Punchy Provocations

Death’s no laughing matter… until it is. During the pandemic, specialist healthcare provider StarMed Healthcare used blunt humour to convince people to get vaccinated. The resulting campaign led to a 22% increase in vaccine appointments the week after it ran, showing how to raise eyebrows by flipping a message on its head.

Netflix unleashed an unbranded self-deprecating campaign to launch its new focus on comedic content. The OOH and video ads made the streaming platform the butt of its own joke, causing speculation as to who was behind the slander. The no-nonsense campaign demonstrates how to resonate with audiences who respect a brand’s ability to laugh at itself.

Nike’s 30th-anniversary film put the brand shoulder to shoulder with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s stance on police brutality, publicly supporting his activism with the tagline: ‘Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.’ By taking a clear stand, it appealed to younger generations and showed how polarising content can pay off: Nike’s stock price rose to an all-time high.

Patagonia’s bold ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’ campaign increased the company’s global sales targets by 30%. In this Cannes Lions talk from 2018, the brand’s European Marketing Director Alex Weller shares the impact of staying true to your brand values – even if they seem counterintuitive to sales. At 14:55, he also describes how this tagline turned into an action-based platform called ‘Worn Wear’.

Ahead of the Women’s Euro 2022 Final, Heineken printed a defamatory tweet on the seats of Wembley Stadium. It then let the crowds prove the Twitter trolls wrong, releasing a live stream showing the slur being erased by a sea of fans. Negative sentiment around women’s football dropped by 83% on social media following the stunt, showing how irony can help transform a rhetoric.

Children in the US have a higher risk of dying in school than in a war zone. With the directive ‘Send your children to war’, gun control group Change the Ref caught people in their tracks and inspired thousands of students to participate in a pressurising walkout. It shows how to provoke action by borrowing from the language of military recruitment.