Emotion
285 articles
UQ mobile | 紀香の誕生日 | 2017
The moment Norika showed up on screen, I went "huh?"—and then about two seconds later it hit me with a full "whoa!" I'd been watching the UQ Three Sisters series because I love Mikako Tabe, so having Fujiwara Norika suddenly turn up was a real shock. This feels like one of those ideas that must have felt amazing the second someone thought of it.
STOCKHOLM PRIDE | LOS SANTOS PRIDE | 2017
They put a pride parade into the world of GTA5 that absolutely cannot be destroyed. In a city where you're allowed to run over pedestrians and shoot criminals, they made the one thing you can't attack—and thinking about what that means gives you chills.
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.
ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | Van Gogh's Bedrooms | 2017
You could actually spend the night in Van Gogh's Bedroom. Turning a museum exhibit into a $10-a-night Airbnb stay is a wild idea.
湖池屋 | スゴーンなダンス | 2017
Do you remember that ballroom dance commercial Masahiko Sato made back in 1988? With its catchy jingle, it was a legendary ad that swept through the era on rhythm and nonsense. Now, 29 years later in 2017, Koikeya launched an upgraded snack called "Sugo-n," and that very commercial came back to life in the 21st century, done up with EDM music and lightning-fast footwork dancing.
OLD SPICE | SMELLCOME TO MANHOOD (MOM'S SONG) | 2016
A mother hiding outside her son's bedroom door, secretly singing to herself — that image alone is unsettling. Once their sons start using Old Spice, they suddenly become magnets for girls, and the mothers sing about it together, looking almost heartbroken.
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.
ALPHAGO | AlphaGo | 2016
Seoul, March 2016. The world's strongest Go player, Lee Sedol, faced off against Google's Go-playing AI, AlphaGo, in a five-game match. Go had long been called a game AI could never solve. In just five days, that belief was turned upside down.
Volvo Trucks | The Hamster Stunt | 2016
A 175-gram hamster takes the wheel of a 15-ton truck. The setting: a bumpy road right next to a cliff edge at a Spanish quarry.
Spotify | New Music, New Me | 2016
Mom is chopping scallions in the kitchen. That's all there is to it — but set it to Takkyu Ishino's techno, and the whole world changes.
GOOGLE, GE, MINI, NEW YORK TIMES | NYT VR | 2016
A million pieces of cardboard were delivered along with the newspaper. Inside was Google Cardboard. In 2016, the New York Times used it to turn the newspaper business upside down.
キングレコード | RUN and RUN MV for Smartphone | 2016
You hold your phone upright and watch the screen, and without you noticing, it shifts from the lock screen to Twitter, FaceTime, and the camera app. A music video where six members run around inside all of it. This is exactly what you'd call a "now that's a clever idea" moment.
COMMERCIAL RESIDENCE | House of Clicks | 2016
200 million. That's a staggering number. But it wasn't just a number. Etched into all those countless clicks was the shape of the house that two million Swedes dreamed of. They took that data and turned it into bricks and mortar, actually building a real house out of it. It might be the most romantic use of big data you'll ever see.
JR東日本 | JR SKISKI | 2016
An ostrich! An ostrich is skiing! Set to upbeat music, it tears down the slopes with turns, jumps, and Cossack moves—impossible tricks that had me completely glued to the screen.
ANA | ボルト、登場編 | 2016
In February 2016, ANA built a commercial around Usain Bolt, "the fastest man alive," to promote Tokyo 2020. Bolt dances his own original moves to Kenji Sawada's song "TOKIO," and at the end asks "Boruten-deru?" It's... well, honestly, a bit of a head-scratcher of a commercial.
GEICO | Unskippable | 2016
YouTube ads get skipped after five seconds. 96% of people hit that button. But when a voice tells you "This ad has already ended, so it can't be skipped," your finger stops.
マルコメ | 世界初カワイイ味噌汁 原宿味（Definition of Japanese Kawaii） | 2016
Packaging miso soup as "kawaii" sounds like a strange combination, but somehow it works. In 2016, Marukome launched a new product aimed at young people: the "world's first" cute instant miso soup. The promotional film made for it was done with insane levels of commitment, and it ended up winning Gold at ADFEST 2017.
JACQUARD WEARABLE FABRIC | JACQUARD WEARABLE FABRIC | 2016
What if technology disappeared every time you put on your clothes? That's exactly what Google set out to do. This is the story of a jacket where you can control calls and music just by brushing your hand across the denim sleeve.
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?
ACジャパン（公共広告機構） | IMAGINATION／WHALE（黒い絵） | 2016
Almost the entire film is made up of footage that leaves you feeling uneasy, and then, right at the very end, your whole perspective flips. It feels like watching a team on the verge of a crushing defeat suddenly turn the game around with one stunningly brilliant move. This is a masterpiece that hasn't aged a bit—if anything, it feels like it's only grown heavier with time.
銀のさら | 秘密篇 | 2016
I honestly can't understand why Ginnosara made this commercial. But that's exactly what's great about it. The world would be a richer place with more things like this in it.
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?
Honda | UNI-CUB | 2016
Right around the time everyone started making drone-shot music videos, this one came in and knocked everyone flat with how polished it was. Five and a half minutes, and I watched the whole thing without skipping once.
HEAD & SHOULDERS | 100% Kosher Head & Shoulders | 2016
They bought up the entire domestic stock of Passover cleaning kits and slipped dandruff test strips inside. An ad that uses a religious ritual as its medium — you really don't see that every day.
湖池屋 | ジャガッツ 主婦と犯人 | 2016
You know that scene from crime dramas where they rewind the security camera footage to check the culprit's face? That's exactly what happens here. But what's caught on screen is a group of housewives talking about a product. Every time the tape rewinds, they repeat the same line: "Koikeya's Jagatz—these ridges are what make it so tasty." Just 15 seconds long, but it's an invention.
Nike | Unlimited You | 2016
It starts out like your typical brand film: a warm narrator's voice, a child growing into an athlete. But the moment a gymnast rips through the "The End" logo, this ad becomes something else entirely.
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.
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.
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.
VOLVO | INTERCEPTION (The Greatest Interception Ever) | 2015
Hijacking the Super Bowl without paying the $4.5 million entry fee. The moment rivals poured $60 million into their own ad slots, Volvo was trending worldwide on Twitter. This is the Cannes Grand Prix winner.
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.
truTV | First Ever Cinemagraph TV Ad | 2015
A TV commercial that calls itself the world's first cinemagraph. Shot over one night in Times Square, it's just ten seconds long.
LIDL | BOSSE’S MILK | 2015
One grumpy guy's name ended up printed on milk cartons all over the country the very next month. Nobody expected a single post to get such a serious response.
Apple | Misunderstood | 2015
I'm seriously obsessed with this one. I can still vividly remember what I felt the first time I watched it. It shows a shy teenage boy who isn't exactly disliked by his family but definitely isn't the center of attention either, acting in his usual unimpressive way. The mood turns slightly sour, with a vibe of "come on, it's Christmas, put the phone down and spend time with the family" — and then the whole thing flips completely around. I love how skillfully it plays with your emotions.
富士通 | FMV | 2015
Thinking about Kimura Takuya reminded me of this one. The combination of a handsome lead and genuinely unsettling weirdness left a lasting impression on me, and this series still sticks in my mind.
セキスイハイム | かみさま | 2015
"When will the Tokai earthquake actually hit... what year, what month, what day! God, please tell us!" It's the kind of question anyone living in the Tokai region has probably wondered about at some point—and this ad turns it into a full-blown comedy sketch. And somehow, the product being sold is houses.
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.
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.
BELDENT INFINIT | Almost Identical | 2014
For decades, there's been a social stigma: "people who chew gum come across badly." But is that actually true? Let's find out. With twins. At a museum. Have one twin chew gum and the other not, stand them side by side, and you'll see which one actually makes the better impression.
MUSIC ALBUM - JOHN FRUSCIANTE | SAT-JF14 | 2014
They launched an album into space, so you could only listen to it the moment the satellite passed over your head. Someone actually did this for real. It's the story behind former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante's solo album "ENCLOSURE."
UN WOMEN | THE AUTOCOMPLETE TRUTH | 2014
Type "women should" into Google's search box, and it fills in the rest with words of discrimination. This wasn't any one person's opinion—it was the answer pulled straight from everyone's search history.
CORONA EXTRA | LUNA CORONA | 2014
A crescent moon floating above a New York rooftop looks, on one specific night, exactly like a lime wedge stuck in a Corona bottle. It's not a coincidence—it's the result of careful calculations involving astronomers.
OLD SPICE | Hawkridge | 2013
In 2013, Old Spice released a scent called Hawkridge. The ad for it shows a man playing poker suddenly getting swarmed by hawks—you have no idea what's going on, but somehow you totally get it.
SPCA | DRIVING DOGS | 2013
Dogs driving a car. Sounds like a joke, but they actually pulled it off. To prove that shelter dogs are smart, they went this far.
Volvo Trucks | The Epic Split feat. Van Damme (Live Test) | 2013
The moment Enya starts singing, my jaw dropped and I let out a tiny "whaaat" (I was in public, so I kept it quiet), and my mouth just stayed open until the end. This 75-second film, released in 11/2013, still hits just as hard today.
CAPE TOWN TOURISM | SEND YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE TO CAPE TOWN | 2013
"If we can't send everyone to Cape Town, let's send their Facebook profiles instead." In 2013, someone actually turned that idea into an app.
THE BARBARIAN GROUP | CINDER | 2013
At Cannes Lions 2013, the very first Grand Prix in the newly created Innovation Lions category went to a development tool made by an ad agency. And it's one they give away for free. It sounds like an odd thing to win an award for, but the reasoning behind it makes complete sense.
GEOX AMPHIBIOX | THE ULTIMATE WATERPROOF TEST (7 Days of Rain) | 2013
They built three artificial rain clouds and kept one man soaked in rain for seven days straight. The location: the middle of Barcelona. Even though the sky was clear.