Work of the Week: 17/07/26
Meta – Summer Jobs
Chosen by Cathy Meyer-Funnell, reporter, EMEA
Droga5’s campaign for Meta ‘Summer Jobs’, directed by Smuggler’s Mark Molloy, is exactly how I (a stereotypical Brit) imagine a classic American high school summer to be. The 90-second launch spot tells the story of Gracie, who uses Facebook Marketplace to help her find odd summer jobs so she can save up money to buy her dream truck. The whole thing feels lifted straight out of a beloved teen movie (aided by the retro comeback of wired headphones), as Gracie discovers friends, new skills and a sense of independence while she tackles various hardgoing and sometimes downright strange job requests on the app. The accompanying short films directed by Rory Wood further demonstrate how Facebook Marketplace can lead to forging surprising connections, even in the most unlikely of places.
Citeo and Philippe Katerine - Lingette-moi
Chosen by Sunna Coleman, reporter, Asia
So absurd I had to watch it three times. Citeo Care & Hygiene enlists singer-songwriter Philippe Katerine for a weirdly wonderful musical number. ‘Lingette-moi dans la poubelle’ ('Wipe me into the trash') features Philippe singing from the perspective of a single-use wipe, pleading with listeners to give him a proper ending in the bin. It's completely unexpected and vibrant; you can't help but keep watching.
Hellman’s – The Eggs-Factor
Chosen by Abi Lightfoot
For people of my generation growing up in the UK, tuning into ‘The X Factor’ on a Saturday night was somewhat of a right of passage. From that viewing experience came a number of standout auditionees, remembered not for their stellar vocals but for their truly unique and unforgettable vocal displays.
One duo that has stood the test of time and survived internet memeifying is Ant & Seb. Better known for their disjointed performance of Peter Andre’s ‘Mysterious Girl’, I was delighted when the pair appeared to me mid-TikTok scroll session, performing their own take on Hellman’s ‘Sweet Sandwich Time’ as they auditioned for ‘The Eggs-Factor’.
Combining nostalgia, music and culture-first humour, the campaign – which also includes a slew of other performances – underscores the importance of knowing your market and landing brand partnerships that think outside the usual realm of celebrity, causing audiences to stop and listen mid-scroll. Congrats to the team at U-Studio, W Communications and Unilever who pulled it off – I can’t wait to see how the platform could grow.
Women’s Professional Baseball League – Inaugural Team Branding
Chosen by Jordan Won Neufeldt, reporter, Canada
This isn’t the usual type of creative we think of when assembling our ‘Work of the Week’ list at LBB. But, what Arrivals + Departures has accomplished on behalf of the WPBL is certainly worthy of being here. Not only has the agency named the league’s four inaugural teams – all after women whose legacies are tied to the history of the sport – but the indie has also designed the branding for each, down to the jerseys and merchandise. Believe me when I say, I really like the aesthetics they’ve achieved here, with the Los Angeles Queens standing out as a personal favourite (although I do one day hope we get a Toronto team). However, the better proof is in the pudding, considering the fact that within hours of the announcement, all the jerseys sold out, leaving fans waiting for the second release run. Well done to all involved!
ChatGPT Images – Reimagined
Chosen by Addison Capper, managing editor, Americas
Whether you're sold on AI-generated imagery or not, the technology is improving. So much so that OpenAI has been rolling out its first large-scale OOH campaign for ChatGPT Images. Running across Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Chicago and Miami, the creator-led out-of-home showcase transforms billboards into galleries of work that reimagine the world around each specific location and how people would encounter it in that city. Developed in-house, the OpenAI team tapped creators from each city's creative community before opening the campaign to the public, allowing others the opportunity to participate. Bailey Richardson, head of community and culture at OpenAI, told me he feels the campaign is "very much about the product" but told it "through the lens of human creativity".
Shinola – The Restaurant
Chosen by Alex Reeves, managing editor, EMEA
Watch ads can be a bore. Sometimes they can sound profound but in fact only stay on the surface, an aesthetic without meaning. I don't know much about watches, and I'd never heard of Shinola until this week. But when Cousin Greg ('Succession' star Nicholas Braun) popped up on LBB making his directorial debut, I had to check it out.
What I found was a film that does the opposite of boring watch ads – it sounds completely low-key because of the director's and central character's relaxed, inherently comic delivery, but it's about something genuinely profound – that a watch's meaning in today's world is to remind us of how valuable time is. A watch doesn't rule you. You should consult it when you need to recalibrate and figure out how valuable each second is in your life.
Britannia Milk Bikis – The Britannia Milk Bikis Thirukkural Challenge
Chosen by Laura Swinton Gupta, editor-in-chief
This is a project that has it all. Cultural resonance, crunchy design challenge, scale and, most importantly, real-world impact. Milk Bikis, from Indian snack giant Britannia, are popular in Tamil Nadu, a state of about 77 million people. The team at Talented Agency with the manufacturer to emboss the ‘bikis’ with pithy Tamil language couplets from the Thirukkural, a classic secular Tamil text on virtue, wealth and love. It forms an important touchstone for Tamil culture, and the sayings are used in daily life, even today.
So, strategically, it’s a sweet and playful way of reaffirming Milk Bikis' place in Tamil Nadu. Practically, bringing this to life was an enormous challenge. Transferring the delicate, nuanced Tamil script onto biscuits accurately was no mean feat, and this became an impressive feat of biscuit engineering and involved building bespoke moulds and transforming the manufacturing process.
Back Market - Silly Little Plastic Cat
Chosen by Brittney Rigby, managing editor AUNZ
This week, this Brittney learned about a phenomenon in the far more chic Brittany — since 1983, thousands of Garfield phones have washed ashore because a shipping container packed with the things became lodged in a sea cave. A 12-minute documentary from refurbished tech marketplace Back Market follows the locals with a fondness for these washed-up orange carcasses. One has even stuck a bunch of them on his letterbox and front fence. The brand had been wrestling with how to connect this kitschy story with its expertise in tech refurbishment for years. I love that the team stuck with it, showed real restraint, and produced this: a gentle and folklorish doco that screened at Tribeca X and feels perfectly (and trendily) analogue and nostalgic, calm and silly.
VanMoof – UFO
Chosen by Olivia Atkins, EMEA Craft Editor
VanMoof’s 'Leave It Anywhere' campaign is a brilliantly surreal and dialogue-free lesson in using subtle humour to sell a product. ProdCo director Alex Takacs keeps things interesting in these three 25-second vignettes, which, besides being visually stunning, are also strikingly simple, showing off VanMoof’s sophisticated and advanced six-layer anti-theft tech. By pairing cinematic lighting with absurd scenarios -- where tumbleweeds, plastic bags, and curious cows threaten to steal its bikes -- the memorable campaign highlights just how easily its technology protects its e-bikes from being stolen, making it perfectly suited for social.
Back Market – The Back Market Promise
Chosen by Laura Swinton Gupta, editor-in-chief
Double bubble for the refurbished electronics marketplace, Back Market, in Work of the Week. Their new campaign, ‘The Back Market Promise’ from Mother puts founder Thibaud Hug de Larauze alongside the likes of Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Ben Stiller, Aziz Ansari and Romesh Ranganathan. How? By casting his mum, Valerie, in the spot. It takes the idea of promising ‘on your mum’s life’ and makes it literal. The spot sees a team of auditors taking an inventory of all of the possessions in Valerie’s life and pledging they will be ours should Back Market backtrack on its consumer promise.
Director Harold Einstein coaxes a delightful performance from the elegant Valerie and this feels like an elevated take on a couple of trends: turning founders into media personalities and employee-generated content (EGC).
Busch Canada – Live Bait by Busch
Chosen by Paul Monan, head of creative excellence
Busch Canada has switched up the content of its cans, ditching the beer for something much wrigglier: a dozen live worms. Devised by Anomaly Toronto, Live Bait by Busch is a multi-partner collab that taps into the Ontario angling community. Busch has a longstanding connection to fishing culture, and this campaign reinforces its commitment to its fishing-focused audience. Spanning social, experiential and retail, the multi-channel campaigns bring the beer brand together with live bait manufacturers Evergreen Nightcrawlers and fishing retailer Bass Pro Shops. The cans debuted at a major fishing event in Ontario before being made available – for a limited time – exclusively at Bass Pro Shops. This is an example of a brand that really understands its community. Instead of opening a can of worms by piggybacking off of fishing culture, this is an authentic move to cement the brand’s place within it. More of this please.
Destination BC – ‘Home Pitch’
Chosen by April Summers, Lead writer, editorial strategy
This Summer, football fever has well and truly taken over Vancouver, as the city proudly embraced its role as FIFA World Cup 2026 co-hosts with genuine joy and excitement. From transforming the Science World dome into the tournament's official 'Trionda' football to welcoming over 330,000 people (in its first two weeks!) at the FIFA Fan Festival in East Vancouver, locals and visitors alike have been spoilt for choice when it comes to celebrating in style. The latter event was the city’s official destination for every match day, with live music, premium seating and a smorgasbord of dining and drinking options, as well as immersive fan experiences for all ages.
One such experience was ‘Home Pitch’, a first-of-its-kind activation developed by Destination BC and Zulu Alpha Kilo (Z.A.K.). The immersive experience saw fans take part in a kickabout as an ever-changing backdrop displays imagery from iconic routes and places within the province.
Production company Wildfire Experiential + Events collaborated with Unit 9 Productions to translate this creative brief into a real-world pitch, combining a custom 12,000-square-foot multi-sensory experience with 360º LED screen visuals and spatial soundscapes. Since its unveiling on June 11th, the ambitious experiential feat has been enjoyed by thousands of football fans from around the world – all of whom now have a deeper understanding of the diversity of British Columbia’s beauty.
