Subject
50 articles
Apple | Shot on iPhone | 2025
"Shot on iPhone" started out as a camera ad for the iPhone 6s and has now run for 10 years, winning the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in 2025. It's a textbook example of a long-running brand campaign.
TIDE | Collateral Stain Stories | 2025
To prove it had the strongest detergent around, Tide went looking for the toughest stains out there—and ended up at Marvel. But instead of targeting the heroes, they went after the people in the background who get messed up right alongside them.
日本マクドナルド | 特別じゃない、しあわせな時間。 | 2024
No dialogue, 20 seconds long, and just the folk song "Akatonbo" playing. That's all there is to this video—and it's been watched over 100 million times worldwide. Nothing really happens, yet something about it hits you. That's the kind of ad this is.
KRUNGSRI FIRST CHOICE | WHAT THE FAST! | 2024
Making up with a partner. Talking your dad into something. Apologizing to your boss. The most awkward conversations in life, wrapped up in the split second two motorbikes pass each other. Three 15-second films built on that idea won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions.
earth music&ecology | いいことある服。 | 2024
To mark its 25th anniversary, earth music&ecology has gone all in on the word "purpose." After spending about a year with everyone involved rethinking what makes the brand "itself," they landed on this film: a woman wakes to her morning alarm, touches her clothes, and finds herself surrounded by flowers and butterflies. Honestly, I have no idea where I'm supposed to feel excited.
APPLE | RELAX, IT'S IPHONE: R.I.P. LEON | 2023
The lizard you're watching isn't moving. Worst case scenario, it's dead... wait, it's alive! That thirty-second swing from despair to joy lines up perfectly with iOS 16's "undo send" message feature.
SOTETSU | A TRAIN OF MEMORIES | 2023
Two minutes, one continuous shot. A story that unfolds entirely inside a train. A father and daughter drift apart and grow close again across 12 years, all while the train car sways around them. That's all it takes to bring you to tears.
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.
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.
エフエム群馬 | 思い出話キヌヨさん | 2022
The moment I saw the title "Reminiscing with Kinuyo," I felt something nostalgic and warm. How did a local radio station turn "reminiscing" into an ad? Winning the GRAND PRIX means something must have really clicked.
BURGER KING | NONARTIFICAL MEXICO | 2022
No models, no hair and makeup, no beautiful locations. Just black-and-white photos of ordinary people on Mexican streets, biting into a burger. Those photos became billboards — and even made it into a museum.
CHARITÉ BERLIN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL | Printed by Parkinson's | 2020
A 3D printer is shaking. It's been injected with data from a patient's tremors.
BURGER KING | CONFUSING TIMES | 2020
2020 was a year when everyone felt confused. Burger King made a radio ad that put that exact feeling of confusion into words—things like catching a sneeze with your elbow, then high-fiving with that same elbow. And the twist is, it was actually an ad for the Impossible Whopper, which tastes like meat but isn't meat. Presenting confusion as confusion, honestly, turned out to be the most honest approach of all.
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.
IKEA | THISABLES | 2019
Don't change the furniture—just add a part. That was all it took.
TESCO | Food Love Stories | 2018
This is the comeback story of a British supermarket that won the Grand Prix in the Media category at Cannes Lions in 2018. A campaign that was supposed to talk about food quality ended up winning by telling stories about human connection instead.
ペディグリー | SelfieSTIX | 2018
You want to take a selfie with your dog, but your dog just won't look at the camera. Pedigree decided to seriously solve this small, everyday problem.
Skittles | Romance | 2017
This is the 2017 version of Skittles' 30-second Super Bowl spot, from the brand known for "the finger thing." A boy keeps throwing candy at a window—looks like it's shaping up to be a romantic scene, but it's not just his girlfriend who ends up catching them. That reliable punchline strikes again.
WOWOW | WOWOWに入りましょう。 | 2017
"♪Should I join the hmm-hmm-hmm~" Yuya Yagira hums to himself on a train platform, and the lyrics are so mysterious that Kasumi Arimura can't help but call out to him. I've been watching this series for a while, but thinking about it again, this really is a celebrity commercial, isn't it.
ユニクロ | Because of Life, We Made LifeWear | 2017
Two strangers meet by chance at a desolate gas station. The overused phrase "it's like a scene from a movie" really does fit this footage perfectly.
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.
リクルート フロム・エー ナビ | 熱唱 | 2016
Right at the start of 2016, a new series for From A Navi kicked off with a back-and-forth between Mayu Matsuoka and Panda Ichiro. Matsuoka hears Panda Ichiro singing live and blurts out "Tenryu!" - that surreal moment was the best part.
ライオン | 働く女性への応援歌 | 2016
It's a train at night. Women heading home begin to sing, one by one. Set to a reworked version of the song "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido" ("That Wonderful Love, Once More"), the new lyrics quietly unfold: "I worked hard today, no excuses."
東京メトロ | TOKYO HEART | 2015
Whether Gakki is cute or not doesn't really matter here (though she totally is) — what you should really pay attention to is the high school girl's acting at 0:32.
JINS | はじめてのJINS | 2015
Just three seconds. But those three seconds are incredible. Yui Aoi's expression from 0:15 to 0:18 is simply irresistible.
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.
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.
ファンタ | ファンタだよ！TVに出よう | 2015
Collecting the "wouldn't it be great if..." wishes of teens in their 10s and then airing the chosen ones as nationwide TV commercials is quite the ambitious move. The boy who drew a face on his belly and ate marshmallows was great, but this one is also incredibly funny.
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.
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.
江崎グリコ | smile.Glico | 2014
Satoshi Tsumabuki, dressed up as a clown, goes around turning grumpy people from all over the world into smiling ones, one after another. Because it's a long-form video, watching it leaves you with a feeling like you just finished a movie.
CARLTON DRAUGHT | Slow Mo | 2011
Set to Puccini's grand opera, the ad shows men's ridiculous moments at the pub unfolding in extreme slow motion. A peanut flies out of someone's mouth. A backside lands on a bar stool. It's all so beautiful that you can't stop laughing.
PEPSICO | Sandwich | 2010
There's an actual town in Kent, England, named Sandwich. Walkers took over the whole thing. Turning a place name into a campaign feels almost too clever to be fair.
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?
BUD LIGHT | Real Men of Genius - Mr. Hot Dog Eating Contest Contestant | 2007
In 2007, this radio spot from Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" series paid tribute to competitive hot dog eaters. DDB Chicago turned the sheer resolve it takes to eat 24 hot dogs in 12 minutes into a song that's both ridiculous and full of affection.
BUD LIGHT | Real Men of Genius - Mr. Hair Gel Over-Geller | 2007
In 2007, Bud Light went all-in on laughs with a radio spot. This is one entry from the legendary radio series "Real Men of Genius" — a gloriously dumb 60-second ad that goes all out praising a guy who uses way too much hair gel.
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.
ARISTON AQUALTIS | UNDERWATER WORLD | 2006
A washing machine ad won the Gold Lion at Cannes and ended up in the Louvre. A washing machine ad.
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.
ホットペッパー | アフレコCMシリーズ | 2002
There's a world here that I, not being from Kansai, could never have come up with on my own, and I deeply relate to that. But at the same time, I don't think this is something only a Kansai person could make—I think it's something only one genius, Takaaki Yamazaki, could have made.
NIKE | TAG (Play campaign) | 2002
In a subway station, a man being chased dives onto a train. The doors close right on his pursuer's arm, just out of reach. Before you know it, the whole city seems to be caught up in one game of tag.
ジョージア | 明日があるさ | 2000
On 8/26, 2000, Coca-Cola Japan's canned coffee brand GEORGIA used Kyu Sakamoto's song "There's Always Tomorrow" in a commercial, and it became an unprecedented revival hit. Both the commercial and the campaign turned into a huge talking point. When it was later made into a TV drama, the first episode pulled a 29.0% rating — the seventh-highest debut rating ever for a commercial broadcaster's drama series, and the highest ever on Nippon TV. That's how big this was.
BUDWEISER | WASSUP | 2000
60 seconds of friends shouting "WHASSUUUP!?" into the phone at each other. When this commercial aired during Monday Night Football in 1999, it somehow turned into a greeting used all over the world.
トヨタ | ファンカーゴ | 2000
This is a 2000 Toyota FunCargo commercial. It's built around a rapid-fire narration that crams in benefit after benefit, then lands on the line "Where I go and what I do is my own business" followed by the sound logo "Fun-Car-Go!" Despite being packed with information, it somehow doesn't feel annoying. This ad is now 18 years old (as of this writing), but the approach would still work perfectly well today.
コンタクトのアイシティ | 透明人間 | 1999
In 1999, an ad with absolutely wild energy hit Japanese TV. It's 60 seconds of glasses-wearing guys who get their hands on an invisibility drug and go streaking through the city, completely naked. There's a suppository, floating glasses, and more ridiculous details than you can count — yet somehow it's hilarious, and somehow it makes perfect sense. A true classic.
VOLKSWAGEN GROUP | LUNCH-BREAK | 1996
London, 1996. This was the era when Volkswagen was taking on the UK market around the theme of "affordability." The title is "LUNCH-BREAK." What happens during a lunch break? There's something in that humor and sharp eye for detail that feels distinctly BMP DDB Needham.
MAXELL | INTO THE VALLEY | 1990
In 1990, cassette tapes were losing ground fast to CDs. MAXELL and HHCL's answer wasn't to explain sound quality—it was to talk about misheard lyrics.
LOCTITE | ROCKING CHAIR | 1990
Chile, 1990. A LOCTITE glue commercial starring a rocking chair. The only thing we know for sure is that it won Gold.