From high-profile Super Bowl ads to luxury product endorsements, brands are connecting with their consumer bases using humor and absurd visuals.

On April 5th, luxury designer brand Jacquemus posted a video ad of several purse-shaped mobiles unleashed in the streets of Paris. The 3D renderings of the purses, modeled after the brand's popular Le Bambino bags, appeared to roll through Paris's center streets on wheels, perhaps a dig at the brand's super-tiny purses that have gained worldwide attention in the last year.

Three large industrial washing machines, silver and chrome colored, with front-facing doors and a window. In the middle washer, the door is open and noodles overflow out of the open door.
Pot Noodle ad, courtesy of Twitter

At the end of March, Pot Noodle launched a campaign riffing off of their ability to fill you when you’re hungry. The ads featured images of potholes, a bird house, even a washing machine filled with Pot Noodles, effectively filling holes in day to day life. The brand takes a literal meaning to their product offering and put applied it to mundane objects with a silly twist. “In today’s purpose-driven advertising, there can be no higher calling than plugging a hole on the B372 with a steaming hot portion of Bombay Bad Boy,” communications company adam&eveDDB creative lead Richard McGrann told Creative Review.

A man with dark hair and light skin stands opposite a woman with blonde hair and light skin. They are miniaturized and standing on a refrigerator shelf next to various produce items: an old chicken wing, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, orange juice, eggs.
Hellmann's and WPP

WPP returned to the Super Bowl this year with Hellman’s in the next iteration of the ‘Make taste, not waste’ campaign. Actors John Hamm and Brie Larson kick off the clip trapped in a refrigerator as a verbal play on ham and cheese. Suddenly, comedian Pete Davidson opens the refrigerator to make a sandwich, where he finds and speaks to a mini Hamm and Brie on his top shelf.

Tubi used a fantastical, other-worldly approach in its Super Bowl ad this year. The minute-long commercial was a play on words. A human-sized rabbit followed people on their laptops or watching TV and dragged them into its own “rabbit hole;” a spoof off the way consumers can binge Tubi’s popular movies, series, and content.

The joyconomy is underway, and consumers are gravitating towards other-worldy visuals, colorful activations and engaging launches that elevate mundane, everyday occurrences and products. These companies are embracing a nonsensical and playful rule book to poke fun with and jolt their audiences into awe and curiosity.

Main image of a Pot Noodle ad, courtesy of Twitter.

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