UGG Ads: Embrace Cozy Comfort, Walk with Confidence

UGG ads sell texture before they sell footwear. That single decision explains 15 years of campaigns.

The brand has run global work with M&C Saatchi Los Angeles, Camp + King, AKQA and Young Hero, from Tom Brady’s locker room spots to the hand-built miniature Los Angeles of 2026.

This page collects the campaigns with the agency, year and market behind each one, then breaks down the layout choices:

• Composition, palette and wordmark placement in print
• How the TV work differs from the posters
• Which agency made what, and when
• What designers can take from the sheepskin close-up

UGG advertising spans 3 decades of paid work, 5 lead agencies and 6 flagship campaigns, from the Tom Brady men’s launch in 2011 to the hand-built Fluff Yeah film of March 2026. The work runs on tactile product close-ups, cast-led self-expression and warm neutral art direction, delivered mostly through digital film, print, out-of-home and retail.

This page covers UGG ads grouped by campaign, with the agency, year and market behind each one, plus the layout and typography decisions that make them work.

UGG Advertising at a Glance

UGG has advertised at scale since 2011, working with M&C Saatchi Los Angeles, Camp + King, AKQA and Young Hero. Its best-known campaigns are Feels Like UGG, the Tom Brady UGG for Men series and UGG x Telfar. The visual signature combines sheepskin texture, warm neutrals and a compact all-caps wordmark.

Which UGG Ad Campaigns Are the Most Famous?

The 5 most famous UGG ad campaigns are Feels Like UGG (2022-2025), UGG for Men with Tom Brady (2011-2016), UGG x Telfar (2020-2023), Iconic From the First Step (2025) and the Fluff Yeah relaunch (2026). All 5 ran globally across film, print and out-of-home.

Feels Like UGG (2022-2025)

Feels Like UGG launched on September 8, 2022 as a global Autumn/Winter platform and ran for 4 consecutive seasons. The first edition paired 10 multi-hyphenate ambassadors with custom furniture by Harry Nuriev of Crosby Studios, photographed by Arielle Bobb-Willis.

The art direction treats the boot as a texture study rather than a hero object. Ambassadors sit low in frame, sheepskin fills the foreground, and the palette stays inside a narrow band of chestnut, sand and off-white.

AKQA shot the 2024 edition in Seoul with photographer Samuel Bradley, using the twin seam stitch as the organizing idea (Marketing Dive).

UGG for Men With Tom Brady (2011-2016)

Steps (2011): M&C Saatchi Los Angeles ran it as an all-digital video launch after research showed men rejected the category outright (ClickZ).

Pink Slip (2012): TV, print, OOH and mobile, directed by the Guard Brothers, built on Brady’s real habit of gifting Ascot slippers to teammates.

For Gamechangers (2013): director Spencer Susser, print stills by Carter Smith, shot on a custom 250-foot set.

Do Nothing (2016): Camp + King, a 5-part digital series with Jeff Bridges and Julian Edelman.

The men’s business grew more than 150% between 2011 and 2016, which is why Brady remains the reference point for long-running brand ambassador partnerships in footwear (Business Wire).

UGG x Telfar (2020-2023)

Announced in September 2020 during the first digital New York Fashion Week, the partnership produced 4 drops across 3 years.

The 2023 Krinkle campaign, shot by Roe Ethridge, cast Lil’ Kim, Mickey Rourke, Morris Chestnut, Yung Miami, Teezo Touchdown and Rolling Ray, with product priced from $170 to $435 (Hypebeast).

Ethridge’s still-life framing puts boots on hands, not feet. The co-branded logo lockup replaces the first G of UGG with Telfar’s TC monogram, which is the rare case of two marks sharing one glyph.

Iconic From the First Step (2025)

AKQA published this Autumn/Winter brand heritage campaign in August 2025. The narrative runs from Venice Beach to the Paris runways.

• Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Stefon Diggs, Jeremy Scott, Elsa Hosk, Alton Mason, Central Cee, Rina Sawayama
• Founder Brian Smith appears in the campaign, 47 years after starting the brand
• Media: film plus photography, distributed across paid, owned and retail

Putting the founder next to a K-pop adjacent cast is the clearest brand story structure UGG has ever committed to print.

Fluff Yeah Relaunch (2026)

The most physical campaign UGG has made.

Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka stomps through a miniature Los Angeles built by hand from wood and paper with Tastebuds Studio, a nod to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958). Construction took 4 weeks after nearly 2 months of pre-production (WWD).

Still photography came from Amber Asaly, styling from Daisy Stackpole. OOH ran in New York and Los Angeles while video ran on TikTok, Instagram and Meta in-feed (Marketing Dive).

The whole thing works because of forced perspective, so the relationship between scale and proportion carries the joke without a single line of copy.

UGG Print Ads From the Classic Boot Era (2003-2010)

UGG barely bought media during its first mainstream surge. Distribution came from celebrity placement instead.

Oprah Winfrey gave 350 pairs of Classic Short boots to her audience in 2003, and UGG recorded $23.5 million in sales that year (WWD Footwear News).

Print from this period is mostly retailer co-op work: product on white, minimal copy, wordmark bottom right. By 2008 UGG brand sales reached $689 million with almost no brand film behind them.

How Do UGG Print Ads Work Visually?

UGG print ads use a 3-part structure: a full-bleed cast photograph, a single short headline set in a wide sans-serif, and the wordmark in a fixed corner position. Copy occupies under 15% of the page. Texture does the persuading.

Image-to-text ratio

The ratio sits near 85:15 across every campaign since 2022. Headlines run 2 to 4 words.

That ratio is what makes the order in which the eye moves through the layout so predictable: face, then footwear, then wordmark.

Typography

UGG sets headlines in an all-caps grotesque with tight letterfit. The wordmark itself uses an oversized second G, which is the only sans-serif detail the brand refuses to modernize.

Campaign lines like “Feels Like UGG” hold at billboard distance because the tracking opens up at large sizes and closes at small ones.

Palette and negative space

Chestnut, sand, cream, black. Occasional Spicy Pumpkin from the Telfar drops.

UGG leaves the top third of most posters empty, and that empty area around the subject is what stops a fur-heavy image from reading as clutter.

Framing and focal point

Ambassadors sit off-center, usually on the left vertical third, with the product foot crossing the lower right.

The result is a diagonal read. Establishing a single dominant point of interest matters more here than in most fashion print, because the product is small, low and easy to lose.

How Do UGG TV Commercials Differ From Its Print Ads?

UGG film work carries dialogue and humor. UGG print carries none. Every major spot since 2011 has been built around a spoken anecdote or a physical gag, while print stays silent and textural.

Pink Slip (2012, M&C Saatchi Los Angeles)

A rookie walks to his locker during training camp, finds a pair of Ascot slippers, and Brady appears to confirm he made the team. Directed by the Guard Brothers. Brady’s lines were unscripted.

For Gamechangers (2013, M&C Saatchi Los Angeles)

A 60-second spot tracking Brady from high school athlete to Super Bowl quarterback, directed by Spencer Susser on a 250-foot custom sound stage set in Los Angeles.

Do Nothing (2016, Camp + King)

Five short films with Brady, Jeff Bridges and Julian Edelman defending a man’s right to sit still. Launched September 11, 2016 with the film “Song” and ran through November.

Fluff Yeah (2026, Tastebuds Studio)

Shot on film, DSLR and iPhone. Okatsuka destroys a paper Los Angeles complete with a Hollywood sign reading UGG and a miniature delivery truck.

How Has UGG Advertising Evolved Since 1978?

UGG advertising moved through 4 phases: no paid media (1978-2002), celebrity placement (2003-2010), athlete endorsement (2011-2016), and cast-led global platforms (2020-2026). Each shift followed a product expansion rather than a rebrand.

Deckers acquired the brand from Brian Smith in 1995 and later dropped “Australia” from the name, which is the single biggest change to UGG’s visual identity system in its history.

Which Agencies Created UGG Advertising?

Four agencies produced the campaigns UGG is known for. M&C Saatchi Los Angeles created the Brady launch work between 2011 and 2013. Camp + King created Do Nothing in 2016. AKQA became lead creative agency in 2024. Young Hero created the Spring/Summer 2025 sandal campaign.

AKQA’s Los Angeles studio produced the 2024 work under global chief creative officer Shu Hung, who came from Nike Women, Nike Sportswear and Uniqlo (Adweek).

Carole Diarra, UGG’s global VP of marketing, hired AKQA to define a new spirit for the brand, and the resulting cast was the most globally diverse the label had ever fielded.

What Can Designers Learn From UGG Ads?

UGG print rewards restraint. The brand runs 4 colors, 1 typeface weight per layout and a fixed wordmark position, which is why the work stays recognizable across 15 years and 4 agencies.

• Photograph the material, not the silhouette, when the product texture is the differentiator
• Hold the palette to 3 warm neutrals plus black
• Set the campaign line in one weight and let size carry the emphasis, not bolding
• Park the wordmark in the same corner across every execution in a season
• Cast people who bring their own audience, then shoot them in the brand’s light, not theirs
• Build practical sets when the product claim is tactile

The last point separates UGG from most footwear advertising in 2026. Lindsey Dashoff, VP of marketing for UGG North America, framed the anti-AI production choice as a match for a tactile product, and that alignment between production method and advertising design is doing more brand work than any headline in the campaign.

How Do UGG Ads Compare to Birkenstock Ads?

Both brands sell an ugly-shoe premise and both sell comfort. The advertising diverges on who appears in it.

UGG builds campaigns around large ensemble casts of musicians, athletes and designers, shot in warm interiors. Birkenstock advertising leans on product-only still life, cork and leather macro shots, and a cooler grey-brown palette with far more copy per page.

The comfort-first competitive set splits the same way. Crocs campaigns run on saturated color and collaboration volume, roughly 20 partner drops a year, while New Balance advertising uses athlete credibility and typographic restraint closer to UGG’s own approach.

Against fashion-adjacent footwear like Steve Madden advertising, UGG spends noticeably less page area on price and product grids. UGG posters carry one product. Steve Madden layouts frequently carry six.

What Makes UGG Advertising Work?

UGG advertising works because the material does the arguing. Every campaign since 2011 has kept the same three moves: photograph sheepskin close enough to read the fibre, cast people who already own an audience, and keep the copy under five words.

The brand changes agencies, photographers and casts constantly, yet the layouts stay recognizable at a glance. That comes from fixed wordmark placement, a locked palette of warm neutrals, and a refusal to fill the page.

The 2026 decision to build a physical miniature city instead of generating one is the same instinct applied to production. A tactile product advertised through tactile methods, with the difference between dense texture and empty space carrying the whole composition.

UGG Ads Examples

FAQ on Ugg Ads

What was UGG’s first advertising campaign?

Steps, launched September 2011 by M&C Saatchi Los Angeles for UGG for Men.

Research showed men flatly rejected the category, so the agency built an all-digital video launch around product close-ups instead of buying television.

Who is the face of UGG advertising right now?

Nobody, on purpose. UGG runs ensemble casts rather than a single ambassador.

Recent leads include Post Malone, HANNI of NewJeans, Sarah Jessica Parker, Central Cee and comedian Atsuko Okatsuka in the 2026 spring film.

Which UGG tagline is the most recognized?

Feels Like UGG, introduced in September 2022 and carried through four consecutive Autumn/Winter seasons.

Do Nothing (2016) and Iconic From the First Step (2025) sit behind it in recognition.

Did UGG advertise during its 2000s boom?

Barely. Deckers reported $6.087 million in company-wide advertising, marketing and promotion for 2001.

Demand came from editorial placement and Oprah Winfrey’s Favorite Things list in 2003, not from bought media.

Why does Tom Brady appear in so many UGG ads?

UGG signed him in September 2011 to open a men’s market that did not exist.

He fronted five campaigns through 2016, and the men’s business grew more than 150% across that period (Business Wire).

What colors does UGG use in its print ads?

Chestnut, sand, cream and black. Four values, repeated across every season.

The Telfar collaboration added Spicy Pumpkin in 2023, the only saturated color UGG has run at campaign scale.

Has UGG advertising won major creative awards?

No Cannes Lions or D&AD wins are on public record for the brand.

Its campaigns are archived on Ads of the World, part of the Clio Network, which catalogues 6 UGG campaigns with full agency credits.

Which markets does UGG advertise in outside the US?

The United Kingdom, France, Japan, China and South Korea carry the heaviest international weight.

AKQA shot the 2024 campaign in Seoul. International net sales rose 19.9% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 (Deckers Brands).

Why did UGG call its 2026 campaign anti-AI?

The Fluff Yeah film used a physical miniature Los Angeles built with Tastebuds Studio over four weeks.

Marketing VP Lindsey Dashoff framed the choice plainly: a tactile brand and a tactile product deserve tactile production.

Does UGG rely on influencers instead of paid ads?

It runs both. Creator-led casting supplies the imagery, then paid media distributes it.

The 2026 plan included digital, print, out-of-home in New York and Los Angeles, plus video on TikTok, Instagram and Meta in-feed placements.

Conclusion

UGG ads reward a second look. Strip away the casting and what remains is a fixed system: chestnut and cream, one headline, a wordmark parked in the same corner.

That system survived four agencies, a name change and a stretch of consumer fatigue in the early 2010s.

Deckers Brands rebuilt the Classic Boot as a fashion object through collaboration campaigns with Telfar and Post Malone, not through bigger media buys.

The most useful lesson sits in the negative space. UGG trusts a single product to hold a page, which almost no footwear brand does anymore.

Study the credits too. Photographers like Roe Ethridge change the register of a campaign more than any tagline rewrite ever will.