Work of the Week: 08/09/2023

This summer, football (the kind you actually play with your feet) enjoyers would have been hard pressed not to notice the vast migration of talent to the Saudi Pro League. For Al Hilal alone, this included the arrivals of Aleksandar Mitrović, Kalidou Koulibaly, and, perhaps most noticeably, Brazilian superstar Neymar. As such, Puma, ‿ and us agency and BlackBox Studio saw an opportunity to produce a captivating campaign to introduce the team’s third kit. Taking inspiration from the club’s name translating to ‘the crescent’, the work is visually striking, reflecting the way the moon will cast darkness over rivals while illuminating the sky for the fans this season. 

The pursuit of the perfect plant-based burger - in recent years - has hit a whole new level of intensity. After all, simulating the iconic taste of grilled meat while using nothing but alternatives is not an easy task, but nevertheless a worthwhile pursuit considering all the benefits that come, should this endeavour be successful. And to this end, Burger King believes it may have cracked the code - creating an option that’s indistinguishable from a meat burger. To showcase this, the brand joined forces with Forsman & Bodenfors, creating a comedic spot that opens with a pregnant woman playfully asking her partner to guess which one of two burgers is plant-based, and ends in wasted life, a broken family, and the reveal that all along, neither was made from meat.

To bring the hype around Chicken Licken’s ‘Rock My Soul’ order - which happens to be the brand’s hottest offering - Joe Public and Romance Films director Greg Gray collaborated with Atandwa Kani (of ‘Black Panther’ fame) to tell the story of Khwezi, an average actor who goes on to become a star. The secret to his success, be it playing a man on his deathbed, pretending to be in jail and finding out the love of his life is pregnant, or sweating buckets after defeating robots? A few sweat and tear-inducing bites of ‘SoulFire’ chicken prior to each take. 

For Reese’s, the mission is quite simple: fill everything with peanut butter. This includes filing cabinets. Especially if the filing cabinets happen to look like they’re made out of chocolate. After all, you want to file that creaminess away… for later. Just look at how delicious this looks in the brand’s latest spot, created by Mother, which continues the ‘Put Peanut Butter In It’ brand platform for Reese’s. And just think - if a filing cabinet looks that tasty, how good is the new ‘Reese’s Bar’, which is actually made of chocolate (and still very much filled with peanut butter)? 

Perhaps surprisingly, there are a lot of shared traits between crops and developing foetuses; something made abundantly clear in this piece of print work by Swedish farming cooperative Lantmännen and NORD DDB. Referencing a world-famous photograph of a human foetus, the caption, ‘A bun is born’, and artwork pays homage to the cover of 'When a Child is Born' by Lennart Nilsson, which upon its publication in 1965, immediately became one of the most significant books of modern times. All in all, it’s a beautiful reminder of the fact that just like the human womb, soil is an integral place of nurture, required to sustain everything important for life. 

History is always being made. But some points in time are somewhat larger than others. And right now, in Australia, one of those moments is underway. Simply put, on October 14th 2023, Australians will have their say in a referendum about whether to change the constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice’. It’s a big moment, and one which The Uluru Dialogue wanted to galvanise support for ahead of the big day. To this end, for the first time ever, John Farnham gave permission for his iconic song to be used in a commercial, as this film by The Monkeys and Photoplay / Playtime director Warwick Thornton follows a family through the years as they witness key moments, ranging from the 1967 referendum to the marriage equality plebiscite - a firm reminder that once again, citizens have a chance to change history for the better.