Best Ads of the Week: Deutsche Telekom’s quirky Euro 2024 ad & Oreo’s hamburger menu hack
There’s also a Target Lady campaign starring Kristen Wiig and a fashion collab between Sherwin-Williams and Dapper Dan.
You know the 3-bar menu on most websites? Oreo wants to claim it as its own in a new campaign.
Every week, The Drum picks the top global campaigns from our Creative Works. You can submit your new work here.
This week, Leanne Morgan and Laura Geller Beauty taught women over 40 how to embrace their age, Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy fronted Loewe’s latest commercial and Planned Parenthood advertised vasectomies at the NCAA Final Four tournament.
Deutsche Telekom: No Fiber. No Football by Adam&Eve Berlin
The Uefa European Football Championship event kicks off in Munich on June 14 and Deutsche Telekom, as an official sponsor, has already started rolling out its advertising campaign in a weird yet wonderful way. In ‘No Fiber. No Football,’ viewers get a glimpse into a world where football fans aren’t able to celebrate together in public places due to a lack of fast internet – which sounds like the premise of a typical sports ad. But what makes this spot so unique is the array of strange scenarios.
For example, there is an older naked man is sitting in a pub with an empty glass. In a split-second, viewers are then transported to a different reality where he is fully clothed, enjoying the atmosphere in the pub. Another take sees a huge crowd chanting outside in a town square, before shifting to the same area desolate with only a small dog roaming around. The sharp cuts between the scenes ramp up the excitement as to what unusual, contrasting scenario might be on show next.
Dulux by Ogilvy
Dulux has revealed an artistic campaign that sees 12 iconic books become the inspiration for unique paint colors. Titled ‘Heritage Editions,’ the range draws inspiration from the likes of Frankenstein, Moby Dick, Little Women and War of the Worlds.
Created by ad agency Ogilvy, the covers were made by hand to demonstrate the application of paint. Each book has also been physically curated and the spines act as paint swatches.
Oreo: The Oreo Menu by VML
Every internet user has encountered it before – the ‘hamburger menu,’ the three-bar navigation icon on mobile and desktop websites. It’s clean, it’s simple, and it’s been a staple of the world wide web since 1981. But Oreo, the beloved biscuit brand, wants web surfers to see something else. The brand proposes: what if the menu more closely resembled a stack of Oreo cookies instead?
Enter ‘The Oreo Menu,’ a new campaign from the Mondelez International-owned brand that aims to change the way consumers see this universal icon for good, plus a gamified couponing component. To enforce its claim that every single three-bar menu icon on the internet is an Oreo cookie stack, the brand has allowed people all over the US to turn Oreo Menus into promo codes for cookie offers at OreoMenu.com.
Laura Geller Beauty: Own Your Age
Laura Geller Beauty, a makeup brand catering to mature skin, is squashing stereotypes and embracing age diversity with its humorous new campaign, ‘Own Your Age.’
The campaign honors National Mature Women’s Day, which the brand created to celebrate women over 40. Central to the campaign is a commercial directed by Quinn Wilson, which depicts the humorous lengths older women often go to in order to appear younger, from taking selfies to using Gen Z slang. In the ad, comedian Leanne Morgan plays an age empowerment coach named Dr Vick (a nod to Progressive’s Dr Rick commercials), who helps mature women in an ‘Aging Women’s Support Group’ to embrace the aging process.
Loewe
Once again, Spanish fashion house Loewe has snapped up huge talent to star in its advertising campaign. Last year, it garnered praise for featuring actor Maggie Smith in its Spring/Summer 2024 pre-collection campaign. Now, it has enlisted Aubrey Plaza and Dan Levy.
What makes the spot so brilliant is that the brand has shown how in tune it is with people’s struggle to pronounce its name. Doing this through a fake spelling bee that continues through the decades is a genius move. By leaning into the confusion, it cleverly kills two birds with one stone, showing its funny side while also setting the record straight once and for all on how the hell you say Loewe.
Planned Parenthood
As March Madness sweeps the nation, it seems that Planned Parenthood isn’t content to sit idly on the sidelines. New billboards advertising vasectomies have touched down in Arizona, just in time for the NCAA Final Four face-off this weekend. “The ball’s in your court; vasectomies happen here,” reads one cheeky slogan. “Total game changer, get a vasectomy,” reads another. The signs are strategically placed along the highway route to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, where the Final Four showdown will take place.
Why vasectomies? Arizonans have reportedly been clamoring for more male-focused contraception options, especially in light of recent legal developments. With the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision stirring up uncertainty around abortion access in the state, many residents are seeking alternative methods of family planning.
Sherwin-Williams: The Loneliest Color by Verytaste
Who says mustard isn’t a high-fashion hue? Sherwin-Williams and Dapper Dan would certainly disagree. The duo unveiled this week ‘The Loneliest Color,’ a new fashion collection inspired by the brand’s least popular color, ‘Kingdom Gold SW 6698.’ Dapper Dan, a legendary Harlem couturier known for pioneering streetwear that repurposed luxury fashion logos, serves as creative director and designer of the collection, which comprises eight wearable art pieces that blur the lines between home decor and haute couture while proving that mustard is anything but lonely.
Each one-of-a-kind item is infused with Dapper Dan’s signature flair and a generous splash of Kingdom Gold. The collection includes a classic velour zip-up jacket, an elevated bucket hat emblazoned with his iconic initials, a vintage-inspired luxurious velour vest and the first-ever soccer kit designed by the fashion icon himself. Each item, from the textured recycled nylon spandex ensemble to the embossed leather jacket, showcases Kingdom Gold SW 6698 in all its glory alongside complementary hues like Brave Purple SW 6823 and Habanero Chile SW 7589. The entire collection is currently up for auction on eBay.
Target: Target Lady
Target and SNL fans, rejoice. On Tuesday, supermarket chain Target announced Kristen Wiig is bringing back SNL’s ‘Target Lady’ for the return of Target Circle Week.
That’s right. Fans are in for a nostalgic treat as well as a whirlwind of savings as Wiig revives her iconic character for Target’s latest ad campaign, celebrating the return of Target Circle Week. The deal event runs from April 7 to April 13 and offers up to 40% off hundreds of thousands of spring items plus a one-day-only 10% off Target GiftCards deal.
In each delightful vignette, Wiig is once again “on the clock and ready to rock” as Target Lady. With three spots already released – ‘Big Morning,’ ‘Dream,’ and ‘Peanut Butter’ – the campaign leverages nostalgia and laughter to demonstrate how customers can reap the benefits of Target Circle Week. Accompanying Target Lady’s antics is the iconic tune Baby I’m a Star by Prince and the Revolution.
Expedia: Finding Liverpool
Liverpool FC’s Dutch captain Virgil van Dijk has signed with Expedia to curate a travel guide and feature in a brand campaign film all about his adopted home city. Titled ‘Finding Liverpool,’ the three-part series gives a glimpse into the football team’s global fan base and how the club, city and communities make Liverpool such a special place to visit. The series features Trent Alexander-Arnold, Wataru Endo, Shanice van de Sanden, Missy Bo Kearns and Fuka Nagano.
Launching throughout April and May, there will also be a special Jürgen Klopp episode coming in next month. The travel brand is the official travel partner of Liverpool Football Club and has teased that future collaborations could see van Dijk appear in brand advertising campaigns, editorial and social media content, PR activations and brand engagement events for the wider Expedia Group’s house of brands, which includes Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo.
WhatsApp: Happiness and Love: A True Story on WhatsApp
A world increasingly divided by conflict and distance finds solace in unexpected places. One such place is WhatsApp, a simple messaging app that has become a lifeline for millions facing separation and hardship. In WhatsApp’s latest ad campaign, ‘Happiness and Love: A True Story on WhatsApp,’ the platform shines a spotlight on the profound impact it has on keeping families connected in times of conflict.
The short film, directed by the Iranian-American filmmaker Mohammad Gorjestani, follows the story of Layla Faraj, a 20-year-old student at Barnard College. Faraj managed to stay connected to her family through a WhatsApp group chat amid the Syrian civil war, an ongoing armed conflict that began amid the Arab Spring protests of 2011.
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