Kobayashi Healthcare International:Beyond Breath
KWG and I teamed up once again, this time for the Japanese breath-care product Beyond Breath. It’s a funny twist of fate: I had actually picked up this product during my trip to Japan, only to return home to New York and land the campaign to bring it to the US market. The challenge was to craft a visual language that would introduce and elevate its visibility for American consumers.
Beyond Breath has a sleek, distinctive package housing vivid green tablets. To make it stand out in a crowded sea of generic breath-care brands, we elevated the product itself into the main hero character of the spot. I built a hand-drawn, black-and-white environment where the vibrant product becomes the focal point-keeping the world high-contract, visually exciting an full of energy.
Take a look at the style frames that defined our visual direction:
To support the wider launch, I built out a custom icon system tailored for the digital ecosystem. By bringing the spot’s unique illustrative style directly to Kobayashi’s website and social platforms, we created a consistent, recognizable visual thread that tied the entire campaign together.
Not only did the clients love it, but it shows in the numbers:
96.6% video completion rate on non-skippable :15 OLV (38% above target)
69% over target reach goals, with impressions beating targets by 5%
3x industry benchmark lift for ad recall, and 3.5x for brand awareness
87% of buyers were entirely new to the category
To top it off, the Beyond Breath campaign has been selected as a finalist for the 2026 U.S. Self-Care Marketing Awards.
Credit
Client: Kobayashi Healthcare International
Agency: KWG
Creative director: Carolyn Oppenheim and Megan Bliven
Executive producer : Gray Hirshfield
Producer : Michael Tockman
Audio : Hobo Audio
