The Best of Ads Archives
The Best Ad Campaigns of September 2026, Collected by The Best of Ads
By Archit
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6 min readAI-assisted
Quick summary
This collection from The Best of Ads Archives highlights ten standout brand campaigns from September 2026 that placed familiar objects and concepts into unexpected worlds. IKEA UK and Ireland introduced the KALLAX shelf as a downloadable Skyrim companion voiced by Matt Berry, while IKEA Italy celebrated the FRAKTA blue bag's thirtieth anniversary by styling customer improvisations like fashion editorials. Other tech and lifestyle highlights include PUMA India photographing Buddhist monks wearing running shoes before the Ladakh Marathon, and Snickers extending its messaging to artificial intelligence by letting users feed digital candy bars to confused chatbots.
Additional features include Prada Beauty's hand-painted Shoreditch mural for Zendaya's fragrance film, Canva's stop-motion pigeon helping a stray cat find a home, and KFC Australia treating a pickle menu as a lifestyle fashion movement. Corona Canada produced an Ossington Avenue mural using cyanotype ultraviolet sunlight prints, Samsung New Zealand poked fun at an iPhone launch using a local resident named Tim Cook, and ASICS enlisted Sigourney Weaver to narrate a wildlife-style documentary addressing sedentary habits.
AI-generated from this article. For complete context and credits, read the full story.
Some of the best ad campaigns of September 2026 stepped into places brands do not normally occupy. IKEA entered Skyrim, Snickers fed a digital candy bar to confused chatbots, and PUMA put high-altitude running shoes on Buddhist monks. Elsewhere, a blue shopping bag, a hand-painted Zendaya mural and pickle-inspired fashion turned familiar objects into new media.
These are ten campaigns collected by The Best of Ads, with the full story behind each one.
IKEA | KALLAX Storageborn
Skyrim players have spent 15 years deciding which weapons, potions and pieces of loot to abandon when their inventories become too heavy. IKEA UK and Ireland offered another option by turning the KALLAX shelf into a downloadable companion. Voiced by Matt Berry, KALLAX Storageborn carries objects, collects nearby items and helps players organize their virtual homes. The character even arrives through an assembly quest inside an abandoned furniture store, complete with a Clutter Golem and the Dragon Shout “AYE KEY YAH.”
PUMA India | Meditation in Motion
Forty Buddhist monks stood outside Ladakh’s Thiksey Monastery wearing traditional maroon robes and PUMA Deviate PURE NITRO running shoes. Created ahead of the Ladakh Marathon, Meditation in Motion used a six-frame photographic series to connect running with the patience, endurance, discipline and concentration found in meditation. The unexpected pairing placed modern performance footwear inside a centuries-old setting while reflecting the mental focus required to race at high altitude.
Snickers | Hungr.AI
Snickers extended “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” to artificial intelligence. Hungr.AI imagined confused chatbots giving reckless advice, including running a marathon without training, confronting a company CEO and getting a scorpion tattooed across someone’s face. Users could copy a digital Snickers bar into their own AI conversations as a branded instruction asking the chatbot to reconsider its answer. In the US, selected interactions could also unlock a real Snickers bar delivered through DoorDash.
Prada Beauty | Paradoxe Sweet Chemistry
Prada Beauty recreated a scene from Zendaya’s fragrance film as a hand-painted mural in Shoreditch. Global Street Art covered hundreds of square metres at 112 Tabernacle Street, translating the visual world of Paradoxe Sweet Chemistry onto a London wall. The installation connected the physical craft of street painting with the campaign film directed by Barry Jenkins. Displayed from September 11 to October 4, the mural gave the fragrance launch a public presence that changed gradually as every section was painted by hand.
Canva | Wild Design Chapter II
Picci1, the stop-motion pigeon from Canva’s earlier Wild Design film, returned when a stray cat began terrorizing the flock. Instead of fighting back, the pigeon edited phone footage in Canva, added heart-shaped glasses and created a social post designed to find the animal a home. The plan worked, and the cat was adopted as Bartolomiao. Made by A+C Studios with DUDE Milan, the film placed Canva’s mobile video, template and social tools inside another handmade miniature story.
KFC | Picklecore
KFC Australia treated their pickle menu as the beginning of a complete fashion movement. Picklecore started with billboards promoting fictional pickle lipstick, watches and trousers before continuing through a fashion film, gherkin-green branding and a restaurant filled with suspended pickles. The temporary menu included the Pickle Burger, Frickles, Pickle Loaded Chips, pickle sauce and Pickle Pepsi Max. Created with Special Australia, the campaign turned a flavour launch into a deliberately excessive piece of lifestyle culture.
Corona | Living Is Calling
Corona Canada allowed sunlight to develop their outdoor campaign. Toronto artist Cruz photographed people enjoying the city’s final warm days, then transferred the images onto canvas through cyanotype, a process that uses ultraviolet light. Eighty prints were stitched together to create a 30-foot mural on Ossington Avenue. Transit shelter placements also returned the photographs to locations including Trinity Bellwoods, Sugar Beach and Riverdale Park, making Toronto’s sunlight, public spaces and neighbourhoods part of how Living Is Calling was produced.
Samsung | Tim Cook Has an Announcement
Samsung New Zealand found a Tim Cook of their own immediately after Apple revealed the iPhone Duo. The Palmerston North resident appeared in a Galaxy Z Fold8 film built around the line, “Tim Cook has an announcement. And for once, it’s about Galaxy.” He demonstrated the phone’s folded size, larger open display and AI photo-editing features while the familiar name carried the joke. The timing allowed Samsung to enter a competitor’s launch conversation without showing or directly attacking the other Tim Cook.
ASICS | Human Nature
ASICS examined sedentary behaviour through the visual language of a wildlife conservation documentary. Narrated by Sigourney Weaver, Human Nature observed people surrounded by sofas, screens and everyday conveniences as though they were threatened animals inside artificial habitats. The film supported research involving 34,000 adults across 31 markets, which found that more than half were below recommended activity levels. Created with Golin and Ketchum, the project encouraged viewers to begin with 15 minutes of movement.
IKEA | Belli organizzati
IKEA Italy marked FRAKTA’s 30th anniversary by documenting the unexpected jobs customers had already given the blue bag. Belli organizzati presented ten uses, including a cat bed, paddling pool, suitcase, laundry basket, record holder and carrier for basketball uniforms. Photographer Salvatore Matarazzo styled each habit like a colourful fashion editorial while leaving the inexpensive bag unchanged. Created by Ogilvy Italy, the campaign made customer improvisation the opening chapter of IKEA’s broader “Make room for what you love” platform.
Familiar things found unfamiliar roles
IKEA turned a shelf into a Skyrim companion and a shopping bag into a fashion subject. Snickers gave chatbots something to eat, Samsung borrowed a famous name, and KFC allowed pickle flavour to take over an entire visual identity.
PUMA, ASICS, Corona, Prada Beauty and Canva found their ideas through movement, sunlight, painted walls and handmade animation. Across all ten campaigns, the strongest shift was simple: each brand placed something familiar in a world where people had not expected to find it.
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