August blew in and out fast with work that felt like an inside joke for those of us who haven't limited our screen time this summer.

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Here's what caught my eye in August:

Verci's LA launch video reminded me of the opening credits scene in Ocean’s 11 movies. That’s why it was the perfect way to announce their new chapter in LA; a new story begins. It feels unmistakably homemade, like a good pie. It's the clearest example this month of a trend we're tracking closely: the best brand content increasingly looks like it was shot with someone's actual friends, because it was.

🔗 Watch the scene

Airbnb's new "Have U Considered?" series trades the brand's usual golden-hour polish for something stranger: silly vfx, shaky handheld footage, talent of alternative influence, and the visual grammar of a group chat. It's a deliberate step backward in production value for an audience that needs to be reminded that you can go somewhere random with your friends with very little money and make memories to last a lifetime.

🔗 See who they tapped, this one too, and another

Kareem Rahma's taxi-ride interview show has run the same premise for years: get in a cab, ask the driver to take you to their favorite spot. This month the story finally left New York for Damascus, where Rahma spent two days with Bashar, a taxi driver who took him on a moving tour through his home town. The episode was soundtracked by ABBA’s Chiquitita and threaded in illustrations from Syrian-American artist Rama Duwaji. It's proof that a strong enough format doesn't need reinventing, it just needs a new place to prove itself, and that there is nothing more fun than making things with people you love.

Our team was really proud to have produced the episode, and premiere it with 200 friends of the show in NYC this month.

🔗 Ride along

Instead of dumping the Season 4 cast additions announcement in one press release, Industry rolled out its additions one at a time, each drop paired with behind-the-scenes photos and clips that made every new name feel like its own small event. It's a reminder that anticipation is a renewable resource if you're willing to be patient with your own announcement. Zosia Mamet was revealed in a clever reel with castmates, Dianna Agron got to post a selfie in her costume, Luke Manley made his own meme; for fans that have been following them for years, each of them felt like a special little treat just for them.

🔗 See the rollout, another drop, and another

To launch its Future IQ serum, K18 and Uncommon Creative Studio built a ten-foot ball made of real human hair and rolled it through Midtown, the West Village, Chinatown, and the Seaport for a week straight. It's meant to represent the 167 billion hairs New Yorkers shed, and it is, by design, revolting. As Uncommon's creative directors put it, hair loss usually gets discussed "quietly and apologetically." A ten-foot hairball rolling down a sidewalk does not have that problem.

The videos that people took of this were actually terrifying and that’s part of what is fun about doing activations IRL - those consultants will never forget the moment they saw the hairball cross Stone St…

🔗 Read the full story

Want more inspo and creative ephemera? There's more campaigns we watched in our monthly moodboard.

Every single one of these was either made with friends or made for them. Verci's launch reel is a filmstrip of the people who built the place with you. "Have U Considered?" is what happens when you let your weirdest friend make the dinner reservation. Keep the Meter Running is a cab ride that makes for unexpected besties. Even the Tumblehair, gross as it is, is the kind of thing you send straight to the group chat. The common thread isn't going lo-fi - I think it’s putting heart into it. Show us you care and you’ll have our full attention.

See you online,

Lou

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