Women and girls are baffled by their own bodies in AMV’s new Bodyform spot.
New and established voices make our Top 5 this week, as we saw a student director nail a beverage spot and a U.K. advertiser known for its bracing campaigns deliver another winner.
We also got an entertaining mini-musical, a campaign with NFL rookies that digs deeper than their preseason hype, and a political parody that has a goofy new product at the core.
Other creative campaigns: The top ads of the year (so far)
Check out the week’s full Top 5 below.
Sports advertising is usually about spectacle and athletes flexing; rarely do we see an insight that truly recognizes an athlete’s emotional state. Which is why we liked this new Fanatics campaign, which welcomes NFL rookies to their unfamiliar new home cities via surprise videos from local fans and celebs. There’s real feeling throughout this film, which you can’t say about most traditional montage spots.
Spike Lee directed Vitaminwater’s new broadcast commercial, but a separate spot, directed by a student filmmaker, is the stronger creative piece of the campaign. Joecar Hanna’s “The Taste of New York” crafts a compelling family story across its 85 seconds, with memorable characters and unexpected casting giving the piece a real energy and authentic vibe. Two other student pieces in the campaign are worth watching, too.
Mocking Donald Trump and JD Vance is a growing tactic on the left this political season, and ad agency Quality Meats got in on the act this week by developing a gag product, JD Jelly, as a fundraiser for Kamala Harris. JD Jelly is described as “couch lube,” which anyone paying attention to national politics will recognize as a reference to the (false) rumor that Vance once had relations with a sofa. The film is broadly amusing, but the social assets are what really bring the laughs.
If you’ve been pining for a remake of Starship’s “We Built This City” video, then check out Quilted Northern’s “We Quilt This City”—60 seconds of pure entertainment from agency Orchard, directed by Somesuch’s Tajana Tokyo. The sets are impressive, the talent is great, and the whole campaign—including fun behind-the-scenes-style clips—has an amusing, welcoming vibe. Just be prepared for the song to get stuck in your head.
AMV BBDO has been doing brilliant work for Bodyform (sold as Libresse outside the U.K.) for years, and this new film is no exception. Using a mixed-media approach to deliver a typically unflinching assessment of feminine care, the spot takes stock of women and girls being denied basic information about their bodies for centuries. Expertly directed by Lucy Forbes, the campaign is another impressive rallying cry and a worthy addition to Bodyform’s proud advertising history.
