The ACC (All Japan Confederation of Creativity) is a Japanese advertising association that hosts one of the most well-known ad awards in the country. There are several categories, so I’ll highlight a few ads that are interesting, unique, and distinctly Japanese in style.
Slow drinker beer glass / Yona Yona Ale
Japanese people love drinking. You can still find plenty of 24-hour izakayas and karaoke bars where you can keep the Japanese-style “pub crawl” going. But honestly, we’re not that good at holding our liquor. We even have lots of hangover cures, and you’ll see hungover people at train stations every Friday.
So… Yona Yona Ale came up with a special beer glass. It looks like an hourglass, and it’s surprisingly tricky to take a sip from. But the company explains, “We want people to enjoy the flavors of craft beer, which are different from major-brand lager beers.” Thanks to the design, you don’t have to chug your beer before it gets warm.
In fact, some izakayas have already started using the glass.Which shows that the company has successfully gone beyond conventional advertising and created a new sense of value.
Crying Onigiri Stecker / Family Marta
If you visit Japan for the first time, you might be surprised by how many different items you can find in a konbini. At the same time, however, people worry about food waste. So this project began with a simple question: “How can konbini reduce food waste?”
The goal is simple, and in a way, very Japanese. They turned rice balls, fish, and bread into characters. One of the major convenience store chains, FamilyMart, started this project. In the past, customers often felt embarrassed about buying discounted items. But now, they can see rice balls crying out, “Help me!”. As a result, people can feel proud of themselves for “saving” them.
It’s a simple idea, but a critical one.
Team mate / Otsuka seiyaku Calorie mate
Calorie Mate – they call themselves “Balanced Food” – targets high school students who are deeply committed to their school club activities or preparing for the Japanese university entrance exam. Their ads are always full of passion, rich storytelling, and technical skill. They used a POV style this year, filmed from phone screens a few years ago, and released COVID-related films around 2021–2022.
I’m not sure how much you can understand the films with AI-generated subtitles (though they might surprisingly work well), but I believe you can see that they’re expressive even without subtitles. The films depict the friendships between club members, showing a range of emotions such as joy, frustration, and conflict. They are always pushing the boundaries, just like their target audience, who are also pushing their own boundaries for the future.
From Phone Screen film