Spain – The fried chicken fast food brand has embraced authenticity and almost-obscene humour with a campaign showcasing its customers’ facial expressions while biting on a KFC delicacy. Imagined by Madrid-based PS21 agency, the short film set to You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker is filled with different vignettes of diverse characters and their slow-motion face contractions expressing bliss.

‘In the advertising industry, we are used to seeing TV actors smiling at products as if they were telling a joke. Who eats while smiling? Who bites and chews with a picture face?’ said Víctor Blanco, PS21’s executive creative director. ‘We all know that the more we enjoy something, the more ridiculous our grimaces become, and that’s amazingly beautiful. This is the idea we want to share with the campaign, touching the audience with something as basic as fried chicken.’

In TikTok Tastes, we highlighted how TikTok’s influence on food and drink trends crosses the real world, inspiring new brands, products, menus and marketing concepts, such as KFC Spain’s Enjoy, it’s beautiful campaign.

South Africa – Cider brand Savanna has called on South African designer Wanda Lephoto to create Dry Goods, a limited-edition collection of waterproof apparel imagined for a world facing rising sea levels.

‘It’s dry, but you can’t drink it’, reads the campaign for the fashion capsule collection, consisting of a range of ready-to-wear parkas, shorts, cross-body bags, matching sets, trench coats and jackets. Wanda Lephoto re-interprets African culture and traditions with a modern spin for the luxury range. Behind the colourful aesthetic and playful tagline, the campaign is a savvy way to exhibit the beverage brand’s commitment to sustainability in the context of a global climate crisis and rising sea levels putting populations at risk of flooding.

The apparel is paired with digital assets that the brand calls the world’s first-ever recycled digital collectables. ‘As a campaign with something to say about sustainability, we had to take it a step further than digital collectables or NFTs,’ explains Kolosa Kokolo, assistant brand manager at Savanna. ‘By sourcing burnt NFT units and repurposing their artwork, Wanda has designed a singular piece that will be turned into a virtual avatar.’

Global – Research conducted by data platform CreativeX has found that only 4% of ads over the past three years contain sustainability messaging. AI technology was used to analyse 2.5m adverts, including campaigns from Nestlé, Heineken and Unilever.

The study found that the number of adverts with a central sustainability message steadily increased from January 2020 until December 2022, but fell by 47% at the beginning of 2023. CreativeX believes this change reflects the cost of living crisis superseding climate change as a more relevant issue.

CreativeX’s research also found that brands lean towards using positive language when discussing sustainability. Messages urging consumers to make greener choices were four times more frequent than neutral or negative comments. ‘Our research demonstrates that despite meaningful commitments to sustainability, markets are struggling to embed sustainability messaging into their communication and creative strategy,’ says CreativeX founder Anastasia Leng. Our Sustainability series reveals innovative ideas focusing on regenerative practices at the core of brands and organisations – an important value for younger consumers.