous written out like that, but this became the most awarded ad in Gunn Report history in 2012.
SNOOP DOGG | Rolling Words | 2012
You read a book, then light up the page and smoke it. Who else but Snoop Dogg could get away with an idea this wild?
GOOGLE | All Is Not Lost | 2012
A browser window splits into 12 pieces, each one moving on its own, somehow coming together into a single dance. And at the end, it spells out the words you typed, using its feet. When I saw this in 2011, I literally shivered, thinking, "wait, the internet can still do this?"
COCA-COLA | Polar Bowl | 2012
On Super Bowl night, more than 700,000 people watched polar bears instead of the actual game. Isn't that wild?
MERCEDES BENZ | REUNION | 2012
The title is "REUNION." This Mercedes film was made in 2012 by BBDO Johannesburg in South Africa, and it won Gold.
NIKE | I AM PLAYR | 2012
There's a game where you live a footballer's life in the first person. Nike was woven into that story as if it were simply part of life — and over 400,000 pairs of boots got sold inside the game. It never feels like advertising, but that's exactly what it is.
BAND-AID | MAGIC VISION | 2012
The instant a kid starts to cry from a scrape, Kermit pops up right on the Band-Aid and starts singing. Just hold up your phone, and an ordinary bandage turns into a tiny stage.
TOYOTA | BACKSEAT DRIVER | 2012
A kid in the backseat who used to just whine "are we there yet?" now grips their own steering wheel inside an iPhone app that's linked by GPS to the real car. Boring travel time spent just tracing a parent's driving got turned into a whole game.
PUMA | AFTER HOURS ATHLETE | 2011
"A 5 AM taxi is way more fun than a 5 AM run" — with this one line, PUMA rewrote the definition of sport in 2011. Pool, darts, karaoke. No sweat required, no records needed. This ad declared that the stamina to party all night long is athletic spirit itself.
Google Chrome | The Web Is What You Make of It | 2011
On 5/21/2011, this commercial aired live during Saturday Night Live. Lady Gaga running across the Brooklyn Bridge, fans dancing and singing their hearts out, filling the whole screen. That raw energy grabbed me and wouldn't let go.