Zakki Mokuroku

Additional Japanese Ads

Here are some additional samples of Japanese TV ads that use original songs or the parody songs.
There are lot of similar TV ads in Japan, especially around foodstuff ads.

 

The ad for Shin Nihon House, a house reform company.
Ikuzo Yoshi is the famous Japanese singer.

 

 

This ad for a sponge cake of Bunmeido is the parody of "Can-can".
Since the first ad was created in 1962, this ad has been continuously remaked and is still broadcasting today.

 

 

The ad for Nenshou-kei Amino-shiki, a sports drink like Gatorade.
The song says that you don't have to do such an excecise but just drink Nenshou-kei.
This ad was remaked seven times, each showing an amazing excercise performed by the actor.

 

 

The ad for Poporo Saraspa, a pasta made specially for salads.
The song is the parody of Sarasponda, a folksong commonly sang by Japanese elementary students (it is said to be the Dutch folksong).

 

 

The ad for Shaki-tto Corn, a canned corn. It is the product of same company as Poporo Saraspa from above.

The common factors about these musical ads can be seen in their YouTube comments (although they are in Japanese).
Many people say the ad and especially the song brings back old memories. Some even say they still hum the melody even today.
This shows how an ad with cactchy music can be both impressive and both unforgettable.

TV Ad - Long and Short

Looking from the Japanese perspective, the biggest difference of Japanese and American TV ads is their time lengths. The average time length of an American TV ad is about 40 seconds. However, in Japan, the average time length of an TV ad is only about 15 seconds. It is very rare to see an ad that exceeds this time.

This difference directly affects the contents of ads in each country. In America, we see a lot of ads with short stories (or a skit, I guess). Below is my favorite example, which is the ad for Pepsi Max.

 

On the other hand, Japanese TV ads tend to use music to catch the audience's interest, as I mentioned in the post before. There are ads that use songs by famous artists, but there are also many ads that use original songs. Below is the Japanese snack TV ad.

 

Speaking of that, in Japan, we call these songs used in TV ads (regardless of whether its original or not) "CM song", meaning "commercial song". It is a popular way of grouping a song other than basing it on its genre, but it seems like I still have not hear the work in America yet.

Designing an Impressive Character

Designing an original character can be an important part of creative work. An attractive character can be an iconic symbol of your ad or goods, which makes it impressive and unforgettable.

The great example of this is Kerrogg's characters like Tony the Tiger or Coco the Monkey.
Kerrogg's cerial boxes definitely stand out from others in the supermarket shelves because of their package using their unique characters.

So, what makes an unique character? Of course there are several factors that makes a character unique, but let me tell you this.

A unique character can be identified just from a silhouette.

Okay, let's check this out.

 

 

Yes, the son of that famous family. Okay, here's next.

 

 

The world's most famous mouse.

 

 

Hmm...this Japanese game character may be the second world-famous mouse now...
Of course, it doesn't have to be an inhuman character. You can create unique silhouette in other ways.

 

 
The famous hero from Marvell Comics. That unique hand pose is his trademark.

 

 

An extra. Yes, he is a real person.

CD Jacket 2

 
 
 
Another Jacket I designed for my other friend's CD Album Parody. The concept of the work was "musical toybox". I especially like the Queen of Notes (not Hearts!) playing the flute.

Vision and Audio

From my last post about TV ad audio, I examined about differences between sights and sounds.

It is oftenly said that people gain 80% of the outside information from their sights. But does that mean that eyes are the most superior sensory organs? I must say that's probably no. While sight provides us lots of information, its valid range is unexpectedly small.

Theoretically, the angle of human sight is about 110 degrees. However, the angle that humans can actually see consciously is within the range of 50 degrees. It is less than one sixth of a complete circle. As I mentioned in the previous post, in such a reality, it is hard for us to recognize a visual ad if we are already paying attention to something else.

On the other hand, we can recognize sounds from any direction. Our ears do not have a blind spot. Even when there is a screen that hides the figure visually, we may still hear the sound. When we work on computers, we usually do not use our ears that constantly (unless we are accessin YouTube or something like that). Therefore, it is easy for us to catch an aural ad.

As a conclusion, eyes are superior to ears in terms of precision, but ears have a wider cover range. I believe the aural information is more efficient to create a prompt for the audience to watch the ad.

CD Jacket

 

A jacket that I designed for "G3", my friend's CD Album.

Are TVs becoming Radios?

As we all know, numbers of people, especially in the young generations, are getting their information from the internet these days.

I learned last year the most of the men and women in twenties are taking dairy news information from internet sites. Actually, I do so as well.

However, I noticed that even when I am working on my computer, I still left the TV on. I asked few others and it turned out that they were the same too.

Therefore, in a situation like that, even when our eyes are looking at the computer screen, the TV still broadcasts audio to our ears. I think you already noticed, but that's exactly what radio does.

We generally understand that the merit of the TV ad is that one can show transferring images. As a matter of nature, advertisers try to show their appeal visually. But what if the audience is looking somewhere else and misses the image? It's like fishing with strong line and rod but with no bait or even a hook.

I think the modern TV ads need to have more catchiness on audio side.

Catchy and Inexpensive

It is quite unexpectedly difficult to make a creative ad with low budget. Since the main goal of advertising is to persuade the audience and not to save budget, these two aspects usually do not become compatible to each other.

The TV ad series of Boraginol, the hemorrhoid ointment from Amato Pharmaceutical Products is a rare example of the ad that realizes this.

Take a look at this ad. The main compositions of this ad are only few snaps of images and the actors' lines. Since 2002, 17 ad series has released by today.

The strong point of this ad is that the audience can understand the product with just listening to the audio. I will talk further about this next time.

Impact of Blue & Red

 
Speaking of restroom signs, I once found this website that posts series of unique restroom signs all over Japan.
(Sorry! The page is written only in Japanese, but I think its simple enough to look through!)

Here are some of the ones I thought it's interesting.

  

The silhouettes are drawn in an abstract form. Kind of like a brush stroke.

 

 

Is is just me, or do people especially like to personify cars?

 

 

I personally like these types of designs that use icons that represents the object and not the object itself. We can still easily understand the gender difference from the colors.

 

 

Wow, that's clever. The fishes are representing the directions as well.

 

 

Oh year, now that's really easy to understand.

 

Looking at the overall website, I noticed that even the shapes of the signs are greatly changed from silhouettes of man and woman, the blue and red (or black and red) colors compensate its understandability. Therefore, color is an important aspect of design.

However, still, signs that rely only on colors cannot be an universal design, since not all people can see colors accurately. The wall between functionality and creativity seems to be thicker than I think.

Annoying Creativity

Creativity is an important aspect for designing, but not always.

Take a look at this.

 

Yes, it's the toilet sign we see almost every day. Now take a look at this.

 

This is what I found at a shopping center in Singapore last summer.
Yes, I can see that it is a toilet sign...but it takes me a extra few seconds to recognize.
I think there are three main problems here.

1. The sign is too big to see it as a whole.

2. Only half of the shape is exposed.

3. The sign itself is dim and does not catch people's eyes
     (Personally, I want it to be colored in blue and red)

I must say that a person who designed this is forgetting the most important factor for signs, which is "easy to understand." I believe that signs are one of the most excellent designs in terms of practicality.

In Japan, there is a word called "kinou-bi", which means "functional beauty". It refers to things that are designed very simply in order to serve its function. I think there are things that people should abstain their creativity to design. Or in other words, a person who can design a new toilet sign that still keeps its original functionality is a truly creative person.