This week’s top 5 ads show B2B done right, when boring is really good—and an updated meme classic.
This week: a new kind of sausage-fest, when boring is good, an internet icon gets an update.
5. Blink Fitness: Gymnosis
Agency: Mischief
Can’t drag yourself to your workout? Blink Fitness has a solution: brainwashing. In a campaign from Mischief, the gym brand next month will be offering in-person and virtual hypnotherapy sessions to help give its members the motivation to exercise. It’s the latest in what may be shaping up to be a hypnosis trend in advertising. Earlier, we saw condom brand Skyn use it in an unexpectedly romantic campaign.
4. Peperami: Peperami Wedding
Agency: Forever Beta; Spider
Why make a commercial when you can infiltrate a wedding? That’s exactly what Jacks Links-owned snack brand Peperami did in this activation for the U.K. market. It held a casting call to find couples who were about to be wed and were willing to have their nuptials branded, Peperami-style. The winning pair were true fans of the brand, and their special day included a sequined green wedding dress mirroring the snack’s packaging with mascot Peperami Animal adorning the train, an Animal-shaped wedding cake and bouquet of Peperami products. Animal even joined the bridal party.
3. Globant: Reinventing Consultancy
Agency: Gut Buenos Aires
In the latest installment of “B2B isn’t boring,” Gut Buenos Aires delivered this laugh-out-loud campaign for global consulting group Globant, which pokes fun at other companies’ cookie-cutter offerings compared to its own creative, agile and dynamic solutions. One ad shows an office crew madly cheering on their co-worker as he strives to hit the 1,000-slide mark on his presentation. Another shows desk jockeys at laptops with only two keyboard buttons—”cut” and “paste.”
2. CSAA Insurance Group: Never Gonna Give You Up with Rick Astley
Agency: Deloitte Digital
Rick Astley’s ‘80s pop hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” and its music video arguably gained even more fame when they were resurrected as a now-iconic meme. Thanks to insurance brand CSAA Insurance Group, online jokesters can now refresh their Rickrolls with an updated version of the original clip, featuring the Astley of today singing the song and dancing alongside CSAA team members. The campaign also includes mysterious billboards featuring QR codes, adorned with Astley’s locks, that lure passersby into watching the new ad.
1. Midea: 90 Minutes of Air Conditioning
Agency: Pereira O’Dell
Air conditioning brand Midea and Pereira O’Dell came up with this solution to the insufferable sticky summer heat—a really boring movie. Pereira O’Dell created “90 Minutes of Air Conditioning,” a 90-minute film featuring nothing but one of the brand’s A.C. units. The film ran at a New York City movie theater last week, and attendees were given free popcorn, soda, a discount coupon to a Midea unit and, perhaps most important, 90 minutes of reprieve from the heat.
💡 Related Reading: 5 Creative Brand Campaigns Pushing the Envelope
This article was written by Ann-Christine Diaz from Ad Age and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].
