Maybe we need to have a little talk, Japanese office workers, because this hard-partying, drink-‘til-you-drop philosophy of yours seems to have gotten out of hand.
That’s the intervention-style message, anyway, from a series of public service announcements backed by a popular nightclub chain in Tokyo. But the ads fall squarely on the tough love end of the spectrum by using photos taken of drunken “salarymen,” as white-collar businessmen are often called, passed out in public places.
“Armed with white duct tape, printed headlines, logos and a call to action, we turned every sleeping drunk into an anti-drinking billboard,” according the video above that accompanies the campaign.
The ads, from Ogilvy & Mather, Japan, carry the hashtag #nomisugi, which translates roughly to, “too drunk,” and are addressing a longstanding problem. While Japan is known for its nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, urban centers are also dealing with an unintended consequence: some cubicle jockeys so habitually stressed out that they drink to excess in their downtime.
On a typical weekend, the ad’s making-of video says, there are “thousands of people sleeping on the streets” by sunrise. Those aren’t homeless folks, but employed, suit-and-tie guys who got wasted and ended up face planting in the subway.
This unsafe, and certainly uncomfortable, phenom has been documented in recent years in magazines and online with lots of embarrassing photos of office workers slumped over, splayed out and dead to the world. A Facebook page called I Love Salaryman in Tokyo features a rogue’s gallery of bad decisions.
The ad campaign, for Yaocho Bar Group, aims to encourage moderate drinking or at the very least discourage bingeing. Public shaming is one way to go about that. (There’s no indication that the photos are “dramatic reenactments”). Add social media – locals and tourists who have seen the ads are sharing them on Instagram and Twitter – and maybe that makes a dent?
It’s a cautionary tale, at any rate, and likely no one’s idea of flattering portrait.