Comfort is the campaign default. Make people feel good. Keep it warm. Land on something aspirational. The problem is that life is not particularly comfortable, and your audiences know it.
The campaigns in this article understood that awkwardness — properly handled — is one of the most disarming creative tools available. Not because it's honest. Because it's specific. Warmth is easy to manufacture. The cringe, the pause, the moment nobody quite knows what to say — those aren't.
Here are six creative tactics from the Storytelling Engine that make awkwardness the whole point.
- Use Awkwardness as a Product Metaphor
- Own the Brand's Own Awkward Position
- Make Awkward Conversations Easier
- Awkward Moments as Cultural Mirror
- Use Awkwardness to Build Emotional Intimacy
- Awkwardness as the Exit Mechanic
1. Use Awkwardness as a Product Metaphor
Find the uncomfortable human behaviour that maps directly onto your product truth — and let the social cringe do the product demo.
People Can't Stop Themselves — Volkswagen, Ogilvy Cape Town, 2018
Volkswagen needed to make Brake Assist feel human rather than technical. The radio-led campaign found a comic proxy in people who simply cannot stop themselves — someone saying far too much at a funeral, a stalker who doesn't know when to quit, a PC repair situation that escalates past every social boundary — each ending with the line that some people just can't stop themselves; thankfully, the Golf 7 can. The social discomfort of watching someone overstep became an instantly legible analogy for a car failing to brake in time.
Affirm's Swimming Briefs (Venables Bell & Partners, 2022) used a young couple's deeply uncomfortable encounter with an eccentric neighbour in a tiny speedo to make the point that adult life throws unexpected purchases at you without warning — and financial flexibility helps. The Gym Group (DEPT, 2022) dramatised the physical comedy of clumsy home workouts to make a single proposition land cleanly: there's a Gym Group round the corner. In each case, the awkward situation isn't decoration — it's the argument.
