Rebel Wilson stars in a PSA for concussion awareness.
Advertising’s largest celeb showcase, the Super Bowl, was just last month, but you’ve already read those articles. However, marketers still had A-lister budgets to spare post-game.
This month: Ad Age rounds up the best non-Super Bowl celebrity brand collabs, featuring a PSA for your melon, Valentine’s Day cards for reproductive rights, an uplifting Black History Month campaign and advice on how to skip work for St. Patrick’s Day.
Working on a Friday is already a pointless endeavor, even more so when said Friday is St. Patrick’s Day. Rather than sneaking libations on the job, Regina Hall and Jameson are encouraging celebrants to skip the office altogether.
The whiskey brand tapped the “Girls Trip” actress to pull off a classic slapstick prank: planting a dummy to fool one’s superiors. Joking that “somehow they got us back into the office,” Hall demonstrates how to set up a cardboard cutout at her desk so she can enjoy “St. Patrick’s Day Time Off” in a silly spot from agencies UEG and Weber Shandwick. The “desk decoys” were available earlier this month to customize and order via Jameson, with all proceeds benefiting the Restaurant Workers’ Community Fund.
In addition to the chuckle(s) earned from the goofy scenarios depicting coworkers completely fooled by the cardboard replicas, the campaign was inspired by research that Americans feel guilty taking time off of work. Now, it feels slightly more empowering to take some “SPTO.”
For Black History Month, Hulu recruited a host of its talent to pay tribute to someone they admire in a social campaign. Featuring stars such as Kerry Washington, Nikole Hannah-Jones, RZA, Trevor Jackson, Diggy Simmons, Josh Bonzie, Roger Ross Williams, Shoshana Guy and Quentin Plair Jr. among others, the touching series prompts each subject to describe who they would like to give flowers to, which the streamer then did via Black-owned florists local to the recipient.
Also read: Celebrating creative excellence for Black History Month
Washington, who stars in Hulu’s “UnPrisoned,” chose her costar Delroy Lindo. She recalls seeing him in “Malcolm X” while she was in high school and describes working with him in “UnPrisoned.”
Perhaps this spot is cheating the whole non-Super Bowl theme of this Top 5, as it’s a follow-up to Ben Stiller’s Super Bowl spot with Pepsi. But the Big Game spot only gave viewers a tease of Stiller’s “Zoolander” character, and we simply needed more.
Stiller brings back the character, who can’t seem to pronounce Pepsi Zero Sugar, with the same hilarious ignorance that made so many adore the role. It’s short and sweet, but you can’t not laugh out loud at the sight of Zoolander gleefully dancing under a shower of Pepsi.
Valentine’s Day cards are a bit of a yawn, and even irreverent ones are too. But agency Tombras managed to create a set of love letters saucy enough to make any recipient blush, made even more refreshing by their political protest. Consider: “This year I don’t want candy or flowers, just infertile loads for hours and hours.”
In a short spot, comedian and “Broad City” star Ilana Glazer reads the naughty notes. One says, “I love you all the way from Earth to Venus, so do me a favor and disarm your penis.” Another reads, “You might consider your pull-out game strong, but every unplanned baby is caused by a dong.”
The campaign is a protest of abortion legislation and the overturn of Roe v. Wade last June. Rather than focus on women’s reproductive organs, the cards encourage men to turn their attention to their own members with a vasectomy. Called “Cards for Nards,” Glazer states her “number one goal is for everyone to consider their role in birth control.”
Rebel Wilson can make anything funny, even a PSA for concussion awareness. The campaign from health technology company Abbott and the Brain Injury Association of America, led by agency Great Guns, shows the “Pitch Perfect” actress carelessly sending a movie set into full chaos.
Wilson smacks a worker with nunchucks, unleashes a crate of pythons, blasts a flamethrower, crashes a golf cart and sends a man in a jetpack flying. Despite the evidence, Wilson claims she’s “incredibly well-behaved” and that the only rebellious thing about her is that she takes the time to care for herself–including getting checked for a concussion after a simple fall. Turns out, she did have a concussion and she’s glad she caught it early.
“Don’t mess with your melon,” she shouts at the jetpacked man as he flies away. “If you hit it, get it checked.”
