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253 articles
CLAUDE | A Time and a Place | 2026
Claude bought up the Super Bowl, advertising's biggest piece of prime real estate, to argue that "ads shouldn't be everywhere." That's contradictory. But that contradiction was exactly the point.
NOVARTIS | RELAX YOUR TIGHT END | 2026
Who knew the football position "tight end" could be turned into a health awareness message? That tightness in your chest might actually be your heart.
WAITROSE & PARTNERS | Sweet Suspicion: A Deliciously Festive Whodunnit | 2025
The star dessert at Christmas dinner has vanished. Every member of the family is a suspect. With Succession's Matthew Macfadyen and Fleabag's Sian Clifford in the cast — an unlikely lineup for a supermarket ad — Waitrose pulled off a surprising two-part mystery.
大塚製薬 | THE DAY #C105 | 2025
Just hearing the phrase "load-in day" at Comiket makes my heart beat a little faster. This ad captures that day through the lens of health management.
カネボウ化粧品 | I HOPE.希望の美容液／I HOPE.希望 | 2025
It's a commercial for a serum, but it barely talks about skin at all. This is the 2025 chapter of the "hope" story that KANEBO has been telling for years.
サントリーホールディングス | 天然水「大自然を味方に」篇 | 2025
There's a scene where someone opens a bottle cap, but the product packaging stays blurry the whole time. And somehow, nobody minds. All eyes are glued to a small figure running down a mountain trail.
カップヌードル | ラクサ食べてよ | 2024
That buzz cut really caught me off guard. This commercial turns MAISONdes' song "Show Me Your Phone" into a parody, with an illustrated girl getting so hooked on laksa that she turns into a Cup Noodle-shaped buzz-cut man. The gap between that cute art style and what happens is intense!
カロリーメイト | 狭い広い世界で | 2024
Through the screen of a smartphone, someone had been watching a whole year in the life of a student preparing for exams. The 2019 song "Boku no Koto" gets a new orchestral arrangement, and all three members of Mrs. GREEN APPLE even make cameo appearances.
花王 メリット | 家族と愛とメリット | 2024
The concept and art direction here are just incredible. You can really feel a great team meeting a great client. I ended up buying Merit shampoo, hook, line, and sinker.
富士フイルム | あしたに続く写真 | 2024
Kazu, Furuta, and Tulio each look back at their past while gazing at old photos. Not every meaningful photo needs a dramatic story behind it, but a single picture that captures a true turning point in someone's life carries a weight that words just can't match.
カロリーメイト | 光も影も | 2024
The tenth installment in the series, and the first time an art school exam candidate took the lead role. Boys had taken the lead four years running, from '19 to '22, so longtime fans who'd been thinking "maybe it's a girl's turn soon" couldn't help but grin.
アクエリアス | NEW YOU キャンペーン 泳げるようになりたい | 2024
This is a video following a 75-year-old grandmother over 30 days, starting from when she could barely even put her face in the water, as she works toward swimming 25 meters freestyle. It's lovely to see swimmer Kosuke Kitajima coaching her wholeheartedly, showing that age doesn't matter when you want to swim. But what really makes this commercial so moving isn't that part.
日清食品 | カップヌードル 担担 ザクザクコリコリ | 2023
Kinnikun comes bursting out of a swamp shouting "Tantaaan!" In his hands, a giant "Cup Noodle Tantan" — and as he charges forward he thrusts his hips while yelling "Zakuzaku! Korikori!" It's a spot-on parody of a legendary commercial from the 1990s, and people in their forties reacted to it all at once.
クラシエホームプロダクツ | 日本の四季 | 2023
A camera slowly circles a cherry tree as the seasons pass by. There's a commercial that took over 80 days to shoot, all for this one tree. The moment I heard about the plan, I thought, "This is going to be tough" — and I found myself admiring the trust it took to actually pull it off.
マクドナルド | 家族といっしょに。「約束のハッピーセット」篇 | 2023
All I cared about was "what's in the Happy Meal right now," but the opening shot already had me hooked. A 60-second ad where the setting, the cast, and the direction all click together perfectly.
富士フイルム アスタリフト | 列車のふたり ナノテクノロジー | 2023
What happens when you bring a story into a cosmetics commercial? This ad feels like an experiment in just that. Aoi Miyazaki, disguised in a trench coat, sunglasses, and a blonde wig, jumps onto a train. Masaki Okada, claiming he's "come from the future," launches into an endless explanation of nanotechnology. Seiko Matsuda's "Red Sweet Pea" plays in the background, and in an atmosphere that can't quite decide if it's serious or comic, the two set off on a strange journey together.
東京ガス | 母の推し活 | 2023
There are a few ad series I look forward to every year, wondering "what will they do this time" — and Tokyo Gas's brand ads are one of them. Their "Family Bonds" series, running since 2008, has delivered one gut-punch after another straight to the Japanese heart, starting with the famous "Lunchbox Email" spot. I admire their work. The 2023 entry, "Mom's Fan Life," tells in 90 seconds the story of a mother who falls for a K-pop idol thirty years younger than her and watches her life open up as a result. It became a huge hit, racking up over 5 million views on Twitter within three days. This time, though, I found myself thinking "it's good, but..."
ＡCジャパン | 寛容ラップ | 2023
At a convenience store checkout, an old woman fumbles through her coins. A tough-looking rapper starts stomping his foot. Uh oh, you think, bracing for trouble—then he grabs an ice cream bar like a microphone and starts rapping: "Nobody's mad at you. Take all the time you need." A rap battle with no disses—now that's an invention.
MIXI | 生徒指導篇／闇の神殿篇／保冷剤篇／公園篇／友達の兄篇／起床篇／父篇／年越し篇 | 2023
Just lining up the titles already makes you curious about what this ad could be. What on earth is the "Temple of Darkness" episode? And the "Ice Pack" episode has me curious too.
大塚製薬 | Midnight Train | 2022
A whole year of a student's life flows past the window of a night train. Carrying both the things they gave their all to and the things left unfinished, the train still keeps running toward morning.
JR東海 | 会うって、特別だったんだ。 | 2022
In 1988, Eri Fukatsu waited on a station platform for her boyfriend. In 2022, she had become a businesswoman taking the bullet train to Osaka on a work trip. JR Central quietly captured these 33 years of change in just 60 seconds.
キングソフト | WPS Cloud「働き方を自由にする」篇 | 2022
A man with two faces: special agent and office worker. While carrying out a mission to rescue a hostage from a burning, collapsing building, he gets a call from a coworker at his IT company, and right there on the spot he finishes editing a document using WPS Cloud. The sheer amount packed into 30 seconds is incredible.
森ビル | DESIGNING TOKYO | 2022
In two minutes and five seconds, it travels back through 58 years. From Nishi-Shimbashi in 1956 to Toranomon Hills in 2014, six Mori Building projects are stitched together as if in a single continuous shot. Sayoko Yamaguchi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takashi Murakami all drift onto the screen looking just as they did at the time. At some point you stop caring whether it's CG or real footage.
COINBASE | Less Talk, More Bitcoin | 2022
Just a QR code bouncing around the screen, for 60 seconds. No celebrities, no narration, no product explanation. At the Super Bowl, the pinnacle of advertising, Coinbase chose to do "nothing."
パナソニック | Make New | 2022
When a girl touches a piece of fabric, a cold, lifeless blue world instantly transforms into one overflowing with green. This reversal was actually filmed by flipping the entire set and everyone in it completely upside down.
眞露 | 恋スル！チャミスル シーズン1／恋するチャミスル シーズン2 | 2022
A forbidden romance across class lines, amnesia, a rich young heir, the fiancée of a company president's daughter—this ad packs in every K-drama plot twist you've ever seen, and I couldn't stop watching all six and a half minutes of it.
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.
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.
大塚製薬 | カロリーメイト 見えないもの篇 | 2021
2020 was a year when everyone fought an invisible virus. And CALORIEMATE still delivered its usual commercial to that year's students taking entrance exams. But things didn't go as usual. Remote classes, disinfectant, acrylic partitions, cancelled competitions. The moment Naotaro Moriyama's "Sakura" started playing, the tears wouldn't stop.
HARIBO | キッズボイス 相撲 | 2021
A hulking sumo wrestler in a yukata says things like "Squishy-squishy~" and "It's so juicy." But the voice is a child's. For three seconds you're confused, and the next second you're already grinning.
東京ガス | がんばれ私たち | 2020
In November 2020 (11/2020), right in the middle of the pandemic, Tokyo Gas aired this commercial. A 25-year-old woman chasing her dream of becoming an actress lives through days that don't go the way she wants, all set to a song sung by actress Shizuka Ishibashi herself. Her father shows up in his little truck, her grandmother cheers her on through a smartphone screen, and that's when I gave up fighting the tears.
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.
Apple | Macの向こうから — まだこの世界にない物語を | 2020
They made an entire 30-second commercial out of nothing but scenes of anime characters sitting down at their Macs. And get this — some of those Macs have logos that are clearly not the real Apple logo, turned into a heart or a pear instead, yet Apple included them anyway. That kind of generosity really shows the brand's sheer confidence.
カロリーメイト | My Way | 2020
The song and the sound effects here are just amazing. Listening to them yanks you straight back to that time in your life. Which tells you something: those sounds don't really exist (much) in the adult world.
NETFLIX | 人間まるだし。 | 2020
The narration opens with a sarcastic line: "What a beautiful age we live in." In 2019, when everyone was burning with "correctness," Netflix brought out The Naked Director and declared, flat out, "Human, Exposed." The moment Shibuya turned entirely red, you could feel just how powerful this ad was.
花王 | 洗濯愛してる会 | 2019
In January 2020, right at the start of the new year, I got hit with a shock strong enough to make me want to restart this blog. Five of the hottest actors around — Matsuzaka Tori, Suda Masaki, Kaku Kento, Mamiya Shotaro, and Sugino Yosuke — talking about laundry with total seriousness for 60 seconds. It felt like I'd just watched two whole dramas.
キリン 午後の紅茶 | わたしらしいって、最強だ。夏 | 2019
This feels so now. Really now. Four high school girls from different schools and different backgrounds meet on social media and form a band. That kind of realness feels like it's bottled up the air of 2019.
日経電子版 | 見えてきた？ | 2019
Nikkei Digital Edition's "Did You See It?" series started in 2019, and it became a talking point for actor Sho Kiyohara's mysterious, repeated line "Ah, I see." This flea market app installment is a 15-second spot where a guy glances over at his girlfriend using a flea market app and, somehow, only he ends up nodding and saying "Ah, I see." Some have praised it for capturing something very relatable about young women today, but honestly, it wasn't easy to tell exactly what he was supposed to be "getting."
MAKE SOMETHING WONDERFUL - APPLE | MAKE SOMETHING WONDERFUL / BEHIND THE MAC | 2019
Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, Paul McCartney — all of them shown quietly working away at a Mac. And woven in between them, with just as much weight, is the desk of someone nobody's ever heard of.
森永製菓 ダース | 祝25周年篇 | 2018
This is what 15 seconds can do. The only thing they really want to say is "DARS turns 25." If it also happens to get across that "December 12 is DARS Day," that's a lucky bonus. But they don't explain how tasty it is, or how many pieces are in a box, or anything like that. And I think that's exactly right.
カロリーメイト | 心の声 | 2018
I think it's fair to call this one a winter tradition by now. This is the fifth installment of CalorieMate's commercial series cheering on exam students. Another great one this year.
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.
GOOGLE | Know What Your Data Knows | 2018
In 2018, during a live NCAA basketball broadcast watched by 43 million people across the US, Google Cloud built and aired a commercial on the spot, shaped by how the game was actually unfolding. A commercial coming together in real time, right alongside the commentary—just hearing about it is stressful enough.
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.
JR東日本 | Apple PayのSuica | 2017
Spring, new beginnings. That whole business of standing in line at the ticket counter to buy a commuter pass disappears, with just an iPhone. That's really all there is to it, but something about Ryuhei Matsuda's presence, the visuals, and the sound makes it strangely pleasant.
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.
Apple | iPhone X | 2017
Set to a song that sounds a bit like Buruzon Chiemi, it's just one beautiful shot of the product after another. You could call it very Apple, and leave it at that—but this ad isn't even trying to make you want to buy the thing.
FIAT | Love Affair | 2017
A woman pauses in front of a puddle. Stepping out of her red 124 Spider, she realizes her high heels are about to get soaked. That's when the man parked next to her, driving a 500X, lays his jacket down over the puddle. Then his shirt. Then his jeans. Until he's down to just his underwear. And then comes that scene — the woman deliberately spills her coffee. His right eyebrow twitches up in a priceless expression.