Against the Grain: SURREAL’s Effortlessly Bold January Campaign

Welcome back to the first instalment of our weekly #FridayAd series in 2025. New Year, New Us? We think not. New Year, SAME us, because you can adapt and grow ALL YEAR ROUND (not just in January). It seems SURREAL got the memo as well.

January is arguably the most important month of the year for all brands operating in the health and fitness industries. Whispers of New Year’s resolutions fill the air as people throw around fresh goals and aspirations. However, a fair share of brands have opted out of the ambition of January and seemingly abandoned the fresh year, fresh start messaging that we usually see so much of.

It is SURREAL how unbothered this cereal bar brand was with their ads this January and I am in awe. Their series of out-of-home (OOH) creative shows various low-quality billboards, perfectly capturing the collective post-Christmas slump that so many of us feel in January - the aftermath of winter’s only real highlight. Personal feelings aside, let’s talk about why this is so clever:

1. They’ve gone against the grain. Instead of asking the usual ‘what are our competitors doing and how can we do it better?’, they’ve opted for ‘what aren’t our competitors doing?’
2. They’re in touch with their audience and managed to tap into a societal shift. It's almost as if they predicted the resistance against toxic New Year campaigns this year (and they weren’t the only brand to take action this January either).
3. They’ve run a successful campaign with zero effort. I mean seriously - screenshots of emails on a billboard?

?In a month filled with over-ambitious ads, SURREAL chose to be real. As a result, they’ve made themselves memorable. It’s a bold move, but one that captures the essence of what many people actually need at the start of the year: a little giggle, a little honesty, and a whole lot of unbothered energy.

See the iconic billboards here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/surrealuk_we-cant-be-bothered-january-is-a-big-month-activity-7281983819988013057-ARv_?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

- Jade O'Donovan