Hails & Fails – March 28th 2025
It’s been a week where we saw siblings Daisy May and Charlie Cooper announce a new supernatural BBC Show, the one and only Chesney Hawkes confirm he was set to join Celebrity Big Brother and Chancellor Rachel Reeves deliver the Spring Statement, announcing substantial welfare and public spending cuts. There was no shortage of headline-grabbing PR campaigns either…
Brazen client Butlin’s provoked giggles (and headlines) everywhere with misheard song lyrics, Not For Profit organisation Campus Skateboarding turned a defunct Debenhams into Shredenhams and IKEA went full tilt into ‘Severance’ mode. There were plenty of ball-drops too but, no-one could have felt more embarrassment this week – despite the denial of any wrongdoing – than Donald Trump’s cabinet team after they inadvertently texted top-secret war plans to a journalist.
HAILS
Butlin’s hits all the right notes
How do you get the nation talking about Butlin’s Big Weekenders?
Brazen tapped into the ultimate shared guilty pleasure: misheard song lyrics, launching a cheeky national news story for our Butlin’s client, fronted by 80s legend and Big Weekender headliner Pat Sharp.
From Abba’s “Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tangerine” to Queen’s “Kicking your cat all over the place”, the campaign hit all the right (and hilariously wrong) notes.
Armed with a video of real guests butchering pop music classics in glorious fashion, we delivered an irresistible CTA: don’t just sing it — live it at a Butlin’s Big Weekender.
In just 48 hours, the story and video racked up mass national coverage including Mail Online, Daily Star, and more. Priceless.
From Debs to Shreds
Bristol’s old Debenhams store ditched the retail rails for another type of rail – it’s now a skatepark with a nationwide profile.
The clever rebrand – from Debenhams to Shredenhams (complete with new cheeky signage) – has seen the iconic department store trade handbags for halfpipes, thanks to the team at Campus Skateboarding (the brains behind the city’s Campus Pool and Park).
In a time when high streets are flatlining and shopfronts sit empty, this is how you bring the buzz back — with a bold makeover featuring grip tape, attitude and a new sign that cleverly plays on an old icon.
IKEA goes full Severance for new furniture ad
Ever wanted your office to feel like a scene from psychological thriller Severance? IKEA Australia’s got you.
The home furnishings brand channelled Lumon Industry’s creepy-cool vibe into a TikTok ad pushing office gear that’s part dystopia and part design-porn. Think moody lighting, minimalist desks and retro-futurist curves.
It’s sleek. It’s unsettling. It’s productivity with a hint of existential crisis. And the advert has won tonnes of attention right across the globe.
FAIL
War & Blunder: Trump’s Cabinet Texts Top-Secret Plans to The Atlantic
In a plot twist straight out of a political satire, Donald Trump’s cabinet team just bagged the ‘Fail of the Week’ title – by accidentally texting top-secret war plans to a journalist.
Instead of landing in the hands of generals or advisers, the classified info slid straight into the inbox of a reporter from prestigious American magazine and multi-platform media outlet, The Atlantic.
Cue facepalms, national security alarms and an awkward round of “how do we deny it?”
If leaking your own war strategy was a sport, this lot just took home gold.
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