Just Eat's Global Platform Taps Into Life’s Important Moments

Say goodbye to the days of celebrities such as Katy Perry and Craig David with their (annoyingly) catchy songs. Just Eat has entered a new era.

The brand is turning its traditions on its head (aside from its bright orange colouring), and honing in on human insight, as it swaps Did Somebody Say… for its new brand platform Stay Just Where You Are – the debut work from its new creative agency VCCP. 

Driven by emotional moments – from a grandfather connecting with a grandchild, to a father and daughter bonding over music; the work has something for everyone, as it spotlights life’s moments that are best uninterrupted.

“We now turn the camera to real people,” explains Ralph Rijks who became global CMO at Just Eat Takeaway last year. “It's the way to get to places where we couldn't have gone before, with authenticity buried in the concept.”

Interruption: the enemy

“Interruption is the enemy of joy,” Rijks highlights when unveiling the new work, and reveals the brand heavily tested that fact. 

Across Just Eat’s top three markets – UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, 72 per cent of people wanted their essentials delivered so they can continue enjoying joyful moments. And in order to connect with its intended audience, the brand needed its tone to shift from one rooted in authenticity, not a celebrity that most won’t relate to. 

 “We're not turning the camera on this beautiful, crazy world of food and delivery with a celebrity,” Rijks continues. “Within that world, there was so much distraction. Now, the tonality allows for emotional connections.”

While the work’s heartstring-tugging film heroes the campaign, it’s also accompanied by a series of short, social snippets and OOH, which lean on some of life’s more humorous moments, from a laser pen teaching a cat to use a light switch, to a friendship group’s stomach-dropping moments when trying for festival tickets (Rijks’ self-proclaimed favourite). 

And in order to make Just Eat stand out from the crowd, ensuring it isn’t just doing what its competitors do in a different font, creatively it used tactics to connect emotionally. 

“The delivery category has become more noisy and transactional,” explains Andrew Peake, CEO at VCCP London. “These are important tactics and rational messages but we also need to give people a reason to connect with Just Eat emotionally. The creative platform shifts the focus onto the benefit of Just Eat: to give you time back to enjoy the moments that matter. 

“By celebrating the value of remaining present in life's best moments, Just Eat Takeaway stops being just a utility app and becomes a true enabler of human connection.” 

He adds that it was important to preserve and sharpen the brand’s “most distinctive assets” – its iconic Brand House, the signature orange world, and the refreshed Did Somebody Say sonic mnemonic, giving the work a bold and distinct identity.

“I love the social work produced by Girl&Bear and the outdoor photography shot by Amanda Fordyce,” he continues. “Seeing how the team took simple, everyday situations – like a group of friends locked into a gaming session or waiting on football results – and turning them into relatable bite-sized pieces of content shows just how hard this platform can work across the entire funnel.”

With the work rooted in human moments, how was it decided which ones deserved the spotlight? 

Peake adds that they looked for “moments that felt warm, specific, and instantly recognisable”, where emotional stakes felt genuine. 

“It came down to filtering through two lenses: emotional weight and daily relevance. On one hand, you have those quiet, high-emotion milestones – like a grandad bonding with his grandchild for the first time, where prioritising cooking dinner would have broken a once-in-a-lifetime connection. On the other hand, you have those relatable moments – stressing out over festival tickets with friends, flatmates playing with the pet cat, or even a lazy Sunday morning where no one wants to get out of bed.

“We wanted a mix that showed the full breadth of human life, while seamlessly weaving in different ordering needs – from hot restaurant meals to mid-week grocery top-ups and last-minute essentials.”

Longevity brief

Rijks reveals his brief was one of an unusual manner when thinking of Just Eat, considering work across recent years has had Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry, and Craig David leading the charge for its services. 

“I snuck in at the end of the brief that we wanted this brand platform to work for the next 20-to-30 years,” he outlines. “It’s a high bar, but looking at any brand that has endured those type of time horizons, that consistency and compounding becomes a great weapon in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.” 

And within this longevity, he adds that having human truths at the centre was pivotal – not just insights that work in particular markets in isolation; they should “travel and be recognisable” to its audiences across Europe. 

For VCCP, working with such a brief that requires a long-term strategy meant the work needed to expand upon the now; “We knew we couldn’t just solve a 2026 marketing problem,” explains Peake.

“When a client asks to build a brand platform to last 20 years (and more), your whole team takes a collective deep breath,” he continues. “We had to anchor the platform in an enduring human truth that wouldn't change as technology or consumer habits evolved.” 

He explains that achieving this meant a “top-of-funnel” TV ad wouldn’t be enough; VCCP designed what it coins as the ‘Orange Thread’ – a creative built from the ground up to stretch Through-The-Line. 

“It had to work as powerfully in a cinematic 60-second film as it does in a 6-second performance banner, a push notification, or on the app. That structural flexibility is what gives an idea true decades-long endurance.”

A burgeoning creative partnership 

With Just Eat announcing VCCP as its new global creative agency back in February; Rijks reveals why the agency won the competitive pitch.

“It was a big process, and then there's this really scary moment when you go ‘Is the answer there? Did they really answer the brief, or are they just giving us a magical story?’"

VCCP, he says, hit them with an “Oh my God that’s brilliant” idea, which helps the brand work on how it moves forward globally and locally – matching exactly what he’d been looking for; “We didn’t just give them the account – they deserved the account.” 

For Peake, the pitch and developmental process was made special by the levels of trust and shared ambition between the two businesses. 

“Just Eat Takeaway.com already had one of the most famous, iconic campaigns in the world with Did Somebody Say. It takes real bravery for a brand team to recognise the success of their previous campaigns but admit that their business has evolved and the need for a new platform has arisen,” he says. “This new global campaign spans TV, social, OOH photography and dynamic digital assets - I’m excited to see how this platform flexes across different markets, retail partners, and local cultures.”