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48 articles
ROCKET | Own the Dream | 2025
The moment the Super Bowl commercial ended, 65,000 people in the stadium started singing. Millions of people watching on TV hummed along too. It wasn't the commercial, and it wasn't the halftime show—it was a 15-second live singalong that slipped right into the broadcast. Both the NFL and FOX had initially said it couldn't be done.
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE | Play It Safe | 2024
This isn't an ad for condoms. It's a movie made for the Sydney Opera House's 50th anniversary. The title is "Play It Safe," and the lyrics Tim Minchin sings are all about "don't take risks, let's play it safe" — yet the footage thoroughly celebrates "dangerous creativity." That irony works incredibly well.
日本マクドナルド | スマイルあげない | 2024
McDonald's broke its own 50-year-old promise of a "0 Yen Smile," all by itself. "I Won't Give You a Smile," sung by ano, was a recruitment campaign on the surface, but underneath it was a declaration of resolve.
朝日放送テレビ | M-1グランプリ2023×日食なつこ「ログマロープ」 | 2024
There are manzai comedians who stake their whole lives on four minutes. Playing over the promotional video for M-1 Grand Prix 2023 is Natsuko Nisshoku's "Logma Rope." She couldn't write a song for six months, and this track was born at the end of what felt like hell.
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.
APPLE | THE GREATEST | 2023
Seven people with disabilities drive a car, check the color of their clothes, and just go about their day, all using iPhone. That's it, that's the whole film. And it swept the Emmys, the Cannes Grand Prix, D&AD, and One Club Best in Show. The amazing part isn't the advertising. It's the people in it.
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.
一般社団法人ABJ | STOP! 海賊版「ありがとう、君の漫画愛。」 | 2022
I cried so hard it hurt. That was my first reaction, and it still is.
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.
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.
CHEETOS | CAN'T TOUCH THIS | 2020
A guy holds up his fingers and says "Can't touch this~" as an excuse, and MC Hammer bursts out from behind him. Wrapped up in a rolled carpet, popping up as a baby's face, climbing out of a picnic basket. It's completely absurd, but that chaos is exactly the strategy behind selling a new product during the Super Bowl.
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.
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.
Gap | Boyfriend Trousers | 2017
I found myself clapping. Claire Danes and Patrick Wilson dance and sing, and at the end, she yanks the trousers off the guy and puts them on herself to strike a pose. And it looks so, so good.
Microsoft Surface | 夢中って無敵だ | 2017
In spring 2017, a web movie was released for incoming university students. Under the main line "Being Absorbed Is Invincible," it shows students chasing their dreams while working part-time jobs, students drawing on rooftops, and students running around with friends late at night.
Lynx | 24-7 – Because you never know when | 2017
It's not just rewind. A man walks back the way he came, putting his clothes back on as he goes. Somewhere in the middle, it clicks — "oh, I see" — and your brain gets a little chill. There are plenty of ways to show love at first sight, but the ones that give you that lightbulb moment hit hardest.
KENZO | MY MUTANT BRAIN | 2017
In this perfume commercial, a woman shoots laser beams out of her hands. And somehow it won a Titanium Lion at Cannes. Perfume ads finally broke.
家庭教師のトライ | Try IT はじまる | 2016
Dancing to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off," all kinds of people shake their phones and dance along. This is the launch commercial for Try IT, a free video lesson service. Heidi, Peter, and Grandfather all dance too, in a bright, fun world.
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.
リクルート | 卒おめ | 2016
This is one of those classic ads I find myself watching again every year around this time. It captures that particular spring when high school seniors are finishing up, set to a wonderful Chatmonchy song, and every time I watch it, something about it hits me right in the chest.
Channel 4 | We're The Superhumans | 2016
A mother with no arms holds her baby with her feet. Kids with prosthetic legs play soccer. A woman flies a plane with her feet. For three straight minutes, it just keeps going like this. It won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2017, and racked up 23 million views in just four days. It hits just as hard no matter how many times you watch it.
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.
earth music&ecology | 合唱 | 2015
Aoi Miyazaki singing Miyuki Nakajima's "Nobody Is Right" — that alone could have carried the whole commercial. And yet something about it bothered me.
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.
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!"
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.
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.
BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION | HARD, FAST & EFFECTIVE | 2013
People who watched this ad ended up saving 28 lives. An ad whose success gets measured not by awareness or likability, but by "how many people came back from the dead" — that's not something you see every day.
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH | TREE CONCERT | 2013
Who would believe a tree could hold a concert? But it really happened in a park in Berlin. One night, a 100-year-old chestnut tree became a musician.
CHIPOTLE | CULTIVATE CAMPAIGN (Back to the Start) | 2012
A fast food chain made an animated short attacking factory farming. The product never once appears on screen. And it still won two Grand Prix at Cannes. That's almost too bold to believe.
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.
BANCO POPULAR DE PUERTO RICO BANK | THE MOST POPULAR SONG | 2012
Puerto Rico's biggest hit song was a tune called "I Don't Do Anything" — a song that nationally celebrated not working. This campaign got the very people singing it to rewrite it. That bold move brought Puerto Rico its first-ever Cannes Grand Prix.
HEINEKEN | THE ENTRANCE | 2011
The main character walks into a party — that's it, and somehow it holds your attention for three full minutes. In 2011, this felt like the moment beer ads leveled up.
WWF | MONKEY (Space Monkey) | 2010
In the 1960s, during the US space program, a monkey was sent into space. Then, 65 years later, he returns to Earth—only to find his home transformed beyond recognition.
THE TIMES OF INDIA | A Day in the Life of Chennai | 2009
A life-size cardboard cutout is born in the morning and dead by night. In just 90 seconds, you see the true face of the city of Chennai — no wonder it won India's first Film Gold Lion at Cannes.
BUD LIGHT | Real Men of Genius - Mr. Really Loud Cell Phone Guy | 2007
In 2007, an absurdly epic '80s-rock-style song started playing on radio stations across America. "Today, we salute you... Mr. Really Loud Cell Phone Guy!" What on earth is this?
GUINNESS UDV | noitulovE | 2006
500 million years, rewound in 50 seconds. Three men have their first pint of Guinness in a pub. From there, we trace evolution backward.
BUDLIGHT | REAL MEN OF GENIUS | 2006
"Bud Light presents... Real Men of Genius." A radio ad series that barely mentioned beer at all ended up running for more than 200 episodes over ten years. And Bud Light still sold.
HONDA | IMPOSSIBLE DREAM | 2006
This two-minute ad aired in the UK on December 2, 2005 (12/2). Set to Andy Williams's "The Impossible Dream," a man in a racing suit moves from one historic Honda vehicle to the next. The sequence gets wonderfully wild—he jumps off a waterfall in a boat and comes floating back out of the mist in a hot air balloon. It all ends with Garrison Keillor's voice saying "I couldn't have put it better myself," wrapping up a perfect two minutes.
ネスカフェ | 朝のリレー | 2003
There's something striking about the simple fact that "somewhere on this planet, morning is always just beginning." It's obvious when you think about it, but it still catches you off guard - and that small realization, carried by the power of a poem, sweeps the viewer far, far away in an instant.
サントリー ペプシコーラ | イチローダンス | 2002
The finest product of Japanese baseball crossed the ocean in 2001, and the next year he was first in All-Star voting, won the batting title, the stolen base title, and MVP—so perfect it was almost anticlimactic. Riding that wave of success, this commercial started airing in February 2002. Brian Setzer's rockabilly blasts at full volume while Americans dance wildly, imitating Ichiro's famous batting routine.
NTTドコモ | ポケベル「はじめる」 | 1996
In 1996, a 15-year-old girl lying on an octopus slide in a park, humming a little tune, appeared on TVs across Japan. "I got a pager for my birthday," she said in a sweet, slightly lisping voice. Her name was Ryoko Hirosue, and this commercial turned her into an instant star.
NSPCC | EXCUSE | 1992
In 1992, a public service ad ran in British cinemas. It opens with nearly a full minute of darkness, then photos of children and the "excuses" given by their abusers appear one after another. Quiet, dark, and impossible to look away from.
PERRIER | LE LION ET LA LIONNE | 1991
This film won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1991, and it's still the only French film ever to win the Film Grand Prix. 28 years later, it's remembered by one in two French people, and in 2019 it was voted the greatest ad of all time by the magazine Stratégies. That's how far a water ad can go.
LEVI | Laundrette | 1986
In 1985, a 60-second spot aired in Britain the day after Christmas, and it turned jeans—once seen as uncool—into something to long for. What Nick Kamen took off wasn't just his clothes, but the heavy baggage of jeans being "your dad's clothes."
MAGGI | OPÉRA BŒUF | 1957
1957. This is a MAGGI pot-au-feu ad where cattle sing and dance in the style of an opéra bouffe (comic opera). The moment I saw the title, I tilted my head and thought, "Beef opera?"—but once I watched the video, it all made sense. For an ad of its time, this is wildly bold.
BARCLAYS BANK | Put Una Money For There | 1956
This is the first British ad to win the Grand Prix at Cannes, back in 1956. It's called "Put Una Money For There." It's a three-minute animated ad built around a calypso sung in pidgin English (simplified English), urging West African farmers to "put the money from your harvest into Barclays Bank." Ba-ba-ba-boom. That tune is impossible to shake, and when you remember this was 1956, it's pretty wild.