In this week’s Our Take: ditch your grocer for a grower, a bad photographer’s dream job, women’s rugby weaves a story, and the Amazon’s new signature brand.
GROWING PAINS
French gardening retailer Gamm Vert’s new growceries campaign challenges one of retail’s most familiar assumptions: that convenience is always best. Created with Ogilvy Paris, the retailer has disguised seed kits as everyday supermarket staples like soup cartons, tomato sauce tins and bags of crisps, turning what looks like your weekly shop into an invitation to grow your own.
It is a neat piece of visual mischief that parodies supermarket culture while making home-growing feel less earnest and far more playful.
We love this campaign’s lack of preachiness. There is no finger-wagging, no guilt-laden message about food systems – just a charming and witty reframing of gardening as an easy alternative to tossing another plastic-wrapped basil plant into the trolley.
BAD PHOTOS, GREAT IDEA
Icelandair, the leading airline of Iceland, has put out a call for a “really bad photographer” to shoot their global campaign in Iceland. No experience needed, no technical skill required. In fact, they’re actively encouraged to be pretty terrible. The ingenious insight: when a place is as stunning as Iceland is, it doesn’t matter who’s behind the camera.
We’re loving this! While most travel marketing is still chasing perfectly polished, overly curated shots, this just flips it on its head and has a bit of fun with it. It works because Iceland can handle it. If anything, the worse the photos are, the stronger the point becomes.
A nice reminder that sometimes you don’t need to overthink it.
BRAIDS OF GLORY
The promotion of International Women’s Rugby just got a well-woven twist. Powered by Virgin, The Plait Room is a digital content series that takes one of the most iconic pre-match rituals in women’s sports – hair plaiting – and turns it into the perfect space for stories that are real and relatable.
Set in the calm before the storm, the campaign serves up intimate, funny and inspiring conversations with the stars of Premiership Women’s Rugby, all while the braids are getting tighter and the matchday mindset is kicking in.
It’s proper behind-the-scenes access, with the players letting their hair down, while tying it up, and giving fans a front-row seat to the team culture, camaraderie and confidence that fuels the women’s game.
From topics like ‘Injury to international’, ‘How Female Sport Is Inherently Rebellious’ and ‘Signature Game Day Look & Rugby Icks‘, the social series is perfectly woven storytelling that ties together humour, honesty and heart, one braid at a time.
LIVING LOGO
Inspired by the Brazilian flag, fingerprints, topography and the world’s largest river, Future Brand São Paulo brought it all together to create a new visual identity for the Amazon.
Covering 10 states that the Amazon flows through in Brazil, and incorporating the work of artists, illustrators, photographers and audiovisual creators, this is a colossal undertaking. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a tourism identity this brilliant.
The ‘living’ organic logo shines bright in a design world where inorganic shapes often prevail. The wordmark ‘Amazônia’ was formed using satellite imagery of the river’s unique shapes, each image forming a different letter. These letters are then stitched together using code, creating a beautiful, natural signature. In combination with what seems like near-infinite renditions of the logo that express the region’s vast diversity of life and culture, the brand embodies both nature and the creative spirit of Brazil.
Flights to Amazonas, Betim, Minas Gerais, Brazil are around €900 to €1500 if you are wondering.