You will already know the broad shape of the KitKat story. Twelve tonnes of bars were stolen in transit between Italy and Poland on 26 March. By 1 April, agency VML UK and Nestlé had launched a public batch-code tracker that let consumers check whether the bar in their hand had been part of the missing shipment. A few days later, KitKat Canada and Toronto agency Courage put a chocolate truck under a real security escort down Yonge Street. The work has done the rounds. It deserves its place among April's most effective campaigns.
Elsewhere, the work that broke through during April includes a typeface for the Amazon basin drawn from satellite imagery of the river. Billboards in Manchester rebuilt as bee habitats. An LED-advertising format in Italy that cuts power draw by up to 74 percent. A pro-bono street campaign in Sydney that gave Australia's youth-homelessness statistics new public visibility. AXA is equipping 50 amateur women's rugby clubs with full kit from September. And a 30-second Burger King France film built around a brutally comedic casting choice.
Burger King France launched its King Tortillas range on 6 April across French TV and online video, in 30", 20" and 10" formats. The new menu offers toasted wraps in Cheese & Bacon, Extra Cheddar and a vegetarian recipe. Buzzman created the campaign. Hafid F. Benamar directed the film through Sovage. The launch event was hosted at the Jamel Comedy Club in Paris.
The campaign is built around a single product feature: the wraps can be eaten with one hand. The casting decision turns that feature into the entire idea. Jamel Debbouze, the French-Moroccan comedian whose right arm has been paralysed since a childhood accident in January 1990, walks into an elegant apartment dressed as the high-fashion face of a premium brand shoot. He poses with the tortilla, plays the polished celebrity spokesperson. Then a voiceover lands: "Who better than Jamel to present Burger King's King Tortillas? Toasted tortillas so convenient, you can eat them with just one hand." Debbouze, in character, responds: "That's why you brought me here, you bunch of…"
Why it's here: The campaign turns a casting choice into a piece of cultural commentary. Debbouze has spent his career addressing his disability through comedy on his own terms. Buzzman and Burger King had the trust of the talent, and the nerve to make his public position the campaign's punchline rather than its absence. Reception in France has been split between admiration and discomfort, which is more or less what the work was built to provoke.
Credits: Brand: Burger King France Agency: Buzzman Chairman / Creative Director: Georges Mohammed-Chérif Creative Directors: Julien Doucet, Lilian Moine Art Director: Pierre Cognard Copywriter: Guilhem Barbet Production: Sovage Director: Hafid F. Benamar DOP: Joao Padua Launch: 6 April 2026, French TV and online video
On launched its first co-created collection with Zendaya and Law Roach on 9 April, supported by a three-minute short film directed by Spike Jonze and still-life photography by Sean Thomas. The collection, including the new Cloudnova Moon silhouette, became available at on.com on 16 April. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the video accumulated nearly 10 million YouTube views in its first six days.
The film is set inside what On calls "The Dream Lab", a minimalist white space in which silhouettes stretch, shift and reform. The collection extends across ribbed tank tops, ribbed T-shirts, half-zip anoraks, coach jackets, drawstring midi skirts, parachute pants and Bermuda shorts. On's chief marketing officer Alex Griffin described it as "a complete expression across footwear and apparel… Zendaya's creative spirit is felt in every detail, shaping how performance and style come together."
The film is part of Spike Jonze's sustained late-career commercial run. Thirteen years on from Her, his last narrative feature, his recent commercial work includes Apple's "Welcome Home", the Pedro Pascal AirPods film "Someday", Gucci's The Tiger and Dick Van Dyke's "All My Love" music video. The filmmaking site No Film School described Shape of Dreams as "a masterclass in how to use surrealist visual language and practical effects to elevate a commercial concept into high art."
Why it's here: On has spent the past three years trying to move from running specialist to credible fashion-performance brand. Shape of Dreams is the clearest expression yet of that ambition. Zendaya as design collaborator rather than face, Jonze given room to make a short film rather than a commercial, and a collection that sits at the intersection of both. Most celebrity sportswear ends at borrowed heat. This one is structured differently.
Credits: Brand: On Co-creator: Zendaya Co-creator / Stylist: Law Roach Director: Spike Jonze Production: MJZ Photography: Sean Thomas On Chief Marketing Officer: Alex Griffin
McDonald's UK and Ireland launched a seven-week chicken-focused campaign on 20 April with Leo UK. The strategic insight underneath is unusually disciplined for the category. Most McDonald's customers do not really choose their order, they repeat it. The campaign asks them to betray their usual.
Hero films were directed by Grandmas. The execution runs across TV, social, OOH, radio, CRM and influencer. A creator-led microdrama series rolls out from May. A hero event at Fnatic HQ in Dalston extends the conceit into earned media. Attendees can only attend if their plus-one agrees to switch their order.
Despite McDonald's being one of the UK's biggest sellers of chicken, it has spent years losing chicken occasion-share to KFC, Popeyes and the new generation of fast-casual specialists. Leo UK's argument is that the real competitor is internal: the Big Mac, the Quarter Pounder, the nuggets, years of customer muscle memory. Asking a McDonald's regular to switch to McCrispy is a harder behavioural ask than asking them to try a new restaurant.
James Hodson, creative director, Leo UK added, “Everyone has a go-to order. Whatever it is, it’s with you for life. “Betray your go-to” is all jolting people out of their autopilot to consider the McCrispy. The campaign takes a universal truth and challenges it in a playfully rebellious way, just as creativity should.”
Why it's here: It is one of the few major QSR campaigns of the quarter built on behavioural strategy rather than product-feature pyrotechnics. The integration across earned, paid and event channels is unusually disciplined. James Hodson, creative director at Leo UK: "'Betray your go-to' is all about jolting people out of their autopilot." Worth tracking against same-store sales data through the summer.
Credits: Brand: McDonald's UK & Ireland Agency: Leo UK Creative Directors: James Hodson, Jason Keet Director: Grandmas Design: PopDesign (Leo UK in-house) Media: OMD PR / Event / Influencer: Red Consultancy CRM: TMW In-restaurant / POP: Linney Launch: 20 April 2026
Love Hurts is built around an endearing family ritual passed through generations. A parent or grandparent applying Vaseline to a child's face before they leave the house, despite the wriggling resistance. The film launched in Kenya on 8 April. Savanah Leaf directed, the former Olympian and BAFTA-winning filmmaker, through Park Pictures London and Whitecoat Productions. It rolled out across social platforms with the hashtag #AllYouNeedIsVaseline.
Nathalia Amadeu, Global Brand Director at Vaseline, on the brief: "For anyone who grew up with a grandmother, mother, or dad rubbing Vaseline onto their skin, it was never just about moisture; it was an act of care, protection, and love."
Why it's here: Personal-care advertising routinely defaults to softness. Smooth skin, gentle hands, better moisture. Love Hurts finds a more specific register: love as protection, even when protection is irritating. For a legacy brand, that is the harder kind of heritage to access. It does not live in archive packaging or retro typography. It lives in family rituals consumers may not have understood as brand assets until advertising returned them.
Credits: Brand: Vaseline (Unilever) Creative Agencies: Ogilvy Singapore (lead), VML South Africa Global Brand Director, Vaseline: Nathalia Amadeu Director: Savanah Leaf Production: Park Pictures London; Whitecoat Productions
AXA's three-minute film for the French Rugby Federation aired in prime time on France TV on 11 April, the launch of the Women's Six Nations Tournament. It opens in a 1970s-style room of caricatured men in suits dismissing the idea of women playing rugby, before cutting to the present-day women's game and the players who define it. Julien & Quentin directed through Hamlet. Post-production by Prodigious Paris, media by Wavemaker. The campaign runs to 17 May, with 30-second cutdowns across the Six Nations and OOH in train stations.
AXA has been the first brand to partner with all of women's rugby in France since 2025, as Official Insurer of the French Women's National Team and title partner of the AXA Elite 1 championship. The "Women on the Field" initiative, announced alongside the campaign, will equip 50 amateur women's rugby clubs with full playing gear from September 2026.
Why it's here: Women's sport has spent the past three years being discovered by brands attracted to the optics but unwilling to fund the system underneath. AXA has put money into the grass-roots infrastructure, the elite club championship and the national team in parallel. The film is the visible layer. The kit, the broadcast and the title sponsorship are the work.
Credits: Brand: AXA Partner: Fédération Française de Rugby (FFR) Agency: Publicis Conseil Production: Hamlet Directors: Julien & Quentin Post / VFX: Prodigious Paris Media: Wavemaker Launch: 11 April 2026, France TV
In April, Brazil's Legal Amazon received its first unified brand identity. Nine states: Acre, Amazonas, Amapá, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins, covering 60 percent of Brazil's territory and home to 28 million people. The identity is called Amazonia. FutureBrand São Paulo created it, commissioned by Integrated Amazon Routes (RAI) and the Brazilian Tourist Board (Embratur).
Its most distinctive feature is the typeface Igaratipo, named after "igarapé", the word for a small stream. The creative team developed it by mapping meanders and curves along 25,000 kilometres of the Amazon riverbed. Each letter was found in the real bends and tributaries flowing through the nine states. A second typeface, Aberta ("open" in Portuguese), draws from the hand-painted signs of local Amazon markets. Visitors to igaratipo.visiteamazonia.com.br can write short messages in the river-drawn typeface.
A "Feito de Amazônia" ("Made of Amazon") seal extends the identity beyond tourism. Local producers can apply it to crafts, gastronomy and music as a marker of regional origin. The project credits illustrators Cristo, Winy Tapajós, Malu Menezes and Beatriz Belo; photographers Ori Junior and Bob Menezes; letterer Odir Abreu; and the Instituto Letras que Flutuam, an association that preserves the decorative lettering of the Amazon.
Why it's here: A 28-million-person region receiving its first coherent visual identity is a significant cultural moment in its own right. FutureBrand drew the typeface from the river itself, worked only with artists from the nine states, and built the "Made of Amazon" seal that turns the identity into an economic instrument rather than a tourism logo. It is the design launch of the quarter.
Credits: Client: RAI (Integrated Amazon Routes), Embratur (Brazilian Tourist Board) Agency: FutureBrand São Paulo Partner / CDO: Arnaldo de Andrade Bastos Director of International Marketing, Embratur: Bruno Reis Illustrators: Cristo, Winy Tapajós, Malu Menezes, Beatriz Belo Photographers: Ori Junior, Bob Menezes Lettering: Instituto Letras que Flutuam Letterer: Odir Abreu
Plenitude, the retail arm of Italian energy group Eni, has converted its LED screen creative into dark mode. The change covers its Italian stores and DOOH placements in Italy, Spain and France. According to research from Certimac commissioned by Plenitude, reducing average pixel luminance from 70 to 35 percent cuts power draw by approximately 74 percent. The launch activation, planned by Carat Italia, ran across Plaza Callao in Madrid, Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, La Défense in Paris and DOOH sites in Milan.
LePub also released a platform, darkmodeads.com, that converts brand assets to dark mode while preserving legibility, and has invited other advertisers to use it.
Why it's here: Plenitude is using its own advertising surface as the proof point for its category positioning, and providing the toolkit for competitors to do the same. There is no manifesto film, no green visual system, no anxious hero piece. The format itself is the message. The reduction in energy consumption is measurable, repeatable, and now available to anyone who wants to copy it.
Credits: Brand: Plenitude / Eni Agency: LePub Milan Innovation collective: LeGarage Media: Carat Italia Independent measurement: Certimac Platform: darkmodeads.com
For the launch of the Disney/National Geographic documentary Secrets of the Bees, Meanwhile and JACK, Build Hollywood's in-house creative studio, built billboards across Manchester that doubled as bee habitats.
Working with landscape designer Studio Macarthur, the team built a 500-plant installation in Heaton Park. The timber for the Secrets of the Bees sign was sourced from a cedar that had already been felled. Mini bee hotels were placed across the city, including in Chorlton Water Park, Wythenshawe Park, Fletcher Moss Botanical Garden and the Northern Quarter. The documentary itself is presented by Bertie Gregory and executive produced by James Cameron, who keeps roughly 300 hives on his own organic farm.
Why it's here: Most purpose-led OOH in 2026. The Manchester installations are functional, permanent and consequential: a campaign for a documentary about bees that gives bees somewhere to live, in the city it was launched in, long after the media buy ends. Created with Build Hollywood and the Manchester & District Beekeepers’ Association, the piece turns outdoor promotion into habitat, with more than 500 bee-friendly plants built into the site.
Credits: Brand: National Geographic / Disney Agencies: Meanwhile; Build Hollywood (JACK Creative Studio) Creative Directors, Meanwhile: Rachel Miles, Michael Tsim Landscape design: Studio Macarthur Partner: Manchester & District Beekeepers' Association
For Youth Homelessness Matters Day on 15 April, Droga5 and Accenture Song painted growth charts onto street walls across Sydney and Melbourne for the charity We Are Mobilise. The device is recognisable on contact, the same height markers parents pencil into kitchen doorframes. Outside, on a wall, the same object becomes the entire campaign.
The work was executed across Droga5 / Accenture Song offices in Sydney, London, Dublin and New York, with photographer Simon Harsent, videographer Nelson Bours, muralist Shaun Devenney and street-art studio Apparition Media. The campaign accompanies messaging that highlights the hidden nature of Australian youth homelessness. Most affected young people are not on the street but in cars, on couches, in hotels and in temporary care.
Why it's here: Charity work routinely defaults to either shock or sentiment. No Place To Grow does neither. It takes one familiar domestic object, moves it into the wrong context, and lets the dissonance carry the message. It is the rare charity campaign that respects the dignity of its subject and the intelligence of its audience.
Credits: Client: We Are Mobilise Agency: Droga5 / Accenture Song — Sydney, London, Dublin, New York Photography: Simon Harsent Videography: Nelson Bours Muralist: Shaun Devenney Studio: Apparition Media
On 26 March, 12 tonnes of KitKat bars, 413,793 units from the brand's new Formula One product line, were stolen in transit between Italy and Poland. By 1 April, Nestlé and VML UK had launched the Stolen KitKat Tracker. The public tool let people enter the batch code on their wrapper to check whether the bar belonged to the missing shipment. According to VML UK CCO Ryan McManus, it produced a verified lead now part of the police investigation.
That tool is what separates the work from the standard reactive social response. Domino's UK, Durex Singapore, Pizza Hut South Africa, McAfee and Barilla all posted within 48 hours. KitKat moved further. Sanjiv Mistry, ECD at VML UK: "First, we didn't bury the story. We shaped and shared it. Then, when the hype was at its highest, we flipped it into a hunt."
The campaign extended into local-market spectacle in Canada. KitKat Canada and Toronto independent agency Courage staged the Easter-weekend escorted convoy down Yonge Street, pre-seeded by a job notice on social media for security guards with "big break energy."
Why it's here: It is the most fully delivered piece of reactive work of the year so far. A public utility, a local-market stunt, and a police-grade lead, produced inside seven days, distributed globally and demonstrably useful to the criminal investigation it was responding to whilst also being picked up by global news outlets.
Credit: Stolen KitKat Tracker Brand: KitKat / Nestlé Agency: VML UK CCO: Ryan McManus ECD: Sanjiv Mistry
Credits: Toronto Convoy Brand: KitKat / Nestlé Canada Agency: Courage, Toronto Founders / Co-CCOs: Joel Holtby, Tommy Yong
Holland & Barrett launched its new brand platform Back Your Body on 9 April, the first major work from Lucky Generals since the agency was appointed to the account in May 2025. The launch film, directed by Bradley & Pablo through PRETTYBIRD, gives the body a literal voice. A choir of knees, toes, hearts and stomachs sings Robin S.'s "Show Me Love." OOH followed on 16 April, with a new design system from Lucky Generals' design team that builds the typography itself out of real body parts.
The strategy is built on a single insight, supported by Holland & Barrett's own research. 45 percent of UK adults only pay attention to their body when something is wrong. 37 percent say they do not know what their body needs. The platform reframes the brand as a proactive partner in everyday wellbeing rather than a reactive shop people visit when something hurts. Underneath the campaign sits a substantial operational commitment: 300,000 free Wellness Check-Ins per month across Holland & Barrett stores nationwide, available to anyone, customer or not.
CMO Mark Singleton: "Our bodies do so much for us, yet too often we only pay attention when something isn't right. Back Your Body is about shifting that mindset, encouraging people to listen, support and invest in their bodies every day."
Why it's here: Lucky Generals has done something disciplined for a high-street relaunch. A memorable line, an original design system, and a campaign anchored by 300,000 monthly free health checks: a substantial operational commitment, not a soft brand promise.
Credits: Brand: Holland & BarrettCMO: Mark SingletonAgency: Lucky GeneralsCCO: Shelley SmolerCSO: Damien Le CastrecExecutive Design Director: Nathan CrawfordDirector: Bradley & PabloProduction: PRETTYBIRDMusic: "Show Me Love" by Robin S.PR: The AcademySocial: Fabric, The AcademyOOH photography / direction: The Mason'sLaunch: 9 April 2026 (film); 16 April 2026 (OOH)
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