Getting to an idea worth fighting for rarely begins from an obvious starting point. Inspired by former Wieden+Kennedy Creative Director Jason Bagley, this series uses provocative questions to mine the Big Ideas That Work Engines for repeatable creative tactics that can help answer them.
This time, we’re asking:
What if we recast who belongs?
Here are six campaigns that probably weren’t created by asking this question — but could have been.
- Remove the Entrance Exam
- Redesign the Ritual
- Change What Qualifies You
- Redesign Around the Excluded User
- Turn the Disqualifier Into the Qualification
- Return Authority to the Original Creator
1. Remove the Entrance Exam
Make belonging easier by removing the arbitrary test people are expected to pass.
Bandwagon — Lay’s · 72andSunny LA · 2026
Football fandom comes with unwritten qualifications. Know the history. Understand the tactics. Have suffered for the team. Lay’s challenged the idea that supporters have to earn their way in. Ahead of the World Cup, Will Ferrell welcomed America’s proudly inexperienced “bandwagon fans”, treating enthusiasm rather than expertise as qualification enough. Instead of teaching them how to become proper fans, Lay’s simply removed the test.
2. Redesign the Ritual
Change the shared behaviour so more people can participate in it.
Signs of Unity — Carlsberg × Liverpool FC · Fold7 · 2026
“You’ll Never Walk Alone” is one of football’s great rituals of belonging. But Deaf and hard-of-hearing supporters couldn’t participate in it in the same way. Rather than merely making the campaign more inclusive, Carlsberg helped change the ritual itself. Working with Liverpool FC and the British Deaf Association, it developed a BSL interpretation and taught supporters at Anfield to sing and sign together. Inclusion became something the crowd did, not something an advert claimed.
