When I started planning this piece it was supposed to be a reflection on the highs
and lows of the advertising industry over the past 12 months, and it still kind of is, but staying true to my ADHD... I got distracted.

Instead, it has become a reflection on some of my favourite ads of the year and the positive impacts they have made, as well as a personal cheerleading whoop from me to you as we made it to the end of yet another sh*t storm.

Amidst the crippling inflation, apocalypse level heatwaves and record number of
people inhaling through colourful fruity sticks, there were some beautiful campaigns that made it to the forefront in the UK.

A big hitter came from Dove who launched the ‘Reverse Selfie’ campaign.
The campaign aimed to raise awareness of the damaging impact social media is
having on the self-esteem of young girls.

The campaign originally launched in the US in 2021 and has since had a massive
response from consumers, achieving over 6 billion global impressions – meaning
there is a strong possibility nearly 80% of the world has had some form of interaction with the campaign...the absolute dream result for Dove.

The brand continues to go against the stereotypes of the beauty industry and
focuses their campaigns towards making people feel good, as opposed to telling
them how they can look better. Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be any sign of this stopping anytime soon.

Following the summer of a lifetime for the England Lionesses, we were treated to
some wonderful campaign responses to the long awaited Euros win.

Sainsburys couldn’t help themselves but to play on the elected team theme song
‘Sweet Caroline’, and Royal Mail produced a brilliant social visual, letting us know
the package we had all been waiting for had finally arrived.

But the best Euros campaign has to be the Volkswagen ‘#NotWomensFootball’.
Volkswagen called us all out for verbally segregating women’s sport, yet not doing
the same for men’s.

This highlighted how a history of male dominated media sports coverage has caused us to see certain sports, such as football and rugby, as being ‘men’s sports’. Therefore, when a men’s football match is televised, it is referred to as ‘football’ not ‘men’s football’, as this is seen as the norm.

The Volkswagen campaign is a benchmark for equality within the sports industry and over 400,000 new opportunities for women and girls to play football have been created in the UK following the competition, proving an exciting future for the sports
industry.

A final stand out advertisement of 2022, may not be as culturally impactful as the
previously discussed campaigns, but was one which I instantly fell in love with due to its clever acknowledgement of one of the biggest brand revelries of the modern day.

The Samsung ‘Join the Flipside’ ad successfully poked fun at Apple customers and presented, what their consumers describe to be ‘brand loyalty’, as repetitive hysteria.

The ad cleverly uses the phrase ‘my phone’ to mock Apples ‘iphone’ and makes
statements such as “I love buying the same phone over and over again (...) I love
my phone, I would never switch to Samsung”.

The ad aimed to tempt iPhone owners to make the switch and ‘Join the Flipside’ and I can honestly say, if I wasn’t the proud owner of a sim only deal for 10 pound a month, I may have just been persuaded.

So, to summarise... yes, the news media of 2022 may have been primarily
dominated by war, money and nonsensical decisions concerning women’s bodies...

HOWEVER, there are still some wonderful creatives within the advertising industry
that have the publics best interest at heart and aim to make feel-good, impactful
content that does good and makes us smile.

Claps all round for those responsible for the previously mentioned campaigns – keep doing wonderful things.

2022, the advertising year of positive self-image, equality, and good hearted rivalries.

Here’s looking at you ’23. No pressure.