This edition covers a lot of ground—from a fast food chain inviting you to personally yell at its president, to an indie agency that took a 144-square-meter moment of Ukrainian grief and turned it into a silver-winning tribute at Euros. There’s a thread running through it, though: specificity wins. The campaigns, moves, and ideas that land this week all know exactly who they’re for, what they’re saying, and why now.
📞 Please Hold, the President Will Take Your Call
BarkleyOKRP helped Burger King pull off something that looks insane on paper but makes complete sense once you think about it for two seconds: a campaign inviting customers to call the chain’s actual president to complain. No, really. Fast Company covered it, and the brief three-word post from the agency—”Let. Him. Cook.”—is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The stunt works because the insight is real: people want to feel heard, and most brands give them a chatbot.
🌍 Same Big Ideas. More Canals.
Alto crossed the Atlantic. The indie agency just planted its European flag in Amsterdam via Adweek, which is either a bold growth move or proof that no creative person can resist a city built on water. Probably both. For an agency that’s built its reputation on challenger thinking, the move signals something worth watching: indie expansion that skips the London playbook entirely.
🤖 The Machine Doesn’t Reward Ambition. It Rewards Integrity.
Chameleon Collective published a sharp piece—now picked up by Harvard Business Review—on what AI agents in retail actually mean for brands. The thesis: discovery is now a systems decision, not a marketing moment. Algorithms rank before a customer ever enters the conversation. Messy operations, inconsistent data, unclear policies? You don’t make the list. The piece lands hard because it reframes the problem entirely—this isn’t an SEO tweak, it’s an organizational rethink. The brands that win won’t just market well. They’ll operate well.
🦷 Making Toothpaste Worth Talking About
Fohr helped Hello Products launch its Whipped toothpaste to Gen Z through creators who could actually make oral care interesting—a 3D artist, a lifestyle creator, and a comedian. Glossy covered the strategy, which centers the idea that even the most functional categories can be reimagined if you match the creator to the cultural moment rather than just the product benefit. Toothpaste is now, apparently, a beauty essential. Sure.
🎬 A CoreWeave Launch Built for the Biggest Stages
Noble People led the media strategy for CoreWeave’s first brand campaign—”Ready for Anything, Ready for AI”—anchored by a :60 spot featuring Chance The Rapper. The buy hit the Olympics, March Madness, CNBC’s AI coverage, leading tech podcasts, and premium platforms like Forbes and WIRED. The thinking is worth noting: when you’re launching an AI-native cloud platform into enterprise adoption, you don’t place ads—you align with the moments where decision-makers are already paying attention.
🏗️ Zero Complaints. On a Bridge Closure.
Ardmore shared a case study that deserves more attention than infrastructure comms usually gets. Their “Strengthening Stockport” platform—built for Network Rail’s £16M replacement of a major bridge—generated zero public complaints. For context, a comparable project ran an 18% complaint rate. The strategy: reframe disruption as civic investment. Lean into local identity. Make the inconvenience feel like something being done for the community, not to it. The platform has since been adopted for other major UK infrastructure programmes. That’s not a campaign. That’s a model.
🎥 The Question Everything Super Bowl Halftime Show
Curiosity brought a genuinely moving moment to their Question Everything Super Bowl “halftime” show: 72andSunny’s Damaune Journey surprised Dhani Jones on air, and the two reflected on the Black male experience at the University of Michigan and the student org that launched both their careers. It’s the kind of content that earns its runtime. Watch it below.
🍺 Jägermeister Finds a New Digital Home
Serviceplan Group announced a new digital mandate from Mast-Jägermeister Deutschland—covering social media management, digital owned channels, and hero campaign conception for one of Germany’s most culturally embedded brands. What’s strategically interesting: Jägermeister’s media budget has sat with Mediaplus Köln since 2023, so this pairing brings content, creation, and media strategy under one roof. Integrated in the way people actually mean when they say “integrated.” More here.
✨ Fairy Tales, Fairy Tale Budgets
Raindrop turned everyday hair battles into a storybook for Fairy Tales Hair Care—clean ingredients, gentle positioning, and a creative execution that leans into the brand name rather than running from it. Have a look.
Not content with just the one win this week, Special Australia is celebrating a third industry award for “Mum-nipulate the Algorithm” for Kitchen Warehouse—the low-budget, smart-idea campaign that has now outlasted its own launch cycle. They’re also congratulating Ally Doube on her appointment as Uber’s new marketing lead, per LBBonline, with what might be the warmest agency-client send-off you’ll read today.
🏈 A Cultural Tailgate as Content Engine
Need Pastel turned the Super Bowl into a Latino cultural moment with the Primo Bowl Tailgate—a 300+ creator and tastemaker event featuring custom art installations, in-culture collaborations with Pro Club and Northgate Market, and a content strategy that centered Latino fandom rather than just reaching for it. The event became what they called “a living content engine.” It shows in the organic buzz. This is experiential marketing working the way it’s supposed to: building presence through culture, not renting it for an afternoon.
📊 What Travel Marketers Should Pay Attention to Now
Mower Agency sent Senior Director Jamie Scalici to the Skift Megatrends 2026 conference and brought back the takeaways worth reading—which, given how much travel spending is back and how fragmented the landscape has become, is actually useful intel for any agency touching hospitality, tourism, or lifestyle clients right now.
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Kyle O’Brien is managing editor of Indie Agency News.
