Work Making Competitors Jealous Prioritises Emotion, Fame, Culture Over Category
Agency CEOs around the world are most jealous of work that evokes emotion and empathy, prioritises culture over category, uses technology imaginatively, and achieves fame for the client and market.
Asked to nominate the 2025 campaign they most wished their agency made, Momentum Worldwide global CEO Donnalyn Smith and DDB Group Australia and New Zealand CEO Priya Patel both chose FCB Chicago’s ‘Caption with Intention’, which won the Titanium Lion and three Grand Prix at Cannes.
Donnalyn noted the tool — a captioning system using timing, size, boldness, and colour to indicate tone, pacing, speaker, and volume to Deaf and Hard of Hearing viewers — feels empathetic, not just utilitarian.
“It’s elegant, purposeful and a deeply expressive experience,” she told LBB.
“In an era when technology can feel cold and mechanical, that campaign proves it can also feel intimate and human.”
Priya agreed the project “completely reinvents captioning for Deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences. It captures emotion, tone, and rhythm – not just words.
“It was built with real community input and powered by clever AI and bold design – it basically solves a decades-old problem with originality. Very jealous.”
Donnalyn chose another, older piece of work which used AR and AI: Michelob Ultra’s ‘Lap of Legends’, created by FCB New York. The campaign saw the AB InBev brand team up with Williams Racing to host the world’s first-ever virtual F1 race, pitting Logan Sargeant against AR avatars of retired racers, who were driven by AI.
It aired on live TV, with Logan racing on the real-life Silverstone track while his opponents appeared only inside his helmet and on-screen.
“The concept of merging real and virtual racing history through AR-equipped helmets isn’t just inventive, it’s joyful,” Donnalyn said.
“It tapped into the collective imagination of sports fans in a way that felt participatory, not promotional. That balance is rare.”
Other CEOs also chose campaigns which used technology in novel ways. Dentsu Creative’s boss across the UK and Ireland, Jessica Tamsedge, picked McCann and Microsoft’s ‘AdLam’ from 2023 “for a uniquely human application of technology, preserving a unique language by bringing an entire community online, connecting them for future generations.”
And Cheil UK’s Chris Camacho opted for ‘Real Magic’ for Coca-Cola, the four-year-old brand platform which has continued to experiment with technology. Upon its launch in 2022, led by BETC London, the hero film blended real and virtual worlds and was supported with activity on Twitch. The platform has since captured work including AI-customised snow globes at Christmas time and an invitation for digital artists to create artworks using assets from the Coca-Cola creative archives. It’s an organising thought that “continues to evolve with confidence,” said Chris.
“What I admire is that it’s not a campaign, it’s a platform. It flexes across channels, formats and cultures. It’s as comfortable in the metaverse as it is in a TVC. That’s how brand-building should look in 2025: borderless, fluid, ambitious. It reminds us that the best work doesn’t play by the rules of a format, it plays by the rules of culture.”
Dentsu’s Jessica chose two other campaigns: the purpose-led, triple Grand Prix-winning ‘Three Words’ by Publicis Conseil for French insurance company AXA, which added “and domestic violence” to insurance policies to give victims of domestic abuse access to emergency housing relocation. “Simple, purposeful, and entirely needed,” she said of the campaign which also resulted in AXA being awarded Most Creative Company at Cannes Lions.
Her final choice was the social-first ‘Vaseline Verified’, which saw the brand confront social media product hacks head-on and scientifically test if they worked. “We talk about brands conducting, rather than controlling, their narratives.
“This is a brilliant example of a brand leaning into this uncomfortable space and conducting the conversation with their own audiences and communities.”
Three of the CEOs’ chosen campaigns contributed to a resurgence in humorous advertising: Motion Sickness’ ‘Make New Zealand the Best Place in the World to Have Herpes’, OVO’s ‘Power Struggle’, and Astronomer’s video with Gwyneth Paltrow. The latter was mentioned by TBWA global CEO Erin Riley, while Nikolaj Belzer, the head of post-production business OkayStudio, praised ‘Power Struggle’ for its surrealness, chaos, “wit and precision.”
“It is funny, clever, totally approachable and never tries to be bigger than it needs to be,” he said of the film which launched in May, made by Saatchi & Saatchi London.
“But every detail is grounded in craft and the kind of smart, sensible creative decisions that only come from talented people working well together.
“It is a reminder of what can happen when independent creative studios go all in with ambition, trust and taste.”
The Kiwi campaign that set out to destigmatise herpes, meanwhile, put Aotearoa “on the map for all the right reasons,” Priya, who is based in Auckland along with Motion Sickness’ team, said.
“I love the humor and honesty. New Zealand is definitely somewhere where people with herpes feel supported rather than judged.”
The best work is standing out amidst clutter, turbulence, and mediocrity by doubling down on emotion: provoking feelings that build memory structures and brand loyalty. Momentum Worldwide’s boss expressed some surprise at this “emotional volatility”.
“Maybe it’s the post-pandemic lag or the climate of reinvention, but campaigns with emotional intelligence are resonating more than ever,” she argued.
“We saw this in everything from local activations to large-scale brand platforms. That swing toward sincerity is something we’re doubling down on. The best work right now comes from teams who know when to move fast and when to move with meaning.”
--
