One day, watching TV with one of my friends, I said jokingly to him, who is quite familiar to this industry,

“Well, if they continue this kinda advertising, it wouldn’t be too far that the Shacho (company president) gets fired.”

“Ah, recently, they changed their Shacho, indeed.”

What?  I see…  According to him, the previous Shacho retired and succeeded the position to his son, but recently, the previous Shacho had to make a come-back.

Oh, my...

(Well, I do not know if this advertising had anything to do with this Shacho changes, though.)

The campaign features “A comfortable life without malodor” of “Tonosama (Load) and his family in the future” in quite large scale dramatization.  On the floor of his chateau or castle, a big group of his women and men, and even some Nonjias, I recall, sing and dance in line like musical show, and then Tonosama does “Shu!” (to deodorize the big hall).

It is for the product called “Shoushu (deodorizing) Plug”.

Later, I also saw a piece of film where the Load and his family live with hi-tech robot, don’t know why/for what.

(Different campaign for another product is also funny, known as one of those funny Japanese advertising, that a lot of, somehow, Gaijins show up and powerfully sings the name of the brand “Shoushu Riki (Power)”.  Or, there is another series for mothballs where you see a character of what you don’t know in strange animal costume.  I saw the recent pool-out spot of it the other day, singing funny wordplay.)

In any case, all of them seem to me large scale drama that is quite expensive to make.  While I do not have any data with me to say anything for sure, I suppose amount of media should also be relatively high in this category.

Well, I have to say it is a bit too much.  It is not the kind of advertising that you cannot get what it wants to say, but it makes you wonder why they have to take that approach to say it.  Or, said differently, it tries hard to be funny for its sake.  What made them do so?

Here goes another story of big Ad Agency’s trick or set-up?

But, all the film have a consistent idea and all of them look similar, bunching them as one campaign.  So there must be some intent behind it.

“Just a ‘Shu (splash/spray)’ deodorizes your living space, so innovative and easy that your family can enjoy comfortable fun life.”  That is what they want to convey.  Nothing is wrong with it.  However, as it is, it’s just too generic and ordinary to know why the product is good and how, when you see hundreds of similar kind of deodorizing products out there.

There is no fresh/eye-opening element in its idea, to start with.

Under the not eye-opening idea, they would have tried so many things to make it fly.  After all, it would end up no way but making its execution showy and funny…

“Innovative = Future”, “Family = the Load and his people/family”, “Life with fun = Musical show”, “Living space = Big floor in the castle”, making everything big and showy.

I guess many people still remember advertising from ST for “Shoshu Pot”, funny and cute commercial.  Some may have sung its song together.  I am pretty sure that it gave them a big success to their business.  In my view, it was a clean hit in the category of hard to be distinctive and low share of mind.

Now, I think I got something.  It was their success model:  When you have unique naming for product and unique advertising, it can sell even in this tough category.  This big investment could be a result of stretched or too vague interpretation of their success/experiences.  And, the newly succeeded Shacho tried just too hard to be Shacho?

My advise is to air that “Shoshu Pot” advertising once again.  I bet it sells again.  That was a great piece of advertising.  (I could not find it in You Tube.  Lots of kids show up and sing play-on-word of the name of the product many times, nothing else, but cute and funny.)

By the way, there I guess still remains a strange culture that “TV commercial is for Shocho’s fun”.  It is no longer good old days of high economic growth like in 60’s and 90’s.  It should be cut out now, as later is better than never.  Big Ad Agencies are the only ones making money out of it.