Remember when fish-and-chips came wrapped in news… and when papers were bigger, for that matter?

British advertisers do, turning to print for some of the top campaigns of 2023.

Looking back over the year, Lewis Boulton, communications manager at the UK’s Newsworks says there’s no “batter” place to look than at a campaign for vinegar brand Sarsons, which used a cover wrap on ‘National Fish and Chip Day’ in June to urge readers to support their local chip shop.

Apparently half of chip shops across the country are under threat of closure due to the growing popularity of takeaway pizza.

The Bicycle London campaign for Sarsons wrap was a winner in the Newsworks awards in November, taking out the Chair’s Award.

Global brand McDonald’s used an eyecatching gatefold to take readers of the Times back in time to broadsheet format and the “best of 90s culture”. Content was written especially by Times journalists, with the ad celebrating British culture and 30 years of quality-sourced produce.

The inline-folded wrap engaged readers as it took them back to The Times’ 1990’s masthead.

A November wrap for the now-traditional Stand Up To Cancer concert – a yearly effort to bring us closer to beating the disease once and for all – put the country’s biggest comedians “in the ring” with traditional wrestling poster creative.

“Tactical ads and news brands go together like peas in a pod,” says Boulton, impressed by a prompt UK Finance wrap.

“In response to the Bank of England raising interest rates that morning to combat inflation, the trade body reassured mortgage payers later that day that, whoever they banked with, help and advice were close by.

Another big winner from the Newsworks awards was this Christmas campaign for supermarket chain Asda. With media agency Spark Foundry, it took home the top prize in two categories, one of them this best display featuring supermarket “hire” Will Farrell’s beloved Christmas character Buddy the Elf as “chief quality officer.”

The impact of a print double-spread is obvious with this Scottish Widows ad which not only scored ‘best social impact campaign’, but also took its subject right up to the House of Commons and prime minister Rishi Sunak.

Timed for International Women’s Day, the tactical and contextual placements by Zenith UK for pension provider Scottish Widows were even organically mentioned by an MP in that week’s ‘prime minister’s questions in parliament’.