Hails & Fails – May 29th 2026
From footballers with famous names to supermarket solutions and festival-ready sandwiches, this week’s Hails show brands tapping into real behaviours and cultural moments with a healthy dose of humour. John Lewis landed one of the most unexpected partnerships of the year, Asda solved a problem every football fan recognises, and Subway embraced festival season with a giant helping of self-awareness. But while The Food Warehouse’s football idea generated plenty of headlines, it also proved that not all publicity is universally loved.
HAILS
John Lewis signs John Lewis
John Lewis has enlisted non-league footballer Lenell John-Lewis to front a campaign helping customers get their homes match-ready for major sporting events. The joke is brilliantly simple: John Lewis advertising with John Lewis. It’s the sort of idea that makes you wonder how nobody thought of it sooner. Clever, unexpected and guaranteed to raise a smile, it’s a reminder that sometimes the strongest creative ideas are also the simplest.
Asda backs football fans with shirt swap scheme
Asda has launched a football shirt exchange scheme allowing fans to swap shirts if a player leaves their club shortly after purchase. It’s a smart solution to a genuine problem that many supporters have experienced, particularly in the modern transfer market. More importantly, it shows Asda understands both football culture and its customer base. Helpful, relevant and pitched with just the right amount of personality.
Subway creates the ultimate festival sleeping bag
Subway has unveiled a giant sandwich-inspired sleeping bag, or “Sleeping Baguette“, just as festival season gets underway. It’s a gloriously silly idea that plays into Gen Z’s love of comfort and festival survival hacks while giving Subway plenty of social media cut-through. The pun does a lot of the heavy lifting, but the execution follows through.
FAIL
The Food Warehouse discovers football's red line
The Food Warehouse generated plenty of attention this week with a half-England, half-Scotland football shirt ahead of the World Cup. The problem? Football fans tend to hate half-and-half merchandise at the best of times, and combining two of the sport’s fiercest rivals was never likely to go down well. Social media reaction was predictably brutal. That said, everyone is talking about it. As a football idea, it may have missed the mark. As a piece of awareness-driving PR, the scoreboard looks pretty good.
