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35 articles
SICKKIDS FOUNDATION | THE COUNT | 2025
It's a film celebrating a 150th anniversary, but what you see isn't the hospital's history—it's kids running with everything they've got. What's being celebrated isn't the past, it's the next birthday.
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.
APPLE | Fuzzy Feelings | 2024
I was on the verge of tears for the whole four minutes. When stop-motion and live action melted together and George Harrison's "Isn't It a Pity" started playing, I was completely gone.
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.
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.
PENNY | The Wish | 2022
At Christmas 2021, German supermarket PENNY made a three-minute film. A son asks his mother an offhand question, and she answers: she wishes he could get his youth back. All of it—the late nights, the heartbreak, the adventures sneaking out—everything the pandemic took away.
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.
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.
SINYI REALTY | IN LOVE WE TRUST | 2020
A real estate brand film running 7 minutes and 23 seconds made all of Taiwan cry. And it won Taiwan's first-ever Grand Prix in Cannes advertising history. The courage of a real estate company that showed no properties at all, instead talking entirely about "the fear of marriage" - that's thrilling.
Erste Group | #believeinyourself | 2018
A minute-and-a-half video you'll want to watch alone on a cold night. Henry the hedgehog quietly gets to you.
カロリーメイト | 夢の背中 | 2016
This CALORIEMATE commercial cheering on students taking entrance exams follows a year in the life of a son grinding through a second attempt at university entrance exams, from the mother's point of view—from the day he decides to repeat the year to the day of the exam itself. Niiro Murakami, who shaved off his long hair for the role, plays the son, while Misuzu Kanno plays the mother who watches over him with quiet warmth. The soundtrack features Ryota Fujimaki's own cover of Remioromen's song "March 9th."
Canon | A picture of you | 2016
In an age when a "photo" isn't really about capturing "truth" anymore, this film grew out of the question: how should Canon redefine its value?
キリン 午後の紅茶 | あいたいって、あたためたいだ。 | 2016
A quiet train platform. A high school girl with white headphones suddenly bursts into song, loud enough to reach the skies over Mount Aso. There's a bit of a puzzle about whether Moka Kamishiraishi's character could actually hear the sound of a drink dropping from the vending machine, which leaves you a little unsettled—but even setting that aside, this is still a wonderful piece of work.
トヨタ | Loving Eyes | 2016
A story about a father and daughter, released for Father's Day. Ads about fathers and daughters aren't exactly rare, but the turn it takes in the second half will definitely make you cry. The first half alone is pretty intense, but once the song starts playing in the girl's voice partway through, it's completely over for you.
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?
サントリー BOSS | ヘッドライト・テールライト | 2015
Less weirdness, more love — that's what I felt watching this commercial when it aired at the end of 2015. The Alien Jones series started out as a bit of an odd concept, but it's been quietly turning into "the way things just are," and honestly, I'm starting to think it's heading toward becoming a truly moving epic. I'm looking forward to it. Really looking forward to it.
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.
SUUMO | 足跡 | 2015
A 2015 SUUMO commercial starring Yoshinori Okada. A child appears who feels almost like a fairy, yet also completely real, reflecting the father's state of mind. After he asks "Is that true?", the simple reply "It's true, I know it." catches you off guard and brings the tears.
John Lewis | Man On The Moon | 2015
The yearly John Lewis Christmas ad. Just the fact that it's something to look forward to as the weather turns cold already makes it a winner, but the way it consistently exceeds expectations feels almost miraculous.
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.
マルコメ | 料亭の味 カップみそ汁 夜食篇 | 2015
The third animated commercial in the "Ryotei no Aji" series came out in February 2015. A daughter on edge from exam prep, and a father who's lost the knack for talking to her. So late one night, he quietly puts together a midnight snack for her. That's the whole story. And somehow that's exactly what makes it so moving.
Gatorade | Forget Me | 2015
184 goals. Abby Wambach, who holds the record for the most goals scored in international soccer history, men's or women's, retired on December 16 (12/16), 2015. Her final message was "Forget me." Right to the end, Wambach was Wambach.
Apple | Someday At Christmas | 2015
90 seconds just isn't enough. Honestly, I wish I could watch and listen to this for three hours straight. At this point, it's gone beyond what you'd normally call a commercial.
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.
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.
東山堂 | TOSANDO music「披露宴」篇 | 2014
A familiar situation, a familiar song. And yet it makes you cry. There's no surprise twist, no clever trick—so why does it grip your heart so tightly? Because everything lives in the acting and the direction.
キリン | 企業広告「応援する者」篇 | 2014
This commercial, released on June 2, 2014, covers everything from a birth to Shinji Kagawa pulling on the national team's number 10 jersey, all in just two minutes. Only two minutes. But every single second of it is packed with feeling. You might think, what a luxury to tell a story this way—but then again, maybe you need exactly this kind of luxury to get this far. At the edge of the frame, always in the eyeline of whoever is sending their support, is the back of a boy's head, his back, slowly growing up. That's why it's so easy to feel for him.
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.
CHIPOTLE | Back to the Start | 2012
For 2 minutes and 20 seconds, it just talks about farms. No burritos, no smiling staff, not even the product name shows up. For a fast food ad, that's incredibly strange. And yet it ended up winning two Grand Prix at Cannes.
P&G | Thank You, Mom – Best Job | 2012
At the 2012 London Olympics, P&G called itself the "Proud Sponsor of Moms" — the official sponsor of mothers everywhere.
MINISTRE DE LA DEFENSE | OPERATION CHRISTMAS | 2011
In December 2010, deep in the Colombian jungle, a giant tree turned into a Christmas tree. When guerrilla soldiers walked by, motion sensors lit up 2,000 lights, and a message appeared on a banner next to it: "If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home. Demobilize. At Christmas, everything is possible." This is one of the most urgent campaigns ever staged by an ad agency.
ライオン | タイムスリップ家族 | 2011
A family photo taken in 1991, and the same family in 2011. Lined up across time, in the same place, from the same angle.
東京ガス | 家族の絆・お弁当メール | 2010
It's only 90 seconds long, but I cried right on the spot. I happened to catch it on TV, lucky enough to see it from the very beginning, and the tears just came. "The lunch a mother makes" is already powerful material on its own, and this ad dresses it up in something very modern: "email." To a son who barely talks anymore, the lunch his mother makes every single day becomes a one-way, but very real, "message."
TVE | SUITCASE | 1989
In 1989, Spain's national TV station aired a commercial telling people not to watch too much TV. And it was the TV station itself that put it out.