Hans Anders Unleashes Cockroaches to Expose Hidden Eyewear Small Print
Hans Anders, the optical retail chain, launched "Small Print, Cockroaches" in Belgium in October 2018, a film campaign created by Brussels agency Mortierbrigade that dramatises the unpleasant consequences of hidden terms and conditions in eyewear retail, positioning Hans Anders as the transparent, consumer-friendly alternative.
The campaign consists of two film assets, as documented on Clapboard, each built around the same unsettling premise: that the fine print buried in a competitor's offer is not merely inconvenient but genuinely repellent. By literalising that repulsion through the image of a cockroach infestation, Mortierbrigade gave Hans Anders a visceral creative vehicle for a message that most optical retailers communicate through dry promotional copy. The strategic intent is to convert consumer distrust of complex pricing structures into a direct preference for Hans Anders' straightforward value proposition. In the Belgian retail landscape, where optical chains compete heavily on price and range, the campaign stakes out territory that is less about product specification and more about commercial honesty. The creative approach belongs to a tradition of narrative film advertising in which an absurdist or uncomfortable scenario carries a brand truth more memorably than a product demonstration ever could. That tradition suits Mortierbrigade's established voice. The campaign was classified under the Professional Services industry category, reflecting the consultative nature of optical retail, where purchase decisions involve professional guidance rather than impulse. Clapboard scores "Small Print, Cockroaches" at 64 out of 100, reflecting a campaign with a clear strategic idea and confident execution that nonetheless sits outside the top tier of award-recognised work from either the brand or the agency.
Mortierbrigade identified a specific consumer frustration as the foundation for this campaign. Optical retail in Belgium, as in most markets, is characterised by promotional offers whose headline price frequently obscures mandatory add-ons, frame restrictions, or lens upgrade costs. Hans Anders has built its brand positioning around resisting that model, and the "Small Print, Cockroaches" campaign translates that positioning into narrative film rather than price-comparison advertising.
The competitive context matters here. Hans Anders operates in a Belgian optical market that includes established rivals such as Pearle Opticiens and Grand Optical, both of whom compete on promotional pricing and broad frame selection. Against that backdrop, a campaign that attacks the very mechanism of promotional small print — rather than counter-programming with a louder promotion — is a differentiated strategic move. It addresses consumer scepticism at its source rather than adding to the noise of retail claims. According to News Nexeye, Hans Anders is part of the Nexeye group, which gives the brand the operational scale to compete on genuine price transparency rather than manufactured promotional complexity. The Belgian advertising publication PUB covered Mortierbrigade's broader output, and the agency's track record in Belgium is substantial: according to Ads of the World, Mortierbrigade has accumulated more than 35 Cannes Lions and 10 Effie Awards across its body of work, though none of those honours are attributed to this specific campaign. That pedigree signals the agency's capacity to execute ideas with the kind of cultural confidence that a cockroach-led retail film requires. The narrative film medium, chosen here over print or digital display, allows the disgust response to build across time — a structural advantage that a static execution simply cannot replicate in the Belgian market or any other.
Director Jeroen Annokkee led the production of "Small Print, Cockroaches" through production company Czar, as documented on Clapboard. Annokkee's task was to make a commercial about eyewear terms and conditions feel genuinely alarming, which required both tonal precision and technical control over how live animal footage and visual effects were integrated.
The creative team at Mortierbrigade behind the campaign comprised creative directors Jens Mortier, Joost Berends, and Philippe De Ceuster, with creatives Girbe Bogaerts and Jutta Callebaut developing the executional concept, and strategic director Vincent d'Halluin shaping the insight. That is a notably full creative roster for a two-asset film campaign, suggesting the idea underwent substantial internal refinement before production. VFX were handled by Nozon, whose work would have been essential in ensuring the cockroach sequences read as plausible rather than cartoonish — a fine line when the creative premise depends on the audience's genuine discomfort rather than knowing irony. Music and sound design came from Raygun, whose contribution to the campaign's tonal register should not be underestimated: the audio environment in which cockroaches appear is doing significant emotional work. The presence of animal handler Jaap Zunneberg in the credits confirms that at least some of the insect footage was captured practically rather than generated entirely through VFX, a production choice that adds tactile authenticity to the final film. The overall craft approach reflects a campaign that committed fully to its central conceit. Rather than hedging the cockroach metaphor with humour or softening it with warmth, the production leans into the unpleasantness, trusting that the audience's discomfort will transfer directly onto the small print that caused it. Production credits for the campaign are fully documented on Clapboard.
No verified performance data for "Small Print, Cockroaches" is publicly available. No sales uplift figures, brand tracking results, or media reach statistics for this specific Hans Anders campaign have been published by Mortierbrigade, Hans Anders, or Nexeye, and no awards for this campaign appear across Cannes Lions, the Effies, the One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC records, as documented on Clapboard.
What can be assessed is structural effectiveness. The campaign operates on a mechanism — disgust transfer — that advertising research consistently identifies as high in memorability, provided the brand link is clear. In this execution, the link between the cockroaches and the small print is made explicit within the narrative, which mitigates the risk of audience recall attaching to the insect imagery without connecting it to Hans Anders. The choice of film as the sole medium amplifies that structural strength: the temporal build of the cockroach scenario allows the emotional response to compound in a way that a static execution could not achieve. The Belgian optical retail category, where competitors including Pearle Opticiens rely heavily on promotional price messaging, gave this campaign clear room to stand out through category contrast alone. According to news.nexeye.com, Hans Anders continued to develop its Belgian market presence through subsequent campaigns, suggesting the brand's commitment to transparent positioning endured beyond this single execution. The Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100 reflects a campaign with genuine creative integrity and a well-constructed strategic idea that falls short of the benchmark set by Mortierbrigade's award-winning output elsewhere in its portfolio.
"Small Print, Cockroaches" is a two-asset film campaign created by Mortierbrigade for Hans Anders, published in Belgium in October 2018. It dramatises the unpleasant consequences of hidden terms and conditions in optical retail, positioning Hans Anders as a transparent alternative to competitors who bury costs in fine print.
Mortierbrigade, the Brussels-based agency, created the campaign. Creative directors Jens Mortier, Joost Berends, and Philippe De Ceuster led the work, with creatives Girbe Bogaerts and Jutta Callebaut, and strategic director Vincent d'Halluin shaping the insight that drove the campaign's central concept.
Jeroen Annokkee directed the campaign through production company Czar. VFX studio Nozon handled visual effects, Raygun provided music and sound design, and animal handler Jaap Zunneberg managed the live insect footage used in the production, all documented on Clapboard.
No awards for this campaign are recorded across Cannes Lions, the Effies, the One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC. Mortierbrigade as an agency has accumulated more than 35 Cannes Lions in total, according to Ads of the World, but none are attributed to this specific Hans Anders campaign.
Clapboard scores this campaign 64 out of 100. The rating reflects a clear strategic idea, committed production craft, and a well-executed disgust-transfer mechanism, while acknowledging that the campaign did not achieve the award recognition associated with Mortierbrigade's strongest work in the Belgian market.
Hans Anders used cockroaches to literalise the repulsion consumers feel toward hidden retail terms and conditions. Mortierbrigade's strategy converted an abstract pricing grievance into a visceral emotional experience, differentiating Hans Anders from Belgian optical competitors such as Pearle Opticiens and Grand Optical through category contrast rather than counter-promotional messaging.
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