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INCYMI: June

FIFA has a very strict clean stadium policy for the world cup, forbidding non-sponsor branding. This causes an issue when your venue is named the Levi’s Stadium. Levi’s found a loophole by covering their name with a giant white sheet in the shape of their brandmark, giving them free publicity during one of the biggest TV events in the world.

As an affordable alternative to official FIFA apparel, New York CityMayor Zohran Mamdani released a NYC-inspired World Cup jersey. Priced at cost and designed by local illustrators. Someone on the internet once said that every story about Mamdani looks like a clip from a Disney movie called Kid Mayor where he just solves every problem.

There’s currently a floating convenience store on Toronto’s waterfront. The public art installation was commissioned to celebrate Toronto’srole as a World Cup host city. Something about connectivity and the universal nature of needing chips at midnight.

While Canada is dealing with their shops floating away, England has dragons on their hands. For House of the Dragon’s third season, HBO Max sent an eight-metre animatronic dragon soaring over London. Call up St George, it’s happening again.

To advertise the horror flick, Obsession, Focus Features created a cool series of increasingly frantic and bizarre billboards. Although it turns out the film did not need any help with exposure as it has now made 300 times (literally) it’s budget and keeps getting extended at the cinema.

A24, the independent studio built on being willing to take a chance on ideas and creatives, has decided to throw all that entirely out the window and nuke their reputation, announcing an “artificial-intelligence research partnership” with Google Deepmind. The studiosays they’re doing it for their artists, while the director of their biggest hit to date called it “genuinely harmful”.

Competing for the most Australian sentence ever written, Gage Roads Brew Co. has created a surfboard full of beer. The board is filled with 10 litres of Gage Roads Summer Ale ‘Single Fin’, and is both drinkable and surfable.

Never one to leave a market untapped, Coke has designed chopsticks in the shape of its classic contour bottle. ‘Cokesticks’ (no comment) were designed to address the issue that soft-drinks go well with a lot of western food, but not a lot of Asian cuisine. If you can’t get your product to pair, at least get your logo.

What’s better than getting wine drunk and arguing at a book club? Lots of things, but it’s pretty great. Une Femme, a maker of canned and bottled wines, launched a book club with Penguin Random House, pairing a wine with a book written by a woman.

The very hungry caterpillar is now hungry for couture (we’ll workshop that joke), as Dior has turned Eric Carle’s children’s classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar into luxury capsule collection. We can’t even be sardonic here, it looks cool as hell.

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INCYMI: April

Chanel is playing the hits, as their latest campaign features Margot Robbie in an homage to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Come Into My World’, to mark 25 years since the release of the track and less importantly, to sell handbags. Michel Gondry – who created the original video – returns to the directors’ chair and Kylie herself makes an appearance.

Westfield is turning up the volume for Mother’s Day. The shopping centre’s new campaign pays musical tribute to all the ways our mums show their love, with a re-imagining of 80s power-ballad and go-to karaoke jam, Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.

Times change, which is why we don’t rock mutton chops and (regrettably) no one calls anything ‘the cat’s pyjamas’ anymore. For World Down Syndrome Day on March 21, CoorDown launched “Just Evolve,” a campaign designed to educate the world on the harm done when people insist on still dropping the R-word, by running through a list of things we used to consider fine.

Last year, Polaroid started a campaign pushing back against digital fatigue in our smartphone-saturated world. On April 16, the brand held the first of four annual Analog Days, going offline to encourage creatives to put down their phones and go touch grass… then photograph it on film.

After being accused of using AI in one of his animations, artist Ori Peer wanted to prove a point. In the kind of spite-fuelled creativity only humans are capable of, Ori created an open call for artists to create their own anti-AI disclaimers. His website offers an array of disclaimers from over 100 artists, for anyone to download.

​Motion Sickness, a Kiwi creative agency, have made a literal blood oath to champion human creativity. In a video featuring employees slicing their fingers, they offer an invitation to make a symbolic (or literal) commitment to ideas made by humans.

In a world of billion-dollar endorsements, sometimes the only important review comes from those around you. New Zealand biscuit company Griffins, new brand platform is a quietly lovely series of 24 micro-documentary snapshots capturing a day across Aotearoa.

They say all publicity is good publicity, but studies have found that when a brand appears as litter, people are willing to pay less for its products. Sea Cleaners is offering brands an outdoor campaign, in that your product will be removed from the outdoors.

Cushelle have unveiled a limited-edition magazine printed on toilet paper that you can read, use and flush. You can technically do this with a regular newspaper too, it’s just slightly harder and generally frowned upon.

Version explores the untapped horror behind butt-dialling in a fun homage to slasher films, Look Behind You, directed by Candyman (the remake) director, Nia DaCosta.

Just before Easter, nearly 12 tonnes of KitKat bars (equalling 413,793 chocolate bars!) were stolen after leaving a production site in Italy. Ride on, you crazy, chocolate-y, Ocean’s eleven – live everyone’s dream of diving into a room of chocolate.

KFC has decided to launch outerwear to promote their new menu, namely, a puffer jacket filled with real pickles. The Pickle Puffer is a wearable puffer filled with sliced pickles and brine, with a built-in straw. Obviously. Keep up.

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INCYMI: February

For Valentine’s Day, real relationship confessions were displayed on billboards across London, as part of Philippa Found‘s viral project, It’s Complicated. Would you be able to go about your daily life, knowing your darkest secrets were on a sign along someone’s commute?

Have you ever read an R-rated book on public transport, convinced everyone is judging you? That’s cause you’re a pervert – do it at home like the rest of us. For the self-conscious literary freaks, the advertising duo Susie and Helena have you covered with Smut Smugglers, reusable book covers that let you read your filth incognito.

There are lots of ways to get over a breakup, the most common of which is drinking heavily. To help anyone looking to go down that path, Angry Orchard Hard Cider launched the Ex-Change program, send them whatever junk your ex never bothered to come back for and receive a free case of cider.

Regarding terrible drunken decisions, would you drink a kebab flavoured Guinness? We’re just kidding, who would create that? It’s actually a Guinness flavoured Kebab. Which would’ve sounded worse if we hadn’t made you think about the alternative first. A UK pub-chain are rolling out this menu item for those brave and drunk enough.

Every year, election ads are a race to the bottom of how much mud-slinging and fear mongering you can legally get away with. UK-based Reform Political Advertising has decided to target members of parliament with the same loopholes they exploit, launching a fake newspaper to highlight the lack of regulation in election advertising.

Skin pollutants from living in big cities, apparently a real thing and not just invented to make you feel bad, can cause wrinkles, eczema and hives. To demonstrate the dangers, Skincare brand NIOD launched the “New York Facial” substituting the usual serums and creams with NYC toxins, like pollen, car exhaust fumes, presumably the weird black sludge in the Gowanus Canal..

Sick of SPF ads looking clinical, pharmaceutical and full of people frolicking on a beach unaware of the danger lurking above, Slather, the SPF brand by Melbourne agency SICKDOGWOLFMAN, is back to remind us that the sun is not your friend. Turns out the way to break out the practical effects and portray the sun as a gruesome peeler of flesh without any pushback is to do it all yourself!

Telstra has built a synthesiser from reclaimed e-waste, encouraging people to give their old devices a second life. Suggesting the cooler alternative that if you donate your phones instead of dumping them, you can get the guys behind Frontier Psychiatrist to shred on them.

When you think about museum pieces, early web pages don’t really come to mind. Mostly because classifying the internet as old would make us old, which can’t be right. The Victoria and Albert Museum  has acquired the first-ever Youtube video, because of it’s significance to the internet’s history.

Pokemon turns 30 today! Celebrate this milestone by checking out an archive of original art, tuning in to the official livestream, or the traditional way of letting your 10 year old wander around the city, challenging random adults to a fight.

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INCYMI: December

John Lewis has put forward a short and sweet tale of fatherhood, keeping it’s place among the reigning kings of holiday warm and fuzzies. Although we don’t envy John Lewis’ marketing team having to start in…. we assume June?

For those who prefer Love Actually over Die Hard for their seasonal watch, Waittrose has served up a Christmas rom-com. The overly-expensive British grocery chain’s ad is an homage to Notting Hill, or the real Christmas wish of dating Keira Knightly.

In a heartwarming tale that could’ve come straight out of uncle Walt’s cryogenically frozen head, Disney has released a short film about a little girl whose doodle comes to life after Santa mistakes her drawing for a holiday wish.

Disney+ is celebrating the 35th anniversary of Home Alone by bringing the fictional Little Nero’s Pizza to life, decking out LA’s Prince Street Pizza in nostalgia. Keep the change, you filthy animals.

Apple invited members of the public to design their own Christmas tree illustrations (on an ipad of course) to be projected on the side of Battersea Power Station’s 101-metre-high chimneys. One of the winners is a 7-yr-old, because there is some good in the world, who hopefully doesn’t go mad with schoolyard cred.

New Zealand’s largest greyhound adoption drive has gained unexpected celebrity backing, with The Simpsons lending Santa’s Little Helper to help rehome more than 2,000 dogs before greyhound racing is banned in 2026. Ad agency, Special, created the festive push for Greyhounds as Pets (GAP), using the iconic character to urge Kiwis to bring home a retired racer this Christmas.

Apparently, one in five Australians admit to smuggling their own condiments into restaurants. Now this was research done by a condiment company, so take that with a splash of ketchup.  If you’re on the many freaks smuggling in sauces, Hellman’s has you covered with the BYO Bow, the world’s first mayonnaise-dispensing bow tie.

When we needed them most, they returned. The Muppet Show is coming back to our TV screens in February with a 50th anniversary special. A new teaser trailer revealed that the most sensational inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational reunion will air in February.

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INCYMI: October

Gushers has resurrected a piece of ’90s nostalgia, reimagining their fruitheads commercial as a Cronenbergian nightmare about a cursed child actor seeking revenge on the commercial director who made him this way. The spot is a more effective body-horror anthology segment than it has any right to be.

Branching out from Valentines day, Sweethearts Candy has released a limited edition “Ghosted Sweethearts” for Halloween, featuring blank candy hearts with no messages. Things are dire if even the candy hearts are getting cynical.

Jason Vorhees has returned in his first official on-screen appearance in 16 years, in a short horror film set within the Friday the 13th universe called ‘Sweet Revenge.’ Okay so technically, it’s an ad for Angry Orchard Hard Cider, but don’t let the truth get in the way of good news.

Sleep wellness brand Hatch has created a faux horror movie trailer, Goodnight Phone, warning of the dangers of doomscrolling before bed. There’s no horror movie scarier than just opening the news app.

Would you pick up a random ringing phone in the middle of the city? If you correctly thought nothing good would come of that, congratulations, you’re surviving a horror movie. Would you like to see the suckers that aren’t? To advertise The Black Phone 2, Blumhouse put an interactive billboard in the middle of London daring passerbys to pick up the phone.

Haven’t we all been in the middle of the Melbourne CBD and wanted to start screaming? 19 Crimes is finally answering this important need by putting up a screaming booth in the middle of the Crown River Walk. You could win a role in an upcoming horror movie – and it probably acts as great stress relief.

An LA cinema offered free tickets to a special screening of Yorgos Lanthimos’ new flick, Bugonia, to anyone who was either already bald or willing to have their head shaved in the foyer. It fits thematically; this wasn’t just a theatre manager having a weird day.

California has passed a new law banning streaming advertisements from being louder than the primary video content being watched. Rare win for common sense.

On the other end of the annoying interruption spectrum – Instagram is introducing skippable ads to reels. Have you ever been on YouTube, waiting for the timer to count down so you can watch a music video, and thought how you wish you could do that on all social media, but the ad revenue wasn’t shared with the creators of the videos they run ahead of? Well, the group of chimps mashing buttons that run Meta have got your back.

Want to know this season’s hottest new trend? Destroying capitalism. Rise up comrades. Due to some kind of fun SEO glitch, Target has been advertising Karl Marx‘s Das Capital alongside its fall women’s accessories. #justgirlythings.

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INCYMI: August

What’s the worst drink you’ve ever purchased? Malört, an American liqueur, has leant into their drink’s polarising taste by asking drinkers for brutally honest descriptions of the spirit. Resulting lines range from “Fermented Back Sweat,” “A Nail Polish Enema” and “Curdled Shame.” Head to their website to vote for your favourite – “Liquified Existential Dread” got our ballot.

IKEA is getting its mattress reviews straight from the source, sleepers. The furniture company had a group of sleep-talkers stay in a showroom over two nights, recording their subconscious appraisals.

For Dramamine’s 75th birthday, the brand has created a documentary dedicated to a product that the anti-nausea company has helped make obsolete – the barf bag. “The Last Barf Bag” interviews doctors, flight attendants, historians and collectors about the air travel staples.

The holiday creep is getting more and more severe, Easter bunnies are out on boxing day, Christmas gets advertised basically whenever, and Halloween ads are now in August. Dusk has started advertising their Halloween collection (already!) with a spooky love story.

Designed to play before the latest I Know What You Did Last Summer, Sarah Michelle Gellar teamed up with The Fisherman to hash out that whole ‘you murdered me’ beef and advertise Uber Eats. The new movie is a fun time, by the way. Note: that review does not say good, it says fun.

Rent getting tough? Groceries too expense? Get your dog to start contributing and become a gig worker! Petbarn and Uber Eats have teamed up to launch the world’s first dog delivery driver. A trained dog, called Bodhi, was given a customised car that allowed him to deliver products to confused humans.

Finland’s capital, Helsinki, has created the first-ever sightseeing tour for dogs. To welcome those visiting for the World Dog Show, the “Doggy Route to Happiness” offered four-legged tourists and their owners a map to dog cafes, dog-islands and, inexplicably, a DJ set.

Chewing a piece of gum for five minutes provides a viable sample for testing whether you could be a stem cell or marrow donor. To boost donor numbers, Wrigley has released Hero Gum, a chewing gum that doubles as a DNA-collection method.

South Australia has officially banned junk food advertising on public transport, in an attempt to curb kids’ exposure to unhealthy food and drinks. Although the real cause of unhealthy food ending up in cupboards is grocery shopping on an empty stomach, that’s harder to ban.

Research found more than 80% of Australians don’t want to be disturbed on their morning commute. To protect that peace, Kit Kat has released a limited-edition range of “Commuter Camo hoodies” designed with patterns that match public transport seats and let you blend in with the décor.

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INCYMI: June

After a 14-year break, the Final Destination series crashed back into cinemas with a marketing campaign built on reminding everyone that this franchise is responsible for most of our deepest anxieties.  The latest instalment was advertised on the back of logging trucks, setting off every millennial’s impulse to immediately change lanes.

It’s said that having child is like having your heart outside of your body, and you’d naturally be thinking of all the ways that heart could be dropped or accidentally left somewhere for a dog to eat. Life 360, a location sharing app, has dealt with that natural fear and turned it into a mini-musical.

Want to get your message directly into peoples hands? And bathrooms? On The House group is offering free, accessible period products, paid for by renting out advertising space on their boxes.

The Chicago Sun-Times is under fire for using AI as the sole source for their summer reading recommendations, resulting in a list of books and authors that don’t exist.

What does space sound like to you? The Star Trek theme? Existential screaming? Odds are, your brain just queued up Johann Strauss II’s “The Blue Danube” – forever linked to the cosmos thanks to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and, more importantly, The Simpsons. To celebrate Strauss’ 200th birthday, Vienna Tourism beamed a live performance of “The Blue Danube” straight into space.

Amazon has doubled it’s ads this year, and now the service you pay for offers only slightly less ads than the tv stations you don’t pay for. Yes, that is the sound of a guillotine sharpening you hear.

Netflix has swooped in to save our beloved friends at Sesame Street, after cuts to U.S. public broadcasting almost wiped it out in previously unseen levels of Saturday morning cartoon villainy. You can’t get better PR than a headline announcing you’ve saved Sesame Street.

Brazilian wine brand Otto Wines has turned water into wine. After a devastating flood almost destroyed the Brazilian wine growing region, Otto Winery found a century-old letter from one of their ancestors amongst the wreckage, and has turned this torn up piece of history into their new branding.

Mentos is reviving its iconic ’90s jingle with a Gen-Z twist in a new series of ads made just for TikTok.

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INCYMI: April

Meet Tasmania’s new AFL mascot – a tassie devil named Rum’un. He’s built out of old school uniforms and he can eat footballs, because sometimes people make the right choices. Rum’un will embark on a tour across Tasmania, meeting communities and representing the club, like some kind of screaming, footy-eating Queen Elizabeth.

NZ pizza chain Hell Pizza has gone full goosebumps with their newest mascot being a possessed(?) ventriloquist dummy encouraging Kiwis to do terrible things. But think more social faux-pas than murder.

As an apology for the whole misogynistic murder thing, Scotland has released a special “Witches of Scotland Tartan” memorialising the thousands of individuals – mostly women – who were persecuted during the 137 years of the Witchcraft Act.

Sex sells, but anatomically correct sex education famously struggles to find funding. Facing closure, London’s Vagina Museum orchestrated a ‘vagina heist’, using below-the-belt sections of classic art to draw attention to their fundraiser.

Speaking of, everyone’s mad at Trump – including an arctic island solely inhabited by penguins, now being held accountable for their woke agenda. None more so than the country stuck to the USA like a conjoined twin tethered to a rotting corpse, Canada. The Canadian government put up anti-tariff billboards in the U.S. along the highways of enemy territory (red states), trying to gently de-program everyday republicans. This is alongside a TVC campaign on home turf urging empathy and togetherness… and hockey.

On the funnier side of international trade relations, the Canadian Prime Minister teamed up with Mike Myers for a campaign ad full of Canadian in-jokes we’re too Australian to understand. Our dollar dropped too guys, where’s Margot Robbie telling us to buy Vegemite in protest?

Traditional Irish pubs proudly wear the family name above the door – but what happens when there’s no one to pass it on to? Heineken has stepped in with a global recruitment campaign to help pub owner Josie McLoughlin find a buyer for his beloved bar. The catch? You’ve got to be named McLoughlin too.

Every year the Chicago river is dyed green for St Patricks day, so to promote the reboot of The Toxic Avenger, about a guy who becomes a superhero after being exposed to green toxic waste, Troma Entertainment rented a boat and showed off the new makeup. Which is one of those great line up of fates that you just know had a marketing team running to get approval.

Nintendo has dropped the first Switch 2 commercial featuring ageless vampire Paul Rudd recreating his pre-fame SNES commercial from 1991.

A man has successfully won his case against an Indian cinema chain for showing too many ads – not all heroes wear capes.

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INCYMI: February

In the lead up to Valentines Day, Who Gives A Crap launched a free one-off break-up service on February 13. To help the surveyed 57% of Australians struggling to end a relationship because they don’t know what to say. Although, personally, getting dumped via a toilet paper company would hurt more than an awkward conversation.

Our favourite felt friends are doing what any struggling theatre actors would do, and taking odd jobs to pay the bills. The Muppets teamed up with Booking .com for the Super Bowl. Although they were strangely sidelined in their own ad? Which is not how you treat an icon like Miss Piggy.

On the other side of Jim Henson’s workshop, Elmo and On Footwear are reminding runners of the gentler aspects of running and fitness.

Here’s a question you never thought you’d have to answer, would you carry around a plush toy of your own genitals? To encourage people to discuss reproductive health, Sexual Wellbeing Aotearoa has launched ‘Emotional Support Bits’, encouraging participants to draw their “bits”, which are turned into custom plush toys.

Neon has made their new horror release The Monkey available for church screenings, making it the first movie to play in churches and theatres simultaneously. Youth pastors are always trying to show that they’re cool by using Gen Z slang, but the secret to really showing you’re cool is by showing an R rated horror movie in your church.

Wasting no time in adjusting to the political winds, Disney has updated its content warnings to align with the new right-wing administration’s DEI stance, or lack thereof. The warning before particularly racist depictions in their old cartoons no longer has the part about how “These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.” Fitting.

Amazon’s ad revenue increased 18% last year. Turns out all of us who refused to pay for the ad-free subscription out of spite are still contributing to Amazon getting more money. When the 5 or so shows I’m watching wrap up their final season, that’s it! I’m out!

Advertising is setting a great precedent of putting your money where your mouth is, and that mouth is on a slowly-burning planet. Ooh Media was rightfully called out for running a billboard featuring fossil fuel propaganda – while lauding themselves for being a founding member of Ad Net Zero.

To draw attention to clothing waste, Northern Playground, a Norwegian clothing brand, has created a dress from garments thrown away by influencers. The “Worn Once Dress” is made from repurchased items that influencers wore once, then sold. They’re able to reclaim their items, with the caveat that they promise to wear them again.

To advertise their St Patricks Day milkshake, McDonalds has brought back Uncle O’Grimacey, a character not seen since the 70s. It’s just a green, kind-of-reductive-stereotype version of Grimace, but objectively that name is very fun.

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INCYMI: December

John Lewis has a very sweet and touching story of sisterly love, only diminished by their track record of bringing viewers to tears. They have no one to blame but themselves for being held to such a high standard.

Skewing the usual warm fuzzies and instead going for the classic tradition of turning on your friends and family, Waitrose has gone all Agatha Christie and released a two-part festive mystery. Featuring Matthew Macfadyen (consistently listed as “from Succession” but to millennials he will always be Mr Darcy) as the requisite quirky detective, see if you can guess the culprit before tracking down the second part.

Norway’s postal service goes behind the music with the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll life of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in their mockumentary “The Reinfall”.

Lets start rockin’ around the KFC, as the fast-food chain has released limited-edition vinyl records made from their bucket lids. Kentucky Fried Carols takes inspiration from the Colonels music career, turns out he released three Christmas albums, cause people would buy anything in the 60s.

Boots is facing backlash for their Christmas ad showing Mrs Claus as the real brains behind the operation. What’s the catch, you ask? What’s the part making people mad? Just the concept of a woman… running a business? Being a little sassy about it? We’re not 100% sure cause we don’t have skin that thin.

Coke, however, is in trouble for a legitimate reason. This year’s holiday output recreates a series of ads from the 90’s using AI monstrosities, driving their delivery trucks straight into the uncanny valley.

Every year the rest of the world gets delightful Christmas ads, in Australia, we get a reminder the sun wants us dead. This year’s memento-mori comes from Ogilvy Health, who placed a giant melanoma on a beach in Bondi that grew as it sat in the sun, like some kind of Lovecraftian abomination.

New Zealand is now, officially, the best place in the world to have herpes. We could elaborate on that, but it’s funnier if we don’t.

Just before Black Friday, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT raised awareness about shopping online as someone with blindness or low-vision, with a pop-up that removed shoppers ability to see what they’re buying. All items were hidden and their packaging only displayed limited text descriptions – demonstrating very real disability barriers with the ‘see how you like it sucker’ school of empathy.

Part of the appeal of It’s A Wonderful Life is not just the fact it’s public domain so it can be shown on TV a lot, but the idea that our lives, in ways often unnoticed, have a profound impact on those around us. In that spirit, the Centre of Contemporary Photography has released a photobook memorialising ‘the most photographed person in Australia’ – 92-year-old photo-booth technician Alan Adler. Bringing together every test strip Alan has ever taken in his 50-year career as a photo operator, the book is a celebration of those overlooked people who keep art alive.

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