The home furnishings retailer has launched “Mama Manuals”, a campaign designed to help dads and kids take on the daily household responsibilities that moms often manage behind the scenes. 

Released initially for Mother’s Day but made available year-round, the initiative features a series of step-by-step guides inspired by IKEA’s signature instruction manuals.

The campaign highlights the invisible labour many mothers carry daily—from organising kitchen drawers and folding bedsheets to preparing meals and keeping the home running smoothly. 

Through the manuals, IKEA Philippines encourages families to experience firsthand just how much effort goes into tasks moms routinely make look effortless.

According to IKEA Philippines, the initiative was inspired by the idea that the people who contribute the most at home are often recognised the least. The campaign also ties back to IKEA’s long-standing positioning around creating a better everyday life at home.

“Mama Manuals opens our eyes to what moms do and celebrate them by paying it forward,” said Cidge Laxamana, External Communications Manager at IKEA Philippines.

The manuals are available for free through IKEA Philippines’ official Facebook and Instagram pages, allowing families to download and use them beyond Mother’s Day as a reminder that helping at home should not be limited to a single occasion.

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The campaign spotlights Original Source’s Mint and Vanilla & Raspberry bodywash variants, introducing a new tone of voice and positioning aimed at cutting through what the brand describes as category clichés in the body care market.

Rolling out across multiple out-of-home formats, the campaign leans into humour and simplicity, focusing on the product’s use of natural ingredients rather than exaggerated beauty tropes often associated with personal care advertising.

Jess Wheeler, Creative Director at SICKDOGWOLFMAN, said the campaign was designed to avoid the overly polished conventions commonly seen in the category.

“The skin and body care category is awash with clichés,” Wheeler said. “Original Source is a great, simple product that uses natural ingredients in all of its scents, so there’s no need for compensating with CGI rainforests or weird product names.”

Kate Hewitt, Brand Manager at Original Source, said the new platform reflects the brand’s focus on delivering a sensory experience built around scent and freshness.

“We are thrilled to be working with SICKDOGWOLFMAN to bring that to life with a refreshingly original tone of voice,” she said.

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Under the remit, APRW will oversee integrated communications strategies aimed at strengthening brand visibility and consumer engagement across Singapore for JDE Peet’s portfolio, which includes L’OR, OldTown and Moccona.

The appointment follows a year of collaboration between the two companies, with APRW supporting a series of product launches, influencer engagements, experiential activations and media campaigns across JDE Peet’s coffee brands.

Among the campaigns led by the agency was the launch of L’OR Espresso’s Passione Rossa collection in collaboration with Ferrari Hypercar. 

The campaign introduced limited-edition blends Maranello and Imola, supported by strategic storytelling and targeted outreach designed to position the brand within the premium lifestyle space.

For OldTown White Coffee, APRW worked on campaigns surrounding the launch of coconut-flavoured and pandan coffee variants in Singapore. 

The campaigns aimed to strengthen the brand’s relevance among younger consumers while reinforcing its nostalgic appeal with existing audiences.

More recently, the agency also supported the launch of Moccona Liquid, a ready-to-pour liquid coffee product targeting convenience-focused consumers. 

As part of the rollout, APRW led experiential office takeovers and media seeding initiatives with companies including Vogue Singapore, Mothership, GRVTY Media and Overkill Singapore.

Julie Chiang, Director at APRW, said the partnership had been built on “trust, collaboration, and a shared understanding of how to create meaningful brand storytelling that resonates with consumers.”

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The project marks the first major launch from Dirt since the female-led creative collective formally entered the market last month, while also signalling how creator-led fitness brands are evolving beyond YouTube followings and subscription workouts into broader lifestyle platforms.

McPherson, better known online as Move With Nicole, has built an audience of nearly six million YouTube subscribers through Pilates-focused workout content. 

Bace expands that audience into a dedicated wellness ecosystem combining mat Pilates and kettlebell training under a single digital platform.

Dirt handled the project end-to-end, overseeing brand strategy, naming, positioning, visual identity, creative direction, content production, and website development.

The platform enters an increasingly crowded digital fitness market where brands are competing not only on workouts, but on community, aesthetics, and long-term lifestyle positioning as consumers grow fatigued by short-form fitness trends and algorithm-driven wellness culture.

Dirt Co-Founders Alessia Murer, Lou Wright, and Amber Dempsey said the brand was designed to feel accessible and sustainable rather than aspirational or intimidating.

“The community has enough to contend with already; they don’t need more things that feel hard or unattainable. They need a brand that feels permanent and built for real life,” the Co-Founders said.

For Dirt, the launch also reflects the growing commercial sophistication of creator businesses, where audiences increasingly expect creators to build fully realised products, memberships, and digital ecosystems rather than operate purely as social personalities.

McPherson said the collaboration was intended to evolve Move With Nicole into a longer-term wellness community.

“We wanted to cry when we saw the work,” she said. “Dirt are ridiculously talented and completely blew us away.”

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The superannuation fund has launched a new campaign created by AKQA Australia aimed at challenging idealised portrayals of retirement and positioning the fund as a practical long-term partner for Australians approaching later life.

Built around the line, “Don’t tell me how to retire. Just help me do it,” the campaign presents retirement less as a glossy lifestyle aspiration and more as a deeply personal transition shaped by financial realities, individual priorities, and changing social expectations.

The campaign deliberately rejects familiar retirement advertising tropes centred on beach walks, golf courses, luxury travel, and financially carefree lifestyles.

Instead, it focuses on individuality, uncertainty, and the practical support many Australians increasingly seek as they prepare for retirement.

Lisa Samuels, Chief Experience Officer at HESTA, said retirement expectations differ widely across the population.

“We know that retirement looks different for everyone and we want to support our members in creating the future they want,” Samuels said.

“The transition to retirement can bring many challenges, and people often feel unprepared or apprehensive about how to push toward their goals,” she added.

The campaign marks AKQA Australia’s first major creative campaign for HESTA following an eight-year relationship focused primarily on digital transformation, member experience, and communications.

Sarah McGregor, Executive Creative Director at AKQA Australia, said the work intentionally pushed back against traditional retirement imagery.

“Our campaign pushes back against the predictable retirement dream built around quiet hobbies, long walks and expensive holidays,” McGregor said.

“We wanted to champion a different attitude, one that acknowledges the diversity and spirit of HESTA’s members,” she added.

The campaign will run across broadcast, out-of-home, digital, and social channels, targeting Australians approaching retirement age while reinforcing HESTA’s positioning as a long-term financial partner.

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The agency appeared on The Pitch, the programme’s advertising face-off segment, where agencies were tasked with a deliberately provocative brief: convince Gen Z to bring back drinking culture.

Rather than promoting alcohol itself, Havas Red’s campaign focused on what it argued younger audiences are increasingly losing—spontaneity, shared social experiences, and imperfect moments that become lasting memories.

The campaign, titled A Good Life, follows a conversation between a young adult and their grandfather reflecting on life, regret, and the value of unplanned social moments.

Scenes of nights out, gatherings, and messy human interaction are contrasted against themes now deeply embedded in Gen Z culture: doomscrolling, wellness routines, loneliness, and the pressure to maintain a “perfect” life.

Shane Russell, Chief Executive Officer of Havas Red, said the agency intentionally avoided producing a conventional alcohol advertisement.

“We weren’t interested in making an ad about drinking itself,” Russell said.

“We wanted to create something about spontaneity, shared experiences and the moments people remember for years afterwards. The campaign was really about social culture and human connection more broadly,” he added.

The work reflects wider shifts taking place across Australia’s social and nightlife economy, as younger consumers increasingly drink less frequently than previous generations and spend more time socialising online.

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At the centre of the series is Annette Lee, whose recurring comedic characters have built a strong online following in Singapore’s social media ecosystem.

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Lee plays three distinct personas across the campaign: Tiffany, a part-time influencer chasing small luxuries; Mei Lin, an overworked mother seeking family downtime; and Sharon, a retired aunty fully embracing solo enjoyment and unapologetic indulgence.

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Across the episodes, the characters repeatedly run into one another while awkwardly trying to explain why they are back at another staycation yet again.

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“We didn’t want to simply tell people there are 19 hotels to choose from,” said Mikey Batt, Creative Director at :Teeth.

“We wanted to give them characters, stories and reasons to keep watching. The idea behind the campaign is that one great stay is never the full story. So instead of making one ad, we made a series,” Batt said.

The campaign was filmed across Courtyard by Marriott Singapore Novena, JW Marriott Hotel Singapore South Beach, and Frasers House, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Singapore, each representing different staycation moods ranging from family-oriented escapes to urban luxury experiences.

Rather than spotlighting individual hotel properties through conventional tourism advertising, the campaign frames the wider Marriott Bonvoy portfolio as a rotating cast of experiences tailored to different emotional needs and life stages.

The campaign is anchored primarily on Annette Lee’s own social channels, allowing Marriott Bonvoy to tap directly into her existing audience and creator identity rather than relying solely on branded media placements.

Additional trailers, short-form clips, and mini-episodes are being distributed across Marriott Bonvoy’s channels to extend the campaign narrative.

The activation also extends offline through a consumer giveaway tied to Frasers House, where users are invited to submit their own reasons for needing a staycation via Instagram.

Fifteen winners will receive two-night stays at the property, while another fifteen will receive dining experiences across the hotel’s restaurants and lounges.

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Created with BBH Singapore, the campaign introduces “Make Tomorrow Yours”, a long-term positioning platform that will underpin future strategic marketing efforts across Southeast Asia.

At the centre of the campaign is “Homecoming”, a short film following a young man returning home after graduating overseas, only to confront the emotional tension between staying within the comfort of home and pursuing a future that may require leaving again.

The film taps into a familiar regional reality across Asia, where overseas education, migration, and cross-border career opportunities have long shaped how families define success, sacrifice, and progress.

“Sometimes the most powerful stories come from the simplest and most familiar moments,” said Janson Choo, Executive Creative Director at BBH Singapore.

“On the surface, this is a homecoming story. But at its heart, it’s about growth—and what that asks of us,” he added.

The campaign marks a broader repositioning of UOB’s retail banking business as financial institutions across the region increasingly compete not just on products and rates, but on emotional relevance and long-term customer relationships.

“The right way forward isn’t always the easiest,” said Sivea Pascale, Managing Director of Group Retail Marketing at UOB.

“But meaningful progress often comes from being able to look beyond the present to do the right thing. It’s a mindset we deeply believe in at UOB,” she added.

Beyond the film itself, “Make Tomorrow Yours” is expected to serve as a broader regional communications platform tied to customer aspirations, personal growth, and financial decision-making across different stages of life.

The campaign will launch first in Singapore and Malaysia before rolling out progressively across Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam as part of UOB’s wider regional consumer banking strategy.

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In a new recruitment campaign developed with McCann Singapore, the Navy is targeting the self-limiting beliefs that have long kept women from considering careers in defence, particularly in Singapore’s tightly structured and academically driven society.

Called ‘There Was a Time (When Nothing Was Too Crazy for Her)’, the campaign arrives as armed forces across Asia-Pacific face mounting competition for younger recruits, especially women, in labour markets increasingly shaped by tech, finance, and creator-economy aspirations.

The work draws from research commissioned by the Navy, which found that 82% of young women dismiss a Navy career because they believe it does not align with their passions, while 58% see the role as physically too demanding.

Rather than countering those assumptions with statistics or recruitment promises, the campaign leans into nostalgia. Through out-of-home placements, social content, and direct mailers, it depicts young girls in moments of uninhibited play—taking charge, making noise, and acting without hesitation.

The visual treatment resembles faded family photographs, deliberately evoking a version of childhood before social expectations began shaping ideas of what women should or should not pursue.

Singapore’s defence recruitment advertising has historically leaned heavily on patriotism, resilience, and elite performance. This campaign takes a notably softer route, reflecting how recruitment marketing across the region is evolving to compete not only for attention, but for identity alignment.

“We believe that the most effective recruitment work does not just showcase what’s on offer, but shifts how people see themselves in relation to it,” said Daniel Kee, Chief Creative Officer at McCann Singapore.

“Guided by McCann’s ‘Truth Well Told’ philosophy, this idea is powerful because it is rooted in a simple truth—that there is a version of every woman that existed before society placed limits on her ambitions,” Kee said.

“We wanted to reframe not only how women perceived the Navy, but the beliefs they hold about themselves,” he added. Kee said the campaign intentionally avoided a heavily informational tone.

“To do that, the work had to feel personal, rather than fact-driven. By grounding the campaign in the visual language of childhood memories—grainy, intimate, like old photographs from a family album—we wanted to meet women in a place that existed before any of those limits were learned, and encourage them to remember who they already are,” Kee further explained.

He also noted that the campaign idea was developed by an all-female creative team, which explained the reason why it feels “less like an advertisement and more like recognition.”

The campaign forms the latest chapter of the Navy’s long-running It’s Not Crazy, It’s the Navy recruitment platform, which McCann Singapore has worked on for the past six years.

This time, however, the focus is less on changing perceptions of the institution itself and more on confronting the internal narratives potential recruits may carry long before they ever consider enlistment.

The campaign is targeting female students across junior colleges, ITEs, polytechnics, and universities in Singapore.

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Created with YDM Thailand and backed by the Suwannaphum Municipality, the campaign tackles a flaw long embedded in road design itself: traffic signs only face people travelling in the correct direction.

Rather than adding more conventional signage, the campaign reworked the hidden back panels of existing road signs along National Highway 202 and nearby routes in Roi-Et Province.

The installations resemble funeral wreaths, assembled from real motorcycle crash debris including broken mirrors, bent metal frames, and damaged vehicle parts recovered from previous accidents. 

In Thai culture, funeral wreaths are closely associated with death rituals and mourning, giving the warning an immediate emotional weight.

“The Sign You Shouldn’t See—for the first time, we can reach the riders we couldn’t before. And that means safer roads for everyone,” said Kongsak Hansawangsin, President of Thanachart Insurance.

The campaign was rolled out during Songkran 2026, the country’s peak travel season and historically one of its most dangerous road periods.

Beyond advertising metrics, the intervention has now crossed into public infrastructure. Suwannaphum Municipality has adopted the installations as permanent road safety signage, a rare outcome for a brand-led behavioural campaign.

“If you are doing the right thing, you will never see this sign,” said Somsak Settho, Mayor of Suwannaphum Municipality.

For Thanachart Insurance, the campaign is as much about economics as public safety. “Every wrong-way accident is more than a claim. It is a family changed, a community affected, and a preventable cost to society,” the company said in campaign materials.

The agency behind the work, YDM Thailand, combines the operations of FCB Bangkok and MullenLowe Bangkok under a unified creative structure, reflecting the consolidation trend reshaping parts of the region’s advertising market.

The campaign film has been released online as the company explores expansion into other high-risk traffic zones across Thailand and potentially wider Southeast Asia, where motorcycles remain deeply woven into urban mobility and roadside risk alike.

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