Most Read of 2022: Europe

Adidas made a bold move by attempting to make bare breasts of all types and dimensions more acceptable with #SupportIsEverything, a campaign that started with a tweet displaying multiple naked breasts to advertise a forthcoming collection of sports bras featuring 43 designs and 72 sizes. In May 2022, the UK Advertising Standards Agency ruled that the campaign - developed by TBWA\NEBOKO -was "likely to trigger widespread outrage" and it was banned.

Joint, UK creative agency, teamed up with Amazon to bring you the follow-ups to Amazon's ‘Prime Changes Everything’ campaign. This time around, they gave Medusa and Napoleon a makeover and updated their stories with a modern twist, just like they did with Rapunzel and Cleopatra before.

The first ad features Medusa, the mythological snake-haired gorgon who's sick of turning her friends to stone. So, she uses Prime's One Day Delivery to order some sunglasses and, voila, she can make real friendships and show off her funny side without accidentally killing anyone. 

In a retelling of Napoleonic history, Napoleon watches The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Prime Video and realises his true calling is actually comedy. So, he uses Prime to order a microphone for stand-up and conquers his audience instead of his enemies.

Kelvin Jones of KODE directed this music video for ‘My G’ featuring Ed Sheeran, a track from British rapper Aitch's recent debut album. The majority of the budget was donated to the Down's Syndrome Association. The stripped-back video features Aitch writing a letter to his younger sister Gracie, reflecting on their relationship and the love he has for her. Ed Sheeran appears as an animated illustration, singing the song's lyrics. Aitch is shown in front of an old-fashioned television set, displaying memories of him and Gracie growing up together, exploring the close bond between the siblings.

BT campaign ‘The Interruption’, features Sex Education star Gillian Anderson, as she interrupts a couple’s evening in to showcase some of the great TV shows available to watch on Netflix with BT TV and broadband. The ad is all about the breadth of content available as BT joined forces with the UK’s favourite streaming provider to offer Netflix across all of its entertainment-based TV and broadband bundles.

This film directed by Jeff Low follows a Highland cow biking through the Scottish Highlands to the iconic soundtrack of Patrick Swayze's ‘She's Like The Wind’ from Dirty Dancing. It’s a sheer delight for another internet provider, Virgin Media, built around the line, ‘Why walk when you can ride?’ It launched Virgin Media’s WiFi guarantee, demonstrating the internet provider’s commitment to delivering superior connectivity, reliability, and speed. 

Burger King Germany and agency Grabarz & Partner conducted a survey of pregnant women and mothers to reveal the truth about pregnancy cravings: 58% of the surveyed women said they experienced cravings, and 76% said they were too powerful to resist. 

In celebration of Germany's Mother's Day on May 8th, Burger King Germany offered special pregnancy Whopper sandwiches with some of the most popular food combinations, such as cucumber and jam, fish sticks and apple sauce, and curry sausage and fried herring. The campaign featured a film with amusing reactions from (expectant) mothers, their children, and partners to their cravings. The campaign was promoted digitally and via out-of-home advertising, and the pregnancy Whopper sandwiches were available exclusively on Mother's Day at a select Berlin Burger King restaurant. Pregnant women and moms were welcome!

International readers might not know who the Hairy Bikers are. Well, they have nothing to do with the other hairy character on a bike in this list. They are human men, not CG cows. And they are beloved by the British public for their food-focused travel shows. In this ad they surprise a staunch meat-lover who claims, “it’s not a real meal without meat.” The iconic chefs then show him how to create delicious meals with the help of Knorr Veggie Stocks, impressing him with a mouth-watering, meat free sweet potato and bean chilli and earning his approval.

Wunderman Thompson Switzerland created a clever hack for demonstrating the function of the Geberit AquaClean shower toilet, without showing the body part for which it was built.

When hands are placed together in a certain way, they become an amazingly real-looking naked bottom. Coined ‘Handbutts’, Geberit can show the product benefit in a pictorial way for the first time: A butt (which is not a butt) being cleaned by a jet of water. But as soon as the camera zooms out, the hand is revealed, and viewers can see how using the Geberit AquaClean shower toilet is just like washing your hands.

In the spring of 2022, Belgian singer/songwriter and musician Stromae released the song and music video for ‘Fils de Joie’, meaning "Sons of Joy”, from his latest album Multitude. The song is dedicated to sex workers and their children. The music video, directed by Henry Scholfield in a WANDA/HAMLET collaboration, takes place in an imaginary country and features a state funeral for a national hero, a courtesan, with Stromae leading the ceremony. The video showcases the grandeur of the funeral, complete with aerial shots, choreographed displays, and a grand palatial setting with public crowds and military traditions. ‘Fils de Joie’ deals with the subject of prostitution through the perspectives of various characters and pleads for greater recognition and visibility for the children of sex workers.

Ladbrokes launched a major ad featuring cutting-edge VFX this year. For the first time ever, the film showed Rocky's iconic run through Philadelphia from ‘Rocky II’ with a modern cast of characters joining him. The groundbreaking character replacement featured hundreds of contemporary sportspeople, drummers, horse riders, drag queens, dancers, gymnasts, and many others. The biggest character replacement in Hollywood history, it was created by neverland and directed by Nicolai Fuglsig.