I've seen my fair share of soap commercials on Japanese television although the one above seems to be back from the 1970s and perhaps inspired by the anime "Heidi" (was almost expecting Clara to suddenly jump out at the screen). That one is for Gyuunyuu Sekken（牛乳石鹸）which translates directly to Milk Soap which personally sounds better than the official English name of the company, Cow Brand Soap (potential slogan: Go ahead! Smell like a cow! Cow Brand!).
Unfortunately I couldn't find the ad for which Yuko Imai's（今井優子）"Day-Up Heart" was used as a campaign song, and I only found out about the association through the YouTube commenters. But it's quite the snazzy jingle. A track from Imai's October 1993 album "Fun Fun Fun", it was written by Mayumi Hara（原真弓）and composed/arranged by Masahiro Ikumi（幾見雅博）, and it's interesting for the fact that it seems to have incorporated some of that 90s City Pop and a bit of 80s Eurobeat sound.
However, I should correct myself. According to the ad (which doesn't contain "Day-Up Heart") below, Cow Brand came up with a shampoo called Day-Up. The jingle still wins for bringing in that fresh up-and-at-'em sound to get ladies feeling the same way after washing their hair.
Fireminer here. The Japanese do have an obsession with Heidi, which mostly comes down to the anime directed by Isao Takahata. Like, whenever there is a new Resident Evil game, Capcom is going to make a CM spoofing Heidi.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you've chosen a good song to write about. And from the first few bar, I somehow just know that this is the perfect song to use for a shampoo commercial. Though I don't think I heard that much 80s Eurobeat in it.