The Ordinary Egg campaign makes me want to throw up and leave marketing altogether. It’s so wildly disconnected from reality it borders on satire.

Quick recap: eggs are a hot topic right now. We’ve got sick chicks, rising supply chain costs, and a shift away from caged farming. Prices are up, shelves are empty, and eggs have become a shorthand for cost-of-living pressure.

And this week, The Ordinary - a skincare brand - launched a line of affordable eggs. As much as eggs have become a symbol for inflation, this campaign is a symbol for brand delusion.

But among all the noise, there are some interesting signals to pay attention to here and a lot we can learn from the responses. I’m calling this episode…

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Guns for show, knives for a pro

The problem with the campaign isn’t that they ditched their vegan identity or crossed some ethical line. It’s that it’s not real. It’s a performance.

They didn’t partner with a farm innovating around bird flu or tackling feed costs. They didn’t try to solve anything. Most likely, they just bought a few dozen eggs at $10 or $12 a pop, marked them down to $3, slapped their logo on the carton, and called it a campaign.

This wasn’t a genuine attempt to address a consumer problem.
It was a charade.
A stunt.

And I think it’s poor marketing because it’s deceitful. Marketing is at it’s best when we combine our creative problem-solving skills with providing real world value to people.

And we’re at our absolute worst when we are being misleading, deceptive and untruthful. Not only does it lump the advertising industry in with used car sales or real estate agents (sorry guys, people dislike you), but it’s just disrespectful to the people we’re supposed to be helping.

People deserve more respect than this. Pretending to solve a cost-of-living crisis for internet likes isn’t bold - it’s delusional.

A subtle shift in culture.

If you scroll through the comments on The Ordinary’s egg stunt - or any of the hot takes on LinkedIn - you’ll notice a recurring theme: many consumers feel the brand has strayed from its core values. A company once celebrated for its commitment to vegan, cruelty-free skincare is now promoting eggs - a move that has left its audience puzzled and, in some cases, upset.

But the backlash taps into something bigger. Interest in plant-based everything is on the decline. U.S. sales of refrigerated and frozen plant-based meat dropped 9% last year, and volumes fell nearly 10%. Meanwhile, dairy milk - yes, the one we all supposedly left behind - is growing, with sales up 2% in the same period.

Sustainability is sliding down the purchase hierarchy too. In Europe, just 46% of people bought a sustainable product in August 2024, compared to 53% in 2022. The vibe has shifted: people are broke, tired, and less interested in buying climate credentials.

So when The Ordinary jumps into eggs, it’s not just random. Whether intentionally or not, it’s a signal for how brands are repositioning themselves in response to these shifting sentiments. It wouldn’t be surprising if this is a soft launch for a future move into animal-derived ingredients—collagen, for example, which performs well in skincare but has historically been off-limits for vegan brands.

This egg campaign might be a way to warm audiences up. To test the waters. To swing the door back open - without having to make a public declaration. Instead of engaging in a messy debate, they’ve created a quirky little stunt that says: we’re not that brand anymore.

Manufactured authenticity as a trend

I wrote a while ago about the trend of fake billboards for Internet likes - brands slapping up realistic renders of OOH ads to farm engagement. And the same goes for brands ‘faking’ mistakes - typos, off-brand replies, “oops” moments - all carefully orchestrated to appear a little more human.

These stunts are polarising and push the boundary. But at least they’re (mostly) harmless. They come from a place of play. They’re not pretending to solve a crisis - they’re just trying to get a laugh, grab attention, go viral.

In my mind, that’s what makes The Ordinary egg campaign different. It’s not just a quirky wink, they’re cosplaying as a solution to real-world suffering. A helpful framework is to think about the intent. What’s the intent behind the campaign? Are you doing it to genuinely add value to people’s lives, or simply get yours and move on?

The more the algorithms reward outlandish content, the more brands will have to pull these stunts to be seen. Legacy brands that grew during the golden age of Instagram - back when posting pretty flat-lays was enough - are now clawing for attention in a world ruled by chaotic reels, rage bait and ‘wtf’ moments.

Where this leaves us

You might think I’m overreacting and perhaps I am. But I’ll happily wear egg on my face and argue this until someone can change my mind.

The Ordinary’s stunt isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last. As long as attention is the currency and chaos is the cost, brands will keep pushing further into irony, satire, and performance.
But marketing doesn’t have to be this hollow.
We can still be bold without being delusional.
Creative without being manipulative.
Authentic without faking it.

Because at the end of the day, the most radical thing a brand can do right now - is actually mean it.

If you enjoyed this article, send it to your high-school friends as a means for reconnecting. Or just share it with your colleagues, that would be great too.