Andy Murray's ad for athletic footwear brand Hylo is a brilliant parody of bad PR

Creative Boom: News Advertising Andy Murray's ad for athletic footwear brand Hylo is a brilliant parody of bad PR The new campaign for sustainable running shoe brand Hylo nails something every creative knows: nothing is more painful than a bad product launch. Written By: Tom May 14 May 2026 We've all been there. The press event where the AV fails. The product demo where something falls off. The presenter who sounds like he's reading a bedtime story to an already-sleeping audience. The nervous PR hovering just out of shot, grimacing at every stumble.

If you work in the creative industries long enough, you'll have sat through at least one launch event with a fixed smile and gently clenched teeth, wishing the ground would swallow you up. That flinching recognition of corporate awkwardness done badly is exactly what Hylo and production company Intergalactic Studios have tapped into with 'It's Not About Him', a new ad fronted by former world number one tennis player Andy Murray. It's a deadpan mockumentary that parodies the stilted theatrics of a PR launch with gleeful precision.

Think flimsy collapsing props, a monotone presenter who sends people to sleep, a plastic water bottle left in the hero shot, and an audience of hacks so underwhelmed you'd think they'd been promised an open bar and got squash instead. It's funny because it's true. And it's strategically brilliant because, rather than playing it safe with a polished showcase of product features, Hylo has done the harder, smarter thing: made the audience laugh first, and made them curious second. Dry humour as a disruptor The performance footwear category is, as the press release puts it, "crowded, competitive and often predictable".

Hylo, which makes its trainers from bio-based materials such as corn and castor beans, is a newer brand taking on established giants. A conventional product launch film (all slow-motion running shots and motivational music) wouldn't cut through. So director James Humby and Rhory Danniells, co-founder of Intergalactic Studios, took a different route.

"I'm drawn to things that aren't immediately obvious," says James, "so leaning into Andy's dry, deadpan humour, the candid documentary-style approach, understated performances, and slower pace than you'd expect from an ad were ways of counterbalancing the slapstick with a sense of observational realism." That slower pace is key. The film doesn't rush. It lets scenes breathe, lets the awkwardness build, lets Andy's famous inscrutability do the heavy lifting. When the display board framing his new shoes collapses mid-ceremony, he barely reacts.

When a journalist asks about Roger Federer for the umpteenth time, the exasperation is contained, subtle, and somehow funnier for it. It's a masterclass in comedic restraint. The Federer angle is the campaign's smartest structural move. As you may know, the rival player is now a high-profile ambassador for Swiss sportswear brand On, Hylo's more established rival in the performance category. The film knowingly uses Murray and Federer's well-known rivalry as a comic device, with journalist after journalist ignoring the shoes entirely to probe Andy about his feelings towards his old opponent.

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The ad campaign's clever parody of bad PR is significant for brand strategy, particularly in the context of sustainability, making it relevant and somewhat novel in its execution.