Business Iceland, 'Icelandverse'
This campaign has received a tonne of plaudits ('likes'?), and rightly so. A hilarious takedown of the recent 'Metaverse' video for Facebook's name-change, it shows a Mark Zuckerberg-type character explaining, in full wooden awkwardness, the joys of visiting the 'Icelandverse': a tangible, real-life place where people can have memorable experiences. The video went viral and even received a response from the Facebook founder. M&C Saatchi Group was behind the campaign.
Celebrations, 'Lonely Bounty'
Our pick of the Christmas campaign crop for 2021, this work from Taylor Herring stars a lonely Bounty – which, research shows, is the least popular Celebrations chocolate – looking for companionship over the festive period. It humorously taps into a viral trend of ranking Celebrations options in order; the zeitgeist element is something (sadly) missing from most festive campaigns this season. Meanwhile, brand owner Mars Wrigley is, for the first time, offering to take back unwanted Bounty bars from Celebrations tubs and swap them for Maltesers Teasers, as part of the Bounty Return scheme launching in January.
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, co-ordinated lift-off for the return of transatlantic flights
Two aviation giants put their rivalry and historic differences aside for this brilliantly executed campaign that received widespread publicity this month. To mark the return of flights to and from America, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic airplanes take off simultaneously at Heathrow on parallel runways – the first transatlantic flights since the COVID-19 travel ban in March 2020. It was a visual spectacle and a great way to publicise a crucial moment for the beleaguered airline industry.
Shelter, ‘The Good Fire’
A clever and original use of a digital medium to raise money for a good cause, this campaign saw a video featuring a virtual log fire uploaded on to YouTube. By watching 'The Good Fire' – for as little as a minute or all day long – consumers will generate advertising revenue that will be donated to housing and homelessness charity Shelter. The agency Above & Beyond is behind the campaign.
Specsavers, 'My Big Phone and Me'
This may be partly nostalgia calling, but we loved the return of TV prankster Dom Joly this month in this work by Tangerine for the glasses retailer. There's more to the inventive campaign's appeal than the Trigger Happy TV star's return to prank mode, however, as the film skilfully links a popular recurring sketch to Specsavers' raison d'être.
The film is a reprise of one of the sketches that brought Joly, who recently discovered he had presbyopia, to fame in the early noughties. It depicts Joly’s bizarre solution to failing eyesight: buying a bigger phone. In one scene Joly lifts his phone and accidentally knocks an entire afternoon tea off the table he is sat at – to the shock of diners sitting nearby.
The film ends with the message: “Don’t get a massive phone. Get an eye test.”
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