At first glance, there were many impressive campaigns in 2025. But when you take a closer look at them, there is no escaping the realization that a large portion of these "impressive" campaigns mostly create visual pollution, or don't go beyond pouring huge amounts of money into an already strong brand – more of a tour de force than true creativity that considers its location: outdoors, in the public realm.
For example, a Decathlon campaign in the Czech Republic, in which the company placed lockers for personal sports equipment in public parks, only masquerades as a public service, when in fact it pollutes picturesque parks with large and ugly metal boxes in a dominant blue. And when a strong brand like Adidas takes over an entire building in Shanghai and covers it with a giant shoebox, it is not a one-off stroke of brilliance, but primarily a "takeover," a strategy that justly earned its violent nickname.
That is why we chose five campaigns that didn’t just pour money, and didn’t create a disturbance in the space, but spoke to their target audience intelligently, at eye level, and out of an understanding not only of the target audience and the campaign goals, but also that the public space belongs, first and foremost, to the public.
The Best Visual Campaign
How do you illustrate to drivers what could happen in an accident? Countless campaigns have crashed on this mission. The state of Virginia in the U.S. launched a campaign that didn't crash, using a 15-meter yellow ladder (like a four-story building) on which was written in giant letters, "Would you push someone from here?". The explanatory line stated: "The impact of being hit by a car, is identical to the impact of falling from this ladder."
The Most Relatable Campaign
IKEA opened a new branch on Oxford Street in London, with a home delivery service (we wish). To promote the branch and its unique service, the company sent a taxi into the city streets, with IKEA furniture tied to its roof in a horrible mess. The campaign doesn't pollute, doesn't take over, and doesn't shout; it only illustrates in a relatable way the pain (the messy journey back home from IKEA) that the new service solves.
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The Most Faithful Campaign to Brand Values
The cosmetics company The Ordinary, whose brand values are transparency, reliability, directness, scientific integrity, and affordable prices, launched a campaign that illustrates exactly all of these. The brand opened a closed pop-up store, and filled it with (branded) one-dollar bills. The message was: see how much money we save you, by simply telling you about our products, instead of pouring millions into celebrity spokespeople.
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The Most Creative Repositioning Campaign
A hot pink recycling truck was spotted on the streets of Mumbai. The truck featured the Tinder logo and copy calling on people to get rid of their emotional baggage, and discard old love letters, "romantic" gifts, an ex's belongings, and any object that makes it hard for them to move on. This is a charming and humorous attempt by the brand to shake off its image as a digital meat market and position itself as a gateway to hope. It's not certain the app fulfills the promise, but the campaign definitely shows an understanding of the users' mindset.
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The Most Thrilling Promo Campaign
Die-hard fans of the best show of the decade, Severance, who waited three years for the second season to premiere, were stunned to discover all the employees of the Macro-Data Refinement department of "Lumon", the fictional company at the center of the series, working intently inside a giant glass box in the center of Grand Central Terminal in New York. The artificiality of the situation, and the absolute severance between life outside the glass box and the sterile lives inside it, are a precise illustration of what lies at the heart of the series, and a marketing stunt that went viral in seconds and thrilled fans all over the world.
