Philips has launched its ‘Better Than New’ campaign to create awareness and traction for Philips’ refurbished products. The creative thinking behind the campaign focuses on the tension between ‘new equals better’ and ‘better than new’. Responding to the needs of an increasing number of consumers and building on the company’s commitment to sustainability and driving a more circular economy, Philips’ goal is to make products that can be refurbished and reused.

The Philips Refurb Editions ‘Better Than New’ campaign, which has been co-created with creative agency LePub and co-founders of the Italian image-only magazine TOILETPAPER, uses the creativity engendered by a seeming conflict of ideas – new equals better versus better than new – to turn the stereotypical idea of innovation on its head.

To bring the idea to life, LePub searched the archives of Philips advertising and, in collaboration with creative art collective TOILETPAPER, refreshed Philips’ tradition of iconic print ads. TOILETPAPER’s art director Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari revisited Philips’ vintage posters illustrating past innovations, injecting great wit and a powerful visual aesthetic. The result is a campaign true to Philips’ past but refreshed to illustrate Philips’ portfolio of refurbished products, with the disruptive and unconventional look of one of TOILETPAPER’s visual signatures – the retro-future.

The campaign is currently live in Germany across outdoor, print, and social. In the heart of Hamburg, a pop-up store used the retro-future visual identity of the campaign to promote the proposition that refurb is the future, with products that people were able to buy virtually but experience live. It offered a compelling experience of how reusing products may be a better future for all of us.

“At Philips, we believe that innovation should be about making quality products that you can enjoy for a long time,” said Josefien Olij, Global Senior Director, Marketing Communications at Philips. “We are proud to launch our latest innovation – Refurb Edition products that are not just as good as new, but better than new. The ‘Better Than New’ campaign is about creating greater awareness of the benefits of re-using perfectly good products, so consumers can use less and re-use more in a fun, easy, accessible way.”