Challenge
Cinnabon already holds a place as a bona fide comfort food, a small treat that makes sense for an everyday reward-based indulgence. The challenge was to extend a small, everyday comfort into an “any occasion” campaign, showing what happens when a brand built for little joys tries to solve moments far bigger than it can. The creative task was to lean into that gap and use it as the foundation for humor, turning Cinnabon’s limitations into its cultural voice.
Outcome
The concept reframed Cinnabon as self-aware and culturally fluent. Instead of pretending a sweet treat could fix heartbreak, layoffs, or tragedy, the campaign made the absurdity the point. By leaning into this mismatch, Cinnabon could step into cultural and social spaces that most brands avoid — the uncomfortable, everyday moments where humor cuts through. In doing so, a brand that usually sits outside of culture found a way to matter: not by overpromising, but by owning its role as comic relief. The result was a scalable platform that pushed the brand’s voice, proved it could tolerate bolder humor, and showed how even a legacy comfort brand can make cultural impact by claiming space other advertisers leave untouched.
My Role
I worked with Jason to push how far Cinnabon’s humour tolerance could stretch, co-creating the “for any occasion” platform and developing five scripts designed for commercial production. Together we repositioned the brand from safe indulgence to culturally relevant self-awareness. We structured the scripts to highlight the absurdity of small gestures in big moments, and framed the campaign as a way for a socially quieter brand to claim relevance in spaces other advertisers overlook. This project proved my ability to unearth and own under explored spaces, build humour from human truths, and create scenarios that extend a brand’s voice into new cultural spaces.
Collaboration
2025