While I'm not in the trenches of the advertising field alongside Sawamoto, I can understand his methods for creative thinking. Sadly the quotes from him provide no real insight into how he got from point A to point B in the design of specific ad campaigns, but that'd be something that I'm sure will pop up in an ad magazine somewhere.

What he talks about, though, is how he lets the ideas percolate over time, "the ideas I forget are boring ones," he says. He'll toss and turn the ideas in his head before finally sitting down to put them together at his favorite coffee shop -- something I've seen many a writer do.

His ads are memorable for a simple reason: they challenge reality in a straightforward way. The above ad for the Tokyo Gas Co. is a laughable situation: William Shakespeare has appeared in your house, along with a translator. She keeps pushing how you need to fix your house and switch to Tokyo Gas Co. Shakespeare can't possibly be talking about that, and the unwitting victim of the ad knows it. And so, we want to see this situation again. We want to see other people pop in. And that we get. Oda Nobunaga shows his head in a household.

Japan has been very good in their advertising, creating campaigns that really stretch on and tell a story. That was why Tommy Lee Jones in the Boss coffee ads were so well-recieved: there was a long-reaching story with plenty of different tales to keep people interested and amused.

And so, that's where we come to the Softbank White Plan ads. We have a nontypical family: Otousan is a Shiba Inu. He's married to a strong-willed Japanese woman. Their son is black. Their daughter is in high school. But for some reason, the reality is not questioned by anyone. In fact, the ads wholeheartedly embrace them. Otousan is a man who inspires awe in high school students, and is a man with a past.

At this point, there have been some 56 ads based around this reality, and more are always coming out. Dale and I follow a YouTuber who uploads the videos for all to enjoy. I keep following the ads, just because I want to learn more about the characters. I want to hear about Otousan's time in Hawaii, where he was surrounded by hot Asian chicks in bikinis. Time and time again, I'm bombarded with information on how the plan works.

But you know? I don't even care.

And that's the beauty of it. I just accept that information, and it's become lodged in my brain, like so many other facts that we pick up. You know at some point they'll tell you all about the White Plan and how you can get it for only 490 yen a month. So, that fact is always implanted there.

I tip my hat to you, Mr. Sawamoto. You've taught me a bit about how to work effectively in the realms of your own created reality. Screw with what we percieve as a normal situation, and just run with it. It's like when I had to read the script for The Royal Tenenbaums: I've become able to grasp why people accept this sort of alternate reality. They want to see just where things can go from the initial premise.