Comedy is one of the hardest things to get right in advertising, and one of the easiest to get wrong, according to Australian creatives.
These are the campaigns from 2025 that didn’t play it safe, didn’t chase jury approval and actually made people laugh.
Town Square ECD Brendan Day said DiDi’s ‘Yes, I DiDi’ instantly came to mind because it was “absurd” and “fun”.
“It’s heartening to know that work like this is getting made,” he told Mediaweek.
“It was one of those rare moments where friends who couldn’t care less about advertising send you something, just going ‘WTF?’
“For a challenger brand like this needing to cut through, it’s doing exactly what it needs to.”
Yango managing partner Nick Murdoch agreed, saying he “can’t think of a more entertaining ad.”
“I must have watched it back 20 times. The character is unique, memorable and just plain outrageous, and the content pulls you in,” he said.
“It’s brilliantly targeted for the younger, cost-conscious, urban types, as well as those seeking convenient, affordable rides.
“The alignment to an adventurous night out is something that almost all 20-somethings can relate to.”
DDB creative director Rebecca Morriss said Reese’s ‘Don’t Eat Lava’ made her giggle because of its “absolute commitment to stupidity.”
“It takes a single, dumb premise, lava looks delicious, and executes it with the scale, drama and production values of a blockbuster,” she said.
“That contrast is what makes it so funny, the joke never winks or apologises. It simply leans all the way in.
“The performances are perfectly pitched. They are frantic, earnest and almost heroic in their obsession with something obviously lethal. Who doesn’t love a granny so determined to eat lava that she nearly drives her mobility scooter into it?”
Today the Brave creative partner, Vince Osmond, agreed.
“We’re in a moment when humour in advertising feels like an endangered species,” he said.
“Everything’s so earnest, so careful, so obsessed with meaning.
“Reese’s ‘Don’t Eat Lava’ reminds us that silliness, pushed to the absolute brink of ridiculousness, is a creative superpower. The world deserves more of this.”
M+C Saatchi Group ANZ senior creative Bryce Waters said there were a few standouts.
“The Booze Maths work out of NZ, the David and Dave ad for the Super Bowl, and a personal favourite of mine for Liquid Death that encouraged people to drink on the job,” he said.
“But few stood out to me as much as EA Skate X: Drop In by the Uncommon crew. It’s definitely not laugh-out-loud funny… but as someone who’s spent many years on crutches or nursing broken bones, it made me take notice.
“Maybe it’s nostalgia – it could also be getting spat on in the first three seconds, the decks stuck in walls, the (un)broken bones and teeth being ejected onto the floor, or the fact that the jokes were only really meant for skaters.”
oOh!media head of creative Josh Gurgiel called Sure’s sniffable campaign “the most gloriously unhinged OOH moment of 2025.”
“Had they merely plastered obscenely cheeky call to actions like ‘Smell this bunda’ and ‘Sniff these meatballs’ on giant billboards across the UK, that would have been enough,” he said.
“It weaponises humour to cut through the clutter, turning a functional product into a shareable cultural moment.
“It blurs the line between ad and activation, inviting the public to participate (if they dare) whilst landing its core message irrespective of active engagement.”
Havas Host head of strategy Phil Pickering named Andrex’s ‘First school poo’ as his top pick.
“Thankfully, they took the mindset they actually needed. A child’s. And that led to a one-minute fart and poo joke, which I am absolutely here for,” he said.
“It is great to see a brand known for cute puppies, and not what actually happens behind the toilet door, finally embrace the truth of the category and lean into it without apology.
“It is simple, it is silly, and it is exactly the kind of creative decision a real audience will reward.”
BMF group creative director David Roberts said Motion Sickness’ ‘Straight to the heart’ made him laugh out loud because it was “cheeky and persuasive.”
“The most stupidly literal yet genius answer to a brief, which I assume was something like: shift people’s mindset from hanging out in inner-Auckland suburbs to the CBD. The solution? Don’t shift the mindset – shift their bodies,” he said.
“A free taxi service that’s anti-digital and pro-spontaneity. No app. No algorithm. Just the ancient art of throwing your hand in the air and maintaining unblinking eye contact.
“The sing-along infomercial to launch the service is sharply strategic and gloriously dumb – perfect casting, seagull sound effects and the mind-blowing suggestion to buy a jacket.”
Those That Do chief doer Ben Walker said Uber’s ‘You can’t do that if you’re driving’ was funny because it tapped into the universal truth that we’re all more chaotic than we admit.
“The humour comes from holding up a mirror to the little private behaviours we normally hide,” he said.
“What makes it especially funny is the contrast between the seriousness of driving and the absolute nonsense people get up to when they’re freed from it.
“The campaign plays with that tension beautifully. It’s surprising, self-deprecating and instantly relatable.”
Vonnimedia managing director Veronica Cremen said challenger brands often struggle to punch up without looking bitter, but Google “threaded that needle perfectly.”
“Associating Apple’s greatest strength, reliability, as its greatest weakness, alluding to boredom and ‘vanilla’, is an entertaining and refreshing strategy,” she said.
“It’s a clever reversal of the old Apple versus Windows dynamic, with Google now playing the creative provocateur to Apple’s establishment cool.
“Even die-hard iPhone users are engaging. Even I did. That’s rare. It signals genuine cultural cut-through, which is a bold, risky play that lands exactly as intended.”
Thinkerbell founder Adam Ferrier chose the Astronomer response with Gwenyth Paltrow.
“The scale, the speed, the cleverness and sheer audacity to turn their moral shit show into a global brand-building showcase within a week is beyond comparison,” he said.
“Any data workflow company using Apache Workflow is not going to have ‘funny’ ad as a key KPI, but the use of humour in their response saved the company’s hide and got the global conversation back onto what they do, rather than the dodgy behaviours of its senior executives.
“It was marketing brilliance and genuinely funny.”