The hook. A plain billboard: Dwayne Johnson's favourite cereal. Then the small print does the work: this Dwayne Johnson drives a bus in London, and Surreal paid him £200 to say it. They ran the same play with a student named Serena Williams, plus a Ronaldo and a Michael Jordan.
Why it works. You read the celebrity name first. An A-list endorsement from a startup cereal makes no sense, so you lean in, and the small print rewards you with a laugh you then retell. The disclaimer is not the legal bit, it is the ad. The media spend was tiny, the earned coverage was not: trade press, national press, a viral run on LinkedIn. It also does real positioning work, casting Surreal as the scrappy, honest one against cereal giants who pay for the real thing. Co-founder Kit Gammell even kept the bit going in the press: "If anyone knows a Dave Beckham, please get in touch."
Steal this. If you cannot afford the asset your category leans on, advertise the gap. Put the confession inside the creative instead of hiding it at the bottom. And sign real people with real consent, because the joke only lands if every word of the fine print is true.
Ad by Surreal, 2023. Coverage: The Drum.