What makes a Contagious Pioneer?
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Is it turning digital entertainment into real rewards? Leaning into uncomfortable truths to prove a point? Skipping the ad-speak jargon to lead a human conversation?
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What sets all 11 winners apart is the risks they took and the ideas they brought to life. The work that made people sit up and pay attention.
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Contagious Pioneers 2026 celebrates the campaigns that went beyond the brief and moved the industry forward.
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Meet this year’s Pioneers. Link in bio.
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Feeling inspired? Next year’s list could feature your agency’s name. Submit your work to Contagious today. Link in bio.
Presenting the 2026 Contagious Pioneers – the best and bravest agencies on the planet.
You know the ones. They see the same briefs, the same budgets, the same constraints as everyone else, but they do things differently. Making work that catches on, and raises the bar for what’s possible in marketing.
So here’s to this year’s Contagious Pioneers, in alphabetical order:
@wearedavid.ny
DDB NZ, Auckland (now known as @mccannnewzealand NZ)
@gutsaopaulo@lepub_worldwide , Milan
@leo.uk.agency UK, London
@marcelagency , Paris
@motherlondon@ogilvysg@ps21barna , Madrid
@uncommon.creative.studio , London
@wearevccp , London
Meet them here. Link in bio.
Next year’s list could feature your agency’s name. Submit your work to Contagious today. Link in bio.
Hard hats, boots, gloves… sunscreen? @larocheposay ’s making the case for a new kind of essential employee equipment.
The skincare brand’s Buoni Sole campaign, created by @betcparis and @havas.milan , reframes sunscreen as a workplace safety measure.
Focused on employers of outdoor workers – those frequently in the sun and at higher risk of skin cancer – the initiative introduces Sun Tickets, subsidising La Roche-Posay products for staff.
Positioning sunscreen as essential for the job means it’s used where it’s needed most. And this approach builds brand familiarity without the advertising – helping maintain La Roche-Posay's premium status while steering clear of feeling discount-driven.
Read the campaign of the week. Link in bio.
@larocheposay / @betcparis / @havas.milan / Italy / April2026
Don’t be jealous of your neighbour’s 65-inch screen – get a discount on a 75-inch one instead.
Ahead of the World Cup, Argentinian retailer @cetrogar and @ogilvy.argentina played into the country’s competitive streak to nudge people towards a TV upgrade.
The Size of Your Envy invited the envious to photograph neighbours’ discarded TV boxes, then instantly offered a personalised discount on a larger model.
By turning a jealous glance into a scavenger hunt, the brand reframed a standard price cut as an earned reward, showing discounts don’t have to feel cheap.
When you gamify the price point, it turns a generic handout into a personal victory – the ultimate home-turf win.
Read the campaign of the week. Link in bio.
@cetrogar / @ogilvy Argentina / Argentina / April 2026
@thinx is adding a touch of magic to its period underwear.
Ahead of the Spring Equinox, the @kccorp owned brand partnered with TikTok witch @lizzieandthebatz to launch the Blood Spell Collection, a line of period underwear infused with playful enchantments – each carrying its own spell for confidence, prosperity, or love.
@gutmiami creative director Meghan Smart told Contagious, ‘To reach Gen Z women – who could not care less about femme-care advertising – we had to break into their algorithms and figure out what actually grabs their attention.’
The product still promises up to 12 hours of leakproof protection. This time, it’s wrapped in something people engage with and assign meaning to, where the blood and witch link lands instantly.
Promoted with TikTok and Meta videos, the #WitchTok-inspired campaign delivered 74 million media impressions and 5 million social impressions.
Read the campaign of the week. Link in bio.
@thinx / @gutmiami / USA / March 2026
Smile for the camera – and spot myopia early.
Eye care specialist @1001optometry teamed up with @vml_anz to create Magnif-eye, an AI-powered tool that scans family photos for early signs of childhood myopia. Parents upload their snapshots, and the tool flags whether a professional eye test might be needed – years before symptoms typically appear.
Magnif-eye made early detection simple and accessible, turning everyday photos into what Jack Delmonte, creative director at VML, called ‘an incredibly powerful brand experience.’
For marketers, it’s a reminder that trust isn’t just a nice-to-have. Asking parents to upload photos meant solving the trust problem first. No human ever saw the images. That promise made the campaign possible.
Read the campaign of the week. Link in bio.
@1001optometry / @vml_anz / Australia / March 2026
@fleishman_global has launched research mapping the shifts reshaping how people think, buy and relate to the world around them – The Culture Gap Chapter 2: Welcome to the 100-year-old Customer (promoted by @contagious ).
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We’re living through existential consumerism. Six interconnected forces explain why.
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Together, they create a culture where people are consuming, optimising and protecting themselves – constantly. Not driven by want, but by fear of falling behind.
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And that is the crisis.
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But for brands ready to move differently, understanding it is where the advantage lies.
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Download the full report | Link in bio.
For @mercadolivre , the customer experience doesn’t stop at the doorstep.
Its Scratch Your Data campaign, developed with @gutsaopaulo for Consumer Day in Brazil, turns discarded address labels into rewarding privacy prompts.
The first 3,000 purchases made through the campaign page encouraged people to scratch their personal details from packaging – revealing a coupon in the process.
As Mercado Libre CMO Sean Summers told us last year when speaking about brand building, ‘the weakest moment defines the experience’. This work applies that thinking to packaging – a touchpoint most brands overlook – and gives it a role in building trust.
The same thinking should apply to brands with any physical presence after the sale. Every interaction is a chance to enhance the customer experience.
Read the campaign of the week. Link in bio.
@mercadolivre / @gutsaopaulo / Brazil / March 2026
Would you risk an $89,000 Turkish rug to prove your product works? Huggies did.
In March 2026, @huggies launched Expensive Sh*t, a live-streamed product demo campaign designed to showcase the leak protection of its Little Snugglers nappies.
The setup placed 18 recently fed babies on high-value items – designer furniture, collectables and even a luxury car – letting the suspense (and potential mess) build in real time.
Developed by @mccannnewyork and McCANN New Zealand, the campaign used humour and high stakes to pull off something entertaining and memorable.
Familiar formats like live-streams or challenges draw audiences in because they’re easy to follow. Add an unpredictable, messy twist and it becomes even more compelling.
Read the campaign of the week | Link in bio
@Huggies Healthcareâ„¢ / @mccannnewyork / McCANN New Zealand / March 2026
Life used to follow more of a script. Now it’s fractured into multiple seasons of reinvention.
FleishmanHillard has launched a white paper, The Culture Gap Chapter 2: Welcome to the 100-year-old Customer.
It explores why that feeling of constant reinvention isn’t just anecdotal.
In a survey of 4,000 adults across the UK and USA, FleishmanHillard found that 85% of people now believe the world feels more unstable and unpredictable than before.
People aren’t just buying products anymore. They’re buying agency and shopping their way through the uncertainty.
FleishmanHillard calls it existential consumerism – consumption driven by the search for control in a complex world.
That means there are new opportunities for brands that understand what people really need.
Download the full report to find your next move. Link in bio.
The dominos started toppling for social media last year.​
When Australia introduced the world’s first blanket ban for under-16s, Spain quickly followed suit. Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, the UK and Norway are all now moving towards state-enforced age gates in the name of protecting children. ​
The idea of social media as a vice product is catching on. And protection for both users and advertisers is now the main focus of discussion in a new-look social landscape. ​
Find out how to navigate it in the Contagious Radar Report | Link in bio
What if the secret to better intimacy wasn’t what you thought?
On 9 February, Paul Brunson – relationship expert and Married at First Sight host – took to Instagram to tease a new ‘intimacy device’ for couples. Two days later, the reveal landed.
It was Specsavers’ Advance 65 hearing aid.
Reframing the tech as The Relationship Aid, the Golin London-created campaign shifts hearing loss out of personal denial and into something shared. Less about ageing, more about staying connected.
Brunson’s Instagram post reached 1.2 million views, while the hero film achieved 1.56 million views on YouTube – showing how an entertaining, celebrity-led angle can get audiences listening.
We spoke to Golin London’s chief creative officer Alex Wood, and global chief creative officer George Bryant about turning a hearing aid from a discreet device into a ‘sultry’ statement.
Read the campaign of the week | Link in bio
@specsavers / @golin.lon / UK / February 2026
