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26 articles
PENNY | PRICE PACKS | 2025
In an age when prices feel impossible to predict, PENNY put the price itself—not quality claims—front and center on its packaging. In German food advertising, where touting quality is the norm, this was a pretty bold bet.
DOVE | Real Beauty: How a Soap Brand Created a Global Self-Esteem Movement | 2025
An ad for soap has spent 20 years picking a fight with the definition of "beautiful." In 2025, it won three Grand Prix at Cannes. This isn't really an ad campaign anymore—it's bigger than that.
PHILIPS | REFURB (Better Than New) | 2024
Stop selling new products, and sell only repaired ones instead. That's the decision Philips made, and it won a Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. This isn't a story about a clever ad idea — it's about changing the way a company actually sells things.
SANDOZ DEUTSCHLAND | OTTER | 2024
The radio ad "OTTER" was written by two interns who hadn't even gotten used to their business cards yet. And the subject matter? Poop jokes. Somehow it won a Gold Lion at Cannes.
BACK MARKET | HACK MARKET | 2022
Inside an Apple Store, using AirDrop, sending a message to someone about to buy an Apple product: "You can get that cheaper at our place." It's a little crazy (in the best way).
FORD | VERY GAY RAPTOR | 2022
It all started with a single line of hate thrown at a YouTube video. Ford didn't demand an apology, and didn't delete it. Instead, they actually built the car.
PENNY | The Wish | 2022
At Christmas 2021, German supermarket PENNY made a three-minute film. A son asks his mother an offhand question, and she answers: she wishes he could get his youth back. All of it—the late nights, the heartbreak, the adventures sneaking out—everything the pandemic took away.
UNITED4RESCUE | DROWNED REQUIEM | 2020
Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" plays as a requiem on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. A symbol of Europe rings out over the graves of refugees. In 2020, while everyone's attention was on COVID and Trump, people were still drowning at sea. A German citizens' group sank the song Europe holds dearest into the ocean.
CHARITÉ BERLIN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL | Printed by Parkinson's | 2020
A 3D printer is shaking. It's been injected with data from a patient's tremors.
HEINEKEN | SHUTTER ADS | 2020
In 2020, the pandemic forced bars to pull down their shutters. The lights went out across the city. So why not put those shutters to work bringing the light back?
THE FEMALE COMPANY | THE TAMPON BOOK | 2020
Sell tampons... as a book. In Germany, period products are taxed at 19%, while caviar, truffles, and books are taxed at only 7%. So why not turn tampons into a book?
EDEKA | THE MOST GERMAN SUPERMARKET | 2018
One day you walk into your usual supermarket and the shelves are completely empty. No coffee, no chocolate, no fruit, no juice. You'd think something had gone wrong.
LEGACY BERLIN | ART BEATS HATE | 2017
"ART BEATS HATE." The title of a film made by a graffiti shop in Berlin says it all. Art beats hate. That's the whole story.
SMART FORTWO | OFFROAD | 2013
A tiny car takes a spectacular tumble off-road. Instead of hiding what's normally seen as a flaw, this ad shows it off proudly, then drops one line at the end: "SMART is as useless off-road as an SUV is in the city." That shameless confidence is just great.
ADIDAS | WINDOW SHOPPING | 2013
11pm, an empty street. A blue sneaker in the shop window catches your eye. But the store's closed—normally that's the end of the story. Adidas made it so you could shop just by touching that window.
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH | TREE CONCERT | 2013
Who would believe a tree could hold a concert? But it really happened in a park in Berlin. One night, a 100-year-old chestnut tree became a musician.
WWF | THE ANT RALLY | 2013
Bugs staging a protest. That ridiculous idea won the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.
DEUTSCHE AIDS-STIFTUNG | EVERY 18 SECONDS SOMEBODY DIES OF AIDS. | 2012
Eighteen seconds. That's how often someone, somewhere in the world, dies of AIDS. As a number, it's almost too short. And almost too heavy to bear.
VOLKSWAGEN | DON'T MAKE UP AND DRIVE | 2012
You're watching a tutorial on how to do your makeup, when suddenly you hear a car crash and the screen shakes. That's the one-minute video VOLKSWAGEN put out on YouTube in 2012.
MERCEDES BENZ | THE INVISIBLE DRIVE | 2012
This piece won the Grand Prix in the Outdoor category at Cannes Lions in 2012, and the first time I saw it, I just went "wait, what?" A car that's transparent — what does that even mean? But it really is see-through. Literally.
NOKIA | MYSTERY AD | 2012
You're sure you're using an iPhone, but suddenly the screen turns into Windows Phone. You're sure you're on Android, but somehow it's now Nokia's interface. This "impossible experience" was built as an actual mobile ad format. Winning Gold at Cannes Lions Mobile in 2012, this trick stands out both for the boldness of targeting competitors' users directly, and for the technical precision needed to pull it off.
BANG & OLUFSEN | Audio Annual Report | 2010
Turning an annual report into music. Have you ever thought of that? I hadn't. But Bang & Olufsen and Serviceplan did it.
BOSCH | Fresh Stone-Age Meat | 2010
Mammoth steak in the freezer aisle. Dinosaur leg cuts. Saber-tooth tiger fillet. Packaged up like they're totally real products, sitting right there on the shelf. The confused faces of shoppers walking by? Priceless.
BMW | THE KINETIC SCULPTURE FOR THE BMW MUSEUM | 2009
At the entrance of the BMW Museum, 714 metal spheres hang in mid-air. At first it looks like nothing at all. But wait seven minutes, and the shape of a car appears.
AUDI | PROCON 10 | 1987
It was 1987, a time when airbags were still expensive and no one could be totally sure they'd actually work when it mattered. Audi chose a different way to protect lives—not with electronics, but with plain physics.
ROHM UND HAAS CHEMISCHE FABRIK | King Acrylius (253,000 Hours) | 1965
1965. A transparent sheet of acrylic became an animated king and took home the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival — a first for Germany. The idea of handing a material's own qualities — transparency, durability, workability — to a character and building the whole ad around it still feels completely alive with 60s energy, practically spilling off the screen.