Six ads I've loved recently

An ode to my ad agency days

I see the first 1.5 years of my working life as a bit of a traumatic blur. I entered the corporate world in a role that severely underpaid me, was exploited by colleagues who only saw me as cheap labour, my ECD called me a ‘child soldier’ at one point, was laid off for the bullshit reason that they had to ‘cut costs’ even though I was the lowest paid person in the office, and was asked to stay and serve a notice period of 2 months because “it’s the decent thing to do and don’t you want to see some projects through?”. They refused to give me a raise throughout the 1.5 years I was there, and when I left I found out the 30 year old intern who got his role through his executive level dad got promoted to a permanent role.

It’s 2024 and ad agencies are a dimming spark of what it once was. The glory days are gone. There’s no pride in saying you stayed in the office until 5am working on a pitch — it’s lowkey loser behaviour because that so-called pitch is just a way for the clients to get more ideas and never use your agency anyway because you were too expensive. The “fun” booze Fridays, annual parties and random office events that look so great on the grid are only a flimsy bandaid to mask the fact that all the staff are underpaid and top management like the MD and ECD are earning literal millions a year. It’s not worth it, it’s soul sucking, and you learn grit, yes, but at what cost? I could go on and on about agency life.

There is this one thing that it has taught me, though. And that is that the ads that get it, get it. There is beauty in nuance, in really understanding a brand. There is beauty in simplicity and being able to condense a brand into one tagline. It’s art.

I may hate the advertising world but I love when an ad hits the sweet spot. These are six that have lived in my head rent free recently:

1. Nikon Peru - Don’t Give Up on the Real World

   Everyone wants a seat at the proverbial AI table but not everyone is deserving. The problem with using AI in marketing nowadays is that it’s almost akin to greenwashing. You do it for brownie points in the corporate world, a cheap way to weasle into marketing awards. AI currently sits as one of those checkboxes you tick easily just to be able to say you’ve “kept up with the times” and are a “tech forward brand”.
   

   To the normal consumer, AI has not embedded itself into our daily lives (yet). Generating images using AI is not something most people find themselves doing. What this ad does is comment on the role of AI and have a bit of that fancy AI cake but still provide a sense of hope rooted in reality. It’s empowering and oddly emotional, highlighting the beauty of the natural world — and honestly I can think of no better brand to do it than a camera brand! The single minded proposition is clear: there’s surreal, awe-inspiring beauty to be found in the natural world. Leave it to the brand behind the “I AM HOME” brand video to pull off something this original and clever.

   

   

   

2. IKEA — Proudly Second Best

   Gaaaah, I just love this one. It’s one of those print ads that tell a story and leverage on the brand’s identity. It’s genius because you can clearly see the thought process that went into this, and it’s so original yet obvious that anyone who sees it instantly gets it. Ads that are able to do that have such an it factor and such confidence in their brand’s image.

   

   I think it went something like this:
   >IKEA is a furniture brand
   >People use furniture
   >Families use furniture
   >Families consist of children
   >Children are troublesome
   >Children like being near their parents
   >(Not confined to furniture)
   >((Furniture is cold. A parents’ love is warm.))
   
   The tagline “Proudly Second Best” is so good — it conveys IKEA furniture as something that is part and parcel of a home, but will never compare to the irreplaceable warmth and love of a parent’s hug, support, guidance. All while showing IKEA’s extensive catalogue of family-friendly furniture.

   

   

3. Nissan Ariya — Powerfully Peaceful

   

   The Lofi girl is the millennial’s icon. Anyone who went to high school or university between the years of 2015-2019 sought solace in the omnipresence of the Lofi Girl (which in itself has so much extensive lore that it has its own dedicated subreddit, Twitter, made headline-worthy disappearances over the years and have such a loyal following that any change can cause a stir). She is a cultural emblem of those long all-nighters, symbolising songs to “relax to”. I can’t imagine an online world without her. These millennials are the very target audience that would be thinking of buying a car at the time this ad was created (2023).
   
   Nissan leveraged the cultural icon of the lofi beats girl to create their very own. Here a woman is driving a car endlessly (the stream is a total of 4 hours long). The car, of course, is Nissan’s newest EV which boasts quietness and a 300mile range. The anime style is clearly a nod to Nissan’s futuristic Japanese style. Of course, Lofi was the perfect style to convey “powerfully peaceful”.

4. Burger King — The Most Important Meal of the Night

   

   There is something so homey and real and human about this one. From personal experience, some of my best memories and photos from a night out are when we’ve stumbled out of a sweaty nightclub, haphazardly gotten takeout from a nearby fast food chain and are sitting on the side of a road or in front of a shuttered American Eagle at 4am in the morning, flushed, a bit tipsy and yet so so present in the company of each other. There’s always a fry on the floor; there’s some sort of burger being passed around. It’s so special that they were able to highlight that unique glow that the air has at 4-6am after a night out. The sweet spot between night and day - it’s neither. It’s the present. How magical is that? Maybe that’s why they say the moment before or after a sunset or sunrise is magic hour.

   

5. Heinz — Ketchup Phone Case

   I think everyone has seen the hype around the rhode phone case: it looks a little suggestive (perhaps intentional to generate neutral/negative buzz), it’s a weird and utopian testament to our phones being a second appendage that has to constantly be in our hands, so much that we need our makeup embedded in it. Also, the evergreen tactic of creating a solution for a problem you didn’t know you had (hard to access lip balm? since when was that a problem??).

   This one’s a great example of reactive marketing. Leveraging on a viral instance and inserting yourself into the same space while injecting a new tone and humour to it. It’s a parody of the lip balms as the ultimate necessity - in the same ways the ketchup packet is in no way a necessity, but it’s just funny to look at. This one tickled my brain in the right way.

   

   

6. British Airways — There’s A Little Holiday In The Things You Buy

   An example of an ad that finds its starting point from copy, which is so rare nowadays. You think in an age of rapid consumerism and short attention spans brands would have already forgone this technique but I LOVE how simple this is and how well the visual works to bring out the puns in the copy.

   

   
   The double meaning of ‘little holiday’ to mean literal miniatures (yes look a little closer!) to ‘a little holiday’ meaning a brief getaway, a vacation is so sweet. “In the things you buy” to link it back to their rewards and points system is so direct yet packed with meaning. Every word means something and feels intentional. The one thing I hate most about taglines is to fit in words for the sake of it.

The one thing that all of these ads have in common is the idea of universal specificity. The Taylor Swift factor if you will. Each person believes their experiences are specific and unique to them, so when a brand is able to distill those ideas into an ad meant for everyone, it instantly forms a connection to the product, creating authentic, genuine intrigue.

I love a good ad, so may make this segment a regular thing! Let me know in the comments any ads that stuck out to you recently.

x v