SAP Concur’s new campaign says processing business expenses is a piece of cake—literally

Managing invoices and processing business expenses can be a slog. But with SAP Concur, the once-tedious process is quite literally a dream. In a new online campaign developed by BBDO New York, the expense management company created a pair of ethereal 15-second videos that use humor to illustrate the simplicity of the brand’s digital products. In one, a man is shown using SAP Concur’s smartphone software in a bright pink room replete with flamingoes and human-sized ice cream cones, only for one of his former school teachers to interrupt and ask if he’s forgotten his homework, quickly turning his pleasant dream into a nightmare and prompting him to wake up. In the other, a woman in an office says that managing expenses with SAP Concur is a piece of cake before producing a knife, cutting into a stack of paperwork and her mug of coffee, and declaring that “everything is cake”—even her colleague Brian, who’s then shown snapping off his ponytail (which is made of, you guessed it, cake) and taking a bite. The latter video leans into the longstanding “Everything Is Cake” trend, in which hyper-realistic desserts are crafted to look indistinguishable from the real versions of items. Over the past few years, the popular trend has been harnessed by brands from Adidas to Philadelphia Cream Cheese, and has even spawned an original game show on Netflix, “Is It Cake?” “The idea behind what Concur has always done is to address a time consuming and painful task with humor, and to do so in easily digesting 15-second bits,” said Corey Rakowsky, senior creative director at BBDO. “There’s not a lot of positive emotions associated with doing your expenses or waiting for them to get approved,” he said. Officially debuting on Tuesday, Oct. 10, the SAP Concur campaign is foregoing linear TV, out-of-home and other media elements in favor of focusing solely on online video, which is designed to help the company hone in on and attract B2B customers specifically. The spots are planned to run for a full year. This new work follows another recent campaign that SAP launched in May 2023 titled “Be Ready”—also handled by BBDO New York—which deployed artificial intelligence to create real-time digital out-of-home ads that evolved with the news cycle over the course of 10 days.

SAP Concur’s new campaign says processing business expenses is a piece of cake—literally

Featured Stories