What We're Reading: Week of October 27th

Ocean Spray: Turning Cranberries into Comedy Gold

Ocean Spray is out to reclaim the most overlooked dish on the holiday table with its new campaign, “Just Add Cran, Beware of Cranpus.” Partnering with Piggyback and Current Global, the brand casts Bryan Cranston as “Cranpus,” a horned, cranberry-obsessed holiday menace who raids dinner tables, cocktail parties, and cooking shows for every last drop of Ocean Spray. The creative twist turns a tired folklore trope into a surreal seasonal satire that reminds audiences how empty the holidays feel without cranberries.

What makes the spot click is how it reframes Ocean Spray’s long-running “Just Add Cran” platform into character-driven world-building. The brand knows cranberries aren’t an impulse buy; they’re a seasonal staple in danger of fading into background noise. By turning “cran” into a cultural character, Ocean Spray gives the product a personality that competes with candy canes, turkeys, and eggnog. It’s nostalgia turned narrative, the kind of holiday storytelling that’s self-aware enough to trend but sincere enough to sell.

🔗 Beware of ‘Cranpus’: Ocean Spray evolves brand platform for holidays - Marketing Dive

Carhartt: You Don’t Turn 50, You Earn It

To mark the 50th anniversary of its legendary Active Jac, Carhartt didn’t run a nostalgia reel or a style montage. Instead, it launched “You Don’t Turn 50, You Earn 50,” a short film by Fabian and Jasper that follows Dutch oyster farmers Aard and Adriaan at work on the Zeeland coast. Shot in natural light, the story captures a father and son whose lives mirror the jacket itself: worn, weathered, and quietly proud.

The Active Jac becomes a vessel for endurance, craft, and the kind of love that’s proven by showing up, not talking about it. It works because Carhartt understands that endurance lives in the everyday. The film isn’t about struggle for struggle’s sake. It’s about showing up, doing the work, and finding pride in the people beside you.

🔗 Carhartt marks 50 years of Active Jac with poignant ode to oyster farmers - Creative Review

Johnnie Walker x Sabrina Carpenter: A Pop Star Pours Herself Into Whisky’s Next Chapter

Johnnie Walker’s new campaign with Sabrina Carpenter plays like a rediscovered VHS ad from the late 80s, all soft focus, gold tones, and sly confidence. A narrator insists whisky isn’t her drink. Carpenter never speaks. She just smiles, lifts a glass, and rewrites the scene without saying a word. It’s an excellent example of nonverbal storytelling from someone who knows how to act through image.

The collaboration hits because it moves beyond celebrity endorsement. The spot turns legacy marketing on its head with humor, subtle ego, and a wink to the audience. Whisky becomes less about masculinity and more about modern performance. It’s something you can own, remix, and sing in your own voice.

🔗 Sabrina Carpenter Trades ‘Man’s World’ for Whisky in Johnnie Walker’s Latest Ad - The Whiskey Wash

LEGO x Nike: Building Movement, Brick by Brick

At a primary school in Shanghai, Nike and LEGO turned recess into a design experiment. Together with OLA Shanghai, they transformed a dull courtyard into a modular playground inspired by the geometry of a 2×3 LEGO brick. Every color, curve, and structure invites climbing, balance, and motion, turning Nike’s “Move to Zero” sustainability initiative into a living system of play.

The idea connects design, movement, and imagination into a single space. Instead of dictating how kids should play, the playground lets them build their own routes. It’s collaboration as infrastructure, with two brands merging form and function to prove that the future of sport might be built, not taught.

🔗 LEGO and NIKE team up to reimagine shanghai primary school as modular sports playground - designboom

The thread through all of them: collaboration as storytelling, legacy as emotion, and design as a living conversation with culture.