I always like work that does more than behave like advertising. Work that enters culture, creates some noise, and ultimately sells stuff. As we say in the BBDO network, it’s all about doing big things.
These three all do that in very different ways. One turns a promotion into a cultural product. One turns a fact of nature into a defiant piece of storytelling. And one is shamelessly from us, but I genuinely love it.
McDonalds – HappyDoggy
More people have dogs. Fewer people have kids. Great news for dogs. Slightly less ideal for McDonald’s, a business famously built around selling food to human beings.
Which is why Happy Doggy is so smart. It takes a very real business shift and answers it in the most McDonald’s way possible: Happy Meal toys, but for dogs.
That’s it. That’s the idea. Simple, funny, instantly gettable and madly commercial, in a good way.
It’s not a brand doing “dog content”. It’s a brand taking one of its biggest assets and finding a new audience, a new behaviour and a new reason to be loved. That kind of business thinking is exactly what Do Big Things is about.
Grindr – I Wool Survive
Creativity is often just connecting two things that should have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
In this case: gay sheep and high fashion.
In a world that seems to be getting more right-wing by the minute, the idea that being gay is somehow “a choice” is creeping back into the conversation. So Grindr took a swing at it.
They connected a world-famous fashion designer with a German farmer who rescues gay rams from slaughter. Then they turned their wool into a fashion line.
It’s funny, pointed and weirdly elegant. And the lift is tiny compared to the impact it creates.
It gives Grindr a way to make a big serious point without making serious-point advertising.
Whiskas – Lucky Cat
Here comes a shameless plug for an AMV BBDO idea. But it’s great, gang.
In Thailand, people really love cats. The problem is, lots of them show that love by feeding them human food. Which seems like a nice thing to do until you realise it kills them because it’s not formulated for what cats need to eat.
So WHISKAS found the tension hiding in plain sight. People were trying to love their cats, but that was cursing them with bad luck.
So they took the lucky cat, and flipped its meaning. Instead of bringing luck to the owner, it became a reminder to bring luck to the cat.
Then they made it massive, purple and impossible to miss.
Suddenly, “feed your cat proper cat food” became something public, photographable and talkable.
Big, charming, commercial. Great.
Guy Hobbs is ECD at AMV BBDO.
