Most Read of 2023: Europe

Remember the ‘eyebrow flashing’ from the intro above? Yeah, here it is. Unsurprisingly, director Edgar Wright’s masterpiece for McDonald’s in collaboration with Leo Burnett UK made all of you raise your eyebrows in collective approval. Oozing with genius, the film ‘Raise Your Arches’ does the unthinkable - makes every viewer’s face prime real estate for the food chain’s logo! You can check our ‘behind the work’ article on it here too. 

Just before the holiday fiasco began, the UK’s largest subscription business EE gave us the gift of a collaboration with British rock band Bloc Party, which resulted in a brand new TVC called ‘Freedom’ as the official music video for the band’s 2005 track ‘So Here We Are’.

‘Iconic’ was written all over this from the start, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the music video itself was incredibly heartfelt, and sensitively depicted the experience of being a teen in 2023 (and beyond). 

So, as promised, we’re starting to edge into culture war territory. SMARTY, the SIM-only mobile network in the UK, promised ‘Less malarkey’ in their campaign developed by MSQ, and some of you were all over it.

The “simple and honest approach to mobile” vouched for by the brand was presented in a series of tongue-in-cheek ads, one of which really hit home - a roadside farmer selling onions and potatoes, but turning down a fiver because, naturally, he takes “Crypto only, mate.”

Stepping further into the thick of it, it’s been another year of LBB championing women in football, so it came as a nice reward to see this as part of your favourites. Adidas unveiled its new campaign championing the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023, dedicated to next gen icons Alessia Russo, Lena Oberdorf and Mary Fowler.

The colourful, fast-paced series of films included stars from the likes of Jenna Ortega, Lionel Messi, David Beckham, Leon Goretzka and Ian Wright, as they played ball in a supermarket (aisle 23 to be exact).

Another football spot, this one not as upbeat, but just as potent and one that made national headlines. Norwich City Football Club took it upon themselves to create a homemade suicide prevention campaign in support of the Samaritans, urging football fans and beyond to check on each other.

Notorious for trapping toxic masculinity within its bubble, the world of football has been slowly opening up to understanding and taking care of men’s mental health, and this campaign’s heartbreaking story is proof. A gut-wrenching piece of data guided the way - the average ticket holder for a Norwich FC game is sadly the same average age as those men most at risk of taking their own life, according to the club. 

Of course this iconic piece of British OOH advertising had to make this list. Uncommon made history when collaborating with British Airways Holidays on this tongue-in-cheek series of posters and billboards poking fun at those who don’t make the most out of their annual leave.

‘Take Your Holiday Seriously’ spanned over 500 unique print, digital and outdoor executions of the campaign and over 32 short films to reflect the individual and funny reasons that people travel - that’s why you probably have never seen two of the same one.

Europe and MEA reporter Nisna Mahtani took it to the German experts to find out more about the trends shaping the country’s sound and audio market, as well as the sounds that “characterise the nation.” Have a look at this meaty piece including 86Tales, MassiveMusic Berlin, Blut Audio and Tracks & Fields.

From the get-go, 2023 looked like it was going to be “a seismic year for gaming,” to quote Grant Peterson, head of gaming at Prism (Wunderman Thompson). In this piece, he broke down his own forecast on hybrid game monetisation models, open pathways for advertisers, personalisation of game experiences, big ticket acquisitions, India and MENA becoming “gaming growth monsters” and a lot more. Check it out to see what he got right.

TikTok’s Bold Glamour filter took the internet by storm. The mother of all beauty filters was created this year, with its well recognisable smoky eye and intense jawline. Some found it funny, others not so much. However you look at it, though, it became evident that face distortion online is on the rise, no matter if you use a blatantly obvious make-up filter or a subtle touch-up on FaceTune.

So, Dove encouraged people to #TurnYourBack to the Bold Glamour as part of its mission to create a #NoDigitalDistortion movement. Influencer-led and developed by Ogilvy and DAVID, the campaign pictured influencers’ backs with the filter in question and gave them the platform to express their own convictions about the damage that online distortion can do.

ChatGPT-led creative was obviously on the rise too this year, and so one of the most iconic advertising wars picked up a new battle to have fun with. McDonald’s asked Chat GPT “What is the most iconic burger in the world?” and soon enough the AI gave the answer the brand was looking for, later to be plastered on bus stops and other OOH.

Burger King, the chain’s long-standing burger joint rival, quickly followed suit with posters right next to the McDonald’s’ ones asking “And which one is the biggest?” - the answer being BK’s Whopper. 

The battle, though, welcomed an unexpected third opponent. “And how do they compare to a footlong?” asked Subway’s poster aligned with those of McDonald’s and Burger King. The answer Chat GPT gave was clear - “In terms of size, both are significantly smaller than a footlong sandwich.”

Speaking of generative AI, while today many people have a prepared answer when you ask them how they’re implementing it or if they’re terrified, that wasn’t necessarily the case at the beginning of the year. In February, the UK government paused the controversial copyright exception related to AI text-to-image tech, so I took it to the Association of Illustrators to discuss with them the detrimental effects which data mining has on artists’ livelihoods. Look back on this conversation with new eyes, today.

Cancel culture, identity politics and unprecedented global crises have all contributed to the dissipation of the ‘centre’. Polarisation is the new black, and at LBB we’ve been trying to keep a close eye on the culture war raging all over the world. Our editor Alex Reeves spoke to advertising experts from across the board to find out what brands should do in a climate like this. Is there an opportunity to heal divisions, or is it time to pick a side? Find out above.

Over 10,000 Germans require an organ transplant each year, but the lack of donors in the country gives rise to a grim statistic - three people die each day without receiving the crucially needed transplant that could save their lives. Germans have one of the lowest organ donation rates in Europe and the ‘opt-out’ legislation is yet to be changed, meaning you need to manually ‘opt-in’ in order to be considered for organ donation.

So, on the third anniversary of the German parliament’s rejection of the bill change, organisation Junge Helde and McCann decided to take a stand - they created a minimal geometric tattoo design that automatically makes you an organ donor. A sign on your body to say you, indeed, ‘opt-in’ (or ‘opt-INK’) to organ donation, tattooed for free for those who are willing to become organ donors. 

Dialogue in ads is probably one of the hardest things to nail down. The risks are endless - lack of natural flow, sounding like you want your characters to be ‘down with the kids’, lack of chemistry due to bad scripts, and more. Alex Reeves spoke to writers from across the ad industry about the craft of dialogue and their tips for cracking conversation - here’s what they said.

At the very beginning of the year I spoke to Sarah Atkinson, chief executive of the Social Mobility Foundation, to find out why advertising spends so much money on targeting and understanding the largest demographic of society, yet never hires it (or retains it).

This goes against your typical, “I walked into the CEO’s office and asked for a job” interview with a creative from the ‘80s. Sarah speaks about the influx of female, minority background and lower socio-economic background graduates who simply are refused a job in the industry that was once a dream come true. And for those who do manage to enter it, it becomes the grim reality of late night shifts at the school boy’s club. 

Wrapping things up with Spotify’s Wrapped. In this interview, Alex Reeves spoke to Spotify UK and Ireland’s head of marketing about the decisions that “made this year’s Wrapped one of the realest yet.” They spoke about the live show in London, the event broadcast on TikTok and the data-driven stories that Spotify told its listeners.