The archive · Brand & Identity · Marketing decision · 2024–2025
KANEBO films 'we sell hope, not cosmetics' to an ACC Film Craft Grand Prix
KANEBO declares it sells hope, not cosmetics, then proves it in 60-second films: lipstick becomes courage, foundation identity — an ACC Film Craft Grand Prix.
KANEBO (Kanebo Cosmetics)
What it had to solve
Kanebo Cosmetics' brand KANEBO has carried the statement idea 'I HOPE.' since 2020, declaring in its communications that it is not selling cosmetics but hope. When the brand launched the serum Kanebo Fusioning Solution in September 2024 and then refreshed its brand film in January 2025, the assignment was to keep every product film faithful to that idea while giving each product its own visible face.
How it works
Since 2020, Kanebo Cosmetics' brand KANEBO has built its communications on the statement idea 'I HOPE.', summed up in the line 'We are not selling cosmetics — we are selling hope.' When the company launched the serum Kanebo Fusioning Solution in September 2024 and then renewed its brand film in January 2025, each product film had to extend that idea rather than fall back into ordinary beauty advertising.
The two 60-second films, created by Dentsu and produced by TYO MONSTER, treat cosmetics as 'the force that moves people'. The November 2024 serum film follows model Nakajima Sena, dancer-actor Moriyama Mirai and judoka Abe Uta as people who doubt themselves, wander and recover their pride; its narration insists that cosmetics look at the heart, not just the skin, and that the skin of people who live with moved hearts is beautiful.
The January 2025 brand film broadens the idea to a crowd: four main performers and more than 100 people move together in a musical-like staging while mirrors catch the light, turning an inner feeling into a visible image. Each product becomes a named virtue — lipstick is the courage to turn your voice into light, foundation the confidence to live as yourself, eye shadow the passion to face the future, cream the strength to keep going — and a model-writer applies foundation as an act of identity free from fixed ideas about race.
At the 2025 ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS the pair of films won the Grand Prix in the Film Craft division, the award for the filmmaking itself, plus a Bronze in the TV film category and staff prizes for direction, cinematography, editing, production and the performers. Both films use a Machiko Watanabe song the brand has employed since 2020, rearranged around children's choirs, and the campaign became the reference for how a purpose slogan can be carried by craft alone.
Why it lands
- The films made the purpose claim testable: once lipstick is 'the courage to turn your voice into light', every frame has to perform courage rather than assert beauty.
- Giving each product its own human virtue avoided the usual brand-film vagueness — four products became four concrete psychological promises.
- The mirror device made hope visible: reflected light held by more than 100 people turned an inner state into a mass image.
- Entering the work in the film-craft division aligned the award with the message — selling hope demands films that physically move people.
What it did
At the 2025 ACC TOKYO CREATIVITY AWARDS, the pair of films took the Grand Prix in the Film Craft division — Japan's top honor for filmmaking itself — with additional staff prizes for direction, cinematography, editing, production and the performers, plus a Bronze in the TV film category. The slogan 'we are not selling cosmetics — we are selling hope' became the series' calling card.
What you can take
Don't illustrate an abstract brand promise — make it the mechanism: calling lipstick 'courage' and foundation 'identity' gives 'we sell hope' something specific to perform and judge.
Since then
The ACC Film Craft Grand Prix — alongside a Bronze in the TV film category and staff prizes for direction, cinematography, editing, production and performance — consolidated a brand idea KANEBO had been broadcasting since 2020. Trade coverage cited the pair of films as proof that a purpose slogan earns credibility only when the filmmaking itself delivers it, and the mirror-lit, choir-backed style became a signature the brand kept returning to in later I HOPE. films.
Sources
- ACC賞「No No Girls」プロジェクトが2部門制覇、ソフとボディメンテがWフィルムグランプリに
- 森山未來や阿部詩も登場、「KANEBO」新CMは誇りを取り戻すストーリー
- 「私たちは、化粧品を売っているのではない。希望を売っている。」KANEBO新ブランドCM『I HOPE.希望』が公開
- ACC賞2025 各部門グランプリ受賞作品が決定
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