And just like that, September summers are gone, and fall has officially arrived. The temperatures are dropping. The leaves are changing. Football is everywhere. Pumpkin spice has once again infiltrated every available food group. And across America, perfectly normal front lawns have been overtaken by twelve-foot skeletons like this is something we all collectively agreed was reasonable.
October is that magical time of year when horror movies become comfort viewing, adults spend alarming amounts of money figuring out what they’re going to be for Halloween, and brands suddenly discover they have a darker side.
Advertising certainly got into the spirit. So grab some candy corn, ignore the giant skeleton staring through your neighbor’s window, and enjoy.
Here are some of the ads that stood out to us this September.
Nike | Wieden + Kennedy
In September, Nike launched Caitlin Clark’s first signature shoe with a campaign built around one joke: apparently, nothing about her is special.
Created by Wieden+Kennedy, “Nothing Special to See Here*” leaned into Clark’s very ordinary habit of casually draining threes from absurd distances, treating one of basketball’s most recognizable players like she’s simply another Iowa kid going about her day.
OpenAI | Special U.S.
OpenAI and Special U.S. came back with a new global campaign showing how ChatGPT can help people move from “I don’t know how” to “I did it.”
Titled But Now, the campaign spanned 29 markets and included six films directed by Angelo Cerisara of Biscuit Filmworks. Each spot focused on a different task that initially felt intimidating, tedious, or out of reach, then reframed ChatGPT as the tool that helps people through the figuring-it-out stage.
Zoom | No Notes Productions
Kate McKinnon came back in full chaos mode for Zoom, playing a maniacal boss who tries to take down the platform by using it.
The new spot, “Zoom Gets It Done,” was created by No Notes Productions, the agency founded by Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost, in collaboration with production company Lord Danger.
Directed by Chris Werner, the campaign continues Zoom’s effort to move beyond the perception of the platform as simply a meeting tool and position it as a broader work hub where conversations turn into action.
McKinnon played a boss hell-bent on sabotaging Zoom, only to discover that every attempt to weaponize the platform ended up showing how effective it is.
Desigual | In-house
Sometimes the smartest advertising idea is the one you understand almost before the spot starts. For its Autumn 2026 campaign, Spanish fashion brand Desigual placed Vivian Wilson opposite a humanoid robot, hands her a “Born to Disobey” attitude, and lets the tension do the rest.
Wilson, model, social personality, and estranged daughter of Elon Musk, stars in a film directed by the newly formed trio PSG for ProdCo. The campaign turns Desigual’s anti-conformist brand positioning into a deliberately provocative face-off between human unpredictability and machine obedience.
Underdog | Curiosity
Paul Walter Hauser went to the dogs in September. The Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor starred as “The Dog” in Underdog’s new national campaign, “Unleash Your Dog,” the first work created with the sports prediction and fantasy brand’s new agency of record, Curiosity.
Directed by The Righteous Gemstones filmmaker Jody Hill, the campaign introduced Hauser as a yellow-tracksuit-wearing, gold-chain-sporting, smooth-talking mascot who helps his owner navigate making picks on the Underdog app.
And that’s it for the Best of September. See you next month!
Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360 News. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on LinkedIn.
