The best new ads, from me to you.
Also a really terrible one. And a crazy horse.
Hiiiiiii, buddy. Your friendly neighborhood ad-man here.
Are you ready to see how a crazy horse, a blank space where a heart used to be, and a bunch of sea-men all make their way into one newsletter full of trending ads?
Glad to hear it, sailor. Ahoy! To the ads!
Running wild
Picture this: Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh cuddled up on a carousel (in their new movie, We Live In Time). Pure romance, right?
Mmmmm not so much. Hard not to see anything from this still released by A24 to promote the movie other than, well…do you see it?
Yeah. That’s one crazy horse. The internet took one look at this shot and galloped off into the meme sunset.
What followed were some pretty epic memes, which A24 wisely let play out before having Garfield lean into the joke on a Late Show appearance.
Read on, and see more of the memes here.
Bad by design
Hoooo boy. Just when you think holiday cheer is rolling in, Bath & Body Works goes and drops the “Klandle.” Yup, you read that right. Our 94th favorite purveyor of crap at the mall had to pull its Snowed In candle recently because, well… the snowflake design on the label looked suspiciously like KKK hoods.
Definitely not the vibe they were going for.
The candle went viral faster than a new AJ & Big Justice dance on TikTok. A Reddit user kicked things off, posting, “I know it’s one of those paper snowflakes, but I can’t be the only one who sees ‘it,’ right?”
In under 48 hours, the retailer pulled the candle from stores and issued an apology, saying: “We are committed to fixing any mistakes—even unintentional ones.”
Smooth save? Debatable. Full story here.
Where’s Lieutenant Commander Waldo?
The U.S. Navy just dropped one of the sneakiest recruitment campaigns we’ve seen. In partnership with VML, they’ve hidden actual Special Ops sailors inside ads from brands like Aflac, TruGreen, and United Rentals—all within a single issue of USA Water Polo’s SkipShot magazine.
Above is one of the seven ads. If you look at the blue sky above the gazebo and to the left, you should be able to see the sailor parachuting in.
Here’s another one. Peep that air vent on the top left closely.
See the full campaign and all of the hidden ads here.
Addition by subtraction
One of the best ads I've seen this week comes to us from Andrew Tindall and Felipe Suarez, who shared this incredible out-of-home ad on LinkedIn. Take a look below.
As creatives, we can tend to get obsessed with brand rules and guidelines. What to follow, what to abide by.
The truth is, sometimes, playing with the rules is what can help a good ad become a great ad. And that's exactly what's on display here.
Taking a bite out of another big Apple
Samsung’s back at it, and this time they’re not just flexing features—they’re exposing Apple’s cracks from the inside. Their latest move? A teaser for a documentary called Former Genius, featuring interviews with ex-Apple employees who spill the tea on declining expertise within Apple Stores.
“They thought they had the answers. Now they only have questions.”
Tap the image below to watch the video.
Before we go, one last bit of news the just broke that we thought might be interesting to this audience. Meta just announced it’s testing allowing advertisers to turn off comments on IG and Facebook. More details here.
Thanks for reading, Ad Spotters. If you want a shoutout in the newsletter or spot a great ad, just respond to this email or connect with me on X and shoot me a DM.
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