British telco Virgin Media has taken a more emotional direction in its advertising as of late, a trick that has not always been easy for utility brands to pull off. Its new ad, created by Adam & Eve/DDB, is about the power of music to bring people together. While that’s not a new sentiment, the…
The U.K. is poised to see a boom in ad spending as the country prepares to ease its remaining Covid-19 restrictions next week, the latest industry report predicts. In the second quarter of 2021, total U.K. marketing budgets expanded for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the IPA Bellwether Report….
Since its 2012 debut, Channel 4’s “Superhumans” campaign for the Paralympics has been creatively lauded but also hugely influential in shifting attitudes about disability in the U.K. Now, ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games next month, the broadcaster is back with the third ad in its celebrated campaign. This time it focuses on the…
In one of the biggest reviews of the year, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is dividing its business with incumbent R&R Partners retaining its role as advertising and marketing agency of record but Grey is named social brand agency to create all social and digital communications. This is the first time in…
Ahead of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, General Mills snack bar brand Nature Valley has started to support outdoor sports. It is attempting to blur the physical and digital world using augmented reality. A pan-European partnership has been formed with outdoor sports entertainment company The Aphetor Games to help Nature Valley engage with Gen Z…
Is it hot in here or is it just your spicy burger? People up and down the country may be wondering that after McDonald’s U.K. introduced its limited-edition McSpicy burger and encouraged people to debate spiciness levels. The brand calls the question of spice “one of the most hotly debated dinner table discussions,” which may…
Over the last year, British communications multinational Vodafone’s marketing team has been forced to learn new ways to work alongside its agency partners, including New Commercial Arts (NCA), to deliver campaign work despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. In October 2020, Vodafone appointed burgeoning London creative agency NCA to transform its marketing communications. In…
The 2021 Emmy nominations are here. And the nominees for Outstanding Commercial this year are campaigns for Amazon Alexa, Apple Airpods, Nike, Apple Watch and Beats by Dre. The five nominees for the 73rd Emmy Awards were announced online alongside the various categories that recognize the greatest achievements in television each year. The winners will…
After England reached their first major soccer final in 55 years at Uefa Euro 2020, narrowly losing against Italy, the excitement of the tournament has been overshadowed by racist abuse directed at three key players. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were targeted on social media after each of them missed penalties in the…
As many countries open up this summer with the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, there are still some people who might feel hesitant to re-emerge in public. U.K. supermarket chain Co-op captures this mood with an ad about a man who overcomes his apprehension and finds unexpected joy in the everyday moments he missed during lockdown….
Scotland has a soda that tastes unlike any other on the planet, distinctive from its rivals in both flavor and its garish orange coloring. Since around 1901, AG Barr has been producing Irn-Bru, which contains 32 flavors, and to this day it hasn’t found a consistent description to explain just how it tastes. Yet this…
After a yearlong delay, questions still remain about how the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo can proceed amid the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak. The decision to ban all spectators and Japan’s state of emergency have cast a shadow over the global sporting event. Despite this, the Olympics aren’t short of sponsors and brands (both official and…
Straight talk about bodily functions is common these days, even in so-called polite circles, though advertising still sometimes hides behind vague metaphors and sight gags for all-demo-friendly messages. But a brand called Garden of Life ran into an unexpected obstruction (pun intended) in launching a campaign for its probiotics: Women apparently can’t say the word…
The BBC’s ad for the Olympics is a feat of craft that captures the vibrancy and buzz of Tokyo–but it almost didn’t happen. BBC Creative, the broadcaster’s in-house agency, began working on the campaign in late 2019, but put it on hold when the Olympics were postponed in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic….
Now that consumers are congregating on the streets of major cities again, a resurgence of out of home ads appears to be following along. And direct-to-consumer marketers are particularly aiming to be out in front. As an ad channel, OOH has always appealed to digitally native DTC companies as an immediate way to generate brand…
MDC Partners is set to expand into Russia having formed an affiliate partnership with independent creative agency Adwise. MDC Partners is the agency network group with includes 72&Sunny, Anomaly, Doner and KWT Global. It has been going through a protracted merger proposal with The Stagwell Group that recently saw shareholders rebel against the remuneration proposals,…
The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has decided to place a focus on investigating the promotion of cryptocurrency as “a key priority”. The organization, which regulates advertising across the U.K., has chosen to focus on such advertising following the boom in popularity of the likes of Bitcoin, Etherium and Dogecoin. These currencies are currently unregulated…
People in France may be celebrating the recent end of their Covid curfew, but the easing of restrictions also opens the door to an age-old problem familiar to women and gender minorities around the world: the lack of safety in public spaces at night. Before the pandemic, a study from France’s ONDRP (National Observatory of…
McDonald’s minimalist advertising has repeatedly proven the adage that less is more. The latest example from the fast-food brand hides its products in pixel art. Created by TBWAParis, the ads don’t have a logo–but McDonald’s Big Mac, Filet O’Fish, cheeseburger and fries are still recognizable through the artwork. Each execution has the tagline “Guess who’s…
Cryptocurrency holds an air of mystique, but a new brand wants to disrupt the category by making crypto accessible to everyone. Cabital, a wealth-management company specializing in cryptocurrencies, has launched its first campaign with the message that anyone can understand and participate in crypto investing. An irreverent film, created by TBWASingapore, introduces the tagline, “Crypto….
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
