Not Afraid of the Negative

Let’s face it, some of life’s best things come wrapped in chaos.

The first bite of birthday cake? You baked it at 1 a.m. in a panic because little Jimmy now likes Paw Patrol, not Thomas the Tank Engine. That beach holiday with the family? You nearly missed it because Millie’s passport was out of date. The first sip of a cold Coke on a summer day? Tasted even better because you were melting in sweltering, sticky traffic.

Joy, enjoyment, pleasure, relief - in real life, rarely arrives without a side order of stress. And yet most advertising still clings to the fantasy. Sunshine. Slow-motion. Everyone is well-rested and wrinkle-free. The reality? We’re running late, forgetting something, or quietly falling apart. And that’s okay.

In fact, that’s where opportunity sometimes lives.

Embracing the Elephant (in the room, the airport, the workplace...)

Our recent campaign for lastminute.com is built on this exact insight: that the joy of booking a getaway is often preceded by the gut-punch realisation that you haven’t done it yet. You’ve ignored the calendar alerts. You’ve lost the group chat thread. You were busy. Life got in the way.

Cue stress. Cue guilt. Cue the belief that it’s “too late” for a good deal.

But what if, instead of denying that stress, we embraced it? What if we used it as fuel?

Because stress is real. It’s relatable. And most importantly, it’s human.

The Brands That Get It

Some of the most memorable, culturally relatable campaigns in recent years haven’t tried to dodge discomfort. They’ve walked straight through it.

​Quaker Oats recently launched a campaign that doesn’t pretend breakfast is a glossy lifestyle moment filled with acai bowls and sunlight. It admits that oats are gloopy. Sloppy. Ugly, even. But nourishing, real, and good for you. Deliciously Ugly. It’s an idea rooted in truth, not fantasy - much like VW’s legendary “Lemon” and “Ugly is only skin deep” ads for the Beetle in the 1960s.

Laphroaig leaned into the love-it-or-hate-it nature of their famously peaty whisky with their Opinions Welcome campaign. Rather than smoothing off the edges, they celebrated them, showcasing polarising perspectives with unashamed pride. In doing so, they didn’t just stand out in a sea of “savour the moment” whisky clichés, they built emotional credibility, earned cultural space and enormous brand equity (Laphroig have been surfacing polarising opinions in their advertising for over 10 years now).

Evidence from behavioural economics, and in particular the ‘Pratfall effect’ even give such examples a theoretical underpinning, and suggests that acknowledging what’s hard, awkward or even off-putting doesn’t detract from the joy. It deepens it.

Why Are We Still Pretending?

Holiday advertising is a prime offender. It sells a fantasy, not a feeling.

No one shows the 4 a.m. airport shuttle, the passport scramble, the panicked group chat, the chaotic suitcase re-pack, the missed early bird offers. Just sun, sea, and serenity. But 43% of people say the act of booking a holiday stresses them out. And even making a to-do list (meant to calm you down) can end up doing the opposite.

These are the frictions that make escape feel so earned. And yet the category too often skips straight to the hammock. But here’s the upside: if everyone else is faking it, honesty becomes your superpower.

Three Questions to Ask Yourself

Whether you sell holidays, hotels or hot chocolates, if your category is avoiding the hard truths, there’s space for you to own them.

Ask yourself:

• Are there unspoken pain points around the otherwise happy image of your category? Is your product used in moments that are messy, stressful or imperfect?
• Could your brand help soften that stress, or even solve it? Are you a reward, a shortcut, a pressure release?
• Is your category so happy-clappy it’s lost all sense of reality?

If you answered “yes” to any (or all) of the above, you might be sitting on a massive opportunity. One that could make your brand stand out, feel more emotionally truthful, and connect on a deeper level.

Because people don’t want perfect. They want real. And sometimes, being the brand that brings the stress into the frame is exactly what earns you people’s attention and consideration.