Creative Corner: 'Wassup' with Walkers, sleeping customers review IKEA mattresses and BACP takes 'Positive Steps'

Happy Friday!

We may be knee-deep in summer vacations and the supposed silly season where stories are few and creatives catch their breath, but it doesn’t seem (or feel) like things have been slowing down much! 

Lots of creative work to choose from, and these are just three tasty morsels to feast upon. 

Step up: a crunchy tribute to an early 2000s Budweiser classic from the good people at Walkers crisps; a hauntingly quirky mattress ad from IKEA, and a positive step in the right direction for new mums from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

Walkers revives 'Wassup' for the TikTok generation

Walkers has brought back one of the most iconic ad catchphrases of the early 2000s, Budweiser’s unmistakable “Wassup”, but with a twist.

This time, it’s not about beer. It’s about crisps.

For the younger readers, the original “Wassup” campaign was a cultural juggernaut. Grimy, goofy, and globally infectious. It had everyone yelling “Wassup” as a greeting when they picked up their phones (people still actually used them for talking back then). 

Walkers has dipped into this iconic moment to deliver a campaign which will delight millennials while onboarding Gen Z into the inside joke.

In a faithful nod to the original, the updated spot sees a couple of mates chatting on the telephone (yep, a real one with a cord and everything) with one asking the other what he is up to. “Having a little sandwich, eating some crisps”, comes the reply. Upon enquiring what flavour, he’s greeted with the Wassup style yell “Jheeeeeeeeze…..and Onion”. And so the skit goes on as more friends join in with the “Jheeeeeeeeeze” greeting.

It’s daft but very nostalgic and in an age where everything old is new again—Y2K fashion, flip phones, Oasis bangers - why not bring back the joy of yelling into the phone with your mouth full of crisps?

IKEA sleep talks you into buying a mattress

In a market full of mattress ads promising REM science and bio-data-driven slumber, Ikea in Canada has just pulled another wonderfully left-field cracker.

In a slightly absurd, but deliciously human and wholly memorable, attempt to flog us its mattresses, real sleep-talkers spent two nights in a Toronto IKEA showroom whilst an audio-video rig recorded their mumbles and unfiltered bits of nocturnal monologue for a series of offbeat product “reviews.”

The result isn’t your average voiceover. No velvet-toned narrator lulls you into investing in your rest. Just real, unconscious, mildly haunting sleep chatter, broadcast with deadpan confidence across a series of short films.

Zachary Bautista, the creative behind the campaign, summed up this madcap piece of genius nicely, stating, “The relationship between sleep talking and a good night’s sleep is something that felt both fresh and humorous, tapping into the tone that IKEA has become known for.”

Translation: it’s weird, it's real, it’s got just the right amount of IKEA whimsy to make you question your subconscious—and then buy a new mattress.

BACP takes “Positive Steps” toward maternal mental health

For many new mums, the postpartum period is less picture-perfect and more quietly overwhelming.

That’s the reality tackled head-on by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) in its moving new campaign, Positive Steps, an initiative set in one of the most emotionally powerful locations possible: the buggy route.

The campaign takes new mums on a path, quite literally. Painted along a popular walking route in South London, the campaign tells the real, raw stories of mothers who’ve struggled, sought help, and slowly found their footing again.

One in two new mums says they’ve found it harder to cope with their mental wellbeing since having a baby. And 43% have considered counselling but haven’t made it through the door.

This is creative rooted in place and purpose. 

Where new mums walk daily, push prams, battle sleep deprivation and mental load, they can see their own stories reflected on the pavement beneath their feet.

Simple and striking, the campaign is a series of first-person messages, each a window into the mental health journeys of different mothers. They’re vulnerable, non-linear, and honest, just like real life.

Izzy Judd, musician, author, mother of three, and therapy advocate, backs the initiative, sharing her mental health journey as a part of the campaign.

Positive Steps is a gentle but necessary reminder that maternal mental health still needs louder voices and better access. 

BACP walks the talk quite literally with a campaign that meets its audience where they are, pram in hand, world on shoulders.

Well, that wraps up another Creative Corner!

As ever, if you’re launching something that deserves a spot in Creative Corner, or have seen a campaign you just love, please do share it with us. Email paul.lucas@fanclubpr.com