Love, sport, and great marketing — February had it all. Here are tda!'s favourite campaign picks from across the industry this month, spotlighting work from Asda, Cadbury, and BBC Creative.
1. Love in the Aisles - Asda
This Valentine's Day, Asda invited single shoppers to grab a red basket instead of the classic green one — a simple signal to fellow shoppers that they were open to a conversation. Run in-store through Smarts, the activation was complemented by a Valentine's Day film from Lucky Generals promoting romantic ready meals, both rooted in the same idea: translating dating app culture into real-life interactions.
What made it work was its simplicity. No big budget, no complex tech — just a coloured basket and a bit of courage. The idea spread like wildfire on social media, with people tagging friends, sharing videos and racking up millions of views, with content creator Sophie Jones alone pulling four million on a single Instagram reel. It tapped into a genuine cultural frustration with endless swiping, and gave people something they actually wanted to talk about!
See more here.
2. Cadbury
Cadbury has brought back its limited-edition Dairy Milk "Made to Share" bars, this time with 12 brand new designs for 2026. Each bar is split to reward everyday acts of kindness and generosity — from "who sits on a bench and waits as the other person shops" to "who launched it over the crossbar and who went and got it." The wrapper does the work, indicating which (larger) portion goes to whoever deserves it most.
It's a smart play on something universally relatable — those small, unsung gestures that hold relationships together. By rotating in fresh scenarios each year, Cadbury keeps the format feeling new while leaning into a concept that practically writes its own social content. People love spotting themselves in the designs, tagging friends and debating who really deserves the bigger chunk. It's low-effort engagement with high emotional payoff, and a neat way to keep a limited-edition line feeling like a cultural moment rather than just a seasonal SKU.
3. 'Trails Will Blaze' Winter Olympics Trailer - BBC
With the Winter Olympics keeping us glued to our screens, BBC Creative has given us another reason to stay there. Its 'Trails Will Blaze' campaign for Milano Cortina 2026 is a technical feat as much as a creative one — a stop-motion film directed by Yannis Konstantinidis of NOMINT, featuring 700 individually 3D-printed athletes set against scale models of the Dolomites, with 14 volatile combustion techniques used to produce the glowing trails left in each athlete's wake. The whole thing is scored by a live recording of Verdi's Requiem, performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
It's the kind of work that earns its buzz because the craft is genuinely extraordinary. In an era where AI-generated imagery is everywhere, there's something almost rebellious about building a campaign frame by painstaking frame with physical models and real fire. The 'trails' concept is simple and evocative — echoing the Olympic torch while visualising the sheer drive of elite athletes — and the choice of stop-motion gives it a tactile, human quality that CGI simply couldn't replicate. It's a reminder that when the ambition matches the execution, advertising can feel genuinely cinematic.
