Twix’s “Double Act”
Twix’s new campaign features two ventriloquist dummies lip-syncing to Nelly and Kelly Rowland’s hit song “Dilemma.” The whole spot was captured practically, and the puppets were controlled by one ventriloquist. The spot is directed by Dougal Wilson who just wrapped directing Paddington in Peru. More.
The Real Story: Wilson definitely has range. This spot definitely stands out, but is a little too close to the scariest episode of Goosebumps for my millennial mind to overlook.
Hinge “All We Need is Us”
Hinge just launched “All We Need is Us” a series of films showing real couples who met on the app. The premise is they’re all doing benign things (cleaning up after a party, weeding a garden, sitting in a park, that kinda thing). The series is part of their “Designed to be Deleted” brand platform that’s meant to address dating app fatigue and AI mistrust among GenZ specifically. More.
The Real Story: Not sure I would call this innovation. I pitched and executed the same idea for Tinder in 2020. A dating app showing real couples that met on their app…groundbreaking.
Here’s the Tinder spot from 2020:
Justworks
HR platform Justworks launched a new campaign with surreal visual metaphors. The work is from Quality Meats and follows a boba shop owner who clones herself so she can do every job in her business, and an architecture studio founder who literally puppets his employees (because he can’t let go). More.
The Real Story: The line “this baby isn’t my baby, my company is my baby” is quite clever. These spots are snappy and fun. Will this work for B2B marketing? Maybe if the LinkedIn ad spend is right…
If you’re new here, I write a monthly serialized novel called Everything is Advertising, about a burned-out Creative Director and his cynical team that accidentally create QAnon through a viral marketing campaign. If you like that kind of thing, you can start at Part One and catch up from there.
Every Monday, Above the Fold breaks down what’s running in advertising, what’s landing, and what’s a total disaster.
Every Friday, The Business of Advertising shares lessons from over a decade working on the front lines of advertising.