Do the Insect Repellant Dance

Following the inspirational "Bite it and its soft, soft, soft..." advert, it would be something of a minor miracle if there was another advert on TV featuring a rare and memorable dance routine, I thought.


However, reaching this kind of conclusion is clearly problematic. What if there is another amazing advert, but you haven't seen it yet? The old problem of the tree falling in the forest but no one seeing it.

So, the only thing to do in a case such as this is to spend a great deal of time watching TV, in the hope that another commercial comes up. Thus, as any logical person, I essentially talked myself into doing this.

And, after a lengthy and challenging vigil, the following discovery was made:

The words are "Hang it, hang it, hang it, hang it up, hang it up; Insects will not come; An invisible door screen!"

If you would like to sing along in Japanese: "Bura bura sasete, bura bura sagete; Mushi konazu; Mienai amido!"

Happily, there is even more to this joyful story. The company has another version of the anti-insect product:

"Back door, Front door, Side door; Insets will not come; An invisible door screen! Porch-Use!"


Singalong: "Uraguchi, deguchi, katteguchi; Mushi konazu; Mienai amido!; Genkan-yo!"

Although I realise that not everyone was tempted to copy the chewing gum dance, I am sure that this is due to the quality of competition. However, perhaps you may want to try this one, in the home, office, or just on public transport.

And the discovery of this gem rather reminds me of an aspect of the market. While it is tempting to connect this episode to rare events, option pricing, tail-risk etc, I think that we can all take away the lesson that lightning does, in fact, strike twice.

$10k Chewing Gum Dancing

By now, we all understand the power of advertising.

Following the forceful logic of "Go on, Go on, Isuzu Truck", it was widely believed (mainly by me), that there could be another work of such genius any time soon.

However, as many forecasts made under unpredictable conditions, this short-sightedness has already proven to be foolhardy.

And the new king of commercials comes from the world of chewing gum:

The words are fairly straightforward. Do sing along, if only under your breath. "Kamu to funyan funyan, funyan funyan funyan funyan, Kamu to funyan funyan, funyan funyan funyan funyan...." and so on.

This means "Bite it and its soft, soft, soft, Bite it and its soft, soft, soft".

The fist fifteen times I heard the advert I thought it was saying "Miaowing around with the cat, miaowing, miaowing...", and I also spent some time under the impression that it may have been saying "Hayfever - miao miao miao miao miao miao miao". It is easy to make yourself misunderstood in Japanese.

Now, here is the part where it is really an outstanding advert. The promoters hit upon the inspired idea of offering 100,000 Yen ($10k) to the person who can do the best imitation of the dance. This is likely one of the best advertising investments of all time. On their site you can view the entries (highly recommended), and view an instructional video on how to, and (importantly), how not to do the dance.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Unfortunately, they are no longer accepting entries. However, for the greater good, I reviewed loads of them, and here are some of the interesting ones.

Here is probably the best classroom one - for the ending, mainly. NB - There are also lots of early morning office ones, but they are all bad:

Often people do the dancing at home, but here is the only one with someone wearing a face mask at home:

This one gets the prize for best location (but also check out bored santa in front of random statue):



But this one clearly wins the prize for originality:



And this reminds me a little of the market. It helps to be a contrarian.

Bad Advertising

Here is an advert for a dental clienic which consists of a heart-shape holding a razor blade: