Hails & Fails – December 20th 2024
Phew. What a twelve months that was. A well-deserved break is in order! But before we shut our laptops and open our first bottle of Baileys, here’s the Brazen creative team’s round up of the best creative campaigns of 2024! There were so many incredible contenders. Do you agree with our picks?
HAILS
The Not So Happy Meal
With half of all children feeling pressure to be happy all the time, McDonald’s decided to use creativity to help: by removing the iconic smile from millions of Happy Meal boxes for the first time in the brand’s history.
Launched during Mental Health Awareness Week, the limited-edition boxes came with various stickers depicting a host of different emotions with the aim of prompting children to express how they feel, if not happy.
Copy on the box read “It’s OK to not feel happy all the time” and a QR code directed families to resources to help them facilitate conversations around emotions.
Rebecca Cohen – Head of Social, Influencer and Content: “The McDonald’s logo has got to be one of the most recognisable in the world, so to flip it on its head for an important cause is an incredibly brave decision that makes this such a hail. I also think for Happy Meals, of all things, to stick it to toxic positivity is just brilliant.”
It Rained, We Poured
When Brazen was challenged to position Greene King pubs as the place to go, come rain or shine, we knew we had to work with the weather, not against it…
To do so, we hosted the pub’s biggest ever giveaway – 100,000 free pints – pouring only when it rained!
Working with pub lover and ex-footballer Peter Crouch and LADBible, we promoted the initiative and created a nine-foot-tall pint glass rain drop detector in the heart of Manchester, famously known as the Rainy City.
Hilariously, it took all of 10 minutes for the beer beacon to light up and activate the giveaway.
Cue stampedes to the pub and a downpour of media coverage!
Daisy Vickers – Account Director: “IT’S RAINING PINTS!!! What a campaign to be a part of. We worked with the legend that is Peter Crouch to announce Greene King’s biggest EVER FREE PINT giveaway… but only if it rained in Manchester on one day only. Of course, Manchester delivered (in buckets!) As the first drop of rain fell that morning our 9-foot-tall rain detector lit up signalling the start of free bevs and a barrel-load of media coverage! Couldn’t be prouder of the team for their hard work, dedication and reactiveness to secure the shower (pun intended) of coverage… over 400 hits!”
Calm Before the Election Storm
Sleep and Meditation app Calm used one of the biggest cultural moments of the year, the US election, to create a campaign that got the world talking.
Amid the chaos and coverage of Donald Trump cruising to victory against Kamala Harris, the app bought advertising space on US channels CNN, ABC and Comedy Central to give viewers 30 seconds of… complete and utter silence.
The silent advert quickly went viral as Americans took pictures of their TV in awe of the much-needed moment of peace.
Adam Moss – Creative & News Director: “The silent Calm advert at the height of the chaos surrounding the 2024 US Election was simply genius. Why? Because it provided exactly what people craved in the bedlam: a moment of peace and clarity, cutting through the noise with a powerful absence that spoke louder than words.”
Fake Kate Moss
When Chanel took over Manchester for its annual Metiers D’Art show, Aldi trolled the world with a Kate Moss look-a-like!
The genius stunt sent social media into a frenzy, with people fully convinced that the superstar, wearing dark shades and escorted by a bodyguard, was shopping in the budget supermarket ahead of the show. The truth of it just being a look alike was later confirmed by local media.
Jess Redfearn – Midweight Creative: “This stands out to me as the perfect example of the power of earned media. With a tiny budget this stunt got the whole world talking about the brand. It’s social at its absolute core and that’s what it’s all about. To get people talking.”
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