I want to have a conversation with an ad-free life form.

This is a column where copywriter Susumu Namikawa philosophically discusses the theme "What is advertising? What can advertising become?" with Nōra-bukuro (kun? san? sensei?). Philosophy begins out of necessity. If that's the case, perhaps advertising needs philosophy now more than ever? Think of it as a Communication Shift exploring advertising's future form. But hey, no need to make it sound so grand—let's just call it "CommuShift." Alright then, here we go.

 

Nice to meet you, I'm copywriter Susumu Namikawa.
I was approached about this series late last year. It came right after my "Communication Shift" column on the Sendenkaigi website, Adtai, ended. They asked if I'd like to write something for this Dentsu Inc. Jin-go column instead. By the way, Communication Shift was a series where I talked with people active in the advertising industry under the theme "Let's talk about the future of advertising." So, if I were to write something now, I thought it might be better not to have it be a dialogue with another human. That's when I thought, "Right, I'll make it a dialogue with something other than a human."

And that's when something crossed my mind: Hitoshi Nagai's book, "What is Ethics? - The Challenge of Ainzhi the Cat." It's a book where "ethics" is brought into sharper focus through dialogue with a cat unbound by human ethical constraints. Similarly, to think about advertising philosophically, I wondered if we needed an imaginary dialogue not just with us, the "advertising-internal beings," but with "advertising-external beings." Through this imaginary dialogue with "advertising-external beings," I wanted to re-organize the materials for thought within myself.

So, what exactly are these "advertising-external beings"?

The first thing that came to mind was a cactus. They can be a bit prickly in their remarks. But somehow, that's not quite right. Something closer... hmm, perhaps a stray dog-like existence... I've always thought it was cool how contemporary artist Shinro Ohtake described meeting someone you connect with deeply in an essay as "spending time like stray dogs sniffing each other's rear ends." I wanted to have a deep conversation with a stray dog—one that knows human life yet remains free.

So I consulted art director Tanaka Iichiro (his catchphrase is "I'm a meaningless blood-filled skin bag"). He said, "Why not just a dog? If you want something that can talk, wouldn't a bag be enough?" And thus, the stray bag was born. Well, a bag will do. It's a creature like this.

Image of a local stray bag
Titled "CommuShifu ~My Intellectual Adventures with the Stray Bag~". Not something as grand as "Communication Shift", just "CommuShifu". Remembering how I made manga doujinshi in high school, I went with "Advertising Doujinshi CommuShifu ~My Intellectual Adventures with the Stray Bag~".

 

By the way, there's this theme I've been pondering for about ten years now: "What is advertising? What can advertising become?" The very act of setting this theme is a structuralist way of thinking, and apparently people in the past didn't think about things this way. Next time, I'd like to start from there and have a chat with the stray bag (san? sama? sensei?).