JanSportâs Iconic Backpacks Sing Their Hearts Out in Comedic Gen Z Campaign by Party Land
Building on last yearâs breakout success, âAlways With Youâ returns with lovably twisted odes from your ride-or-die backpack that sees it all.
What if your JanSport could talk? What if it could sing? This back-to-school season, your favorite backpack brand is bringing to life the unsung devotion of a bag thatâs been with you through every ride, trip, spill, and meltdown, with zero thanks and zero complaints. JanSportâs âAlways With Youâ campaign is back, and this new chapterâcreated by comedyâs greatest ad agency, Party Landâturns the iconic backpack into a singing, deadpan antihero belting pocket-mouth ballads about the everyday chaos associated with always being by your side.
âOur premise is simple: Every JanSport bag has personality. And we figured, if it could sing, it would. We gave the bags voices, wrote original songs, and let them react to the everyday chaos they go through, like falling in love, warding off bug attacks, getting overstuffed,â said Matt Heath, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer at Party Land. âThe music, ranging from angsty punk to earnest power ballads, exaggerates the emotion, and the puppetry makes it feel weirdly real. Itâs a fun and relatable way to reframe the product benefits and remind college-aged and older Gen Z that JanSportâs always there, forever a devoted companion.â
Last yearâs âAlways With Youâ campaign recast JanSport from nostalgic legacy to Gen Z essentialânamed one of Ad Ageâs Top 5 Gen Z Marketing Strategies of 2024 and hailed for its irreverent humor, music-first storytelling, and TikTok-native sensibility. The campaign drove a 385% year-over-year spike in engagement at launch and helped JanSport record its highest-grossing month in 57 years.
âJanSport has been with young people through decades of lifeâs messiest, funniest, and most forgettable moments,â said Alexandra Reveles, VP of Global Brand at JanSport. âLast yearâs campaign helped reestablish our place in culture by unapologetically leaning into who we already are for our customersâloyal, reliable, and basic. That honesty resonated with Gen Z. This new campaign takes that connection even further. Our backpacks now voice the unfiltered, over-the-top thoughts of an emotional support bag whoâs been through it all, and still shows up. Once again, Party Land brought it to life in the way they do bestâthrough comedy, music, and just the right amount of weird.â
How JanSport & Party Land Cracked the Gen Z Code & Are Keeping It Going
ââThis campaign is deliberately built for how Gen Z audiences consume, connect, and share. Designed for TikTok and YouTube, each :15 film embraces the absurd humor, emotional exaggeration, chaotic charm, and deliberately unpolished style that mirrors Gen Zâs own content.
Last yearâs âAlways With Youâ campaign proved just how effective that approach can be. By ditching perfection and instead highlighting JanSportâs dependable, no-frills personality, the campaign hit a nerve with a generation that sees through polish and gravitates toward brands that keep it real. It also tapped into Gen Zâs preference for content that feels unserious but emotionally honestâfunny, messy, and real in a way that traditional ads rarely are. This year builds on that proven strategyâsame tone, same insightâdelivered through a new cast of characters and songs.
Party Landâs use of humor isnât just a stylistic choice. Studies show 78% of Gen Z are more likely to share ads they find funny, and 61% believe humorous brands are more trustworthy (). Just as importantly, the campaign reflects how the target audience see JanSportânot as an aspirational lifestyle brand, but as a dependable, everyday companion, without pretending to be something itâs not. What makes Party Landâs work especially effective is its ability to spotlight product benefits without feeling like a pitch. The backpacks donât talk about their features, they live them melodramatically.
âEvery JanSport bag in this campaign is a characterâan overdramatic and overinvested character,â said Andy Silva, Managing Partner, Party Land. âWe wanted to reflect what it means to grow up with a JanSport: it sees everything, survives everything, and holds onto your stuffâand your secretsâwithout judgment. By treating the backpacks like real characters with real emotional stakes, we could exaggerate the productâs loyalty, usefulness, and durability in ways that are funny, strange, and still endearing.â
Puppets and Practical Effects: Bringing the Singing Bags to Life
To make the bags sing (literally) Party Land and Impossible Studios turned to puppetry and practical effects rather than CGI to give each JanSportâs front pouch a surprisingly expressive mouth. The result? A weirdly lifelike canvas companion capable of singing, reacting, and emoting like the most loyal (and unhinged) sidekick youâve ever had.
Every spot uses genre-based songs, written by Party Land and brought to life by music shop Mophonics, to heighten the comedy and tension of otherwise mundane scenarios. The bagsâ voices were performed by untrained actorsâraw, off-key, imploringâenhancing the campaignâs handmade, relatable feel.
By skipping traditional advertising tropes and embracing a weirder, more intimate tone, JanSport is reasserting its placeânot just as a school staple, but as a cultural touchstone for 18â24-year-olds.
The campaign will run nationally with a heavy emphasis on TikTok, YouTube, and short-form video.
About JanSport
From the beginning, JanSport has lived true to its purpose: Always With You. The brand is a true and trusted ally throughout all life adventures and values inclusivity, authenticity, and self-expression. With sustainability at its core, JanSport is committed to improving the environmental impact of its products through material and manufacturing innovations while continuing to provide the same durability, versatility, and long-life JanSport packs are known for. Though the brand began by manufacturing and marketing world-class outdoor backpacks, today's product offerings include backpacks, crossbody bags, totes and travel bags, and accessories sold on , in department stores, and in specialty and boutique retail locations worldwide.
About Party Land
Party Land is comedyâs greatest ad agency, renowned for its ability to drive business results through the strategic use and execution of humor. Since launching in 2018, Party Land has quickly emerged as a top independent agency in the U.S., garnering recognition for consistently creating unignorable, effective campaigns for marketers who believe in the power of comedy to turn audiences into fans. Party Land has been named an Ad Age Small Agency of the Year (2x), an Adweek Breakthrough Agency of the Year finalist (2x), #9 on Adweekâs 100 Fastest Growing Agencies, and 2x Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. Learn more at
