Cuteness and anarchy rules in recent campaign from nappy brand Peachies

Creative Moment caught up with ex-Saatchi independent creative director Gemma Phillips about her recent cute-but-anarchic campaign with nappy brand Peachies.

Peachies, a brand wanting to disrupt an often saccharine market “not just with incremental nudges but with big swings of a baseball bat”, was a brand Gemma Phillips was keen to collaborate with at first sight. So when Peachies asked her to come up with a brand platform and launch campaign for its latest product, Peachies Pants, the opportunity was not lost on her.

The ‘Big Pant Energy’ campaign is now out in the real world, including Peachies’ first-ever OOH. Thematically, there’s some crossover with the previous campaign Creative Moment discussed with Gemma, so it was a great opportunity to catch up!

Tom Hall: There seems to be a throughline in your work about motherhood. Did your work with Pregnant Then Screwed inspire your involvement in this, and how did the collaboration come about?

Gemma Phillips (GP): Being a brand in the parenting space is not the first thing I look for. First and foremost, I'm drawn to brands that are open to bold and impactful work, and that usually means founders who embody these two things.

Pregnant Then Screwed is one of those brands, and I saw a similar bravery with Peachies.

It's not necessarily about parenting; it's about brands that want to do things differently than they've historically been done. That's the thing that excites me.

Having said that, brands have spent decades patronising parents, particularly mothers, and as a creative and a parent, I wanted to see better work in this space.

TH: What inspired the copy choices in the campaign?

GP: The last seven years of parenting. My first 'baby' was twins, so I had quite the baptism of fire into the parenting world. I ended up having three children under the age of four, so there was plenty to draw on.

All three children have screamed 'too spicy' at me through a foaming toothpaste mouth, and every parent of a preschooler is familiar with handing toast to your child and ducking for cover as you realise you made the cataclysmic mistake of presenting it on the wrong plate.

TH: What other creative inspirations can you cite?

GP: The initial inspiration was rave culture: attitude, chaos, rebellion. Turns out it's very similar to the toddler years.

TH: How has the campaign been received?

GP: We've been blown away by the reactions. It's a UK campaign with a really modest budget but we've had parents from all over the world reaching out telling us how much it resonated with them. People can tell there's a strong, lived experience behind it rather than something concocted in a research group.