Ad Age expanded its “Creativity Top 5” series to include new roundups of our favorite special-interest campaigns and ideas from brands. This week, we look at some of the latest innovations in the food and beverage space. Visit our site each Thursday for a new list of niche campaigns from the past month, and catch up on all of our Top 5 rankings here. 

5. White Claw crashes the spirits market

White Claw, the brand that dominates the malt-based seltzer world, has enlisted comic actor J.B. Smoove to promote its move into branded vodka and canned vodka soda cocktails. In one ad, Smoove takes a shot at market leader High Noon—and other players that don’t specify the brand of liquor used in their ready-to-drink cocktails. The campaign is from VCCP, Edelman and Hayworth. Kevin Brady, VP of marketing for White Claw, said the new vodka capitalizes on the recent federal ruling striking down a requirement that vodka be “without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color.”

Read also: SunnyD Vodka Seltzer draws fascination, scorn

“There’s a massive and growing demand for hard seltzer, the fastest category to scale since prohibition, and then there’s the U.S. vodka market, which was ripe for disruption,” Brady said in an email.

4. Popeyes features New Orleans

The first campaign from Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen’s new creative agency, McKinney, leverages the brand’s New Orleans roots to showcase culinary credentials unique in the fast food industry. The campaign, called “We Don’t Make Sense, We Make Chicken,” is meant to give Popeyes distinction, said Jonathan Cude, chief creative officer at McKinney, which was named Popeyes’ creative agency earlier this year. “It’s hard to lead with quality, service, features, or price in any given quarter because your competitors can copy that,” Cude said in an interview. “But if you have something that is ownable and distinctive that no one else can touch and no one else can claim, then you drill down on that. And that’s what we had with the authenticity of Popeyes coming from [New Orleans].”

3. Jim Beam's singalong

A woman walks into a spontaneous barroom singalong of “Sweet Caroline” in a spot that kicks off a new global ad campaign for Jim Beam known as “People Are Good for You.” The new ad showcases a redesigned look for the 227-year-old bourbon brand and celebrates “the power of being with others,” said Vero Mura, global brand VP for Jim Beam, which is owned by Beam Suntory. Leo Burnett, which was hired as the brand's global agency of record in September 2022, provided the creative. Turner Duckworth worked on the label redesign.

2. Oreo codes

In a marriage of technology, creativity and commerce, Oreo has turned bar codes on milk packages into discounts on milk’s favorite cookie. “Oreo Codes” comes from Oreo parent Mondelēz and VMLY&R Commerce. It allows consumers to scan a code on any branded milk package (vertically, so the code resembles stacked Oreos) and get a discount on Oreos at Albertsons, Safeway or Jewel-Osco grocery stores. “OREO Codes is a wonderful expression of the playfulness that is the Oreo brand, and a prime opportunity to find new ways to engage with our audience,” Nick Henault, marketing director, Oreo, Mondelēz International, said in a press release.

1. Got Wood?

Aubrey Plaza gives a deadpan performance as a co-founder of an almost-plausible brand called Wood Milk. The campaign from the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) lampoons products such as almond milk, soy milk and rice milk. “We really wanted to shine a light into the conversation about how everything can be milk today. You can make milk from everything,” said MilkPEP CEO Yin Woon Rani. “But we think it’s important that people understand that when it comes to nutrition, only dairy milk is the OG power player.”

The campaign comes from the agency Gale.

“We wanted to create something that we thought was real funny, as opposed to ‘ad funny,’ something that was culturally interesting, something that had lots of different angles, and a lot of different ways in,” said Gale CEO and President Brad Simms.