IONOS launched Relax Darlings in October 2022, returning brand icon Aunt Helga to UK screens to position IONOS as the essential digital partner for small
IONOS Brings Aunt Helga Back to Champion UK Small Businesses
IONOS launched "Relax Darlings" in the United Kingdom in October 2022, a brand positioning campaign built around the return of Aunt Helga — a Germanic tech wizard character first introduced to British audiences in the 2021 "I Own This" campaign — targeting small and midsize businesses seeking a trusted digital partner for web hosting, website design, and online retail.
The campaign was created by the same collaborative trio that delivered the original 2021 platform: branding agency NOMAD, creative production studio Armoury London, and advertising agency 2050 London. According to ionos.co.uk, the campaign was announced on 7 October 2022, with the creative asset archived as 29 September 2022. The execution spans a television commercial anchored by digital marketing activity, online video, and a Spotify audio advertisement — a multi-format approach designed to maximise reach across the channels where UK small business owners are most active.
"Relax Darlings" positions IONOS as the number one digital partner for small to midsize businesses and creative studios looking to supercharge their website design and e-commerce capabilities. The narrative follows Aunt Helga as she arrives through a cosmic portal at the premises of a fictional e-scooter boutique called Scoot Scoot, where her signature Germanic efficiency and rapid-fire technical skill transform an outdated website at lightning speed. Her returning catchphrases — "Nice, nice, nice" and "I own this, darlings" — ground the new work in the established brand world while extending the character's reach into a fresh, futuristic setting. The 2022 campaign earns a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100, reflecting a strong creative foundation carried forward with execution confidence.
IONOS identified a clear strategic opportunity in the United Kingdom's small business segment. The 2021 "I Own This" campaign was briefed explicitly to crack the UK market for small and midsize enterprises, as reported by Little Black Book — making the Aunt Helga platform a deliberate market-entry effort rather than a routine campaign refresh. "Relax Darlings" is the second chapter of that brand-building platform, deepening the character equity already established rather than starting from scratch.
The strategic logic is rooted in memorability. Terry Stephens, Partner and Executive Creative Director at NOMAD, stated in The Drum on 7 October 2022 that "Aunt Helga is exactly the type of character that real people remember and respond to." This reflects a broader creative conviction that category-defining brand characters — comparable to Compare the Market's Meerkats or the Andrex Puppies in UK advertising history — generate disproportionate long-term returns on brand investment. For a web hosting and cloud provider competing in a crowded technology services category, distinctiveness is a meaningful competitive lever.
IONOS operates in a market dominated at the infrastructure level by global giants. According to crn.com, Amazon Web Services held approximately 33 to 34 percent of the global cloud infrastructure market in 2022, while Microsoft Azure held a further 21 to 22 percent. Rather than competing directly on scale with AWS or Microsoft Azure, IONOS targets the underserved layer of small business owners who need accessible, practical digital support — a positioning that Aunt Helga embodies directly. In the United Kingdom, where the small and midsize business sector represents the backbone of the economy, this focus on approachable expertise rather than enterprise-scale capability is a deliberate and coherent strategic choice.
Sidney Van Wichelen of Armoury London directed "Relax Darlings." The film places Aunt Helga in a visually heightened, futuristic setting — arriving via a cosmic portal rather than the more grounded arrival mechanics of the original 2021 spot — a creative escalation that signals confidence in the character's established identity while pushing the world-building further.
The production balances broad comedic performance with precise tonal control. Aunt Helga's diminutive physicality against the scale of her authority is central to the visual comedy, and the Scoot Scoot e-scooter boutique provides a contemporary, design-conscious backdrop that speaks directly to the creative studios and digitally minded small business owners IONOS is targeting across the United Kingdom. The choice of an e-scooter business is deliberately fashionable — a signal to younger, style-led entrepreneurs that IONOS understands their world.
Adam Chiappe, Creative Director and Founder of 2050 London, noted in The Drum on 7 October 2022 that bringing Aunt Helga back for a second year meant "making sure she retained her bonkers persona was paramount." This discipline — preserving character integrity while evolving the narrative context — is one of the more demanding creative challenges in sequel campaign work, and the Relax Darlings execution navigates it by leaning into signature elements: the catchphrases, the fast-fingered efficiency, and the Germanic authority, all held within a new and more elaborate production environment. The multi-format delivery across television, digital, online video, and Spotify audio extends the creative concept across listening as well as viewing contexts, requiring the character voice and tone to translate without visual support.
Verified performance data for the "Relax Darlings" 2022 campaign is not publicly available in isolation. However, the structural effectiveness of the broader Aunt Helga platform is evidenced by the results of its predecessor. According to ionos.co.uk, IONOS recorded its best-ever Sunday website traffic two days after the "I Own This" launch on 21 September 2021 — a direct and measurable commercial response to a brand campaign, which is a meaningful outcome in the web hosting and technology services category where purchase intent is often slow to convert.
As reported by ionos.co.uk, prompted awareness also increased significantly following the 2021 campaign, and the platform was credited with generating record-breaking traffic to the IONOS site in the United Kingdom. These results provided the direct commercial rationale for commissioning "Relax Darlings" as the second instalment of the campaign platform rather than pivoting to new creative territory.
Claudia Frese, Chief Brand Officer at IONOS, cited the campaign concept developed by NOMAD as central to the brand's UK market momentum, per ionos.co.uk. The decision to retain the full creative roster — NOMAD, Armoury London, and 2050 London — for the 2022 work reflects institutional confidence in both the character platform and the team that built it. For a technology brand navigating a category where competitors including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft operate at vastly greater scale, the ability to generate meaningful brand recall and direct traffic spikes through character-led television advertising represents a structurally efficient use of marketing investment across the United Kingdom.
"Relax Darlings" is a 2022 UK brand campaign by IONOS featuring Aunt Helga, a German tech wizard character. Launched in October 2022, it was created by NOMAD, Armoury London, and 2050 London, targeting small and midsize businesses seeking web hosting and digital support across the United Kingdom.
Aunt Helga is a fictional Germanic technology expert and IONOS brand character. She first appeared in the 2021 "I Own This" UK campaign before returning in "Relax Darlings" in 2022. Her signature catchphrases and fast-fingered efficiency make her one of the more distinctive brand characters in UK technology advertising.
"Relax Darlings" was made by three agencies working together. NOMAD handled branding, 2050 London led advertising creative, and Armoury London managed production. Director Sidney Van Wichelen of Armoury London helmed the television commercial, which also ran as online video and Spotify audio in the United Kingdom.
The 2021 "I Own This" predecessor campaign generated IONOS's best-ever Sunday website traffic, according to ionos.co.uk, alongside significant increases in prompted brand awareness. These results directly motivated the 2022 "Relax Darlings" follow-up campaign, making the Aunt Helga platform one of the more commercially validated character-led campaigns in UK technology advertising.
IONOS targets small and midsize businesses rather than enterprise clients, differentiating from AWS and Microsoft Azure on accessibility and approachability. According to crn.com, AWS held approximately 33 percent of global cloud infrastructure market share in 2022. IONOS positions against this dominance through brand personality and practical SME-focused services across the United Kingdom.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
