<div class="gn-article"><div class="gn-hero gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-hero__image"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/687a235da6861294eec73166/6a1eba9fc06b58e3fc9fb3bb_fallback_916_intro-1-1600x900.jpeg" alt=""></div> <div class="gn-hero__head"> <span class="gn-kicker"><span class="dot"></span>Expression</span> <h1 class="gn-title">Campaigns of the Month: May 2026</h1> <div class="gn-meta"> <strong>The GO Network</strong> <span class="pip"></span> <span>2 June 2026</span> <span class="pip"></span> <span>8 min read</span> </div> </div> </div> <div class="gn-body"> <p class="gn-lede gn-reveal">Every month we pull together the campaigns that caught our attention: the ones that made a smart creative call, used their medium well, or said something that actually needed saying. May had the World Cup looming over almost everything, and the best work found a way to use that pressure rather than just show up inside it.</p> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#01</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">IKEA</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> IKEA</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> Åkestam Holst NoA</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Retail / Home</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> OOH, DOOH, Print</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">The FRAKTA bag is one of the most recognisable objects in modern retail. Åkestam Holst NoA found a way to make it a lens. The Point-Of-You campaign places the camera inside the open top of the bag and shoots everyday life from there: a child being lifted at a playground, a kitchen counter mid-cook, a high street pavement seen from ground level.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The effect is immediate and slightly disorienting. The bag's shape becomes a frame. What you're looking at is ordinary. How you're looking at it isn't. IKEA has been here before with the FRAKTA, most famously in the response to Balenciaga, but this is something different. This is the bag as a point of view rather than a punchline.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The campaign runs across OOH, DOOH, and print, which suits it. These are formats that reward a second glance, and this is work that earns one. Åkestam Holst NoA have found something genuinely new to say about an object that has been culturally saturated for years. That is harder than it looks.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6877701b88030d58f11ac053/6a1ecaa89530dc81a2be2c87_IKEA%20BAG.webp" alt="A frame from IKEA Point-Of-You, shot through the open top of a FRAKTA bag"></div> <figcaption>IKEA, Point-Of-You — Åkestam Holst NoA.</figcaption> </figure> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#02</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Adidas</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> Adidas</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> In-House (with production partners)</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Sportswear / Football</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> TVC, Social, Digital, OOH</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">For the 2026 World Cup, Adidas made the case that football doesn't start in the stadium. It starts in the garden. Backyard Legends brings together Timothée Chalamet, Lionel Messi, and David Beckham for a campaign built on the mythology of informal play: keepy-uppies on a driveway, tap-ins off a garden wall, goals that nobody filmed but everyone remembers.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The spend is significant. At £50m, this is one of the largest campaign investments of the year. But the creative direction works against its own scale. The production is deliberately lo-fi in places. The talent is enormous but the framing is intimate. The argument being made is that the roots of elite football are indistinguishable from the game played in back gardens everywhere.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The World Cup is a crowded advertising environment and Adidas is not the only brand spending at this level. The Backyard Legends angle earns its budget by anchoring a global campaign in something personal rather than spectacular. Chalamet is a genuinely interesting choice. He is not a footballer. That is part of the point.</p> <div class="video-embed gn-reveal" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:1.5em 0;"> <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1197697660" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#03</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Air Transat</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> Air Transat</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> Courage (Montreal)</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Travel / Airlines</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> OOH, Social</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Air Transat found an elegant way into the World Cup conversation without spending on rights or sponsorship. Courage Montreal built the campaign around a single, undeniable consumer truth: for many fans, a return flight to a country playing in the tournament costs less than a ticket to see them play.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The execution uses live data. It pulls real-time ticket pricing for specific matches and compares it to Air Transat's flights to those destinations. The implication is obvious and the tone is playful rather than combative. There is no attack on FIFA or the tournament. Just a straightforward, factual alternative on offer.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">What makes this land is that it meets fans exactly where their frustration is. The pain point is specific and the solution is specific. The comparison does the persuasion without the campaign having to make much of an argument at all. Courage have made an efficiency of means look like a creative choice, which is exactly what it is.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6877701b88030d58f11ac053/6a1ecaa9c091876c932f4c7c_Air%20Transat.gif" alt="Air Transat World Cup ticket-vs-flight price comparison"></div> <figcaption>Air Transat, World Cup price comparison — Courage Montreal.</figcaption> </figure> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#04</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">McDonald's France</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> McDonald's France</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> TBWA\Paris</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> QSR / Food Delivery</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> Email, Digital</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">McDonald's France has offered office delivery for a while. The insight TBWA\Paris found was simpler than the mechanics: over 30% of lunches are eaten at work, and no major player in the category has ever really spoken to that directly. Office Delivery fixes that.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The creative execution is the campaign's best detail. McDonald's products were placed directly onto scanner glass, scanned, and the resulting images were sent as email attachments to more than 235,000 workers. The medium is the message. The campaign was made for the office, with office tools, in office language. The scanner as a studio. The email as media.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The work earns its attention because it doesn't feel like an ad that arrived in someone's workplace. It feels like something that belongs there. TBWA\Paris have used the most mundane possible production process and turned it into something actually memorable. The ambition was small enough to be funny and precise enough to be effective.</p> <div class="video-embed gn-reveal" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:1.5em 0;"> <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1197689227" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#05</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">SharkNinja (with The Very Group)</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> SharkNinja / The Very Group</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> GATE (with Very Media Group and HelloStudio)</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Consumer Electronics / Home Appliances</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> Social, Video, Retail Media</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">The Summer of Hosting campaign follows a simple and accurate observation: summer in Britain is chaotic, and the chaos is mostly happening in the garden. The Very Group and SharkNinja co-created a series of five content moments built around the specific texture of that chaos. Dad vs. The Wait. Dad vs. The Hungry Mob. Dad vs. The Penalties. Mum vs. The Heat. Mum vs. The Playdate. Each one is a scenario. Each one has a product answer.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">What makes this more than a standard retail media activation is the thinking underneath it. SharkNinja has spent the past year building a more connected ecosystem between the Shark and Ninja brands, which have historically been seen as separate. Summer of Hosting brings that logic into a retail context: rather than pushing individual products in individual categories, the campaign builds a household narrative across occasions. The Ninja FlexFlame in the garden. The Shark FlexBreeze keeping everyone cool. The Ninja Crispi for the snacks. The Ninja Slushi for the kids and, frankly, the adults. One platform, multiple products, one coherent picture of what summer hosting actually looks like.</p> <p class="gn-reveal"> GATE, Very Media Group, and HelloStudio collaborated on the execution, which is a lot of parties to align. That it reads as a single campaign rather than a committee product is the real achievement. The World Cup timing is a bonus. The platform was always going to be relevant to summer regardless. Work that earns its moment rather than borrowing it.</p> <div class="video-embed gn-reveal" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:1.5em 0;"> <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1197699990" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#06</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Paddy Power</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> Paddy Power</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> BBH London</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Betting / Sports</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> TVC, Digital, Social</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Paddy Power's arrival into the World Cup conversation was built around a face-off nobody asked for and everyone engaged with. Danny Dyer versus Rob Lowe, the question of who does football better, and a campaign line that was never going to be modest: "Nobody Does Football Better Than Us."</p> <p class="gn-reveal">BBH London cast it as a transatlantic football debate. Dyer represents the British end of the sport. Lowe, an American actor more associated with prestige drama than penalty shootouts, represents the American version. The campaign launches Paddy Power's expanded football coverage ahead of the World Cup. The debate is the vehicle, not the destination.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">Paddy Power has been doing this long enough that the format is familiar. What keeps it working is the casting specificity. Dyer is not a generic British football voice and Lowe is not a generic American voice. Putting them in the same room about the same subject produces something with texture beyond the central joke. BBH understand this brand's tone well enough to keep pushing it without exhausting it.</p> <div class="video-embed gn-reveal" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:1.5em 0;"> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pKbCKAo_pqw" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#07</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Snickers</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> Snickers</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> BBDO New York</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> FMCG / Confectionery</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> Social, Video, Digital</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">Snickers has always done best when the campaign is a commitment rather than a concept. The Reese's play is exactly that. BBDO New York found people actually named Reese, hired them to endorse Snickers' peanut butter range, and had the whole thing directed by Eric André, who is the right person to direct this kind of controlled chaos.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The campaign runs directly at the category leader. Reese's Pieces and Snickers are both peanut butter adjacent. The tactic of recruiting real people with the competitor's name as endorsers is a stunt with a legitimate strategic point underneath it: Snickers is here, it works, and the peanut butter is worth talking about.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">André's direction gives the work a register that a more conventional director would have sanitised. The endorsers are deadpan. The situations are slightly wrong. The comedy lands because it doesn't announce itself. BBDO have made a competitive claim feel like a cultural moment, which is harder than most brand campaigns manage.</p> <div class="video-embed gn-reveal" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:1.5em 0;"> <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1197701731" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#08</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">Tesco</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> Tesco</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> BBH London, EssenceMediacom UK, Channel 4, Cedar Communications, With Not For, The Diversity Standards Collective</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Retail / FMCG</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> TVC, Social, Digital, Print, Product</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">"Now We're Cooking" won the Channel 4 Diversity in Advertising Award, which comes with £1m of media. Tesco, BBH London, EssenceMediacom UK, and Channel 4 used it to build something more substantial than a film. The campaign reworked 100 of the nation's favourite recipes to meet inclusive design standards: measurements written in full for e-reader legibility, specific timings instead of visual cues, and versions available as accessible ebooks, audio downloads, and Braille on request. BSL recipe content sits on the Tesco Kitchen YouTube channel. Adaptive cooking tools are available through Tesco Marketplace in partnership with Parkinson's UK.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The TV film earns its place but the recipes are the campaign. What this group of partners built together is a turn from an advertising brief into a product decision. The accessible formats are genuinely useful to the people they are designed for. That is a different ambition from most diversity-led advertising, which tends to stop at the film and call it done.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The collaboration depth reflects the seriousness of the brief. Cedar Communications handled the recipe content. With Not For, a disability-founded talent and production agency, ensured the film was built to be inclusive from the ground up. The Diversity Standards Collective provided consultancy throughout. A campaign produced with that level of structural rigour tends to feel different from one that is produced about it. This one does.</p> <figure class="gn-fig gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-fig__media"><img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6877701b88030d58f11ac053/6a1ecaaa7230e2585e4f0d19_Tesco.gif" alt="Tesco Now We're Cooking inclusive recipe campaign"></div> <figcaption>Tesco, Now We're Cooking — BBH London with EssenceMediacom UK and Channel 4.</figcaption> </figure> </div> <div class="gn-list-item gn-reveal"> <div class="gn-list-item__head"> <span class="gn-list-item__num">#09</span> <h3 class="gn-list-item__title">4Creative</h3> </div> <div class="gn-list-item__meta"> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Brand:</strong> 4Creative</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Agency:</strong> In-House</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Category:</strong> Media / Creative</span> <span class="gn-list-item__pill"><strong>Medium:</strong> Brand Identity</span> </div> <p class="gn-reveal">4Creative's rebrand is one of those pieces of work that shouldn't be on this list but is. An internal creative team rebranding itself is not usually a campaign. This one functions like one.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The new identity is built around more than 130 unique 4C monograms, each designed by a member of the 4Creative team. The logo is, by design, never finished. Different versions appear across different contexts. The iconography is drawn from Channel 4 shows and 4Creative's own archive. It is a brand identity that announces it was made by a particular group of people, at a particular moment, with a particular history.</p> <p class="gn-reveal">The practical argument for it is real. A creative team's brand should feel like the output of a creative team rather than a brand consultancy. The 4C mark becomes the device for communicating range rather than a single graphic signifying sameness. What they have built is an identity system with genuine creative integrity, which puts it in better company than most.</p> <div class="video-embed gn-reveal" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:1.5em 0;"> <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1197699581" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> </div></div>