Happiness is the missing ingredient in the seemingly unending ‘get back to the office’ culture wars and the core insight in Work.Life’s upbeat new campaign by Defiant.

The out of home campaign from the disruptive flexible workspace brand successfully pokes fun at corporate culture.

The campaign is rooted in the insights of all the things workers love to hate about the office; being back to back (to back to back to back…) in meetings all day, office politics, endless corporate jargon and scruffy, shabby offices.

This campaign follows research from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in the wake of the Covid crisis which revealed how personal well-being has declined in the wake of the pandemic. According to the ONS in the UK over 4 in 10 adults report low levels of happiness. 

Work.Life’s mission is to ‘make people’s work-lives happier’. An ethos rooted in the insight that the average employee can spend over 90,000 hours of their life at work.

Launching this month the out of home campaign will appear on London Routemaster buses, as well as 2500 fly posters around the capital, plastered in central London tube stations, and guerilla marketing. Work.Life also plans to invest heavily in digital advertising with new animations on YouTube, Meta and TikTok.

Elliot Gold, Co-Founder of Work.Life comments: “We are super proud to launch our new iteration of Work.Life’s brand campaign.”

He continues: “When David & I founded Work.Life, we set out to create a better way to work. Like many people, in our previous careers we had experienced some great workspaces but also some terrible ones! We set out to make a positive change in the world of work. Our new campaign brilliantly embodies this mission in a fun & irreverent manner.  Further, at a time when every other brand in our category shies away from the realities of office life, our campaign offers a more fresh and honest take."

Emma Baldwin, Senior Brand Marketing Manager added: “We first launched this campaign back in October 2023 after an intense 6 months of research, briefing, production and media planning. Our main finding was that the industry was incredibly same-y and didn’t address those bad bits of office life that we all love to hate, so we tackled these head on, having a bit of fun along the way in our creative execution. We’ve seen record movement in both our differentiation in the category and our unprompted awareness off the back of this campaign.”

The creative team behind the campaign hope that the approach underlines the truth that B2B brands don’t need to be boring. While leaning into the realities of office life rather than glossing over them underlines a broader shift in marketing to presenting the messy reality of consumers' lives. 

Will Poskett, Founder of Defiant, explains “Last year we started working with Work-Life to develop a new brand positioning & creative platform. Our initial work proved hugely effective, growing spontaneous awareness and helped them to grow faster than any other brand in their category.”

He continues: “This year we wanted to push the needle even further with an even more bold and daring campaign. Our new work directly calls out all the worst aspects of office life, we all love to hate, in an irreverent and tongue-in-cheek manner. The work really does prove that even ‘B2B’ brands can embrace creativity and humour to spark fame and commercial growth.”

An energetic and attention-grabbing campaign which underlines that ‘messy marketing’ is more than a fleeting trend. Telling the truth is a brand differentiator.