Entertainment Division
Excellence Award
LOVE DISTANCE
ITO Naoki
This is a documentary style web advertisement. A couple in a long distance relationship was chosen from the public to run a 1000km marathon between Tokyo and Fukuoka in one month. Their run was broadcast live on the website, which was presented as Blind Branded Entertainment; it was not until they reached their goal that their run was made into a TV advertisement, and the name of the client and the product were revealed.
© Sagami Rubber Industries Co., Ltd.
Profile
ITO Naoki
ITO was born in Shizuoka, 1971. He is constantly expanding his field of work, which includes campaign strategies that utilize all kinds of media, such as TV advertisements, catch copies, art direction, interactive, PR, and others. LOVE DISTANCE which was a campaign for Sagami Rubber Industries Co., Ltd won a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2009. It had been 13 years since somebody Japanese had last won the prize
Award Reason
A couple in a long distance relationship was selected by audition. This website documented and broadcast live their one month journey to reunite with their loved ones. It was not revealed until the end that it was an advertising campaign for a condom maker (of course, the ad does not require the audience to wait so long). Even though it looked a bit “fake,” the work was a real documentary film. The way in which the decreasing distance between the couple was presented had the characteristics of a television program. During the screening session, someone said that “these two cannot break up easily after this;” I agreed at first, but modern relationships are more or less all dramatic and TV-like in that they can no longer be concluded without “a reality created by media.” In that sense, I found this work to be excellent and capture “modernity” very well, and was moved by a sense of greenness in this, which overcame the feeling of fakeness.