Chili’s claimed the 19th hole, IAMS gave dogs their own 26.2-mile challenge and Stella Artois sent David Beckham into the intimidating world of ‘The Gentlemen.’
The casual dining chain takes over a public golf course with margaritas, Triple Dippers and a Rhoback collection made for golfers who know the clubhouse is part of the game.
Why it works:
Golf has become fertile ground for brands chasing a younger, more social audience, and Chili’s finds a natural place within that culture. Its ‘Chili’s Golf Club’ takes over DeBell Golf Club, a public course in Burbank, California, and builds the experience around the 19th hole, where golfers gather after a round. For two days, the clubhouse serves Chili’s staples alongside Transfusion and Tee Time margaritas, while a campaign film celebrates the everyday golfer with appearances from Wesley Bryan, Caleb Pressley and Jena Sims Koepka.
The experience also gives Chili’s an easy way into golf fashion through a limited-edition collaboration with active-lifestyle brand Rhoback. Polos, Q-zips, hoodies and hats carry a custom Chili’s Golf Club crest, making the restaurant feel like a genuine golf brand for the weekend. Choosing a public municipal course fits Chili’s approachable personality particularly well. Food, drinks, friends and embellished stories from the day’s round already belong to the 19th-hole ritual, giving Chili’s a role that feels remarkably natural.
IAMS gives four-legged training partners their own marathon
The dog food brand teams with Strava and Olympic and Paralympic champions Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall for a 26.2-mile challenge built for runners and their dogs.
Why it works:
Anyone training for a marathon knows the race itself accounts for only a fraction of the miles. IAMS puts the spotlight on the dogs that often accompany runners for the rest of them. The month-long ‘IAMS Dog Run Marathon’ asks people and their dogs to log 26.2 miles together on Strava throughout September, using the platform’s Pet Tag feature to track each walk or run. Gold medalists Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall join the campaign with their dogs, Milo and Winnie, bringing genuine running credentials and their own four-legged training partners to the idea.
The challenge gives IAMS a useful role in an activity its customers already share with their pets, while the 26.2-mile goal makes everyday walks feel like part of a bigger achievement. The brand also connects its high-protein dog food with canine activity and recovery, while a 5K daily cap keeps pet safety built into the experience. A $10,000 training bonus, 26 bags of IAMS food and the chance for the winning dog’s face to appear on shirts worn by the Woodhalls add some playful marathon-day glory. It’s participation-led marketing with a simple proposition – if your dog trains with you, they deserve a finish line too.
Rock Face asks festivalgoers to join ‘The Great Unwashed’
The men’s grooming brand puts its 72-hour deodorant claim to the test by encouraging Reading and Leeds festivalgoers to skip the showers.
Why it works:
Few places offer a better proving ground for 72-hour deodorant than a music festival. Rock Face builds its first multichannel campaign around that product truth, asking Reading and Leeds festivalgoers to join ‘The Great Unwashed’ and spend three days relying on its antiperspirant. Chief executive James Wilkinson fronts the campaign himself, complete with a petition calling for better festival facilities, while outdoor ads, social and influencer activity bring the challenge to an audience already familiar with the realities of festival hygiene.
Created by independent agency Unbound, the campaign takes an existing festival behavior and gives Rock Face a playful way to demonstrate what its product promises. The 72-hour claim becomes an experience people can participate in, while ‘The Great Unwashed’ gives the campaign a memorable identity with plenty of room for social content. Tying the joke to a call for better campsite facilities adds another dimension, giving festivalgoers something to rally around while Rock Face gets its deodorant into one of the toughest real-world tests it could ask for.
Stonyfield gives humans a taste of the organic cow life
The yogurt brand opens a cow-inspired spa in Maine, using massages, meditation and pasture pedicures to show what organic animal care looks like.
Why it works:
Organic farming standards can feel far removed from the yogurt aisle, so Stonyfield makes them tangible through an experience people already understand – a spa day. The ‘Organic Cow Spa’ at Rainbow Valley Farm in Maine translates cow-care practices into human treatments, including massage and peppermint aromatherapy inspired by grooming routines, a foot soak based on hoof care and a meditation trail modeled on time spent grazing outdoors. Guests can even cuddle the cows, putting the animals behind Stonyfield’s products at the center of the experience.
The playful premise carries a useful piece of education. USDA organic standards require cows to spend at least 120 days each year grazing on pasture, and Stonyfield charges $120 for the experience as a nod to that requirement. By translating farming practices into treatments people can experience themselves, the brand gives ‘organic’ a more concrete meaning and shows some of the care that certification represents. The spa-day hook earns attention, while the farm itself supplies the substance behind it.
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Right Guard decides every other deodorant is ‘Wrong Guard’
The 65-year-old antiperspirant brand uses its own name to make a remarkably simple pitch to a new generation of men.
Why it works:
Right Guard has a name practically begging to be used this way. Its new campaign from Party Land labels every competing deodorant ‘Wrong Guard,’ creating an immediate comparison built around two things the brand wants younger men to remember – sweat protection and price. A series of deliberately straightforward films carries the joke through lines including ‘Wrong Guard, bad. Right Guard, right,’ while another promises that a working man using Right Guard can reduce ‘blood, sweat and tears’ to simply ‘blood and tears.’
The simplicity becomes especially useful for a 65-year-old brand seeking relevance with 18-to-24-year-old men who have little familiarity with it. Right Guard can introduce itself, communicate what the product does and give people an easy-to-remember line in the same breath. Party Land also taps into the brand’s long history with humor while giving it a campaign platform that can stretch across streaming, social, digital and Reddit. The name does most of the creative heavy lifting, which may be exactly what makes ‘If It’s Not Right Guard, It’s Wrong Guard’ so easy to remember.
McDonald’s sends gaming’s biggest characters on a side mission
The fast-food giant brings six Microsoft and Xbox franchises into the real world for a limited-edition menu and a chaotic trip to the Golden Arches.
Why it works:
Saving humanity can wait when there’s a McDonald’s nearby. Created by Leo, the 60-second film pulls characters from Halo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Fallout 76 and Forza into an everyday restaurant, where their gaming abilities prove entertainingly excessive. A Halo spacecraft lands in the parking lot, an Overwatch bot crashes through a wall and a World of Warcraft orc breaks the ordering screen with one oversized finger. The collisions between epic gaming worlds and familiar McDonald’s rituals give each franchise its moment while keeping the restaurant at the center of the action.
Calling the McDonald’s run a ‘side mission’ gives the partnership an idea that belongs naturally in gaming culture and works across all six franchises. It also connects the film with a limited-edition menu inspired by food players have previously encountered on screen, giving fans a chance to experience a piece of those worlds for themselves. McDonald’s has a long history of making pop culture physically collectible and edible. Here, the brand makes the mundane act of grabbing food feel like part of the game.
Stella Artois teaches David Beckham ‘The Gentlemen’s’ rules
Theo James puts the football icon through an intimidating lesson in proper pouring etiquette as Stella Artois enters Netflix’s aristocratic underworld.
Why it works:
David Beckham has encountered plenty of pressure, though few opponents have come armed with a Stella Artois and a knife. Gut Amsterdam drops him into the world of Netflix’s ‘The Gentlemen,’ where Theo James’s Eddie Horniman responds to Beckham’s unwelcome £3m bid on a prized bull by ordering ‘a refresher for our friend.’ What follows is an exquisitely tense demonstration of ‘The Cut,’ one of five stages in ‘The Gentlemen’s Serve,’ as a henchman slowly slices the foam from Beckham’s beer. Message received. His bid disappears.
The pairing works because Stella Artois’s elaborate pouring ritual becomes part of ‘The Gentlemen’s’ own elaborate code of behavior. Five additional films each take one step of the serve – ‘The Clean-Up,’ ‘The Sacrifice,’ ‘The Angle,’ ‘The Cut’ and ‘The Judgment’ – and reinterpret it through the series’ understated threats and aristocratic manners. Even Beckham’s leg cast gets positioned at the required 45-degree pouring angle. It gives ‘There’s Power in the Pour’ a wonderfully literal meaning, with the product ritual supplying the joke and the threat at the same time.