"Is it too late now? No, now is the time!"—teaching the art of commercial advertising.

Man, this Cannes fever just won't break! Every day is hot—no, scorching—but how are you all holding up? Going to the Cannes Lions, that festival of creativity, definitely gets you fired up, right? Like, "I'm gonna pull off some huge project!" That kind of drive, or resolve, or whatever—it just gets you pumped. But once you're back in Japan, it's straight back to the practical work. So today, we're tackling the quintessential practical task: CM publicity. The theme? "CM pubs, right? Doesn't it matter who does them?" "No way, it totally does!" Let's get started~.

The era when commercials themselves were entertainment pieces is over.

I think exciting commercials exist in every era. But nowadays, clients increasingly demand solid results: "So? Did it sell? Is it selling?" If you try to say something like, "Well, the commercial got good reviews...", the client will likely shoot back, "Forget that! What about the business results? Results!" And yeah, they're right. Absolutely right. Maybe because of this, lately I've noticed more commercials that feel like explanatory infomercials. But attention is still crucial for commercials, so I imagine creatives are caught between wanting to be edgy and impactful while pleasing clients, feeling the squeeze.

I really want to help those creatives from a PR perspective too. That's when I suggest, "Hey, how about a CM pub, boss? We'll give you a good price!" But clients with lots of commercial slots often brush it off: "Even if they feature our CM on an info show, it's just one extra 15-second spot, right? Nah, forget it, it's too much hassle." But you know, when commercials get featured on news or information programs, consumer reactions really do change. Why is that? You might wonder. I think it's because traditional commercials feel like corporate "sales pitches," creating a distance with viewers. So the goal of this CM Pub is to tone down the "sales" aspect, get people saying "This commercial is awesome!", and build a relaxed connection.

But this CM Pub isn't easy. As mentioned earlier, the media side—TV stations and such—also thinks, "Why run commercials on news shows? Just put them in the commercial breaks!" After all, their basic business is getting paid to air ads, so introducing them within programs requires some ingenuity. That's where we PR folks come in. Let's dive into that ingenuity!

To become a valuable source of information for the program itself.

Commercials are just commercials, right? They're for "sales." If that's the case, conveying them only benefits the company. So, what if we reframe this into information value from the consumer's perspective?　What do consumers actually want to know? Thoroughly considering that is the first step. For example, wouldn't you be curious about "How are commercials actually made?" or "What's it like for that celebrity to work on a commercial shoot?" The key is to structure information from the consumer's perspective and tie it into commercial-related topics. The technique used here is providing behind-the-scenes making-of videos.

The most common type of commercial still features celebrities. Naturally, the commercials themselves are shot through a meticulous process involving detailed direction. It starts with casting the right talent, then involves various specialists for makeup, hair styling, costumes, and sometimes even singing or choreography. Preparing all this for just 15 seconds makes it an incredibly condensed timeframe. Setting up the filming location is also quite demanding. A set is built in a small studio. For example, if the setting is a tiny 4.5-mat apartment, they imagine the resident's personality and meticulously craft every detail: the furniture, curtains, kitchen area, magazines being read, half-eaten snacks, and even plastic bottles. Seriously, this is true craftsmanship.
Outdoor location shoots are tough too. Finding a spot that matches the director's vision, scouting to see if it's suitable, worrying about the weather on the day of the shoot, all while keeping an eye on the talent's schedule – honestly, it's incredibly stressful. That's what commercials are like. But you wouldn't know that just by watching the commercial, right? Wouldn't it be interesting to hear some behind-the-scenes stories? That's where the idea for these "making-of videos" came from.

Is the making-of video more important than the actual commercial for PR people?

So, PR people enter the commercial shoot to film this making-of video. But of course, the set exists to shoot the commercial, built on all the hardships mentioned earlier, so they want to eliminate any distractions. Yep, that makes us the troublesome ones—more like the main nuisance, really. We desperately want to capture even the slightest natural expressions or words from the talent. So, between takes, we try to approach them and strike up a conversation. But to the commercial crew, it often looks like, "What the hell? Those guys are bothering the talent when we're busy!" That's our lifeline, though. If we can't get those real words and expressions here, the program won't use us. That's why we're so desperate.

Sometimes we get told, "Alright, we totally get your point! Fine, we'll make sure the production team properly films the behind-the-scenes footage for you." But honestly, I try to decline that. Because that footage is always unusable (oops, maybe that was a bit harsh. Gotta wonder if I'll get yelled at again?). The thing is, the people filming it are still thinking from the commercial production side, so they end up shooting super cautious footage. Like, just a distant shot of a talent resting in profile, or a close-up of the set with too many people in it, or just the usual "Good morning~, Thank you for your hard work~" lines. If you were the viewer, wouldn't that be pretty uninteresting? So, in those moments, we end up acting almost like entertainment reporters.

Of course, making the talent uncomfortable ruins everything, so our know-how really lies in that consideration and reading the room. Also, as a bonus point, the biggest headache during making-of shoots is the "blue screen." When everything—background and costumes—is blue for compositing, it just turns into incomprehensible footage. On those sets, we need to get creative from a different angle.

Adding that extra touch to behind-the-scenes videos and commercial launch events!

Even if you shoot a great making-of video, you'll want to plant some extra material to broaden the conversation. Here are a few examples of additional touches we've actually added.

First, a commercial for a cosmetics brand. The featured talent wasn't a conventional beauty model, but actually a woman with a background in comedy. She was cast precisely to dramatically showcase the before-and-after transformation effect of the product. We recognized this casting decision itself as an interesting angle and focused our content strategy around it. In the making-of video, we filmed only the back of this talent and created a "Who Could It Be?" edition. Of course, we included a reveal comment for the "Actually, I Am..." edition to explain the answer! This added a kind of "prank entertainment" element, making it easier for TV stations to feature the commercial within their programs. Naturally, we also filmed the "standard" making-of footage as usual. As a PR professional, it was standard practice to give the TV stations both versions so they could choose which to use. The result was a win-win-win: consumers found it entertaining, TV stations loved it, and the client whose commercial was featured was satisfied.

The second example involves staging at a launch event. This was for a new topical analgesic patch commercial. Since we couldn't film behind-the-scenes footage during the commercial shoot, we aimed to capture rare expressions and candid comments from the talent during the launch event. We wanted to create content that consumers would genuinely want to see, thereby increasing the footage available for news programs to feature.

To achieve this, we planned a stage performance with the talent's cooperation. We wanted a hugely popular, notoriously busy celebrity to say, "Pain relief patches really are a lifesaver!" Our solution? We brought in an intense foot massage therapist to the event. On stage, the therapist massaged the celebrity's soles. As you might imagine, media cameras captured the celebrity's face contorted in agony!

Their "Ow ow ow ow!!!! (tears)" expression even drew chuckles from the reporters themselves. If the media laughs, the subsequent viewers will too, needless to say. Yes, the final punchline was exactly as you'd imagine. We got them to say, "If I have to go through this kind of pain, I'm perfectly fine with just this patch. Thank goodness, thank goodness!"
As these examples show, commercials certainly create a specific worldview. However, from a PR perspective, the goal is to go beyond that framework and sprinkle in content that broadens consumer interest. This time, I focused specifically on commercials featuring celebrities. By delving into their personalities and adopting a bird's-eye view, we can uncover unexpected connections to products or services. Alternatively, we can symbolically emphasize connections that already feel compelling. This approach can effectively stir consumer interest. Looking at things from both a bird's-eye and a bug's-eye perspective reveals how much PR-worthy content can be created.