This week, we have looked at some of the latest “back to office” campaigns and how brands are playing into people’s nostalgia to remind them of some aspects of the 9-5 life.

Dettol in a Mess

As the UK government urges workers to go back to the office, Dettol’s new ad campaign attempts to make the return to the office a light-hearted affair and reminds commuters of various ‘relatable’ aspects of the office they might have missed. However, what the brand didn’t count on was being labelled ‘cringe’ by several accounts on Twitter, with people feeling Dettol failed to read the room by conjuring up an idealised version of an office that doesn’t exist.

Discover more on vice.com.

The Office Remake

Commercial real estate giant, WeWork, has launched a new global brand campaign called ‘That’s How Tomorrow Works’ which sets them out as the solution to the current return to work dilemma facing many businesses. Many are already finding it isn’t easy to balance the emotional, physical and financial impacts of going back to the office, particularly when lockdown has proven that we don’t need the office to be what it was before. With this campaign, WeWork show they are well placed to be the brand showing companies how to make the change from old to new.

Remember This?

Innocent Drinks has launched a nostalgic OOH campaign reminding the public of life before lockdown. Simple but cheeky creatives feature everything from a man in a suit with the line ‘Remember this? This is a suit… it’s like school uniform but for people with mortgages’, to colleagues having a conversation round the office water cooler, reminding people it’s just like a Zoom call but 3D and you need to wear pants. In a world where everything seems to have gone very serious, this simple campaign puts a smile on people’s faces giving us light relief from the “new normal”.