Compelling Selling

Bizarre, preposterous, hilarious

Twix's "Two is more than one" is a fun brand platform that can go just about anywhere. They went with a ventriloquist duet.

It can go just about anywhere conceptually and just about anywhere physically.

"Two is more than one" has no word play and can therefore be translated into any language.

Little Black Book Online says this will run the US and "across the EU."

I'm sure this can be cut down to a :30. But LBB says there will be "six-second versions featuring different highlights from the ventriloquist performance."

That would be a feat.

Normalize school poo

That's the stated goal of this gem that won at Cannes. It first aired in May of 2025, but I missed it.

Andrex is a toilet paper brand in the UK with a puppy on the package.

I love the casting and subdued performances. Bonus points for the teacher's hairstyle.

More on the campaign plus two billboards on Ads of the World.

It's only fair

A fun Cannes Winner from David, Bogota: The bigger the sponsor's logo, the less you pay for the local team's jersey.

How lucky is one fan?

This won the 2026 Cannes Grand Prix in Creative Commerce plus several other Lions.

Poland keeps a record of every single person attending a football match. This handy bit of Big Brothering gave Wisa Kraków FC the foundation for this fun idea.

They cross-referenced every fan's attendance with the luckiest and unluckiest action.

The result: fans each get a number showing just how much luck they bring the team.

Told you so

Here are Cannes winners that I featured here on the blog:

Kit Kat Heist

Ikea Made For Life

Life360 I think of you dying

EA Skate Drop In

Eli Lilly Olympics Anthem

McDonald's Photo Roll 

Channel 4 Dirty Business

Dunkin Dunkin At Home

Porsche Owners Reunions

Made me smile

Everything is a remix

There were some winners at the 2026 Cannes Creativity Festival that gave me déjà vu.

Unique bar code

Mercado Livre, Brazil's version of Amazon, and their agency, Gut, São Paolo, used a sports sponsorship for a fun promotion.

They mowed the pitch of a particular match with a barcode pattern that could be scanned to unlock discounts.

The idea won the Grand Prix for Outdoor and a Silver Lion for Media.

It reminded me of a fun bar code coupon that Baldwin& created using the iconic sugar waterfall at Krispy Kreme.

Field Barcode case study here. Krispy Kreme's World's Tastiest Coupon here.

2. Selling a bunch of small media spaces

McCann, Lima, helped turn around a failing football team's fortunes by selling little pieces of their kits (jerseys) to small businesses. The kit was covered by 1000 small logos. Case study here.

This reminded me of the Million Dollar Homepage where a college student sold 10-pixel squares for a dollar each.

3. One ad invades other ads

Goodby Silverstein won a Silver Lion for Outdoor with a digital out of home execution in which Thing, the severed hand character from the Netflix Addams Family update Wednesday, invades other ads with orange Cheetos fingerprints.

Which reminded me of this billboard in Times Square created by Crispin Porter with the new BMW Mini having so many features that the callouts invade other ads.

Is there a problem here?

No.

One way to come up with fresh ideas is to remix old ideas.

Many movies, songs, and inventions are remixes. That's the thesis of the movie, Everything is a Remix.

Now is the time for Reddit

Reddit's press release about this campaign says, "In an online world where nobody knows what is real anymore, Reddit reminds us how refreshing it is to have authentic conversations about real experiences and real opinions with real people."

Ain't that the truth.

I shrug at the "Look, we did this whole thing in camera in one move" schtick, but I admire the message and I LOVE the tagline.

People are the best.

Many great taglines work on two levels like this and tickle your brain. Like Virgin Atlantic Airways' old tagline, Take us for all we've got.

Two other videos in the campaign are on the press release link above.

Have you seen this Cannes winner?

It's very well made, but it's intense and violent. So instead of posting the video here, I'll share the link and let you make the call to see it.

Yeah. I HATED Spotify with ads.

I think they purposely made the ads obnoxious so I'd pay for Premium. Which I've done for a long time.

But this takes a classier approach. You don't want ads to interrupt your experience.

These won an Outdoor Bronze at Cannes yesterday. You'll see it's a true accomplishment to get a Lion for an old-fashioned billboard campaign once you see the various crazy stunts that are considered "Outdoor."

LBB has some behind the scenes info on what worked best to get real goosebumps.

One benefit of digital out of home is how fast you can get a message into market

It's made the news in the last week how foreigners who are in the US for the World Cup are marveling at our portion sizes at the Waffle House, the number of gas pumps at Buc-ee's, and how friendly everyone is.

And the Scottish fans in particular endeared themselves to Bostonians when they descended for their first match.

72 and Sunny helped United take advantage of the cultural moment.

That's me, director Brent Thomas, B. B. King, Susan Credle, and account guy Mike Keeler in 1995

Look who I know!

Today in Cannes, my former copywriter partner was awarded the Lion of St. Mark.

The Cannes Creativity Festival is the most respected international advertising awards competition and conference. The Lion of St. Mark is their lifetime achievement award. It goes to just one person each year.

So Susan Credle is being recognized as one of the most successful and influential advertising creatives in the world.

After being named to the American Advertising Foundation's Advertising Hall of Fame a few months ago.

Now I get to brag to here that I knew her back in the day.

I like to say Susan and I "grew up together" in the business.

Neither of us took note of when we were first paired as art director and copywriter. We just know that we were working together when my first child was born. So we were partners for around 13 or 14 years.

We started on packaged goods assignments no one else wanted to work on. When BBDO won M&M's, no one thought it was going to be any good, so they put us on it. That was our big break. And a ton of fun.

Susan suggested that if we wanted to eventually be creative directors we should start finding some creatives to direct – to subcontract our assignments to younger creatives.

"Can we do that?" I asked.

She shrugged, "Let's find out."

It worked. The unofficial creative directing eventually became official with a promotion to Associate Creative Director.

From the start, anyone could see the simple principles that Susan built her career on: Spot and champion the best people. Spot and champion the best work. Learn from everyone.

She went from ACD to ECD at BBDO to CCO at Leo Burnett to Global CCO at FCB.

One of her most impressive accomplishments was when FCB was crowned Network of the Year at Cannes, winning 80 Lions, including two Titanium and five Grands Prix.

She leaves a huge legacy.

Sure. Lots of great work. Wheelbarrows full of Lions and Pencils.

But mainly, it's the people. A vast tree of influence. People she championed who are now championing others. People she inspired who are now inspiring others. Around the world. For years to come.

Spot and champion the best people. Spot and champion the best work. Learn from everyone.

Try to find a better ad agency publicity photo

Wow! That must have cost at least one meeeeellion dollars!

Verizon brought the Dr. Evil gang back together. The spot was directed by Jay Roach who directed all the Austin Powers movies.

Can you believe the third movie came out 24 years ago?

It's a great hook to have Dr. Evil propose an evil new phone company with complex pricing and have Scott say it's "just typical phone company stuff."

Perhaps less great is the complex explanation of Verizon's "All-new Simplicity Plan."

I'm sure they'll repeat it often enough that we'll eventually understand.

Bonus points for making sure the :30 works.

They have a companion spot with the original Yo soy Betty (Ugly Betty) cast that's in Spanish.

"Do whatever you want. Just stick our name on the end."

Say you're a sketchy bet-on-anything app that has way to much venture capital money and you're trying to get the word out so you can brag about a better Average Daily Users stat on your next earnings call.

It's time for a brand campaign.

How about an annoying 30-second ad with a big celebrity and just your name at the end? Here you go.

What if it's completely different than the one you just did with a famous basketball star a couple of weeks ago? Doesn't matter? Fine.

And, look, you got some PR, though mostly from detractors on The Wrap, Fast Company, BroBible, ESPN, Fortune, Defector, and a few more. There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?

Actually, there is such a thing as bad publicity. And bad advertising. This could have been better.

But since I think betting apps are bad for the world, it's just as well.

Wonder what the "Spurs win" ad looked like

Doesn't matter. I was rooting for the Knicks. These cool digital out of home boards went live in Times Square the night the Knicks won the NBA championship.

Michelob did a spot, too, that ran at the close of the last game.

Nappies, delivered

I hope you can see this is for a UK grocery store's own delivery service called, "Whoosh." Hopefully, there's a compelling reason for Brits to use Tesco's service over UberEats or Amazon.

The fuller explanation on the product packages will be readable only by those walking by, not by those driving by. But drivers will still see a product, the "Whoosh," and the Tesco logo, so they'll get the gist, too.

The diapers – okay, "nappies" – are a particularly apropos example to feature.