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24 articles
COLUMBIA SPORTSWEAR | Expedition Impossible | 2026
Find the edge of the earth, and the CEO will hand you the entire company. He said it straight-faced, dead serious, and even put it in a newspaper ad.
Nike | So Win | 2025
After 27 years away, Nike returned to Super Bowl advertising, and this time it lined up some of today's top women athletes: Caitlin Clark, Sha'Carri Richardson, A'ja Wilson, and more. The line: "You can't win. So win."
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.
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.
BACK MARKET | HACK MARKET | 2022
Inside an Apple Store, using AirDrop, sending a message to someone about to buy an Apple product: "You can get that cheaper at our place." It's a little crazy (in the best way).
NIKE | BREAKING2 | 2018
Breaking two hours in the marathon. For that single goal, Nike spent three years. On May 6, 2017, three of the world's fastest runners gathered at an F1 racetrack in Italy.
SONY | GRAVITY CAT | 2017
A cat walks on walls, runs across the ceiling, and two sisters fall into the sky along with their entire apartment. For four straight minutes, I just kept asking myself, "Is this really not CGI?"
UPSIDE DOWN & INSIDE OUT - S7 AIRLINES | Upside Down & Inside Out | 2017
Shooting a music video in zero gravity — a dream OK Go had been holding onto for ten years finally came true when they crossed paths with S7 Airlines.
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.
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.
日清食品カップヌードル | OBAKA's大学に春が来た！ | 2016
"If you try something, people mock you. If you fail, people pile on." In an era like that, Beat Takeshi stood frozen as a bronze statue of the university president, while Sachiko Kobayashi, Mutsugoro, Mari Yaguchi, and Takashi Niigaki served as the professors at the newly opened "OBAKA's UNIVERSITY." People said there probably aren't many companies in Japan that could greenlight a commercial idea like this — and no wonder. The moment I saw it, I had to take my hat off.
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.
カップヌードル | OBAKA's UNIVERSITY | 2016
The first installment got pulled off air just one week after it sparked backlash online. But Nissin didn't stop there—two months later, they brought back Beat Takeshi and Sachiko Kobayashi for another round. Has any brand in Japanese advertising ever shown such a bold "fight back" attitude?
HONDA | 試す人になろう | 2015
This ad just seemed to appear out of nowhere. It runs 120 seconds, calmly showing people working at Honda's research facility, nothing more. And yet somehow it has this strange power to make you think, "I want to work here."
Nike | LAST | 2015
The camera keeps moving backward the whole time. It's graceful, but there's something otherworldly about it too. Set to Aretha Franklin's "Every Little Bit Hurts," that same shot just keeps going.
Honda | 負けるもんか | 2015
"Effort doesn't pay off. Dreams don't come true. So what?" I still remember how many people this corporate ad moved when it came out. In just 60 seconds, it lines up generations of Honda cars and motorcycles at Twin Ring Motegi, and through them, the spirit of Soichiro Honda comes through as one powerful message.
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.
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.
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.
IGGY POP & ORCON BROADBAND | Together Incredible | 2010
In 2010, Orcon, a small internet provider in New Zealand, connected punk icon Iggy Pop with nine amateur musicians from around the country over ordinary home broadband to re-record "The Passenger." This wonderfully absurd product demo won the Grand Prix in the Direct category at Cannes Lions.
CADBURY | IT'S NO PICNIC | 2010
Turn on the TV in Australia in 2010 and you might catch a 30-second ad of an ordinary person desperately stuffing a chocolate bar into their mouth. A different person, a different face, every time. Over 200 ads ran, and not one was the same as another.
ADIDAS | UNSTOPPABLE | 2005
A miniature army swarms him with helicopters and Hummers, but Tracy McGrady never stops dribbling. It's 60 seconds of the most ridiculous, most amazing footage you'll see.
ADIDAS | VERTICAL FOOTBALL | 2004
They hung people on the wall of a building and had them play soccer. That alone is enough. Just imagining the faces of the people looking up, I can't stop grinning.
NIKE | THE WALL | 1995
In 1995, some true legends of soccer history came together for this one. Bebeto, Jorge Campos, Éric Cantona, Paolo Maldini. Back when the internet wasn't nearly as developed as it is now, NIKE and Wieden+Kennedy put out this incredibly lavish film into the world.