#1061 2025 · Haraku Ramen (Ismaya Group) · Packaged food / ramen
Haraku made a single 3.5-metre noodle so gamers could slurp without pausing their match
the problem
Online multiplayer matches cannot be paused, and ramen softens and takes time that breaks the player's immersion
background
The insight was a confession from Haraku's own marketing manager, Dewa Ari: 'Gamers don't want to pause their game just to eat.' Online competitive matches cannot be paused, and a bowl of instant ramen demands a messy, time-sucking ritual — wait for it to soften, then stop to slurp a strand at a time — that forces the player to choose between eating and actually playing. The brand's product was designed for the kitchen table, not the desk where a match keeps running.
The obvious move was an ad: tell gamers to eat Haraku during a lull, or run a sponsorship around a gaming tournament. But an ad can only ask a player to behave differently; it cannot change the fact that the noodle interrupts the game. The constraint was physical, not attitudinal, so selling harder could not remove it.
what everyone would do
The standard response was an interruption-behaviour ad: sponsor the tournament, tell gamers to eat in the lull, or reposition ramen as the 'gaming snack.' All of it asks the player to act differently and none of it removes the fact that a short noodle forces a pause. Selling harder could not change the physics of the product.
what they saw
The blocker was the noodle's length: a short strand snaps and needs a bowl, forcing eating or winning. Lengthen it to one three-metre strand, and eating stops competing with gaming — solved in the factory.
the move
Instead of advertising against the barrier, Haraku and BLKJ Havas redesigned the product itself: The One Noodle is a single unbreakable 3.5-metre-long strand, thickened for better flavour absorption, that can be slurped continuously from one end to the other while the match keeps running. The gamer's eating habit is made to fit the unpausable game by changing the noodle's dimension rather than the player's behaviour.
why it works
A conventional ad adds a step: the player must notice it, decide to act, and then the interruption habit must still be overcome. A product-shaped solution removes the friction at its source — when the noodle is long enough to be eaten straight through, no behaviour change is required, so there is nothing for the player either to adopt or to resist. The outcome is observable in the product itself (a single long strand), so the mechanism is verifiable by anyone who picks it up, and the brand's reason-to-buy is encoded directly into the commodity rather than into messaging that can be ignored.
the payoff
A limited-edition SKU, The One Noodle sold out within days (per the campaign); it also won ADFEST 2026's PR Lotus Grande and an ANDY Gold.
where it breaks
It only works where the interruption is the product's fault. If the blocker is price, convenience or taste, lengthening the noodle changes nothing, and the physical constraint must be one a product can actually be reshaped around — most food can, but services and software cannot. It also bets on the niche being real: the design only pays off because unpausable gaming is a large, recurring behaviour, so a smaller or one-off activity would not justify the engineering.
references
- [1]Haraku Ramen and BLKJ Havas allow gamers to eat without pausing via 'The One Noodle'Campaign Brief Asia, 2025campaignbriefasia.com
- [2]Haraku Ramen unveils 3.5-metre-long noodle for gamers who hate pausingmarketech apac, 2025marketech-apac.com