{ "name": "Damn Good Ads", "tagline": "A cited directory of the best ads ever made.", "description": "A curated, cited directory of the best ads ever made. Every entry explains why the ad is studied and cites reputable sources for every claim. No video files are hosted; watch links point to official channels, museums, archives or reputable press.", "license_note": "Directory text (descriptions and curation) may be reused with attribution. All referenced advertisements remain the property of their respective owners; this directory links out and does not host media.", "url": "https://damngoodads.com", "url_conventions": { "home": "/", "all_ads": "/ads/", "category_page": "/categories/{category-slug}/", "collection_page": "/collections/{collection-slug}/", "technique_page": "/techniques/{technique-slug}/", "brand_page": "/brands/{brand-slug}/", "decade_page": "/decades/{decade}/ (e.g. /decades/1980s/)", "slogans": "/slogans/", "research_report": "/research/what-the-best-ads-have-in-common/", "ad_page": "/ads/{ad-slug}/", "editorial_page": "/{page-slug}/", "machine_index": "/ads.json", "agent_guide": "/llms.txt", "sitemap": "/sitemap.xml" }, "stats": { "ad_count": 473, "category_count": 4, "collection_count": 12, "ads_with_image": 398 }, "categories": [ { "slug": "commercials", "name": "Commercials", "description": "Television and cinema spots: the films that defined the craft of advertising, from the Super Bowl stage to the British ad break.", "seo_title": "The Best TV Commercials of All Time", "intro": "This is our list of the best TV commercials of all time: 30-second spots, long-form cinema films and campaigns that ran for decades, from the early years of television advertising to the present.\n\nGreat commercials tend to do one of a few things exceptionally well. Some tell a complete story in under a minute. Some turn a product demonstration into theatre. Some give a brand a character, a jingle or a line that people repeat for years. A few change the medium itself, as Apple's \"1984\" did for the Super Bowl.\n\n## How to use this list\n\nEach entry explains why the spot works, credits the agency and director where they are documented, and lists the sources behind every claim. Where an official or archive upload exists, you can watch the commercial on the page. For more, browse the [Super Bowl](/collections/super-bowl/), [Emmy winners](/collections/emmy-winners/) and [Great British Ads](/collections/great-british-ads/) collections.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "made-for-the-internet", "name": "Made for the Internet", "description": "Films, sites, apps and posts built to be shared online — the work that proved earned attention could beat bought attention.", "seo_title": "The Best Viral and Online Ads of All Time", "intro": "These are the best online ads and viral campaigns: films, websites, apps, games and social posts made to be shared rather than broadcast, from early interactive sites to TikTok channels.\n\nWhat they have in common is that people chose to watch, play, share or reply. The strongest examples earned attention instead of buying it: a hidden-camera film that people forwarded to friends, a brand account that answered back in real time, a website that turned a product into a game.\n\n## What to look for\n\n- **Participation:** the audience completes the idea.\n- **Platform-native craft:** the work only makes sense on the platform it was made for.\n- **Earned reach:** views, shares and press coverage the brand did not pay for.\n\nMany of these also won Cannes Lions in digital and social categories. See [Cannes Grand Prix Winners](/collections/cannes-grand-prix/).", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "print-outdoor", "name": "Print & Outdoor", "description": "Headlines, posters and art direction. The foundations of modern advertising concept and copywriting, plus the pages and billboards that still stop people today.", "seo_title": "The Best Print Ads and Billboards of All Time", "intro": "The best print ads, posters and billboards ever made, from 1880s lithographs to interactive digital billboards. This is where modern advertising's core skills were invented and refined: the headline, the visual idea and persuasive long-form copy.\n\nPrint and outdoor work has to land in seconds, with no sound or motion to help. The classics here show how: a single striking image, a headline that makes you read the copy, or a billboard that does something no billboard has done before.\n\n## What to look for\n\n- **Headline and visual working together,** as in Volkswagen's \"Think Small\".\n- **Long copy that sells,** from David Ogilvy's Rolls-Royce page to John Caples's \"They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano\".\n- **The poster as art,** from Toulouse-Lautrec and Cappiello to Cassandre.\n- **Outdoor as an event:** billboards that make drinking water or tell the time.\n\nWork published in 1930 or earlier is shown as a public-domain scan from a museum, library or archive.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "stunts-experiences", "name": "Stunts & Experiences", "description": "Statues, space jumps, store closures and real jobs: advertising as an act in the world rather than a message about it.", "seo_title": "The Best Advertising Stunts and Experiential Campaigns", "intro": "The best advertising stunts and experiential marketing examples: statues, space jumps, store closures, festivals, new products and even an immigration pledge, where a brand did something in the world instead of buying space to talk about it.\n\nExperiential work is hard to judge from a screen, so each entry explains what actually happened, who it reached and what changed as a result, citing the press coverage and award records that documented it.\n\n## What to look for\n\n- **A real action, not a message:** the brand changes something, gives something away or builds something.\n- **News value:** the stunt is designed to be reported on, so the coverage becomes the media.\n- **Proof:** the stunt demonstrates the product, as Red Bull Stratos did, or the brand's values, as REI's #OptOutside did.\n\nMany of these won Cannes Lions in the Titanium, PR and Outdoor categories.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" } ], "collections": [ { "slug": "super-bowl", "name": "Super Bowl", "description": "Spots that used — or created — the biggest stage in advertising. The Super Bowl became an annual cultural event for ads largely because of work like this.", "seo_title": "The Best Super Bowl Commercials of All Time", "intro": "The Super Bowl is the one night of the year when American audiences watch the ads on purpose. These are the best Super Bowl commercials of all time, chosen for what they did with that stage rather than for what they cost.\n\nApple's \"1984\" showed that a single airing could become national news. Since then, brands have used the game to launch products, reinvent themselves and start conversations that carry on long after the final whistle. A 30-second slot now costs millions of dollars, so every spot here is also a case study in making a huge, expensive bet pay off.\n\n## What makes a great Super Bowl ad\n\n- An idea simple enough to land in a noisy room full of people.\n- A reason to talk about it the next morning.\n- A clear link to the brand, so the laughs don't go to someone else.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "cannes-grand-prix", "name": "Cannes Grand Prix Winners", "description": "Work that took a Grand Prix — the top prize in its category — at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, advertising's most coveted awards.", "seo_title": "Cannes Lions Grand Prix Winners: The Best Award-Winning Ads", "intro": "The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity awards a Grand Prix, its top prize, in each of its categories, from Film and Print to Outdoor, PR, Digital and Creative Effectiveness. This collection gathers every Grand Prix winner in the directory.\n\nGrands Prix are decided by international juries of senior creative people, so these winners show what the industry itself considers the best work of its year. The sources on each entry confirm the award.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "emmy-winners", "name": "Emmy Winners", "description": "Winners of the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial — television's own verdict on the best ad of the year.", "seo_title": "Emmy-Winning Commercials", "intro": "The Television Academy gives a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial at the Creative Arts Emmys, judged alongside the year's best shows. The winners here are the spots that television itself picked as the best of their year, and they lean towards the cinematic, the emotional and the very funny.\n\nThe sources on each entry confirm the award.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "slogans-that-stuck", "name": "Slogans That Stuck", "description": "Lines that outlived their campaigns and entered everyday language — the tagline as the most durable asset a brand can own.", "seo_title": "The Most Famous Advertising Slogans of All Time", "intro": "Famous advertising slogans that outlived their campaigns: lines like \"Just Do It\", \"Think Different\" and \"Where's the Beef?\" that people still repeat without thinking about the brand that paid for them.\n\nA great slogan is short, rhythmic and specific to its brand, and it says something the competition can't. Each entry explains where the line came from, who wrote it where that is documented, and why it lasted.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "great-british-ads", "name": "Great British Ads", "description": "Wit, understatement and film-making craft from British agencies, from Hovis and Heineken to Guinness, Honda and John Lewis.", "seo_title": "The Best British Adverts of All Time", "intro": "The best British adverts of all time, from Hovis's \"Boy on the Bike\" and the Smash Martians to Guinness, Honda's \"Cog\" and the John Lewis Christmas ads. British advertising earned an international reputation for wit, understatement and film-making craft, and several leading film directors started out making British commercials.\n\nThis collection covers work made by British agencies for the British market, on television, in print and on the street.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "sports", "name": "Sports", "description": "Athletes, Olympics and World Cups: the campaigns that defined how brands borrow — and build — sporting myth.", "seo_title": "The Best Sports Ads of All Time", "intro": "The best sports ads: campaigns built around athletes, the Olympics and the World Cup. Sport gives brands ready-made drama, heroes and rivalries, and the best work here borrows that myth and adds to it, from Nike's \"Just Do It\" to Coca-Cola's \"Mean Joe Greene\".", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "beer-drinks", "name": "Beer & Drinks", "description": "Beer, soft drinks, spirits and milk: a category that has produced some of advertising's most famous work.", "seo_title": "The Best Beer and Drinks Commercials of All Time", "intro": "The best beer and drinks ads: beer, soft drinks, spirits, coffee, tea and milk. Drinks are cheap, frequent purchases in crowded categories, so brands compete on personality, and that pressure has produced some of advertising's most famous characters, jingles and lines.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "food-fast-food", "name": "Food & Fast Food", "description": "Burgers, chocolate, cereal and canned fish — food advertising at its funniest, warmest and most competitive.", "seo_title": "The Best Food and Fast-Food Ads of All Time", "intro": "The best food and fast-food ads: burgers, chocolate, cereal and snacks. Fast-food chains in particular advertise against each other in public, and some of the best work here is a direct reply to a rival.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "cars", "name": "Cars & Driving", "description": "Car makers, tyres and rentals — a category known for ambitious, big-budget craft and unforgettable demonstrations.", "seo_title": "The Best Car Commercials and Ads of All Time", "intro": "The best car commercials and ads, plus tyres and car rental. Car advertising has long combined big budgets with ambitious craft, from Volkswagen's print work of the 1960s to Honda's \"Cog\". The best examples sell a feeling about driving rather than a list of features.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "tech", "name": "Tech", "description": "Computers, phones, search engines and screens: how technology brands sold the future.", "seo_title": "The Best Tech Ads of All Time", "intro": "The best tech ads: computers, phones, software and search. Technology brands often sell products people don't yet understand, so the best work here explains the future or makes people want it, from Apple's \"1984\" to Google's \"Reunion\".", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "politics-psas", "name": "Politics & PSAs", "description": "Public service and political advertising whose techniques — fear, implication, mascots, melody — defined persuasion on screen, for better and worse.", "seo_title": "PSA Examples: Famous Public Service Ads and Political Ads", "intro": "Famous political ads and public service announcements (PSAs): campaigns that set out to change votes or behaviour rather than sell a product. They use the full range of persuasion techniques, from fear and implication to mascots and memorable slogans, and several changed how all advertising works.\n\nUse them as PSA examples and as case studies in persuasion: each entry explains the technique and what is documented about its effect.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wartime-posters", "name": "Wartime & Recruitment Posters", "description": "Recruitment, home-front and public-information posters from two world wars: the most studied propaganda posters ever made, and how their persuasion works.", "seo_title": "Famous Propaganda Posters: WWI and WWII Recruitment and Home-Front Posters", "intro": "In both world wars, governments became the biggest advertisers in the world. They used posters to recruit soldiers, sell war bonds, ration food, recycle metal and keep secrets, and the best of them are still taught as masterclasses in persuasion. This collection gathers the most studied recruitment and home-front posters, each explained and shown as a public-domain scan where one exists.\n\n## How to read a wartime poster\n\n- **Who is speaking?** Many posters speak with the authority of the state, a leader or a national symbol, the technique known as [transfer](/techniques/transfer/).\n- **What are you asked to feel?** Duty, pride, guilt and fear do most of the work. See [pathos](/techniques/pathos/) and [fear appeal](/techniques/fear/).\n- **What are you asked to do?** The strongest posters end with one simple action: enlist, buy, save, stay quiet.\n\nThese are often called propaganda posters, because their purpose was to shape opinion and behaviour on a national scale. They are included here as advertising, for what they show about how persuasion works.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:34:34.405308+00:00" } ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "name": "Pathos", "family": "appeals", "description": "Ads that persuade through emotion: they make you feel something, then attach that feeling to a brand or a cause.", "seo_title": "Pathos in Advertising: Examples of Emotional Appeal Ads", "intro": "Pathos is the appeal to emotion, one of the three modes of persuasion Aristotle described alongside ethos (credibility) and logos (logic). A pathos ad doesn't argue; it makes you feel joy, nostalgia, pride, tenderness, sadness or anger, and lets that feeling do the selling.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- The ad tells you very little about the product but leaves you with a strong feeling.\n- Music, faces, children, animals, family and moments of loss or reunion carry the message.\n- The brand appears at the end, as the source of the feeling.\n\n## Why it works, and when it doesn't\n\nEmotion is memorable and shareable, and feelings about a brand can outlast any single claim. The risk is a moving film that people remember while forgetting who made it, or an emotion that feels unearned. Each example below explains exactly how the ad uses emotion.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "ethos", "name": "Ethos", "family": "appeals", "description": "Ads that persuade through credibility: the authority, expertise, heritage or character of the brand or the person speaking.", "seo_title": "Ethos in Advertising: Examples of Ads That Use Credibility", "intro": "Ethos is the appeal to credibility and character, one of Aristotle's three modes of persuasion. An ethos ad asks you to believe it because of who is speaking: an expert, a respected figure, a brand with a long record, or a company acting in line with its stated values.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- The ad leans on expertise, experience, heritage, honesty or principle.\n- It may admit a weakness to seem more trustworthy.\n- The brand's own behaviour, rather than a claim about the product, is the proof.\n\n## Why it works\n\nPeople take shortcuts: if a source seems trustworthy, its message is easier to accept. Ethos is also fragile, because an ad that claims values the brand doesn't live up to can do more harm than good. Each example below explains where the credibility comes from.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "logos", "name": "Logos", "family": "appeals", "description": "Ads that persuade through logic and evidence: facts, figures, reasons and proof the audience can check.", "seo_title": "Logos in Advertising: Examples of Ads That Use Logic and Evidence", "intro": "Logos is the appeal to reason, the third of Aristotle's modes of persuasion. A logos ad makes an argument: it gives you facts, numbers, a demonstration or a clear chain of reasons why the product is the sensible choice.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Specific claims, statistics, comparisons or test results.\n- Long copy that builds a case point by point.\n- A rational benefit (cheaper, faster, safer, longer-lasting) at the centre of the idea.\n\n## Why it works\n\nReasons give people permission to buy and something to repeat to others. The best logos ads make the argument vivid rather than dry, often by turning a single fact into a striking image or line. Pure logic is rare in great advertising, so many of these examples pair evidence with wit or emotion.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "bandwagon", "name": "Bandwagon", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads that suggest everyone is already doing it, so you should too: mass participation, social proof and the fear of missing out.", "seo_title": "Bandwagon Ads: Examples of the Bandwagon Technique", "intro": "The bandwagon technique persuades by suggesting that everyone, or everyone like you, is already on board. It is one of the seven propaganda devices popularised by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the late 1930s, and it is still taught as a way to read advertising critically.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Crowds, popularity claims, \"join millions\" language or a sense of a movement.\n- Campaigns built so that taking part is itself the message, and the number of people taking part becomes the proof.\n- A phrase or ritual that spreads because people want to be part of it.\n\n## Why it works\n\nPeople look to others when deciding what to do, especially when they are unsure. Modern campaigns often go further than claiming popularity: they create real participation and let the crowd become the ad.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "testimonial", "name": "Testimonial and endorsement", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads in which a person vouches for the product: a celebrity, an athlete, an expert or an ordinary customer.", "seo_title": "Testimonial and Celebrity Endorsement Ads: Examples", "intro": "A testimonial ad uses a person to vouch for the product. That person might be a celebrity, an athlete, an expert or a satisfied customer. It is one of the seven propaganda devices popularised by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the late 1930s, and it is still taught as a way to read advertising critically.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A recognisable face or voice is the reason to pay attention.\n- The endorser's qualities (talent, toughness, honesty, cool) are meant to rub off on the brand.\n- The best examples give the star something surprising to do rather than simply reading a script.\n\n## Why it works, and the risks\n\nFame buys attention and borrowed trust. The danger is that people remember the celebrity and forget the brand, or that the endorser's later reputation drags the brand with them. The examples below show how the strongest ads make the star serve the idea.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "name": "Plain folks", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads that present a brand or speaker as ordinary and down-to-earth, just like the audience.", "seo_title": "Plain Folks Advertising: Examples of the Plain Folks Technique", "intro": "The plain folks technique presents a brand, product or politician as ordinary, unpretentious and just like the people it is talking to. It is one of the seven propaganda devices popularised by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the late 1930s, and it is still taught as a way to read advertising critically.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Real or real-seeming people instead of models and stars.\n- Everyday settings, plain speech and common-sense values.\n- A brand that takes the side of normal people against the fancy, the corporate or the elite.\n\n## Why it works\n\nPeople trust those they see as similar to themselves. Plain folks advertising also lets a big company appear small and human. Done well, it creates warmth and recognition; done badly, it feels like a costume.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "transfer", "name": "Transfer", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads that borrow the prestige or emotion of a symbol people already value (a flag, a nation, a hero, a work of art) and transfer it to the product.", "seo_title": "Transfer Technique in Advertising: Examples", "intro": "Transfer persuades by association. The ad places the product or cause next to something the audience already admires or fears, such as a national flag, a hero, a landmark, a work of art or a historic moment, so that the feeling carries over. It is one of the seven propaganda devices popularised by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the late 1930s, and it is still taught as a way to read advertising critically.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Patriotic imagery, famous symbols or borrowed cultural icons.\n- The product appears alongside something with existing meaning, rather than being explained.\n- The ad asks you to feel about the brand the way you already feel about the symbol.\n\n## Why it works\n\nBuilding meaning from scratch is slow; borrowing it is fast. Transfer is powerful in political and national advertising, and it can backfire when audiences feel a symbol has been exploited.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "name": "Glittering generalities", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads built on vague, virtue-laden words (freedom, beauty, belief, possibility) that feel good but promise nothing specific.", "seo_title": "Glittering Generalities: Examples in Advertising", "intro": "Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words and ideals, such as freedom, happiness, beauty, courage or possibility, used so that the audience agrees without examining what is actually being claimed. It is one of the seven propaganda devices popularised by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the late 1930s, and it is still taught as a way to read advertising critically.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Big abstract words and slogans with no checkable claim.\n- Lines that sound like a philosophy or a manifesto rather than a product benefit.\n- A mood of optimism or virtue that the brand simply claims for itself.\n\n## Why it works\n\nAbstract ideals are hard to argue with, and they let a brand stand for something larger than its product. Many of the most famous slogans in advertising are glittering generalities, which is why they last: they mean whatever the audience brings to them.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "card-stacking", "name": "Card stacking", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads that build a one-sided case: only the favourable facts appear, and a weakness is often turned into a strength.", "seo_title": "Card Stacking in Advertising: Examples", "intro": "Card stacking means arranging the evidence so that only one conclusion seems possible: favourable facts are emphasised, unfavourable ones left out, and sometimes an obvious weakness is reframed as a virtue. It is one of the seven propaganda devices popularised by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis in the late 1930s, and it is still taught as a way to read advertising critically.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Selective statistics or comparisons that tell only part of the story.\n- A disadvantage presented as a benefit, such as small, slow, expensive or ugly.\n- A tidy argument with no counterpoint.\n\n## Why it works\n\nA confident one-sided case is easy to follow and hard to rebut in the moment. Advertising's most admired uses of the technique are often honest about the weakness and clever about the reframing, which makes them persuasive and memorable at the same time.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "fear", "name": "Fear appeal", "family": "persuasion", "description": "Ads that show a threat (to health, safety, status or the future) and offer the product, behaviour or vote as the way out.", "seo_title": "Fear Appeal Advertising: Examples of Fear in Ads", "intro": "A fear appeal shows the audience a threat and then offers a way to avoid it: buy this, do this, vote this way. Fear is common in public service advertising about smoking, drink-driving, disease and road safety, and in political ads, but brands use it too, from social embarrassment to security.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A vivid danger or consequence, often shown rather than described.\n- A clear action that removes the threat.\n- Shock or discomfort used to break through indifference.\n\n## Why it works, and when it backfires\n\nFear grabs attention and can change behaviour when people believe both the threat and the solution. Research on fear appeals suggests that without a clear, achievable action, frightened audiences tend to tune out instead. The examples below explain how each ad balances threat and response.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "humour", "name": "Humour", "family": "craft", "description": "Funny ads: comedy, wit, absurdity and parody as the engine of the message.", "seo_title": "Funny Ads: The Best Examples of Humour in Advertising", "intro": "Humour is one of advertising's most reliable tools for getting attention and being remembered, and the funniest ads are among the most loved pieces of popular culture. Comedy takes many forms here: deadpan understatement, absurd characters, parody of other ads, slapstick and catchphrases people repeat for years.\n\n## What makes a funny ad work\n\n- The joke is about the product or its benefit, so the laugh is linked to the brand.\n- A character or catchphrase gives the joke a life beyond one spot.\n- The ad respects the audience's intelligence rather than shouting at it.\n\n## The risk\n\nFunny ads can be remembered for the joke while the brand is forgotten, and humour dates quickly. The examples below explain how each one ties its comedy back to what it is selling.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "storytelling", "name": "Storytelling", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads that tell a story with characters and a narrative arc, rather than simply stating a message.", "seo_title": "Storytelling in Advertising: The Best Examples", "intro": "Storytelling ads work like short films: there are characters, a situation, a turn and a payoff, and the brand's role is revealed through the story rather than announced. Many of the most celebrated commercials, from Christmas epics to sixty-second dramas, are built this way.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A beginning, a middle and an end, even in thirty seconds.\n- A character the audience follows and cares about.\n- A twist or reveal that reframes everything before it.\n\n## Why it works\n\nStories hold attention, invite people to fill in meaning and are easy to retell. The challenge is to make the brand essential to the story rather than a logo tacked on at the end, and each example below shows how that was done.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "demonstration", "name": "Demonstration", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads that prove a claim by showing the product in action, often with a test, a torture test or a striking piece of visual proof.", "seo_title": "Product Demonstration Ads: The Best Examples", "intro": "Demonstration is one of advertising's oldest techniques: instead of claiming that a product is tough, fast, safe or effective, show it. The great demonstration ads turn a product test into theatre, so the proof is also the entertainment.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A test, an experiment or a dramatic scenario with a visible result.\n- The product is the hero of the action, not a prop in the background.\n- The claim can be seen rather than taken on trust.\n\n## Why it works\n\nSeeing is believing: a demonstration is harder to dismiss than an assertion, and a memorable one becomes shorthand for the product's benefit. The examples below range from torture tests on live television to billboards that prove their point in public.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "comparative", "name": "Comparison", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads that take on a rival directly, by naming them, implying them or answering them in public.", "seo_title": "Comparative Advertising Examples: Ads That Take On Rivals", "intro": "Comparative advertising sets a brand against a competitor, either by name or so clearly that everyone knows who is meant. It ranges from side-by-side tests and price comparisons to public jokes at a rival's expense and open letters between brands.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A named or unmistakable competitor.\n- A test, a contrast or a challenge the audience is invited to judge.\n- Underdog positioning against a market leader.\n\n## Why it works, and the risks\n\nComparison creates drama and gives a smaller brand a bigger stage. It can also invite retaliation, legal challenge or sympathy for the target, so the most admired examples are usually confident, specific and good-humoured.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "shock", "name": "Shock and provocation", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads that deliberately disturb, offend or provoke to win attention or force a conversation.", "seo_title": "Shock Advertising and Controversial Ads: Examples", "intro": "Shock advertising breaks a taboo or shows something uncomfortable on purpose, to cut through and get people talking. It is common in public health and charity campaigns, where the subject is already serious, and it has also defined some fashion and lifestyle brands.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Imagery or language that most advertising would avoid.\n- A reaction (complaints, bans, press coverage) that becomes part of the campaign's reach.\n- A message the audience can't easily ignore or forget.\n\n## Why it works, and the cost\n\nProvocation buys attention and coverage that a quiet ad never would. It can also alienate audiences, trivialise serious subjects or be banned outright. The examples below explain what each ad provoked, and whether the controversy served the message.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "mascot", "name": "Mascots and characters", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads built around a recurring brand character or mascot that audiences come to recognise and love.", "seo_title": "Famous Brand Mascots and Characters in Advertising", "intro": "A brand character, whether an animal, a cartoon, a puppet or an invented spokesperson, gives a company a face, a voice and a personality that can run for decades. Many of advertising's most famous creations are characters rather than slogans.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- The same character returns across many ads.\n- The character, not the product, carries the jokes and the story.\n- People remember the character's name or catchphrase.\n\n## Why it works\n\nA character is a memorable shortcut to the brand and a source of endless new stories. It also turns advertising into something audiences look forward to, from cartoon animals on breakfast tables to talking meerkats and lizards.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "jingle", "name": "Jingles and music", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads in which music does the persuading: a jingle, a song or a sung slogan that becomes inseparable from the brand.", "seo_title": "Famous Jingles and Music in Advertising", "intro": "Music is one of advertising's most powerful memory devices. A jingle can lodge a brand name in your head for life, and a well-chosen song can define how a whole generation feels about a product. Some ad songs became hit records in their own right.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A sung slogan or a melody that carries the brand name.\n- A soundtrack so central that the ad wouldn't work without it.\n- A tune people hum or sing back years later.\n\n## Why it works\n\nMelody and rhythm make words easier to remember and repeat. Music also carries emotion faster than images, which is why the most memorable ad songs often work as pathos and repetition at once.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "real-time", "name": "Real-time and newsjacking", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads and posts that respond to live events, news or culture as it happens.", "seo_title": "Real-Time Marketing and Newsjacking Examples", "intro": "Real-time marketing means responding to what is happening right now, such as a live broadcast, a news story, a viral moment or a competitor's move, quickly enough to join the conversation. Social media made it possible at scale, but the idea is older than the internet: newspaper ads have long responded to the headlines.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A reaction to a specific moment that the audience is already watching or talking about.\n- Speed: the response lands while the moment is still live.\n- A brand voice that sounds human rather than corporate.\n\n## Why it works, and the risk\n\nRiding a moment borrows attention that the brand didn't have to buy. It needs judgement, because a misread moment or a tasteless joke can spread just as fast.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "purpose", "name": "Purpose and cause", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads that tie a brand to a social, environmental or civic cause, or do something genuinely useful for people.", "seo_title": "Cause Marketing and Purpose-Driven Ad Examples", "intro": "Purpose-driven advertising connects a brand with a cause beyond selling, such as equality, the environment, health, safety or community, or does something practically useful for people. At its best the brand acts rather than just talks: it changes a product, a policy or a behaviour.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- A social or environmental issue at the centre of the idea.\n- An action, product or service that helps, not just a message of support.\n- Proof of impact, ideally from someone other than the brand.\n\n## Why it works, and when it doesn't\n\nPeople increasingly reward companies that act on their values. Purpose ads are also scrutinised closely, and campaigns that look opportunistic or don't match the company's conduct can be accused of \"purpose-washing\". The examples below explain what each brand actually did.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "participation", "name": "Participation", "family": "craft", "description": "Campaigns that the audience completes by playing, sharing, creating, replying or taking part.", "seo_title": "Interactive and Participatory Advertising Examples", "intro": "Participatory advertising hands part of the idea to the audience. People play a game, make something, reply, vote, share or turn up, and that participation is the campaign. It is the defining technique of much of the best work made for the internet.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- The ad is incomplete without people taking part.\n- Interactivity, personalisation or user-made content is central.\n- The audience's contributions spread the campaign further.\n\n## Why it works\n\nPeople value what they help create and share what they are part of. Participation also produces proof: the scale of the response becomes the story the brand can tell.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "name": "Guerrilla and ambient", "family": "craft", "description": "Unconventional, surprising placements in the real world: street interventions, ambient media and hijacked spaces.", "seo_title": "Guerrilla Marketing Examples: The Best Guerrilla and Ambient Ads", "intro": "Guerrilla marketing uses surprise and unconventional placement to get noticed, often on a small budget: an object in the street, a message in an unexpected place, or an everyday space turned into an ad. Ambient advertising is the same idea applied to the environment around people.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- The ad appears somewhere ads don't normally go, or uses its surroundings as part of the idea.\n- It is designed to be photographed, filmed and shared.\n- It often trades media spend for ingenuity.\n\n## Why it works\n\nSurprise breaks through habits of ignoring advertising, and a clever intervention gets far more attention online than it does on the street. The examples below show how each one used its location as part of the message.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T09:52:59.187577+00:00" }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "name": "Visual metaphor", "family": "craft", "description": "Ads in which a single striking image, visual pun or metaphor does the persuading, often with few or no words.", "seo_title": "Visual Metaphor in Advertising: Examples of Ads Where the Picture Is the Argument", "intro": "A visual metaphor makes the argument with a picture: a single image, a visual pun or an unexpected combination that the viewer decodes in an instant. It is the defining skill of great poster and print advertising, where there is no sound, no motion and often only a second or two of attention.\n\n## How to spot it\n\n- Very few words, sometimes none beyond the brand name.\n- An image that means two things at once, or turns the product into a symbol.\n- The viewer completes the idea, which is part of the pleasure.\n\n## Why it works\n\nAn image the audience has to work out is remembered far better than a statement it is simply told, and it travels across languages. The best examples make a single idea so clear that the product needs no explanation at all.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:01:30.774768+00:00" } ], "brands": [ { "slug": "coca-cola", "name": "Coca-Cola", "description": "Coca-Cola's best ads, from \"Hilltop\" and \"Mean Joe Greene\" to Share a Coke: nearly a century of selling a moment or a feeling rather than a drink.", "seo_title": "Coca-Cola Ads: The Best Coca-Cola Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": "Coca-Cola's advertising rarely argues about what is in the bottle. Its entries sell a moment or a feeling and let the drink attach itself to it. In 1929 D'Arcy's [The Pause That Refreshes](/ads/coca-cola-the-pause-that-refreshes/) claimed a daily break any worker could afford, and from 1931 Haddon Sundblom's [Santa Claus](/ads/coca-cola-sundblom-santa-claus/) paintings tied the brand to Christmas so closely that its Santa became the default image.\n\nOn television, McCann Erickson turned the feeling into a song and then a story. [Hilltop](/ads/coca-cola-hilltop/) sold unity with no product claims at all, and [Mean Joe Greene](/ads/coca-cola-mean-joe-greene/) set the template for the heartwarming Super Bowl spot. The idea of bringing people together keeps coming back: across the India-Pakistan border in [Small World Machines](/ads/coca-cola-small-world-machines/), and across languages in \"It's Beautiful\", which stepped deliberately into a national argument about who counts as American.\n\nLater work plays with Coca-Cola's own marks. [Share a Coke](/ads/share-a-coke/) replaced the logo with people's first names, \"Coke Hands\" redrew the ribbon as two arms passing a bottle, and [Recycle Me](/ads/coca-cola-recycle-me/) crushed the script and found that it still read instantly as Coke. Local teams have made some of the brand's most studied work, too: Coca-Cola India claimed the everyday word for a cold drink, and Coke Studio Pakistan grew into a cultural institution of its own.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike", "name": "Nike", "description": "Nike's best ads, from \"Just Do It\" to \"Write the Future\" and \"Dream Crazy\", many of them made with Wieden+Kennedy.", "seo_title": "Nike Ads: The Best Nike Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": "Wieden+Kennedy, whose offices in Portland, Amsterdam and London made the brand's biggest films, is behind much of Nike's work here. What holds the work together is less a look than an argument about who counts as an athlete.\n\nDan Wieden's [Just Do It](/ads/nike-just-do-it/) launched with an 80-year-old distance runner rather than a star. When Nike did use stars, it often let them be funny: [Bo Knows](/ads/nike-bo-knows/) ends with Bo Jackson being told he doesn't know Diddley, and [Hare Jordan](/ads/nike-hare-jordan/) put Michael Jordan in a gym with Bugs Bunny. Later films return to the everyday athlete. [Nothing Beats a Londoner](/ads/nike-nothing-beats-a-londoner/) cast young Londoners and reduced the famous names to cameos, and [You Can't Stop Us](/ads/nike-you-cant-stop-us/) paired elite and everyday athletes in split screen.\n\nNike treats its biggest films like releases. [Write the Future](/ads/nike-write-the-future/) launched on social media before airing during the Champions League final, and it framed the World Cup without Nike being a tournament sponsor. The brand also moved early beyond the commercial break: Ronaldinho's crossbar clip spread on a YouTube only months old, Chalkbot sprayed people's messages onto the Tour de France route, and a running track in Manila let runners race their own last lap.\n\nThe riskiest entry is [Dream Crazy](/ads/nike-dream-crazy/), which made Colin Kaepernick the face of Just Do It's 30th anniversary and drew boycott calls and a sales lift in the days after launch.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple", "name": "Apple", "description": "Apple's best ads, from \"1984\" and \"Think Different\" to Shot on iPhone: work that defines Apple against rivals, then lets the product prove itself.", "seo_title": "Apple Ads: The Best Apple Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": "Chiat/Day made \"1984\", TBWA\\Chiat\\Day made \"Think Different\" and the iPod posters, and TBWA\\Media Arts Lab made much of the later work. In 2023 the company's in-house team won a Cannes Grand Prix of its own.\n\nThe early work defines Apple by what it is against. [1984](/ads/apple-1984/) cast IBM as Big Brother and showed no product in use, and [Think Different](/ads/apple-think-different/) showed no computers at all, only the \"crazy ones\" who change the world. [Get a Mac](/ads/apple-get-a-mac/) later turned the rivalry into a sitcom, with the PC as a lovable loser rather than a villain.\n\nOver time the product itself becomes the argument, with very few words. The [iPod Silhouettes](/ads/apple-ipod-silhouettes/) posters dropped copy, features and even faces, leaving the white earphones picked out against flat colour. [Shot on iPhone](/ads/apple-shot-on-iphone/) ran ordinary users' photographs with only the line \"Shot on iPhone 6\", so the camera proved itself. Spike Jonze's [Welcome Home](/ads/apple-homepod-welcome-home/) made the sound of a HomePod into something you could watch, and [R.I.P. Leon](/ads/apple-rip-leon/) demonstrated unsending a text as a 30-second comic film, without a word of explanation.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen", "name": "Volkswagen", "description": "Volkswagen's best ads, from DDB's \"Think Small\" and \"Funeral\" to \"The Force\": honest, witty work that shows rather than claims.", "seo_title": "Volkswagen Ads: The Best VW Commercials and Print Ads", "intro": "Volkswagen's place in advertising history rests on Doyle Dane Bernbach. [Think Small](/ads/vw-think-small/) sold the Beetle in 1959 by admitting what it was, small and odd, when American car ads promised bigger, longer, lower. Ad Age ranked DDB's Volkswagen work the No. 1 campaign of the 20th century, and the entries here show how far that voice travelled.\n\nOn television, [Snow Plow](/ads/volkswagen-snow-plow/) is a [demonstration](/techniques/demonstration/) by implication, built on a question nobody had thought to ask: how does the man who drives the snowplough get to the snowplough? [Funeral](/ads/volkswagen-funeral/) made thrift funny and saved the Beetle for the final reveal. Decades later, DDB London's [Cops](/ads/volkswagen-polo-cops/) made its case in a single photograph: a squad of police in a shoot-out, all taking cover behind a little Polo.\n\nThe common thread is showing rather than claiming. DDB Stockholm's [The Fun Theory](/ads/volkswagen-the-fun-theory/) turned subway stairs into piano keys to prove that fun can change behaviour, with the cars barely featuring. Deutsch's [The Force](/ads/volkswagen-the-force/), a wordless spot about a child in a Darth Vader costume, went up on YouTube days before the Super Bowl and started the now-standard practice of releasing big-game ads early. Volkswagen has also built experiences rather than ads, from the Autostadt beside its Wolfsburg plant to a Hong Kong cinema stunt in which the audience looked down at a text message just as the car on screen crashed.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "burger-king", "name": "Burger King", "description": "Burger King's best ads, from Subservient Chicken to Whopper Detour and Moldy Whopper: apps, stunts and open letters, many of them aimed at McDonald's.", "seo_title": "Burger King Ads: The Best Burger King Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": "Burger King's most studied work rarely lives in the commercial break. Its entries are websites, apps, newspaper pages, posters and even a club shirt inside a video game, and many are built from the rules of someone else's platform.\n\nCrispin Porter + Bogusky set the tone. [Subservient Chicken](/ads/bk-subservient-chicken/) turned \"Have It Your Way\" into a man in a chicken suit who obeyed typed commands, and [Whopper Sacrifice](/ads/burger-king-whopper-sacrifice/) gave away a free Whopper for deleting ten Facebook friends, until Facebook disabled the app.\n\nLater work, from agencies including Y&R New Zealand, FCB and DAVID, keeps turning McDonald's into the medium. [McWhopper](/ads/bk-mcwhopper/) proposed a ceasefire in a full-page open letter, leaving the market leader with no reply that didn't help the challenger. [Whopper Detour](/ads/bk-whopper-detour/) sold a one-cent Whopper that unlocked only near a McDonald's, and [Burn That Ad](/ads/burger-king-burn-that-ad/) let customers in Brazil set fire to McDonald's billboards in augmented reality to reveal a voucher. [Stevenage Challenge](/ads/burger-king-stevenage-challenge/) found free media inside FIFA 20 by sponsoring a fourth-tier club whose kit the game reproduced.\n\nThe most daring entry turns on the product itself. [Moldy Whopper](/ads/bk-moldy-whopper/) showed a Whopper rotting over 35 days to prove that it no longer contained artificial preservatives, trading appetite appeal for trust.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser", "name": "Budweiser", "description": "Budweiser's best ads, from Bud Bowl to \"Whassup?\" and \"Puppy Love\": Super Bowl spectacle, recurring characters and the Clydesdales.", "seo_title": "Budweiser Commercials: The Best Budweiser Ads", "intro": "Budweiser's best work is largely a Super Bowl story. With [Bud Bowl](/ads/budweiser-bud-bowl/) in 1989, Anheuser-Busch turned the game into a game within the game: longneck bottles in tiny helmets played out a match across a run of stop-motion spots, and the brewer made itself the broadcast's only beer advertiser, an exclusivity it kept for three decades.\n\nRecurring [characters](/techniques/mascot/) are a habit. [Frogs](/ads/budweiser-frogs/) did nothing but croak the brand name, yet the frogs became regulars, later joined by the scheming lizards Louie and Frank. [Whassup?](/ads/budweiser-whassup/) licensed a real short film and kept its real cast of friends, and the greeting spread even to countries where Budweiser wasn't sold.\n\nThe Clydesdales carry the brand's emotional work. [Respect](/ads/budweiser-respect/) showed them bowing towards the space where the towers had stood, five months after September 11. It aired only once, so the restraint became part of the message. [Puppy Love](/ads/budweiser-puppy-love/) paired a Clydesdale with a Labrador puppy and was released on YouTube days before the game.\n\nThe 2022 World Cup called for a different skill. When beer sales were banned at the stadiums, [Bring Home the Bud](/ads/budweiser-bring-home-the-bud/) promised the unsold stock to the winning country and turned a sponsorship setback into a running game at the speed of the news.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "guinness", "name": "Guinness", "description": "Guinness's best ads, from the 1935 toucan to \"Surfer\" and \"noitulovE\": patient, crafted work built on the wait for a proper pint.", "seo_title": "Guinness Ads: The Best Guinness Commercials", "intro": "Patience runs through Guinness's advertising, in its most famous line and in how long its ideas last. At S.H. Benson in 1935, John Gilroy's drawing and Dorothy L. Sayers's verse produced [the Guinness toucan](/ads/guinness-toucan/), part of a menagerie of animals that ran for decades and a [mascot](/techniques/mascot/) that became almost as much a symbol of the brand as the harp.\n\nIn 1955 the brewery made something even longer-lived. [The Guinness Book of Records](/ads/guinness-book-of-records/) began as a promotional giveaway for pubs, meant to settle the arguments fought nightly over pints, and grew into one of the best-selling books in history.\n\nAbbott Mead Vickers BBDO turned a product drawback into the brand's personality: a proper pint takes time to settle, so the line became \"Good things come to those who wait\". [Surfer](/ads/guinness-surfer/) dramatised the wait with a surfer and a wave that erupts into white horses, and it was voted the best ad of all time in a Channel 4 and Sunday Times poll. [noitulovE](/ads/guinness-noitulove/) reinvented the same idea rather than repeating it, running evolution backwards to show a pint 500 million years in the making, and won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes.\n\nIn Africa the brand took another route. Saatchi & Saatchi's [Michael Power](/ads/guinness-michael-power/) was an action hero whose mini-adventures ended with a Guinness, and he became famous enough to star in a feature film financed by the brand.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:57:24.879238+00:00" }, { "slug": "mcdonalds", "name": "McDonald's", "description": "McDonald's most studied ads and campaigns.", "seo_title": "McDonald's Ads: The Best McDonald's Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ikea", "name": "IKEA", "description": "IKEA's best ads from around the world.", "seo_title": "IKEA Ads: The Best IKEA Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dove", "name": "Dove", "description": "Dove's campaigns for real beauty and self-esteem.", "seo_title": "Dove Ads: The Best Dove Campaigns", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "google", "name": "Google", "description": "Google's most celebrated ads and experiments.", "seo_title": "Google Ads: The Best Google Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "honda", "name": "Honda", "description": "Honda's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Honda Ads: The Best Honda Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cadbury", "name": "Cadbury", "description": "Cadbury's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Cadbury Ads: The Best Cadbury Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "xbox", "name": "Xbox", "description": "Xbox's most celebrated campaigns.", "seo_title": "Xbox Ads: The Best Xbox Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "levis", "name": "Levi's", "description": "Levi's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Levi's Ads: The Best Levi's Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heineken", "name": "Heineken", "description": "Heineken's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Heineken Ads: The Best Heineken Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pepsi", "name": "Pepsi", "description": "Pepsi's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Pepsi Ads: The Best Pepsi Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volvo", "name": "Volvo", "description": "Volvo's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Volvo Ads: The Best Volvo Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wendys", "name": "Wendy's", "description": "Wendy's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "Wendy's Ads: The Best Wendy's Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "british-airways", "name": "British Airways", "description": "British Airways's most celebrated ads.", "seo_title": "British Airways Ads: The Best BA Commercials", "intro": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" } ], "decades": [ { "slug": "1890s", "description": "The best ads of the 1890s, from Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge and Mucha's JOB to Michelin's Bibendum: the decade the modern poster took shape.", "seo_title": "Vintage Posters from the 1890s: The Best Ads of the Decade", "intro": "The 1890s entries are largely lithographic posters, made at the height of the poster boom, when better colour printing and looser bill-posting laws filled Paris with lithographs. Together they show the poster discovering what it could do.\n\nToulouse-Lautrec's first poster, [Moulin Rouge – La Goulue](/ads/moulin-rouge-la-goulue/), is studied as a founding moment of the modern poster: cropping, flat colour and radical simplification selling a night out at a glance. His [Divan Japonais](/ads/divan-japonais-toulouse-lautrec/) cut the singer Yvette Guilbert off at the neck, leaving viewers to recognise her by her long black gloves, and implied that stars who were not performing there might be seen there.\n\nThe decade's posters pull in different directions. Alphonse Mucha's [JOB](/ads/job-cigarette-papers-mucha/) treated a cigarette-paper advert as a decorative canvas and fixed the look of Art Nouveau glamour. The Beggarstaffs' [Rowntree's Elect Cocoa](/ads/rowntrees-elect-cocoa-beggarstaffs/) went the other way, stripping the poster down to silhouette and a few words and anticipating modernism by a decade.\n\nOther entries point further ahead. Michelin's [Nunc est bibendum](/ads/michelin-nunc-est-bibendum/) built a figure out of tyres to turn a technical claim into a character, the [mascot](/techniques/mascot/) the company has kept ever since. And at Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, Heinz drew crowds up to a booth far from the big attractions with a free charm shaped like a pickle, the [Pickle Pin](/ads/heinz-pickle-pin/) that visitors wore home.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1900s", "description": "The best ads of the 1900s, from Cappiello's Chocolat Klaus and Bernhard's Priester matches to the Michelin Guide and the first Tour de France.", "seo_title": "Vintage Ads from the 1900s: Early Posters and Publicity Stunts", "intro": "The 1900s entries show the poster splitting into rival modern styles, and brands discovering that they could build things people valued for their own sake.\n\nIn Paris, Leonetto Cappiello abandoned the detailed manner of Chéret and Mucha for a single bold figure that could catch the eye from far away. [Chocolat Klaus](/ads/chocolat-klaus-red-horse/) showed a rider on a scarlet horse and nothing resembling chocolate, and shoppers were soon asking for \"the red-horse chocolate\". His fire-breathing Pierrot for [Le Thermogène](/ads/thermogene-cappiello-fire-breathing-pierrot/) became the maker's logo.\n\nIn Germany, the object poster took the opposite view. Lucian Bernhard's [Priester](/ads/priester-matches-object-poster/), pulled from a competition wastebasket, threw out everything but the matches and the brand name, and launched the Sachplakat. Ludwig Hohlwein's posters for the Munich tailor Hermann Scherrer built the style from bold, flat planes of colour.\n\nAway from the hoardings, brands created institutions. Michelin gave away [the Michelin Guide](/ads/michelin-guide/) on the logic that people who drove more would buy more tyres, and the sports paper L'Auto launched [the Tour de France](/ads/lauto-tour-de-france/) to win a circulation war. In 1909 Harry Gordon Selfridge showed what speed could do, putting [Blériot's monoplane](/ads/selfridges-bleriot-monoplane/) on show in his store the morning after the first flight across the Channel, an early piece of [newsjacking](/techniques/real-time/).", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1910s", "description": "The best ads of the 1910s, from Woodbury's \"A Skin You Love to Touch\" and Lord Kitchener's pointing finger to Uncle Sam's \"I Want You\".", "seo_title": "Vintage Ads and Posters from the 1910s: The Best of the Decade", "intro": "Print carries the 1910s entries, and the decade's biggest change happens in the copy: advertisements stop describing products and start selling what they might do for the buyer.\n\nIn 1911 J. Walter Thompson's Helen Lansdowne Resor showed what Woodbury's soap might win you rather than the soap itself, and [A Skin You Love to Touch](/ads/woodbury-a-skin-you-love-to-touch/) is widely regarded as the first campaign to use sex appeal. Cadillac's [The Penalty of Leadership](/ads/cadillac-penalty-of-leadership/) never mentioned the car at all, positioning the brand as the standard others envy. By 1919 the methods were sharper. James Webb Young's [Odorono](/ads/odorono-within-the-curve-of-a-womans-arm/) ad, the prototype of anxiety-led \"whisper copy\", stopped selling a remedy and started selling a social danger after research showed that most women felt no need for the product. Raymond Rubicam's [The Instrument of the Immortals](/ads/steinway-instrument-of-the-immortals/) sold Steinway pianos on the company they kept.\n\nThe First World War produced the decade's most imitated image. Alfred Leete's [Lord Kitchener Wants You](/ads/london-opinion-kitchener-wants-you/) cover gave recruitment its pointing finger and locked gaze, and James Montgomery Flagg adapted the pose for the US Army's [I Want You](/ads/us-army-i-want-you-uncle-sam/) poster. After the war, E. McKnight Kauffer's flock of angular birds for the Daily Herald proved that abstract avant-garde art could work on a commercial hoarding.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1920s", "description": "The best ads of the 1920s, from Listerine's \"Often a Bridesmaid\" and Burma-Shave's roadside verses to Macy's first Thanksgiving parade.", "seo_title": "Vintage Ads from the 1920s: The Best Advertising of the Decade", "intro": "The 1920s entries show advertisers inventing new places for a message to live. [Burma-Shave](/ads/burma-shave/) spread comic verses across serial roadside signs paced to the speed of a passing car, Goodyear turned its airship into a flying billboard, Citroën spelled its name down the Eiffel Tower in lights, and [Macy's](/ads/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade/) staged a parade on Thanksgiving morning to open the Christmas shopping season.\n\nPrint copy learned to work on hopes and anxieties. [Listerine](/ads/listerine-often-a-bridesmaid/) turned bad breath into a medical condition through the story of Edna, \"often a bridesmaid but never a bride\". John Caples's headline [They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano](/ads/us-school-of-music-they-laughed/) staged a humiliation and promised the reversal. [Somewhere West of Laramie](/ads/jordan-somewhere-west-of-laramie/) left out the engine, the price and the features to sell a car as a feeling of youth, speed and open country.\n\nDesign moved forward too. Cassandre's [Nord Express](/ads/nord-express-cassandre/) reduced a train journey to a towering locomotive and became a defining image of Art Deco travel advertising, and in Moscow, Rodchenko and Mayakovsky bent revolutionary design to plain salesmanship for Mossel'prom.\n\nThe decade ends with a warning. Edward Bernays's [Torches of Freedom](/ads/lucky-strike-torches-of-freedom/) stunt for Lucky Strike borrowed a social cause, without disclosure, to sell cigarettes, and it is still taught as the textbook pseudo-event.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1930s", "description": "The best ads of the 1930s, from Cassandre's Dubonnet and Normandie posters to Coca-Cola's Santa Claus and GM's Futurama at the World's Fair.", "seo_title": "Vintage Ads from the 1930s: The Best Posters and Advertising", "intro": "Posters and magazine illustration still lead the 1930s entries, but the decade also produced durable characters and a founding piece of brand experience.\n\nWhen the Museum of Modern Art gave A.M. Cassandre a solo exhibition in 1936, it announced him as probably the world's foremost poster designer. [Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet](/ads/dubonnet-dubo-dubon-dubonnet/) filled a little drinker with colour panel by panel as the name built up beside him, a serial poster designed to be read from moving vehicles. [Normandie](/ads/french-line-normandie/) placed the viewer low, dead ahead of the liner's bow, and sold size, power and calm with no list of comforts. Herbert Matter, who had assisted Cassandre, made [All Roads Lead to Switzerland](/ads/swiss-tourism-all-roads-lead-to-switzerland/) one of the first travel posters built purely from photographs, splicing tourist pictures into a single seamless view.\n\nCharacters gave brands a face. Haddon Sundblom's [Santa Claus](/ads/coca-cola-sundblom-santa-claus/) paintings for Coca-Cola gave Santa the face people still remember, and John Gilroy and Dorothy L. Sayers made [the Guinness toucan](/ads/guinness-toucan/) a lasting mascot. Late in the Depression, Oscar Mayer put a metal hot dog on wheels to stand out from its competitors: the [Wienermobile](/ads/oscar-mayer-wienermobile/), which was the ad, the mascot and the photo opportunity at once.\n\nThe decade closes with [Futurama](/ads/general-motors-futurama/), General Motors' ride at the 1939 New York World's Fair. It carried visitors over a model of America in 1960 and sold a future built around driving rather than any particular car.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1940s", "description": "The best ads of the 1940s, from \"Careless Talk Costs Lives\" and \"We Can Do It!\" to Smokey Bear and De Beers's \"A Diamond Is Forever\".", "seo_title": "1940s Ads: WWII Posters and the Best Advertising of the 1940s", "intro": "The Second World War runs through the 1940s entries: posters asking civilians to guard their tongues, travel less, mend, share and stay healthy, with the methods of commercial advertising turned to the war effort.\n\nCareless talk was the most crowded theme. Fougasse convinced Britain's Ministry of Information that a joke would work better than a warning, and his [Careless Talk Costs Lives](/ads/moi-careless-talk-costs-lives-fougasse/) cartoons sat Hitler and Göring behind gossiping passengers. In the United States, [Someone Talked!](/ads/owi-someone-talked/) used a drowning sailor's accusing finger, and the distiller Seagram lent its name to [Loose Lips Might Sink Ships](/ads/seagram-loose-lips-might-sink-ships/).\n\nOther posters asked people to do less, or to do without. Britain's railways asked [Is Your Journey Really Necessary?](/ads/railway-executive-committee-is-your-journey-really-necessary/), the Office of Price Administration put a ghostly Hitler in the passenger seat of anyone who drove alone, and [Use It Up – Wear It Out – Make It Do!](/ads/owi-use-it-up-wear-it-out-make-it-do/) made mending look patriotic. H. M. Bateman's [Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases](/ads/ministry-of-health-coughs-and-sneezes-spread-diseases/) was measured by the government's own survey, which found that two-thirds of the people it questioned remembered the slogan. [Fear](/techniques/fear/) and [humour](/techniques/humour/) work side by side throughout.\n\nTwo posters had lives their makers never planned. Abram Games's glamorous Join the ATS was withdrawn after an MP objected in Parliament, and Westinghouse's [We Can Do It!](/ads/westinghouse-we-can-do-it/), a factory notice meant to hang for two weeks, resurfaced decades later and was relabelled \"Rosie\".\n\nThe war also produced [Smokey Bear](/ads/smokey-bear/), created in 1944 to protect wartime timber and now the longest-running public service campaign in American history. As peace returned, commercial lines took over again: Frances Gerety's [A Diamond Is Forever](/ads/de-beers-a-diamond-is-forever/) for De Beers, Maidenform's \"I dreamed\" ads, and Raymond Savignac's milk-giving cow for Monsavon.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:57.504225+00:00" }, { "slug": "1950s", "description": "The best ads of the 1950s, from Ogilvy's Hathaway man and the Marlboro Man to Timex's torture tests and Volkswagen's \"Think Small\".", "seo_title": "1950s Ads: The Best Advertising of the 1950s", "intro": "Television commercials join the mix in the 1950s, but print still carries some of the decade's most influential work.\n\nDavid Ogilvy made his name in print. [The Man in the Hathaway Shirt](/ads/hathaway-man/) added a drugstore eyepatch to give an ordinary shirt ad \"story appeal\", and his [Rolls-Royce](/ads/rolls-royce-electric-clock/) ad set a headline about the electric clock, found in a magazine review, over long and factual copy. Leo Burnett relaunched [Marlboro](/ads/marlboro-man/) around the cowboy, a case now taught both as proof that advertising sells identity and as an ethics warning. Shirley Polykoff's \"Does she... or doesn't she?\" took the stigma out of hair colour for Clairol.\n\nThe television entries lean on characters and live spectacle. In [Takes a Licking](/ads/timex-takes-a-licking/), Timex strapped its watches to cliff divers and attacked them with jackhammers, with some of the tests broadcast live. The [Hamm's Bear](/ads/hamms-beer-bear/) took a regional beer onto national television, Brooke Bond dressed chimpanzees in human clothes for PG Tips, and Mortein made the pest itself the star with Louie the Fly. [Strand](/ads/strand-never-alone/) is the warning: a famous, much-loved ad for a cigarette almost nobody bought.\n\nThe decade closes with [Think Small](/ads/vw-think-small/), Doyle Dane Bernbach's honest, self-deprecating Volkswagen ad, which is studied as the start of advertising's creative revolution.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1960s", "description": "The best ads of the 1960s, from DDB's Avis and Volkswagen work to Alka-Seltzer's \"Spicy Meatball\" and the \"Daisy\" political ad.", "seo_title": "1960s Ads: The Best Commercials and Print Ads of the 60s", "intro": "Much of the 1960s work here belongs to the creative revolution that Doyle Dane Bernbach started with Volkswagen. DDB's style was plain, witty and honest about weakness. [Avis](/ads/avis-we-try-harder/) admitted it was only No. 2 and turned the confession into a reason to choose it, and Levy's subway posters put New Yorkers of every background on the walls under the line \"You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's\". On television, [Snow Plow](/ads/volkswagen-snow-plow/) and [Funeral](/ads/volkswagen-funeral/) carried the same voice into Volkswagen's commercials.\n\nWells Rich Greene took the same spirit to cigarettes, launching Benson & Hedges 100's by cheerfully listing [the disadvantages](/ads/benson-and-hedges-disadvantages/) of a longer cigarette. [Spicy Meatball](/ads/alka-seltzer-spicy-meatball/), made at the height of the revolution, turned advertising itself into the joke, though viewers remembered the fake meatball brand as readily as the antacid.\n\nTelevision also showed its power in politics. [Daisy](/ads/lbj-daisy/) aired once and never named Barry Goldwater, yet the networks replayed it on the news, and it is studied as the foundation of modern political advertising, built on [fear](/techniques/fear/) and implication rather than argument.\n\nBeyond the United States, the entries show other routes to fame: Armando Testa turning the name Punt e Mes into a sphere above a half-sphere, Yusaku Kamekura's photographic poster for the Tokyo 1964 Olympics, the Amul girl's topical puns on Indian hoardings, and a Pirelli calendar that was never put on sale.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:05.647621+00:00" }, { "slug": "1970s", "description": "The best ads of the 1970s, from Coca-Cola's \"Hilltop\" and \"Mean Joe Greene\" to the Pepsi Challenge and the Smash Martians.", "seo_title": "70s Commercials: The Best Ads and Campaigns of the 1970s", "intro": "The 1970s belong to television, and the decade's big brands learned to sell a feeling with a song. Coca-Cola's [Hilltop](/ads/coca-cola-hilltop/) sold unity with no product claims at all, and McDonald's \"You deserve a break today\" recast a hamburger stop as a small act of self-kindness. L'Oréal's [Because I'm Worth It](/ads/loreal-because-im-worth-it/) changed who was speaking in beauty advertising: a woman, for herself.\n\nThe Super Bowl began to matter. Noxzema used the 1973 game for a suggestive celebrity spot built to be repeated the next morning, Master Lock had a marksman shoot a padlock that stayed shut, [Xerox's monks](/ads/xerox-monks/) proved the game could launch a product story, and [Mean Joe Greene](/ads/coca-cola-mean-joe-greene/) set the template for the heartwarming Super Bowl spot.\n\n[Demonstration](/techniques/demonstration/) became more direct, too. [The Pepsi Challenge](/ads/pepsi-challenge/) turned a blind taste test into the advertising, with the audience running the experiment.\n\nThe British entries lean on humour and nostalgia: the laughing robot [Smash Martians](/ads/smash-martians/), Heineken refreshing the parts other beers cannot reach, and Ridley Scott's Hovis boy pushing his bike up a cobbled hill. Persuasion beyond selling took bold forms as well. The Health Education Council's pregnant man asked men to share responsibility for contraception, and the Conservatives' [Labour Isn't Working](/ads/tory-labour-isnt-working/) brought modern advertising techniques to British politics.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:42.150345+00:00" }, { "slug": "1980s", "description": "The best ads of the 1980s, from Apple's \"1984\" and Wendy's \"Where's the Beef?\" to Levi's \"Launderette\" and Nike's \"Just Do It\".", "seo_title": "1980s Commercials: The Best Ads of the 80s", "intro": "Television led the 1980s, and the decade turned some commercials into national events. [1984](/ads/apple-1984/) aired nationally only once, during the Super Bowl, and the coverage that followed effectively invented the Super Bowl ad as an annual cultural event. Comedy travelled just as fast: Clara Peller's question in Wendy's [Where's the Beef?](/ads/wendys-wheres-the-beef/) was being quoted in a presidential debate within weeks.\n\nLines became brand philosophies. The bottle-and-pun format that began with [Absolut Perfection](/ads/absolut-perfection/) ran for 25 years, and Wieden+Kennedy launched Nike's [Just Do It](/ads/nike-just-do-it/) with an 80-year-old runner rather than a star.\n\nPublic campaigns adopted the full craft of commercial advertising, often through [fear](/techniques/fear/). Britain's [Don't Die of Ignorance](/ads/uk-aids-dont-die-of-ignorance/) put a granite tombstone on television, Australia's Grim Reaper bowled down men, women and children, and \"This Is Your Brain on Drugs\" needed only an egg and a hot pan. In American politics, [Morning in America](/ads/reagan-morning-in-america/) went the other way, attacking without an attack through warmth and nostalgia.\n\nBritish craft is well represented: [Launderette](/ads/levis-launderette/) relaunched Levi's 501s as the most desired object in Britain, Silk Cut's posters carried no words beyond the health warning, and J.R. Hartley gave Yellow Pages warmth. The entries also reach well beyond Britain and America, from Folha de S.Paulo's \"Hitler\" in Brazil to Surf's Lalitaji in India and JR Central's Christmas Express in Japan.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:42.150345+00:00" }, { "slug": "1990s", "description": "The best ads of the 1990s, from \"got milk?\" and Tango's Orange Man to Mastercard's \"Priceless\" and Budweiser's \"Whassup?\".", "seo_title": "90s Commercials: The Best Ads of the 1990s", "intro": "[Humour](/techniques/humour/) runs through the 1990s entries, and much of it rests on a sharp strategy. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners built [got milk?](/ads/got-milk-aaron-burr/) on the insight that people only notice milk when they run out of it, and Tango's [Orange Man](/ads/tango-orange-man/), which slapped a drinker across the face, became a founding text of British \"anti-advertising\".\n\nMichael Jordan recurs through the decade. Gatorade's jingle told fans to [Be Like Mike](/ads/gatorade-be-like-mike/), Nike teamed him with Bugs Bunny, and McDonald's had him trade ever more absurd shots with Larry Bird for a Big Mac.\n\nSome brands chose provocation. Benetton's [New Born Baby](/ads/benetton-newborn/) set nothing but its logo beside a newborn seconds old, Wonderbra's \"Hello Boys\" earned far more in free press than its media cost, and the Conservatives' \"Demon Eyes\" posters were the high-water mark of British attack advertising.\n\nOthers sold feelings and values rather than features. Mastercard's [Priceless](/ads/mastercard-priceless/) gave a financial brand an emotional, endlessly writable format, and Apple's [Think Different](/ads/apple-think-different/) showed no computers at all at a time when the company had nothing new to sell. The decade closed with [Whassup?](/ads/budweiser-whassup/), a catchphrase that spread around the world before \"viral\" had infrastructure, and Guinness's \"Surfer\", voted the best ad of all time in a Channel 4 and Sunday Times poll.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:42.150345+00:00" }, { "slug": "2000s", "description": "The best ads of the 2000s, from BMW Films and Subservient Chicken to Honda's \"Cog\" and Cadbury's \"Gorilla\": the decade advertising went online.", "seo_title": "2000s Commercials: The Best Ads and Viral Campaigns of the 2000s", "intro": "The internet arrives in the 2000s entries. Television commercials still matter, but work made for the internet takes off, and [participation](/techniques/participation/) becomes a defining technique.\n\n[BMW Films](/ads/bmw-films-the-hire/) hired A-list directors to make short films released only online, before YouTube existed, and won the first-ever Titanium Lion. Burger King's [Subservient Chicken](/ads/bk-subservient-chicken/) turned \"Have It Your Way\" into a man in a chicken suit obeying typed commands and made viral marketing a mainstream discipline. Dove's [Evolution](/ads/dove-evolution/) made the industry take the internet seriously and became the first work to win both the Film and Cyber Grands Prix at Cannes, while Blendtec showed that a $50 budget could outperform a Super Bowl buy.\n\nTelevision answered with spectacle. [Honda's Cog](/ads/honda-cog/) built a chain reaction from car parts and Sony let coloured balls loose down the hills of San Francisco, both shot for real, while [Cadbury's Gorilla](/ads/cadbury-gorilla/) sold nothing but the feeling of joy, against the advice of the client's own research. People sought these films out and passed them on. Outdoor changed too: [Oslo Piercing Studio](/ads/oslo-piercing-studio-piercing/) won the first Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes with posters that let nails in the wall stand in for jewellery.\n\nBy the end of the decade the audience had become the ad. A Doritos spot made by two unemployed brothers for a contest beat the professionals on USA Today's Ad Meter, and Tourism Queensland's [Best Job in the World](/ads/best-job-in-the-world/) turned every job application into user-made tourism advertising.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:42.150345+00:00" }, { "slug": "2010s", "description": "The best ads of the 2010s, from Old Spice and Oreo's blackout tweet to Red Bull Stratos and \"Dumb Ways to Die\": a decade of stunts, social and purpose.", "seo_title": "The Best Ads of the 2010s: Commercials and Campaigns", "intro": "In the 2010s, work made for the internet and stunts in the real world take over from the television commercial. Brands learned to act and respond rather than only broadcast.\n\nThe decade opened with Old Spice's [The Man Your Man Could Smell Like](/ads/old-spice-the-man-your-man-could-smell-like/), whose follow-up of personalised video replies to fans made it an early landmark of [real-time](/techniques/real-time/) response. Oreo's [Dunk in the Dark](/ads/oreo-dunk-in-the-dark/) tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout made real-time marketing an industry obsession overnight. [Red Bull Stratos](/ads/red-bull-stratos/) went further, funding a jump from the edge of space in which the logo on the suit was the only copy.\n\n[Purpose](/techniques/purpose/) defines the decade. Patagonia told Black Friday shoppers [Don't Buy This Jacket](/ads/patagonia-dont-buy-this-jacket/), REI shut its stores on Black Friday, and Always asked what \"like a girl\" really means. [Fearless Girl](/ads/fearless-girl/) became a permanent landmark with no media buy, and its complications sharpened every later debate about whether purpose marketing is sincere.\n\nSome of the best work hid a hard message inside entertainment or an experiment. [Dumb Ways to Die](/ads/metro-dumb-ways-to-die/) delivered rail safety as a catchy song about cartoon beans, and Dove's [Real Beauty Sketches](/ads/dove-real-beauty-sketches/) made its case through a forensic artist's paired drawings of each woman. Even a truck maker could own internet culture, as Volvo Trucks proved with Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits between reversing lorries.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:42.150345+00:00" }, { "slug": "2020s", "description": "The best ads of the 2020s so far, from Heineken's shutter ads and Reddit's five-second Super Bowl spot to AXA's \"Three Words\".", "seo_title": "2020s Ads: The Best Commercials and Campaigns So Far", "intro": "The 2020s entries run to the present. So far, much of the best work is made for the internet or staged in the real world, and [purpose](/techniques/purpose/) remains central, though many entries prove it through action rather than claims.\n\nThe pandemic shaped the decade's opening. Dove's [Courage Is Beautiful](/ads/dove-courage-is-beautiful/) put the mask-marked faces of doctors and nurses on posters, and Heineken's [shutter ads](/ads/heineken-shutter-ads/) rented the shutters and facades of closed bars, so the media money went straight to bar owners.\n\nGames became a medium in their own right. Reporters Without Borders built [The Uncensored Library](/ads/rsf-the-uncensored-library/) inside Minecraft so that banned journalism could reach readers where news sites are blocked, and [Kiyan Prince](/ads/kiyan-prince-foundation-long-live-the-prince/), a QPR academy prospect stabbed at his school gates fifteen years earlier, became a playable footballer in FIFA 21, aged to 30.\n\nThe Super Bowl kept getting hacked. Reddit bought [five seconds](/ads/reddit-superb-owl/) of airtime and filled them with a slide, too dense to read without pausing, explaining that it had spent its entire marketing budget on them; [Coinbase](/ads/coinbase-less-talk-more-bitcoin/) showed nothing but a bouncing QR code; and DoorDash turned every other advertiser's spot into a prize.\n\nBrands also changed what they sell and let that be the campaign. In [Three Words](/ads/axa-three-words/), AXA France extended the emergency rehousing in its home insurance to cover domestic violence, and Renault built a peer-to-peer charging app. Meanwhile [Duolingo's owl](/ads/duolingo-duo-the-owl-tiktok/) showed a brand behaving like a creator on TikTok, and Nike used machine learning to stage a match between two eras of Serena Williams.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:58:42.150345+00:00" } ], "ads": [ { "slug": "godaddy-act-like-you-know", "title": "Act Like You Know", "brand": "GoDaddy", "year": 2025, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The product really built the logo, website and social posts for the actor's eyewear line, so the claim is shown rather than asserted." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Walton Goggins plays characters faking competence, from a detective trampling a crime scene to an astronaut who fires a crewmate into space." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Quality Meats, Chicago, with GoDaddy's in-house team", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Ian Pons Jewell" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "ProdCo" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director (GoDaddy)", "name": "Adam Nowak" } ], "tagline": "With GoDaddy Airo, it's like you know what you're doing.", "why_studied": "Actors, Walton Goggins tells the camera, can make you believe they know what they are doing when they do not. He proves it as a detective trampling a crime scene, an astronaut who fires a crewmate into space and a racing driver tearing along in reverse. His hardest role, he admits, is small-business owner, which is where GoDaddy's AI tool Airo came in, building the logo, website and social posts for his real eyewear line, Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses. The 30-second spot aired in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LIX on February 9, 2025, GoDaddy's first in-game ad in eight years. It is studied because the demonstration was genuine: the brand spent the months before the game helping Goggins launch an actual business, so the commercial worked as a case study rather than a claim. GoDaddy says traffic to its Airo landing page nearly doubled after the ad aired, and the campaign won the Creative B2B Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2025.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKprSX0Xtq0", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Super Bowl Commercial Archive", "url": "https://adage.com/super-bowl/super-bowl-commercial-archive/2025/aa-godaddy-act-like-you-know/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "GoDaddy’s Super Bowl Ad Starring Walton Goggins Wins Cannes Lions B2B Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2025)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/godaddys-super-bowl-ad-starring-walton-goggins-wins-cannes-lions-b2b-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "GoDaddy, Goggins and Goggles: a look into the ad disrupting the B2B category", "publisher": "Campaign US (2025)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.com/article/godaddy-goggins-goggles-look-ad-disrupting-b2b-category/1924051" }, { "title": "Strap in: GoDaddy Reveals 2025 Super Bowl Spot", "publisher": "GoDaddy (2025)", "url": "https://aboutus.godaddy.net/newsroom/news-releases/press-release-details/2025/Strap-in-GoDaddy-Reveals-2025-Super-Bowl-Spot/default.aspx" }, { "title": "GoDaddy ads are the business", "publisher": "Lions Daily News (2025)", "url": "https://www.lionsdailynews.com/post/godaddy-ads-are-the-business" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gKprSX0Xtq0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Act Like You Know (GoDaddy, 2025)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Walton Goggins - GoDaddy (GoDaddy Airo) (30) (SuperBowl 2025)”, uploaded by QuirkyFilms", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKprSX0Xtq0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gKprSX0Xtq0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gKprSX0Xtq0", "uploaded_at": "2025-02-06T04:01:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "state-farm-like-a-good-neighbaaa", "title": "Like a Good Neighbaaa", "brand": "State Farm", "year": 2024, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Arnold Schwarzenegger keeps mangling the brand's line as 'neighbaaa' take after take until Danny DeVito steps in to say it properly." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "The joke is built on the brand's long-running jingle, so every laugh repeats the slogan instead of burying it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Highdive, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jim Jenkins" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "O Positive" } ], "tagline": "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.", "why_studied": "State Farm treated its return to the Super Bowl like a film release. In the run-up, Arnold Schwarzenegger promoted \"Agent State Farm\" on The Tonight Show as if it were his next action movie, and an extended teaser showed him on set, until it was plain the feature ran sixty seconds. The finished spot, aired just before the second quarter of Super Bowl LVIII on February 11, 2024, has him rescuing puppies and a pregnant woman from a burning house, then fluffing the brand's long-running jingle take after take: \"neighbor\" keeps coming out as \"neighbaaa\", until his Twins co-star Danny DeVito steps in to say it properly. It is studied because the celebrity joke and the slogan are the same thing, so every laugh repeats the line instead of burying it, the trap many star-driven Super Bowl ads fall into. Viewers voted it No. 1 in USA Today's Ad Meter with a score of 6.68, and it was nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC2koyZtCNw", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Super Bowl Commercial Archive", "url": "https://adage.com/super-bowl/super-bowl-commercial-archive/2024/aa-state-farm-like-a-good-neighbaaa/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "State Farm commercial reuniting Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito wins USA TODAY Ad Meter", "publisher": "USA Today (2024)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2024/02/12/arnold-schwarzenegger-danny-devito-state-farm-commercial-ad-meter-winner/72566240007/" }, { "title": "Why State Farm’s Arnold Schwarzenegger Super Bowl ad is a movie", "publisher": "Fast Company (2024)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/91021978/why-state-farms-arnold-schwarzenegger-super-bowl-ad-is-a-movie" }, { "title": "Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger Save State Farm", "publisher": "Adweek (2024)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/danny-devito-saves-state-farm-super-bowl-ad-from-arnold-schwarzenegger/" }, { "title": "Apple’s \"Fuzzy Feelings\" Wins Primetime Commercial Emmy Award", "publisher": "SHOOT (2024)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/apples-fuzzy-feelings-wins-primetime-commercial-emmy-award/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wC2koyZtCNw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Like a Good Neighbaaa (State Farm, 2024)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Like a Good Neighbaaa 60 feat Arnold Schwarzenegger & Danny DeVito State Farm® Commercial”, uploaded by Bull N Bear", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC2koyZtCNw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wC2koyZtCNw/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "wC2koyZtCNw", "uploaded_at": "2024-05-20T19:31:49+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "the-farmers-dog-forever", "title": "Forever", "brand": "The Farmer's Dog", "year": 2023, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A puppy and a girl grow up together in one minute, from her childhood to her having a child of her own." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "It plays on every owner's dread of losing a dog, then withholds that ending so the feeling becomes hope for more years together." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "The Farmer's Dog (in-house), New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Goh Iromoto" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Sanctuary Content" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Teressa Iezzi" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Sophie Forman" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Lee Fields, \"Forever\"" } ], "tagline": "Nothing matters more than more years together.", "why_studied": "A chocolate Lab puppy called Bear and a girl called Ava grow up together in sixty seconds, through childhood and college to Ava having a child of her own. Every dog owner braces for the ending they dread; the film withholds it, and Bear, played by five dogs, is still there, an argument for the fresh food that is the brand's whole business. The spot was made in-house by the young direct-to-consumer brand, directed by Goh Iromoto and set to Lee Fields' soul song \"Forever\". The company says it never set out to make a Super Bowl ad and decided to buy airtime only after seeing the finished film. It ran during Super Bowl LVII on February 12, 2023, as the company's Super Bowl debut. It is studied as proof that an unknown challenger can outscore celebrity-stuffed spots with craft and one honest feeling: Ad Meter panelists ranked it No. 1 of 51 ads, and it earned a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (The Farmer's Dog)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAIo-pUDl0s", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Farmer's Dog's emotional Super Bowl commercial earns USA TODAY Ad Meter title", "publisher": "USA Today (2023)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2023/02/13/farmers-dog-rated-top-super-bowl-commercial-usa-today-ad-meter/11220688002/" }, { "title": "Forever - The Farmer's Dog", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (2023)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/47751/forever/" }, { "title": "Outstanding Commercial 2023 - Nominees & Winners", "publisher": "Television Academy (2023)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/awards/nominees-winners/2023/outstanding-commercial" }, { "title": "Pet Food Brand The Farmer’s Dog Debuts in the Big Game with a Love Letter to Dogs", "publisher": "LBB Online (2023)", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/pet-food-brand-the-farmers-dog-debuts-in-the-big-game-with-a-love-letter-to-dogs" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IAIo-pUDl0s/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Forever (The Farmer's Dog, 2023)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Farmer's Dog: Forever 2023 Super Bowl Commercial”, uploaded by The Farmer's Dog", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAIo-pUDl0s", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IAIo-pUDl0s/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "IAIo-pUDl0s", "uploaded_at": "2023-02-10T15:48:35+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-rip-leon", "title": "R.I.P. Leon", "brand": "Apple (iPhone)", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 2023, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Shows a single iPhone feature, unsending a text, in action as a panicked lizard-sitter retracts his bad news once Leon flips back over." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Plays the feature as a tiny comic film whose twist, the supposedly dead lizard coming back to life, turns a relatable panic into the punchline." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Apple (in-house)", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Andreas Nilsson" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Biscuit Filmworks" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Hanni El Khatib, “Alive”" } ], "tagline": "Relax, it's iPhone.", "why_studied": "A neighbourhood lizard-sitter finds his charge, Leon, lying motionless and anxiously texts the terrible news. Then, to the slowed chords of Hanni El Khatib's “Alive”, Leon flips over, very much alive, and the sitter frantically unsends the message. Made by Apple's in-house team, the 30-second spot demonstrates a single iPhone feature, unsending a text, without a word of explanation. It is studied as a model of the feature demonstration done as a tiny comic film: one benefit, one relatable panic, one twist. The Cannes Lions Film jury gave it a Grand Prix in 2023 as the best work in the television and cinema section, praising its sharpness and simplicity, a prize many had expected to go to Apple's own accessibility film “The Greatest”. It also won a One Show Gold Pencil in the brand-side, in-house category and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Budding)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTiT-slkpzk", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Final Lion-winners announced at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2023)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/final-lion-winners-announced-at-the-cannes-lions-international-festival" }, { "title": "Apple’s ‘R.I.P. Leon’ and CALM’s ‘The Last Photo’ win Film Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Ad Age (2023)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-lions/apples-rip-leon-and-calms-last-photo-win-film-grand-prix-cannes/2501196/" }, { "title": "R.I.P. Leon", "publisher": "The One Club (One Show 2023)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/47734/rip-leon/" }, { "title": "Outstanding Commercial 2023 - Nominees & Winners", "publisher": "Television Academy", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/awards/nominees-winners/2023/outstanding-commercial" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/YTiT-slkpzk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from R.I.P. Leon (Apple (iPhone), 2023)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “APPLE: R.I.P Leon (Cannes 2023) (Film Grand Prix)”, uploaded by Budding", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTiT-slkpzk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/YTiT-slkpzk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "YTiT-slkpzk", "uploaded_at": "2023-06-27T00:46:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coinbase-less-talk-more-bitcoin", "title": "Less Talk, More Bitcoin", "brand": "Coinbase", "year": 2022, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "A bouncing QR code asks viewers to point their phones at the screen, so the ad only works if the audience acts." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The sole message is a concrete offer: scan the code and new sign-ups receive free Bitcoin." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Accenture Song (then Accenture Interactive), New York", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "For most of a minute, a small QR code drifted across a black screen, changing colour each time it touched an edge — a knowing riff on the bouncing DVD-player screensaver. No voiceover, no celebrity, no product shot; the Coinbase name appeared only at the very end. Scanning the code led to an offer of $15 in free Bitcoin for new sign-ups. It aired during Super Bowl LVI on February 13, 2022, amid star-packed spectacle. It is studied as television rebuilt as a response channel: the screen existed only to put a phone in the viewer’s hand. Coinbase said its landing page took more than 20 million hits in a minute, briefly breaking the site, and the app jumped from 186th to No. 2 in the App Store. It won the Super Clio as the game’s best ad and the Direct Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2022. Authorship was contested: Coinbase’s CEO called it an in-house idea, while the Martin Agency said it had pitched the concept first.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (archive upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F90XcAzyzsQ", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Case film (Wavemaker on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsI1HpCspMM", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lion Winners on Day Four of Festival", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2022)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lions-winners-day-four" }, { "title": "Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad proves QR codes are more than just awareness plays", "publisher": "Ad Age (2022)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/coinbase-qr-code-super-bowl-commercial-drove-kpis/2400511/" }, { "title": "Coinbase and Its QR Code Win the Super Clio as Super Bowl's Best Ad", "publisher": "Muse by Clios (2022)", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/advertising/coinbase-and-its-qr-code-win-the-super-clio-as-super-bowls-best-ad/" }, { "title": "Coinbase CEO bashes ad agencies and their 'gimmicky' ideas, then backpedals after a major ad firm calls him out and claims credit for the company's Super Bowl ad", "publisher": "Business Insider (2022)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/coinbase-ceo-super-bowl-ad-controversy-martin-agency-twitter-2022-2" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/F90XcAzyzsQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Less Talk, More Bitcoin (Coinbase, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Super Bowl LVI (56) Commercial: Coinbase - QR Code (2022)”, uploaded by Superbowl Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F90XcAzyzsQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/F90XcAzyzsQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "F90XcAzyzsQ", "uploaded_at": "2022-02-17T18:12:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "reddit-superb-owl", "title": "Superb Owl", "brand": "Reddit", "year": 2021, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "A slide with far too much text to read in five seconds makes viewers pause, screenshot and search, so the audience spreads it." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Made within days of a Reddit forum fuelling the GameStop share frenzy, the spot rides a live news story onto television's biggest night." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "5-second television commercial (regional buy)", "agency": "R/GA, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Tiffany Rolfe" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Bryan Gregg" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Chapin Clark" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Kevin Koller" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Scott Steele" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Ben Muckensturm" } ], "tagline": "Wow, this actually worked.", "why_studied": "Five seconds, bought market by market. Days after a Reddit forum fuelled the GameStop share frenzy, Reddit decided on February 1, 2021 to show up at Super Bowl LV, and R/GA had the spot finished within days. It opens like a glossy car ad, seems to glitch into a test card, then flashes a dense slide headed “Wow, this actually worked,” explaining that Reddit had spent its entire marketing budget on five seconds of airtime — far too much text to read without pausing. It ran on CBS in nine of the ten biggest US markets during the game on February 7. It is studied as a hack of television’s priciest real estate: the format made viewers rewind, screenshot and search, so the audience did the distributing. The New York Times called it an unlikely winner and reported it among the most-searched ads; R/GA says site traffic jumped more than 25 percent; and it won the Social & Influencer Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2021.", "watch": [ { "label": "R/GA case page (agency)", "url": "https://rga.com/work/reddit-superb-owl", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (archive upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXEvkdRmjkU", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions announces award winners on day two", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2021)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/cannes-lions-2021-winners-day-2" }, { "title": "Reddit’s 5-Second Ad Was an Unlikely Super Bowl Winner", "publisher": "The New York Times (2021)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/08/business/media/reddit-super-bowl-ad.html" }, { "title": "How Reddit put together that five-second Super Bowl commercial in less than a week", "publisher": "CNBC (2021)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/08/how-reddit-made-its-super-bowl-commercial-in-less-than-a-week.html" }, { "title": "Reddit's Superb Owl - Disrupting Paid Media", "publisher": "R/GA", "url": "https://rga.com/work/reddit-superb-owl" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kXEvkdRmjkU/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Superb Owl (Reddit, 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Super Bowl LV (55) Commercial: Reddit - 5 Seconds (2021)”, uploaded by Superbowl Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXEvkdRmjkU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kXEvkdRmjkU/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "kXEvkdRmjkU", "uploaded_at": "2023-02-06T13:54:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "jeep-groundhog-day", "title": "Groundhog Day", "brand": "Jeep", "year": 2020, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Bill Murray relives his time-loop day once more, now stealing the groundhog for joyrides in a Jeep Gladiator." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Airing on Groundhog Day itself, the sequel borrows audiences' affection for a classic film and lets the truck change its premise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Highdive, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jim Jenkins" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "O Positive" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Chad Broude" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Mark Gross" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Jorge Pomareda" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Eduardo Vea" }, { "role": "Chief Marketing Officer", "name": "Olivier Francois" } ], "tagline": "No day is the same in a Jeep Gladiator.", "why_studied": "Bill Murray wakes at 6:00 a.m. to the same clock-radio song and runs into Stephen Tobolowsky’s relentless Ned Ryerson — but this time Phil Connors finds a Jeep Gladiator, steals the groundhog and turns his endless loop into a string of joyrides. Super Bowl LIV fell on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2020, only the second such overlap in the game’s history, and Jeep and Highdive answered the calendar with a sequel shot in Woodstock, Illinois, where the 1993 film was made, with original cast members back and the job turned around in under three weeks. By Murray’s own account, it was his first commercial. It is studied as nostalgia done properly: the truck is not bolted onto the film but changes its premise. It won USA Today’s Ad Meter, Jeep’s first win, took a One Show Silver Pencil and an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Commercial, and Stellantis reports that in 2025 voters in Campaign US’s Campaign Cup named it the best American ad of the 21st century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Highdive case page (agency)", "url": "https://highdiveus.com/work/jeep/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (archive upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VLEOyX8gMk", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Jeep, Bill Murray win USA TODAY's Ad Meter with hilarious 'Groundhog Day' commercial", "publisher": "USA Today (2020)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2020/02/03/jeeps-groundhog-day-ad-commercial-bill-murray-wins-ad-meter/4643140002/" }, { "title": "Jeep | Groundhog Day", "publisher": "The One Club / The One Show (2020)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/36798/groundhog-day/" }, { "title": "Outstanding Commercial 2020 - Nominees & Winners", "publisher": "Television Academy (2020)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/awards/nominees-winners/2020/outstanding-commercial" }, { "title": "Jeep® Brand’s 'Groundhog Day' Named Best American Ad of the 21st Century", "publisher": "Stellantis (2025)", "url": "https://media.stellantisnorthamerica.com/newsrelease.do?id=26779" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/4VLEOyX8gMk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Groundhog Day (Jeep, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Super Bowl LIV (54) Commercial: Jeep - “Groundhog Day” (2020)”, uploaded by Superbowl Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VLEOyX8gMk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/4VLEOyX8gMk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "4VLEOyX8gMk", "uploaded_at": "2023-02-10T14:10:47+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hyundai-smaht-pahk", "title": "Smaht Pahk", "brand": "Hyundai", "year": 2020, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Boston accents turning 'smart park' into the title phrase become the running joke, so every laugh repeats the product name." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A Sonata slips into a tight parallel-parking space at the click of a button, showing the remote parking feature in action." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "INNOCEAN USA, Huntington Beach", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Bryan Buckley" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Hungry Man" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Barney Goldberg" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Chris Dyer" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Eddie Babaian" } ], "tagline": "Bettah drives us.", "why_studied": "The new Sonata could slip into a tight space at the click of a button, but the feature had a forgettable name: Remote Smart Parking Assist. At Innocean USA a writer with Boston roots started saying “smart park” in his home accent, the room kept laughing, and that became the idea. Directed by Boston-area native Bryan Buckley on a cold, rainy South End street, it has Chris Evans and Rachel Dratch heckling a hopeless parallel parker until John Krasinski arrives in a Sonata to show off the trick, with David Ortiz joining in. It ran in the first quarter of Super Bowl LIV on February 2, 2020. It is studied as a feature demonstration that is the entire joke: every laugh repeats the product name. It finished second in USA Today’s Ad Meter, a whisker behind Jeep; Hyundai reports it topped Ace Metrix’s effectiveness ranking and drew more than 42 million YouTube views; and it won a Silver Effie in 2021.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (archive upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr8bH7dWk08", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Smaht Pahk case study (HyundaiUSA on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sNQUkjemSw", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The top 5 Super Bowl LIV ads, according to Ad Meter", "publisher": "USA Today (2020)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2020/02/03/the-top-5-super-bowl-liv-ads-according-ad-meter/41132421/" }, { "title": "Hyundai goes ‘full Boston’ for its Super Bowl spot", "publisher": "The Drum (2020)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/hyundai-goes-full-boston-its-super-bowl-spot" }, { "title": "2021 Effie Awards United States: Winners", "publisher": "Effie Awards (2021)", "url": "http://current.effie.org.s3.amazonaws.com/downloads/2021EffieUnitedStatesWinnerList.pdf" }, { "title": "Big Wins for Hyundai's Big Game Spot, \"Smaht Pahk\"", "publisher": "Hyundai Motor America (2020)", "url": "https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/2979" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/cr8bH7dWk08/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Smaht Pahk (Hyundai, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Super Bowl LIV (54) Commercial: Hyundai Sonata - Smaht Pahk (2020)”, uploaded by Superbowl Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr8bH7dWk08", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/cr8bH7dWk08/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "cr8bH7dWk08", "uploaded_at": "2023-02-09T15:01:27+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-you-cant-stop-us", "title": "You Can't Stop Us", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2020, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "emmy-winners", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Split-screen pairs of elite and everyday athletes merge into one body, stirring a feeling of togetherness that the narrated manifesto attaches to sport and Nike." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Launched in a deeply divided summer, its manifesto positions sport, and the brand with it, as a force that brings people together." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "90-second television commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Oscar Hudson" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Pulse Films" }, { "role": "Narrator", "name": "Megan Rapinoe" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Naoki Ga" }, { "role": "Editorial", "name": "Joint Editorial, Portland" }, { "role": "Visual effects", "name": "a52, Santa Monica" } ], "tagline": "You can't stop sport. Because you can't stop us.", "why_studied": "Ninety seconds of split screen in which 36 pairs of athletes, elite and everyday, from Serena Williams and LeBron James to Colin Kaepernick and Simone Biles, move as one body across the dividing line while Megan Rapinoe narrates a manifesto about sport bringing people together. Debuting on TV with the NBA's restart on July 30, 2020, in one of the most fractious summers in recent American history, Wieden+Kennedy Portland's film is studied as editing raised to the level of the idea itself: the team researched more than 4,000 pieces of footage, kept 72 sequences from 24 sports, and spent over 1,000 hours compositing so the seams would vanish. Directed by Oscar Hudson of Pulse Films, it was named Adweek's best ad of 2020, won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in 2021, and took that year's Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Wieden+Kennedy case page (with film)", "url": "https://www.wk.com/work/nike-you-cant-stop-us/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Marketing The Rainbow)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcXTnyCmQbg", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nike's Unifying Ad 'You Can't Stop Us' Wins Emmy for Year's Best Commercial", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencies/nikes-unifying-ad-you-cant-stop-us-wins-emmy-for-years-best-commercial/" }, { "title": "Nike's \"You Can't Stop Us\" Wins Primetime Commercial Emmy", "publisher": "SHOOT (2021)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/nikes-you-cant-stop-us-wins-primetime-commercial-emmy/" }, { "title": "Megan Rapinoe speaks out about race and change, in Nike campaign", "publisher": "CNBC (2020)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/megan-rapinoe-speaks-out-about-race-and-change-in-nike-campaign.html" }, { "title": "Nike | You Can't Stop Us (ADC Awards 2021, a52 entry)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/adcawards/-award/40215/you-cant-stop-us/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pcXTnyCmQbg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from You Can't Stop Us (Nike, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nike - You Can't Stop Us (2020)”, uploaded by Marketing The Rainbow", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcXTnyCmQbg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pcXTnyCmQbg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "pcXTnyCmQbg", "uploaded_at": "2020-12-07T09:15:49+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "microsoft-we-all-win", "title": "We All Win", "brand": "Microsoft", "year": 2019, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "It puts a controller built for gamers with physical disabilities on the year's biggest stage, making inclusion the message." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Children with limited mobility describe what gaming gives them, letting their own words and play carry the emotion." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "McCann, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Bryan Buckley" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Hungry Man" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Sean Bryan" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Shayne Millington" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "David Banta" } ], "tagline": "When everybody plays, we all win.", "why_studied": "Children with limited mobility talk about what gaming gives them and show how they play with the Xbox Adaptive Controller, which Microsoft designed to make play easier for people with physical disabilities. Made by McCann New York, the spot aired during Super Bowl LIII on February 3, 2019, closing on the line \"When everybody plays, we all win.\" It is studied as inclusive design marketed to everyone: a niche accessibility product put on the year's biggest stage, with the children who use the controller carrying the emotion, and a campaign that extended into unboxing videos the kids made themselves. Viewers ranked it third in USA Today's Ad Meter and Unruly rated it the game's most effective ad. The \"Changing the Game\" campaign built around it won the Grand Prix in Brand Experience & Activation and a Titanium Lion at Cannes in 2019, then three Gold Effies in 2020, with the Effie case crediting it with raising brand love.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Ads of Brands)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW46iX_2tFo", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Watch on NFL.com", "url": "https://www.nfl.com/videos/microsoft-makes-video-games-accessible-to-everyone-403554", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The top 5 Super Bowl LIII ads, according to Ad Meter", "publisher": "USA Today (2019)", "url": "https://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2019/02/04/the-top-5-super-bowl-liii-ads-according-to-ad-meter/77671741007/" }, { "title": "McCann New York Takes the Grand Prix for Its Adaptive Xbox Controllers in Brand Experience and Activation", "publisher": "Adweek (2019)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/mccann-new-york-takes-the-grand-prix-for-its-adaptive-xbox-controllers-in-brand-experience-and-activation/" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions awards Microsoft with Creative Marketer of the Year", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2021)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/2021-microsoft-creative-marketer-of-the-year" }, { "title": "Winner Feature: Microsoft & McCann New York “Changing the Game,” Presented by Twitter", "publisher": "Effie Worldwide (2020)", "url": "https://effie.org/insights/winner-feature-microsoft-mccann-new-york-changing-the-game-presented-by-twitter/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kW46iX_2tFo/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from We All Win (Microsoft, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Microsoft: We All Win”, uploaded by Ads of Brands", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW46iX_2tFo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kW46iX_2tFo/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sandy-hook-back-to-school-essentials", "title": "Back-to-School Essentials", "brand": "Sandy Hook Promise", "year": 2019, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "emmy-winners", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "A cheerful back-to-school haul video curdles item by item into a school shooting, turning a banal format against viewers' complacency." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "Confronts parents with the threat of a shooting at school, then offers a concrete way to help prevent it: learning the warning signs." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public service announcement", "agency": "BBDO, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Production", "name": "SMUGGLER" } ], "tagline": "It's back to school time. Know the signs.", "why_studied": "The most devastating bait-and-switch in PSA history. What begins as a cheerful back-to-school haul video — new backpack, new sneakers — curdles item by item into a school shooting in progress: the new skateboard is for barricading a door, the new socks a tourniquet, the new phone for a last text to mom. Created by BBDO New York for Sandy Hook Promise, the nonprofit founded by parents of Sandy Hook victims, it aired in September 2019 and won the 2020 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial over work by Apple, Amazon and P&G. It is studied for weaponizing a familiar genre against its audience's complacency — the horror lands precisely because the format is so recognizably banal — and for advocacy advertising that converts discomfort into a specific action: learning the warning signs.", "watch": [ { "label": "Sandy Hook Promise's announcement, with the film", "url": "https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/news/press-releases/sandy-hook-promises-back-to-school-essentials-psa-wins-emmy-award/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Back-to-School Essentials — Sandy Hook Promise (Emmy winner, Outstanding Commercial, 2020)", "publisher": "Television Academy", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/back-school-essentials-sandy-hook-promise" }, { "title": "Sandy Hook Promise's \"Back-to-School Essentials\" PSA Wins Emmy Award", "publisher": "Sandy Hook Promise (2020)", "url": "https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/news/press-releases/sandy-hook-promises-back-to-school-essentials-psa-wins-emmy-award/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/b5ykNZl9mTQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Back-to-School Essentials (Sandy Hook Promise, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Back-To-School Essentials | Sandy Hook Promise”, uploaded by Sandy Hook Promise", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ykNZl9mTQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/b5ykNZl9mTQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "amazon-alexa-loses-her-voice", "title": "Alexa Loses Her Voice", "brand": "Amazon", "year": 2018, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Celebrity stand-ins such as Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Hopkins handle everyday requests badly, turning each cameo into a short sketch." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "By imagining the assistant gone, it proves its usefulness indirectly, with each cameo standing in for a routine request it normally handles." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television commercial", "agency": "Lucky Generals, London, with Amazon D1", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Wayne McClammy" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Hungry Man" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director (Amazon)", "name": "Michael Boychuk" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director (Lucky Generals)", "name": "Danny Brooke-Taylor" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Alexa coughs mid-forecast and falls silent, and Jeff Bezos, playing himself, is assured by his staff that replacements are standing by. Gordon Ramsay then berates a man who cannot make a grilled cheese, Cardi B scoffs at a question about Mars, Rebel Wilson purrs from a bubble bath when asked to set the mood, and Anthony Hopkins channels Hannibal Lecter before the real Alexa returns. Made by London's Lucky Generals with Amazon's in-house D1 team and directed by Wayne McClammy, the 90-second spot aired in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018. It is studied as demonstration by absence: rather than list features, it proves the product's worth by imagining it gone, with each cameo standing in for an everyday request. It won USA Today's 30th Ad Meter, Amazon's first, was nominated for the 2018 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial, and The Drum later placed it among the 100 best ads ever made.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Amazon)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-8DQALGt4", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Alexa irreplaceable as Amazon wins USA TODAY's Ad Meter", "publisher": "USA Today (2018)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2018/02/05/alexa-irreplaceable-amazon-wins-usa-todays-ad-meter/307788002/" }, { "title": "World’s best ads ever #80: Amazon’s ‘Alexa Loses Her Voice’ creates plenty of noise", "publisher": "The Drum (2022)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-80-amazon-s-alexa-loses-her-voice-creates-plenty-noise" }, { "title": "Outstanding Commercial 2018 - Nominees & Winners", "publisher": "Television Academy (2018)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/awards/nominees-winners/2018/outstanding-commercial" }, { "title": "Best of 2018 TV/Film No. 7: Cardi B, Rebel Wilson, Anthony Hopkins and Gordon Ramsay Replace Alexa In Amazon's Super Bowl Ad", "publisher": "Ad Age (2018)", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/amazon-alexa-loses-her-voice/53754/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/J6-8DQALGt4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Alexa Loses Her Voice (Amazon, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Alexa Loses Her Voice – Amazon Super Bowl LII Commercial”, uploaded by amazon", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-8DQALGt4", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/J6-8DQALGt4/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "J6-8DQALGt4", "uploaded_at": "2018-01-31T13:59:16+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "chicken-licken-legend-of-big-john", "title": "The Legend of Big John", "brand": "Chicken Licken", "year": 2018, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Recasts a colonial landing in reverse as an absurd tall tale, with a village hero shrugging off beasts and greeting startled Dutchmen in local slang." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Follows Big John from his village across a perilous ocean voyage to a payoff in which he lands in Holland and decides to call it Europe." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial (plus a longer online cut)", "agency": "Joe Public United", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Grant de Sousa" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "They Shoot Films" }, { "role": "Visual effects", "name": "Chocolate Tribe" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Mphela Mamabolo" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Galaletsang Kgoathe" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Lusindiso Zondani" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A young man named Big Mjohnana sails from his village in 1650, shrugs off a jaguar, a whale, a shark and a giant squid, and lands in Holland in 1651, where he greets two startled Dutchmen in South African slang and decides to call the place Europe. Joe Public's 60-second spot for Chicken Licken's Big John burger flips the Jan van Riebeeck landing that began South Africa's colonisation into a tall-tale origin myth. It is studied as a test case for how far humour can go in post-colonial advertising. After one viewer complained, the Advertising Regulatory Board ordered it off television in December 2018, ruling that colonisation was not open to humorous exploitation. Two appeals failed; the final panel, chaired by Judge Bernard Ngoepe, found it offensive for omitting colonialism's suffering. The ban made international news, yet at the 2019 Loeries the work still won a Gold for online film plus Craft Golds for production design and visual effects.", "watch": [ { "label": "YouTube (AdTV archive, extended cut)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOExF4DLbv4", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "BBC News: Chicken Licken colonialism of Europe advert banned", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46604346", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Decision of the Advertising Regulatory Board: Sandile Cele v Chicken Licken (14 December 2018)", "publisher": "Advertising Regulatory Board of South Africa", "url": "https://www.arb.org.za/assets/chicken-licken-%E2%80%93-sandile-cele---30-11-18.pdf" }, { "title": "South Africa's Chicken Licken colonialism of Europe advert banned", "publisher": "BBC News (2018)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46604346" }, { "title": "Chicken Licken colonisation parody ad's wings permanently clipped", "publisher": "TimesLIVE (2019)", "url": "https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-07-16-chicken-licken-colonisation-parody-ads-wings-permanently-clipped/" }, { "title": "#Loeries2019 Saturday winners: 3 Grands Prix awarded", "publisher": "MarkLives (2019)", "url": "https://www.marklives.com/2019/08/loeries2019-saturday-winners-3-grands-prix-awarded/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QOExF4DLbv4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Legend of Big John (Chicken Licken, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Chicken Licken / Legend of Big John (South Africa)”, uploaded by AdTV", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOExF4DLbv4" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "QOExF4DLbv4", "uploaded_at": "2018-12-07T18:39:02+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tide-its-a-tide-ad", "title": "It's a Tide Ad", "brand": "Tide (Procter & Gamble)", "year": 2018, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Opens with familiar car, beer and razor ad clichés, then has David Harbour interrupt to point at the clean clothes, parodying the whole commercial break." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Super Bowl campaign (multiple spots across the broadcast)", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "David Harbour" } ], "tagline": "If it's clean, it's a Tide ad.", "why_studied": "The cleverest media hack in Super Bowl history. Tide opened every ad-genre cliché — car spot, beer spot, razor spot — before David Harbour interrupted: look at the clean clothes; it's a Tide ad. By seeding spots throughout Super Bowl LII in 2018, the campaign weaponized the entire commercial break: every clean shirt in every other advertiser's spot became, implicitly, a Tide ad. It is studied for turning advertising literacy — the audience's own fluency in ad tropes — into the mechanic itself, and for the strategic jiu-jitsu of hijacking competitors' airtime without buying it. It shared the Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix in 2018.", "watch": [ { "label": "Creative Review's Cannes 2018 winners roundup, with the work", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cannes-lions-winners-2018/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions Winners 2018 (Film Grand Prix shared: \"It's A Tide Ad,\" Saatchi & Saatchi New York)", "publisher": "Creative Review", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cannes-lions-winners-2018/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/B2LXNnqrAlE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from It's a Tide Ad (Tide (Procter & Gamble), 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Tide Super Bowl 2018 TV Commercial, 'It's a Tide Ad' Featuring David Harbour”, uploaded by Top Super Bowl 2022 Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2LXNnqrAlE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/B2LXNnqrAlE/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "B2LXNnqrAlE", "uploaded_at": "2020-02-24T20:29:10+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-dream-crazy", "title": "Dream Crazy", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2018, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "emmy-winners", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Takes a public stance by making a quarterback left unsigned after kneeling during the anthem the face of its anniversary campaign, accepting the backlash." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Kaepernick fronts and narrates the film, lending his own sacrifice to a message about chasing impossible ambitions whatever the cost." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute film and outdoor campaign", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Narrator / Featuring", "name": "Colin Kaepernick" } ], "tagline": "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.", "why_studied": "The defining case of brand risk in the social-media era. For Just Do It's 30th anniversary, Nike made Colin Kaepernick — the quarterback unsigned after kneeling during the anthem — the face and narrator of a film about impossible ambitions, under the line \"Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.\" The backlash was immediate (burned shoes, boycott hashtags, presidential tweets); the results were historic: massive earned media, reported billions added to brand value, and a sales lift in the days after launch. It won the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2019, Cannes Grand Prix in Outdoor and Entertainment for Sport, and the 2021 Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix once the business results matured. It is studied as the moment brand purpose stopped being a safe strategy and proved it could be a commercially rigorous one — when the stance authentically matches the brand's 30-year story.", "watch": [ { "label": "Emmy record for the film (Television Academy)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/dream-crazy-nike", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dream Crazy — Nike (Emmy winner, Outstanding Commercial, 2019)", "publisher": "Television Academy", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/dream-crazy-nike" }, { "title": "Nike's Kaepernick Work Wins Top Effectiveness Lion at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/thanks-to-its-sales-impact-nikes-kaepernick-campaign-wins-top-cannes-effectiveness-award/" }, { "title": "Nike's 'Dream Crazy' wins Outstanding Commercial Emmy", "publisher": "Ad Age (2019)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/advertising/nikes-dream-crazy-nabs-outstanding-commercial-emmy/2197021/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WW2yKSt2C_A/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Dream Crazy (Nike, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nike / Dream Crazy (United States)”, uploaded by AdTV", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW2yKSt2C_A", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WW2yKSt2C_A/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WW2yKSt2C_A", "uploaded_at": "2018-11-12T21:01:02+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "squarespace-calling-johnmalkovich-com", "title": "Calling JohnMalkovich.com", "brand": "Squarespace", "year": 2017, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "emmy-winners", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "The comedy comes from an actor's escalating phone row with a namesake who already owns his web address." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "John Malkovich, playing himself as a new menswear designer, embodies the very panic the product solves: someone else holding your domain." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "JohnXHannes, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Miles Jay" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Smuggler" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "John McKelvey" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Hannes Ciatti" } ], "tagline": "Get your domain before it's gone.", "why_studied": "John Malkovich, newly launched as a menswear designer, sits in his studio on the phone to another John Malkovich, the man who already owns JohnMalkovich.com. The actor reasons, wheedles and finally snaps (\"Get out of my name!\"), and the spot lands its point: get your domain before someone else does. Created by the New York collective JohnXHannes and directed by Miles Jay of Smuggler, the 30-second commercial aired during Super Bowl LI on February 5, 2017; the agency says the idea came from a real case of someone using the actor's domain to sell under his name. It is studied as a counterweight to Super Bowl spectacle: one star, one room, one relatable panic, built squarely around a single product. Up against four earnest nominees promoting unity and inclusion, it won the 2017 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial, the first Emmy for both the agency and Smuggler.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgpesqABI9s", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Calling JohnMalkovich.com - Squarespace", "publisher": "Television Academy (2017)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/calling-johnmalkovichcom-squarespace" }, { "title": "Squarespace’s John Malkovich Spot Wins Primetime Emmy", "publisher": "SHOOT (2017)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/squarespaces-john-malkovich-spot-wins-primetime-emmy/" }, { "title": "Squarespace's Super Bowl Ad With John Malkovich Wins the Emmy for Best Commercial", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/squarespaces-super-bowl-ad-with-john-malkovich-wins-the-emmy-for-best-commercial/" }, { "title": "John Malkovich Gets Testy With His Less Famous Namesake in Squarespace's Super Bowl Ad", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/john-malkovich-gets-testy-with-his-less-famous-namesake-in-squarespaces-super-bowl-ad/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mgpesqABI9s/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Calling JohnMalkovich.com (Squarespace, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “2017. Squarespace - Calling JohnMalkovich.com (John Malkovich) [Super Bowl]”, uploaded by Celebrity TV", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgpesqABI9s", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mgpesqABI9s/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mgpesqABI9s", "uploaded_at": "2021-03-30T04:16:59+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "audi-daughter", "title": "Daughter", "brand": "Audi", "year": 2017, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A closing card commits Audi of America to equal pay for equal work, tying the car brand to a gender-equality cause." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A father's anxious voiceover about how the world will value his daughter turns a soapbox race into an emotional plea." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Aoife McArdle" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Somesuch / Anonymous Content" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Will McGinness" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Justin Moore" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Allison Hayes" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Mike McGuire" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Kathy Hepinstall" } ], "tagline": "Progress is for everyone.", "why_studied": "A girl in a battered helmet races a soapbox cart downhill against a field of boys while her father, in voiceover, wonders what to tell her: that despite her education, drive and skill she will automatically be valued as less than every man she meets? She wins, he hopes he can tell her something different, and a closing card states that Audi of America is committed to equal pay for equal work. Directed by Aoife McArdle for Venables Bell & Partners, the 60-second spot ran in the third quarter of Super Bowl LI on February 5, 2017. It is studied as a defining test of brand purpose: viewers quickly pointed out that only two of Audi's 14 U.S. executives were women, and the film drew roughly ten dislikes for every like on YouTube before the game. Yet it finished third in USA Today's Ad Meter and won a One Show Gold Pencil for writing.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (VCU Brandcenter)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8qV5Ax_xIc", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Audi Addresses the Gender Pay Gap in Its Super Bowl Ad", "publisher": "Ad Age (2017)", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/daughter/50757" }, { "title": "Audi Defends Its Super Bowl Ad About Equal Pay After It Quickly Becomes a Flashpoint", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/audi-defends-its-super-bowl-ad-about-equal-pay-after-it-quickly-becomes-a-flashpoint/" }, { "title": "The Top 5 Super Bowl commercials according to Ad Meter", "publisher": "USA Today (2017)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2017/02/07/super-bowl-ad-meter-top-5-commercials/97586718/" }, { "title": "Daughter", "publisher": "The One Club (2017)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/26796/daughter/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y8qV5Ax_xIc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Daughter (Audi, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Audi: Daughter - 2017 Super Bowl Commercial”, uploaded by VCU Brandcenter", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8qV5Ax_xIc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Y8qV5Ax_xIc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Y8qV5Ax_xIc", "uploaded_at": "2020-01-31T14:04:36+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "84-lumber-the-journey", "title": "The Journey", "brand": "84 Lumber", "year": 2017, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A mother and daughter's journey north unfolds as a cliffhanger, with the ending at a door in a border wall held back." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers must visit the brand's website to see how the story ends, so the broadcast spot works as a prompt to act." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television commercial with a 5-minute-44-second online conclusion", "agency": "Brunner, Pittsburgh", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Cole Webley" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Sanctuary Content" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Rob Schapiro" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Derek Julin" } ], "tagline": "The will to succeed is always welcome here.", "why_studied": "A mother and her young daughter leave Mexico and head north on foot, by truck and by train, intercut with construction workers building something we never quite see. For its first Super Bowl ad, the family-owned 84 Lumber planned to show the ending on air: the pair reach a towering border wall, then find a door built into it. Fox would not clear the wall, so the brand, the agency Brunner and director Cole Webley turned the 90-second broadcast cut, \"The Journey Begins,\" into a cliffhanger that sent viewers to Journey84.com for the full 5-minute-44-second film. It ran just before halftime of Super Bowl LI on February 5, 2017, and the company says the site took 300,000 requests in its first minute, briefly crashing. It is studied as censorship turned into a traffic driver, and as a lesson in risk: Brandwatch found it the night's most-mentioned advertiser, yet it placed 29th of 66 in Ad Meter. It won a One Show Bronze Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch the broadcast cut on YouTube (84 Lumber)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Uk6ctu7nI", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch the full journey on YouTube (84 Lumber)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPo2B-vjZ28", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Spring 2017 Director's Profile: Cole Webley", "publisher": "SHOOT (2017)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/spring-2017-directors-profile-cole-webley/" }, { "title": "84 Lumber Super Bowl ad so hot Fox made them change it", "publisher": "TribLIVE (2017)", "url": "https://archive.triblive.com/news/pennsylvania/84-lumber-super-bowl-ad-so-hot-fox-made-them-change-it/" }, { "title": "Kia and Audi rank highly in Super Bowl postmortems", "publisher": "The Drum (2017)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/kia-and-audi-rank-highly-super-bowl-postmortems" }, { "title": "The Journey", "publisher": "The One Club (2017)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/25780/the-journey/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/J0Uk6ctu7nI/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Journey (84 Lumber, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “84 Lumber Super Bowl Commercial | The Journey Begins”, uploaded by 84 Lumber", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Uk6ctu7nI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/J0Uk6ctu7nI/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "J0Uk6ctu7nI", "uploaded_at": "2017-02-02T19:02:16+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pg-the-talk", "title": "The Talk", "brand": "Procter & Gamble (My Black Is Beautiful)", "year": 2017, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "emmy-winners" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "With no product on screen, ties the My Black Is Beautiful platform to confronting racial bias and invites the conversation through its hashtag." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A mother's warning that being pulled over is about coming home, not a ticket, makes the fear Black parents carry painfully felt." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Moves across several decades of parents sitting their children down, building to a present-day scene between a mother and her teenage daughter." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute film, cut for national television", "agency": "BBDO New York, with Egami Consulting Group", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Malik Vitthal" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "The Corner Shop" } ], "tagline": "#TalkAboutBias", "why_studied": "Across several decades, Black parents sit their children down for a conversation that most white families never have to hold: how to carry themselves in a world that will judge them by race. In the present-day scene a mother explains to her teenage daughter, who insists she is a careful driver, that being pulled over is not about getting a ticket but about coming home. No P&G product appears. Made by BBDO New York with the multicultural consultancy Egami for P&G's My Black Is Beautiful platform, it was released online in July 2017 ahead of national television, and drew both praise and accusations of being anti-police. It is studied as a landmark in a mass-market advertiser confronting racial bias directly, built from lived experience and accepting the backlash as part of the cost. Directed by Malik Vitthal, it won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions in 2018, a One Show Gold Pencil and that year's Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (P&G Careers, subtitled cut)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFt0OHC3CDg", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How P&G's 'The Talk,' a Grand Prix Winner in Film, Brought a New Level of Empathy to Advertising", "publisher": "Adweek (2018)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/how-pgs-the-talk-a-grand-prix-winner-in-film-brought-a-new-level-of-empathy-to-advertising/" }, { "title": "P&G's \"The Talk\" Wins Primetime Commercial Emmy Award", "publisher": "SHOOT (2018)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/pgs-talk-wins-primetime-commercial-emmy-award/" }, { "title": "Procter & Gamble takes calculated risk with 'The Talk' ad", "publisher": "Associated Press (2017)", "url": "https://apnews.com/article/4402e474487943ecae6bcae2af39bc8f" }, { "title": "P&G | P&G My Black is Beautiful | The Talk — 2018 One Show Gold Pencil", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/30056/pg-my-black-is-beautiful-the-talk/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hFt0OHC3CDg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Talk (Procter & Gamble (My Black Is Beautiful), 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “P&G - The Talk - Subtitled”, uploaded by P&G Careers", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFt0OHC3CDg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hFt0OHC3CDg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "hFt0OHC3CDg", "uploaded_at": "2019-06-20T19:02:19+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nfl-super-bowl-babies-choir", "title": "Super Bowl Babies Choir", "brand": "NFL", "year": 2016, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Its cheeky premise celebrates fans born about nine months after their team's title wins, turning a piece of sports folklore into a wink." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A rewritten pop hit, sung by Seal with a choir of real fans, carries the message and leans on the word 'baby'." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Grey, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Lance Acord" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Chris Wilcha" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Andreas Dahlqvist" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Leo Savage" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Jeff Stamp" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Park Pictures" } ], "tagline": "Football is family.", "why_studied": "For its 50th Super Bowl, the NFL turned a piece of sports folklore into a choir. Grey New York worked with eight championship franchises to find real fans born about nine months after their parents' teams won the title, put them in team-colored robes and had them sing a rewritten \"Kiss from a Rose\" alongside Seal. Directed by Lance Acord and Chris Wilcha, the 60-second spot aired right after the third quarter of Super Bowl 50 on February 7, 2016. It is studied as a league selling an abstract idea, \"Football Is Family,\" through one cheeky, specific human truth, and as a lesson in music casting: Grey reportedly chose the song partly because it leans on the word \"baby.\" It won a Gold Lion in the Entertainment Lions for Music at Cannes and a One Show Gold Pencil for creative use of music, and USA Today later ranked it among the 100 best Ad Meter commercials of the previous 25 years.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (NFL)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leU-mgKfdcs", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Seal, The NFL, Grey and the ‘Super Bowl Babies’ Remember When Some Football Fans Got Lucky", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/seal-the-nfl-grey-and-the-super-bowl-babies-remember-when-some-football-fans-got-lucky/" }, { "title": "#CannesLions2016: Entertainment Lions for Music winners!", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2016)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/146878.html" }, { "title": "Super Bowl Babies", "publisher": "The One Club (2016)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/23698/super-bowl-babies/" }, { "title": "Super Bowl Silver: Best of Ad Meter commercials over 25 years", "publisher": "USA Today (2020)", "url": "https://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2020/01/13/super-bowl-silver-best-of-ad-meter-commercials-over-25-years/77671619007/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/leU-mgKfdcs/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Super Bowl Babies Choir (NFL, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Super Bowl Babies Choir feat. Seal | Super Bowl 50 Commercial”, uploaded by NFL", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leU-mgKfdcs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/leU-mgKfdcs/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "leU-mgKfdcs", "uploaded_at": "2016-02-08T02:33:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "loteria-de-navidad-justino", "title": "Justino", "brand": "Lotería de Navidad (Loterías y Apuestas del Estado)", "year": 2015, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Follows a night watchman who befriends the unseen day shift through mannequin scenes, with a payoff in which the colleagues he cares for remember him." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Carries the lottery's message that sharing is the biggest prize through warmth and tenderness rather than any fantasy of winning." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Animated television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Leo Burnett Madrid", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Againstallodds" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Passion Pictures" }, { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Juan García-Escudero, Jesús Lada" }, { "role": "Spanish production and post-production", "name": "Blur Films" }, { "role": "CG production", "name": "Milford Creative Studio" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "\"Nuvole Bianche\" – Ludovico Einaudi, arranged by Joan Martorell" } ], "tagline": "El mayor premio es compartirlo", "why_studied": "Justino guards a mannequin factory by night, so he never meets the colleagues who work by day, until he starts talking to them through the dummies, leaving little scenes and jokes for the morning shift to find. Absorbed in doing things for others, he forgets himself; his co-workers do not. Leo Burnett Madrid's film for El Gordo, Spain's Christmas lottery, was the first in the draw's history built on an animated short, directed over four months by Againstallodds at Passion Pictures and scored to Ludovico Einaudi's \"Nuvole Bianche.\" It is studied for carrying the lottery's line, \"El mayor premio es compartirlo\" (the biggest prize is sharing it), through a character rather than a fantasy of winning, and for letting him live beyond the break on Instagram. Launched on TV and in cinemas on November 17, 2015, it was credited with lifting ticket sales by more than 4%, and at Cannes in 2016 it won the Cyber Grand Prix, only the fifth Grand Prix in Spain's history at the festival.", "watch": [ { "label": "Leo Burnett Spain (Leo España) on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1mlWgX1TjA", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "El anuncio de Lotería de Navidad 2015 ya está aquí", "publisher": "Reason Why (2015)", "url": "https://www.reasonwhy.es/actualidad/campanas/el-anuncio-de-loteria-de-navidad-2015-ya-esta-aqui-2015-11-16" }, { "title": "A lottery ad that feels like a Pixar film, \"Night Shift\"", "publisher": "Motionographer (2015)", "url": "https://motionographer.com/2015/11/19/a-lottery-ad-that-feels-like-a-pixar-film-loteria-de-navidad/" }, { "title": "#CannesLions2016: Cyber Lions winners!", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2016)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/146727.html" }, { "title": "Dulce batacazo nacional", "publisher": "Reason Why (2016)", "url": "https://www.reasonwhy.es/actualidad/sector/dulce-batacazo-nacional-2016-06-25" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Q1mlWgX1TjA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Justino (Lotería de Navidad (Loterías y Apuestas del Estado), 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Anuncio Lotería de Navidad 2015 - #Justino [HD]”, uploaded by Leo España", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1mlWgX1TjA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Q1mlWgX1TjA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Q1mlWgX1TjA", "uploaded_at": "2015-11-24T12:28:23+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-its-beautiful", "title": "It's Beautiful", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2014, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "A patriotic anthem passed between voices in seven languages borrows the emotion of national belonging and attaches it to the brand." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Showing cowboy hats, hijabs and a family with two dads, it takes a public stance on who counts as American." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "John Hillcoat" }, { "role": "Composer", "name": "Robert Miller" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Skunk" } ], "tagline": "America Is Beautiful", "why_studied": "\"America the Beautiful\" passes from voice to voice and from language to language (seven of them, by Coca-Cola's count) over a montage of American life: cowboy hats and hijabs, families dining out and roller-skating, and a family with two dads. Wieden+Kennedy Portland made the 60-second film and John Hillcoat directed it. It aired during Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014, and by the next morning critics were cataloguing tweets demanding the song be sung in English, while supporters answered just as loudly. It is studied as a brand deliberately stepping into a national argument about who counts as American: it was reported as the first Super Bowl ad to show gay parents, and the online fight it provoked became the subject of peer-reviewed research on multilingualism. Coca-Cola had already planned a 90-second version for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony days later, and it re-ran the film in the pregame show of Super Bowl LI in 2017, amid that year's divisive political climate.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on Wieden+Kennedy's site", "url": "https://www.wk.com/work/coca-cola-it's-beautiful/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4BC8zUfNhU", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Coca-Cola's “It's Beautiful” Super Bowl Ad Brings Out Some Ugly Americans", "publisher": "TIME (2014)", "url": "https://time.com/3773/coca-colas-its-beautiful-super-bowl-ad-brings-out-some-ugly-americans/" }, { "title": "America is Beautiful and Coca-Cola is for Everyone", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company (2014)", "url": "https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/653/america-is-beautiful-and-coca-cola-is-for-everyone" }, { "title": "Online Responses to a Multilingual Super Bowl Ad: Is \"America the Beautiful\" by Any Other Language Still America, the Beautiful?", "publisher": "International Journal of Multilingualism, via ERIC (2016)", "url": "https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1090549" }, { "title": "From Immigration to Presidential Hair, Super Bowl Ads Tackle Politics, Big League", "publisher": "Associated Press via NBC4 Washington (2017)", "url": "https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/super-bowl-ads-tackle-politics-big-league/90438/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/D4BC8zUfNhU/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from It's Beautiful (Coca-Cola, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca Cola Super Bowl Commercial 2014 \"Its Beautiful\" HD 720p”, uploaded by Trailer Tube", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4BC8zUfNhU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/D4BC8zUfNhU/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "D4BC8zUfNhU", "uploaded_at": "2014-02-03T00:56:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nzta-mistakes", "title": "Mistakes", "brand": "NZ Transport Agency", "year": 2014, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "Freezes two cars moments before a collision to show that driving a little too fast leaves no room for other people's mistakes, so slow down." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Time stops, both drivers step out to own their errors and the father pleads for his son, before they get back in and the crash happens." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television and cinema commercial (also cut to 60 seconds)", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO, Wellington", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Derin Seale" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Finch" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Philip Andrew" }, { "role": "Director of photography", "name": "Stefan Duscio" }, { "role": "Editor", "name": "Drew Thompson" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Karlos Drinkwater, Tim Foley" } ], "tagline": "Other people make mistakes. Slow down.", "why_studied": "Two cars are about to collide: one driven by a man in a shirt and tie, late for work and going a little too fast, the other by a father who has made a misjudgement, his young son in the back seat. Time stops. Both men step out and talk in the middle of the road, each owning his mistake, the father pleading for his boy, before they get back in and the crash happens. Clemenger BBDO Wellington aimed it at competent drivers who sit just over the limit and do not call that speeding. Rather than argue with their faith in their own skill, the film accepts it and points out that they cannot control anyone else's errors. Directed by Derin Seale for Finch, it travelled far beyond New Zealand, with some 20 countries asking to use it. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes, a One Show Gold Pencil and a D&AD Yellow Pencil, and D&AD describes it as the most-watched video in New Zealand's history.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Digital Creative)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2MGCV-92e4", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/mistakes", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Mistakes", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/mistakes" }, { "title": "Advertising Gold", "publisher": "The One Club (2014)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/articles/all/-view/advertising-gold/" }, { "title": "REPOST - NZTA And Finch Show How 'Mistakes' Can Have Consequences", "publisher": "shots (2014)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/repost-nzta-and-finch-show-how-mistakes-can-have-consequences" }, { "title": "We all make mistakes", "publisher": "NZ Transport Agency (2014)", "url": "https://www.nzta.govt.nz/media-releases/we-all-make-mistakes/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/O2MGCV-92e4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Mistakes (NZ Transport Agency, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NEW ZEALAND TRANSPORT AGENCY MISTAKES”, uploaded by Digital Creative", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2MGCV-92e4", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/O2MGCV-92e4/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "O2MGCV-92e4", "uploaded_at": "2014-10-13T08:24:34+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser-puppy-love", "title": "Puppy Love", "brand": "Budweiser", "brand_slug": "budweiser", "year": 2014, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A wordless story follows a puppy that, even after being adopted, keeps coming back to the Clydesdale it loves." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Puppies, horses and a single song with no dialogue are there to stir affection, which the brand then attaches to itself." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Anomaly, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jake Scott" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "“Let Her Go” by Passenger" }, { "role": "Cast (trainer)", "name": "Don Jeanes" } ], "tagline": "#BestBuds", "why_studied": "A Labrador puppy has fallen for a Clydesdale, and even after it is adopted it keeps coming back home to the horse. There is no dialogue, only Passenger's \"Let Her Go.\" Anomaly, which had made 2013's Ad Meter winner \"Brotherhood,\" brought back the same lead actor, Don Jeanes, and director Jake Scott shot it with eight puppies and 17 Clydesdales. What makes it a case study is the release: Budweiser put it on YouTube on January 29, four days before Super Bowl XLVIII, and Ad Age crowned it the pre-game champion after it passed 23 million views in about three days; Unruly counted 1.14 million shares before kickoff. Aired with about two minutes left in the game on February 2, 2014, it still won USA Today's Ad Meter, Anheuser-Busch's 12th win in 14 years, finished as Unruly's most shared ad of that Super Bowl, and was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hck3cXzg4_M", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Puppy Love': 2014 Ad Meter winner", "publisher": "USA Today (2014)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/02/ad-meter-winner-story/5087939/" }, { "title": "Further Review: Budweiser's 'Puppy Love' Grabs the Pre-Super Bowl Crown", "publisher": "Ad Age (2014)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/budweiser-s-puppy-love-grabs-pre-super-bowl-crown/291428/" }, { "title": "Budweiser's “Puppy Love” Ad Wins Super Bowl XLVIII", "publisher": "Unruly (2014)", "url": "https://unruly.co/news/article/2014/02/06/budweisers-puppy-love-ad-wins-super-bowl-xlviii/" }, { "title": "Outstanding Commercial 2014 - Nominees & Winners", "publisher": "Television Academy (2014)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/awards/nominees-winners/2014/outstanding-commercial" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hck3cXzg4_M/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Puppy Love (Budweiser, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “▶ Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial Puppy Love”, uploaded by Swapnoo Rohit De", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hck3cXzg4_M" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "hck3cXzg4_M", "uploaded_at": "2015-02-02T10:37:40+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lacoste-the-big-leap", "title": "The Big Leap", "brand": "Lacoste", "year": 2014, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Turns a man's nervous wait for a first kiss into a literal plunge into the void, tying the brand to the emotional courage of love." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "BETC, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Seb Edwards" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Wanda" }, { "role": "Visual effects", "name": "MPC" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Rémi Babinet and Antoine Choque" } ], "tagline": "Life is a beautiful sport", "why_studied": "A man sits a few centimetres from the woman he loves, working up the nerve for a first kiss, and the film turns that moment into a literal plunge: he leaps into the void and falls without knowing where he will land. Directed by Seb Edwards for BETC Paris, with visual effects by MPC, it was Lacoste's first advertising film and launched the brand promise “Life is a beautiful sport”, recasting the tennis label's founding values of tenacity and panache as an everyday, emotional courage. It is studied as a case of sports-brand values translated into romance, with the polo shirt reduced to a supporting role and the idea carried by one metaphor. It premiered in France during the 2014 Winter Olympics before rolling out worldwide, was recognised at the One Show in 2015, and, BETC reports, made Flume's remix of Disclosure's “You & Me” a hit, reaching No. 2 in the French charts.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official agency upload (BETC Paris, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4t00D_IPVk", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Big Leap", "publisher": "BETC", "url": "https://www.betc.com/en/work/lacoste-the-big-leap" }, { "title": "Lacoste 'Life Is A Beautiful Sport'", "publisher": "LBB Online (2014)", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/lacoste-life-is-a-beautiful-sport" }, { "title": "The big leap", "publisher": "The One Club (One Show 2015)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/22417/the-big-leap/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/n4t00D_IPVk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Big Leap (Lacoste, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Lacoste - The Big Leap”, uploaded by BETC Paris", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4t00D_IPVk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/n4t00D_IPVk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "n4t00D_IPVk", "uploaded_at": "2017-05-29T07:56:56+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "thai-life-insurance-unsung-hero", "title": "Unsung Hero", "brand": "Thai Life Insurance", "year": 2014, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Builds to a tearful reveal that a penniless man's small kindnesses have changed lives, so an insurer sells the value of a life rather than a policy." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Tracks a poor young man's daily kindnesses, which seem to earn him nothing, until the payoff reveals the girl in school and the plant thriving." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Long-form television commercial (premiered on YouTube, then broadcast on TV)", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director / copywriter / art director", "name": "Korn Tepintarapiraksa" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Thanonchai Sornsriwichai" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Phenomena, Bangkok" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A young man with almost nothing spends his days on small kindnesses: he waters a dying plant, feeds a stray dog, brings bananas to an elderly neighbour and gives money to a girl begging on the street. \"He gets nothing,\" the subtitles say, until the film shows what he does receive: the girl in school, the plant thriving, the dog healthy at his side. Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok and director Thanonchai Sornsriwichai of Phenomena built it from a true story of a New Yorker who fed the homeless, and Thai Life premiered the commercial on YouTube before its television run. It drew six million views in nine days and 27 million by early 2016, fuelling the \"try not to cry\" reaction videos the Wall Street Journal called a digital spectator sport. It is studied as a defining example of Thailand's tear-jerker school: an insurer selling the value of a life rather than a policy, and the long-form TV spot reborn as a film people choose to share.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official Thai Life Insurance upload (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWA2GbcnJU", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "เจาะลึก 10 เบื้องหลังแซ่บๆโฆษณาไทยประกันชีวิต \"Unsung Hero\" (10 behind-the-scenes facts on Thai Life's 'Unsung Hero')", "publisher": "Brand Buffet, Thailand (2014)", "url": "https://www.brandbuffet.in.th/2014/04/unsung-hero-thai-life-insurance/" }, { "title": "Crying to heartbreaking Thai adverts has become a 'digital spectator sport'", "publisher": "The Independent (2016)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/thai-companies-release-heartbreaking-adverts-to-rival-man-on-the-moon-from-john-lewis-all-year-round-a6796091.html" }, { "title": "TVC Thai Life Insurance: 'Unsung Hero'", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/tvc-thai-life-insurance/" }, { "title": "All Of Thailand Is Compulsively Weeping Over This One Life Insurance Ad", "publisher": "Business Insider (2014)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/thai-life-tearjerker-ad-2014-4" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/uaWA2GbcnJU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Unsung Hero (Thai Life Insurance, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Unsung Hero | ไทยประกันชีวิต (TLI)”, uploaded by thailifechannel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWA2GbcnJU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/uaWA2GbcnJU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "uaWA2GbcnJU", "uploaded_at": "2014-04-03T09:37:57+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "john-lewis-monty-the-penguin", "title": "Monty the Penguin", "brand": "John Lewis", "year": 2014, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Tugs at Christmas sentiment through a boy's tender bond with his lonely penguin, attaching that warmth to giving someone the perfect gift." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Builds an arc around Monty's growing loneliness, then turns on Christmas morning when the gift arrives and he is revealed as a toy brought alive by imagination." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute Christmas television commercial and integrated campaign", "agency": "adam&eveDDB, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Music", "name": "Tom Odell, \"Real Love\" (John Lennon cover)" } ], "tagline": "Give someone the Christmas they've been dreaming of.", "why_studied": "The peak of the modern Christmas-ad genre John Lewis invented. A boy's best friend — a CGI penguin named Monty — grows visibly lonely until Christmas morning reveals both the gift (a penguin companion) and the truth: Monty was a toy, animated by a child's imagination all along. Launched in November 2014, it trended worldwide within an hour, sold out its toy line, and delivered documented business results rare for emotional brand film: a record £175m sales week, £141m in incremental revenue, and a 7.44:1 profit return per pound spent. It is studied as the definitive case for long-term emotional brand-building in retail — and it won both the Cannes Film Craft Grand Prix (2015) and the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix (2016), the industry's craft and commerce prizes for the same piece of work.", "watch": [ { "label": "Thinkbox case study, with the film", "url": "https://www.thinkbox.tv/case-studies/john-lewis-and-the-christmas-penguin-that-melted-the-nations-hearts", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "John Lewis and the Christmas penguin that melted the nation's hearts (results)", "publisher": "Thinkbox", "url": "https://www.thinkbox.tv/case-studies/john-lewis-and-the-christmas-penguin-that-melted-the-nations-hearts" }, { "title": "John Lewis unveils Christmas ad starring Monty the penguin", "publisher": "The Guardian (2014)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/06/john-lewis-unveils-christmas-ad-starring-monty-the-penguin" }, { "title": "adam&eveDDB Wins Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix at Cannes for 'Monty the Penguin'", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/adameveddb-wins-creative-effectiveness-grand-prix-cannes-monty-penguin-172127/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iccscUFY860/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Monty the Penguin (John Lewis, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “John Lewis Christmas Advert 2014 - #MontyThePenguin”, uploaded by John Lewis", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iccscUFY860", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iccscUFY860/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mercedes-benz-chicken", "title": "Chicken", "brand": "Mercedes-Benz", "year": 2013, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Handlers sway live chickens whose heads stay perfectly still, a visual analogy that makes invisible suspension engineering easy to grasp." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Sets the swaying, head-steady chickens to Diana Ross as a sight gag anyone gets in seconds, before the product point lands." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "45-second television commercial", "agency": "Jung von Matt/Neckar, Stuttgart", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Daniel Warwick" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Bigfish, Berlin" } ], "tagline": "Stabilität in jeder Situation. Magic Body Control.", "why_studied": "To Diana Ross's \"Upside Down\", handlers lift, sway and twist live chickens, and while the birds' bodies dance in every direction, their heads stay locked perfectly still. Only at the end does the analogy land, with the line \"Stabilität in jeder Situation\" (stability in every situation) and the name Magic Body Control, the new S-Class suspension that scans the road for bumps and adjusts itself automatically. Created by Jung von Matt/Neckar in Stuttgart and directed by Daniel Warwick, it is studied as a model of demonstration by analogy, turning an invisible piece of engineering into a sight gag anyone can grasp in seconds. Released online in September 2013 ahead of its German TV run, it topped Horizont and Google's September ranking of YouTube ads in Germany, with more than five million views. It won the only D&AD Yellow Pencil awarded to German work in 2014, and readers of the car magazine Auto Express later voted it car ad of the year with 51% of the vote.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Mercedes-Benz Group)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYplwxKCjFU", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Was Michael Schumacher mit groovenden Hühnern gemeinsam hat", "publisher": "Horizont (2013)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/marketing/nachrichten/Mercedes-Kampagne-Was-Michael-Schumacher-mit-groovenden-Huehnern-gemeinsam-hat-116896" }, { "title": "Mercedes-Hühner führen Online-Werbevideo-Ranking im September an", "publisher": "Horizont (2013)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/marketing/nachrichten/Youtube-Charts-Mercedes-Huehner-fuehren-Online-Werbevideo-Ranking-im-September-an-117251" }, { "title": "JvM holt einzigen Pencil für Deutschland", "publisher": "Horizont (2014)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/agenturen/nachrichten/DAD-Global-Awards-JvM-holt-einzigen-Pencil-fuer-Deutschland-120654" }, { "title": "Mercedes 'chicken' crowned best car ad of the year by Auto Express", "publisher": "Campaign (2014)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/mercedes-chicken-crowned-best-car-ad-year-auto-express/1303871" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NYplwxKCjFU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Chicken (Mercedes-Benz, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Mercedes-Benz “Chicken” MAGIC BODY CONTROL TV commercial”, uploaded by Mercedes-Benz Group", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYplwxKCjFU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NYplwxKCjFU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "NYplwxKCjFU", "uploaded_at": "2020-06-23T11:13:23+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ram-trucks-farmer", "title": "Farmer", "brand": "Ram Trucks", "year": 2013, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Still photographs of working farmers and a late broadcaster's tribute to their labour present the truck brand as one with ordinary rural Americans." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Paul Harvey's reverent recording over quiet farm images stirs admiration and pride without the brand name ever being spoken." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Each online view of the film triggered a donation to the National FFA Organization, tying the spot to support for future farmers." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute television commercial", "agency": "The Richards Group, Dallas", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Rob Baker, Jimmy Bonner" }, { "role": "Narration (archival recording)", "name": "Paul Harvey" }, { "role": "Photographers", "name": "William Albert Allard, Andy Anderson, Jim Arndt, Daniel Beltrá, Mark Gooch, Andy Mahr, Kurt Markus, David Spielman, Matthew Turley, Olaf Veltman" } ], "tagline": "To the farmer in all of us.", "why_studied": "Essentially a two-minute slideshow that never speaks its brand name, \"Farmer\" lays the late broadcaster Paul Harvey's original recording of \"So God Made a Farmer,\" his decades-old speech to the Future Farmers of America, over still photographs of farm life. The Richards Group in Dallas commissioned ten photographers, among them William Albert Allard and Kurt Markus, and its creative directors say they sifted more than 100,000 images down to 35. The spot aired in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLVII on February 3, 2013, placed third in USA Today's Ad Meter and won YouTube's Ad Blitz vote. It is studied as cause marketing that also moved trucks: Ram pledged a donation to the National FFA Organization for every view of the video on its website and reached the 10 million views needed for $1 million in under a week, and Chrysler argued the campaign helped lift Ram pickup sales 15 percent in the first quarter.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPREJDgTpSM", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "“So God Made a Farmer”", "publisher": "Communication Arts (2013)", "url": "https://www.commarts.com/columns/so-god-made-a-farmer" }, { "title": "Budweiser Tops USA Today Ad Meter With Sentimental Clydesdale Spot", "publisher": "Sports Business Journal (2013)", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2013/02/04/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Ads-Positive.aspx" }, { "title": "Ram Truck Brand Reaches 'Farmer' Video Viewing Goal in Less Than One Week; $1 Million Donation Going to National FFA Organization", "publisher": "Chrysler Group via PR Newswire (2013)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ram-truck-brand-reaches-farmer-video-viewing-goal-in-less-than-one-week-1-million-donation-going-to-national-ffa-organization-191217161.html" }, { "title": "Chrysler Harvests Ram Sales Gain Via Super Bowl 'Farmer' Ad", "publisher": "Forbes (2013)", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2013/04/30/chrysler-harvests-ram-sales-gain-via-super-bowl-farmer-ad/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/dPREJDgTpSM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Farmer (Ram Trucks, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Ram Truck 2013 Super Bowl Commercial \"Farmer\"”, uploaded by Motor1", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPREJDgTpSM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/dPREJDgTpSM/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "dPREJDgTpSM", "uploaded_at": "2013-02-04T17:27:21+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "three-the-pony", "title": "The Pony", "brand": "Three (UK)", "year": 2013, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A stocky Shetland pony moonwalking to Fleetwood Mac embodies the silly clips people send each other, which the network promises to stand up for." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "A Pony Mixer lets viewers re-score the dance and send it to friends, with favourite fan versions later broadcast on television." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "60-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Dougal Wilson" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Blink" }, { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Freddie Powell and Hollie Walker" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Fleetwood Mac, “Everywhere”" } ], "tagline": "Silly stuff. It matters.", "why_studied": "On a windswept Shetland hillside a stocky little pony called Socks moonwalks and tosses his mane to Fleetwood Mac's “Everywhere”. Wieden+Kennedy London built the spot on an insight about mobile data: the silly clips people send one another are how they stay close, so Three, the UK's fourth network, would stand up for the internet's silliest stuff. Dougal Wilson directed the 60- and 30-second films, and a “Pony Mixer” on YouTube let viewers re-score the dance and send it to friends, with favourite fan versions later broadcast on TV. It is studied as a template for a television ad engineered to be shared: W+K reports 1.5 million YouTube views on the launch weekend, 190,000 tweets using #DancePonyDance during the campaign and a 67 per cent rise in positive sentiment, and Three's finance director later claimed it beat O2's rival campaign on views at half the media and production spend.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (TV Advert Archive)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7gin6fEiFE", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Three \"the pony\" by Wieden & Kennedy", "publisher": "Campaign (2013)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/three-the-pony-wieden-kennedy/1173503" }, { "title": "Three: Pony", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy", "url": "https://www.wk.com/work/three-pony/" }, { "title": "behold the plucky little wonder pony", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy London (2013)", "url": "https://wklondon.com/2013/03/behold-the-plucky-little-wonder-pony/" }, { "title": "Three: Pony ad campaign bigger hit than O2’s ‘be more dog’", "publisher": "Mobile News (2014)", "url": "https://mobilenewscwp.co.uk/news/article/three-pony-ad-campaign-bigger-hit-than-o2s-be-more-dog/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/O7gin6fEiFE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Pony (Three (UK), 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Moonwalking Pony TV Commercial 3 Mobile | UK TV ADVERT”, uploaded by TV Advert Archive", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7gin6fEiFE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/O7gin6fEiFE/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "O7gin6fEiFE", "uploaded_at": "2020-07-25T21:24:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "chrysler-halftime-in-america", "title": "Halftime in America", "brand": "Chrysler", "year": 2012, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Casting the country's hard times as halftime in America, it links the carmaker to Detroit's fight back and to national resolve." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Scenes of people out of work and hurting build a mood of hardship and defiance before any brand appears." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Clint Eastwood's rasping narration lends a famous, weathered voice to the call for a national comeback." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute television commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "David Gordon Green" }, { "role": "Narrator", "name": "Clint Eastwood" }, { "role": "Copywriters", "name": "Kevin Jones, Smith Henderson, Matthew Dickman" }, { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Aaron Allen, Michael Tabtabai, Joe Staples" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Jimm Lasser" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Directors", "name": "Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Chelsea" } ], "tagline": "Imported from Detroit", "why_studied": "A lean silhouette walks down a darkened stadium tunnel and Clint Eastwood's rasp begins: \"It's halftime in America, too.\" For two minutes, Wieden+Kennedy Portland's film for Chrysler sets people who are out of work and hurting against a Detroit that almost lost everything and is fighting again, and gives no sign it is selling anything until brand logos close it out. Directed by David Gordon Green, with copy credited to Kevin Jones, Smith Henderson and the poet Matthew Dickman, it ran at halftime of Super Bowl XLVI on February 5, 2012. It is studied as the car commercial that walked into an election-year argument: Karl Rove said he was offended by it, Chrysler chief Sergio Marchionne insisted it carried no political message, and Chrysler said Eastwood's fee would go to charity. It finished second in YouTube's Ad Blitz vote and was nominated for the 2012 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIVjCghMo2E", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Clint Eastwood, Portland's Wieden+Kennedy score with Chrysler's 'It's Halftime in America'", "publisher": "The Oregonian (2012)", "url": "https://www.oregonlive.com/playbooks-profits/2012/02/clint_eastwood_portlands_wiede.html" }, { "title": "Clint Eastwood Super Bowl Ad for Chrysler Was Directed by David Gordon Green, Written by Acclaimed Authors", "publisher": "Slate (2012)", "url": "https://slate.com/culture/2012/02/clint-eastwood-super-bowl-ad-for-chrysler-was-directed-by-david-gordon-green-written-by-acclaimed-authors.html" }, { "title": "M&M's Wins YouTube's Super Bowl Ad Blitz Contest", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/mms-wins-youtubes-super-bowl-ad-blitz-contest-138418/" }, { "title": "It's Halftime In America | Emmy Awards and Nominations", "publisher": "Television Academy (2012)", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/its-halftime-america" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FIVjCghMo2E/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Halftime in America (Chrysler, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “2012 Super Bowl Chrysler Commercial, \"It's Halftime in America\"”, uploaded by InsideLineVideo", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIVjCghMo2E", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FIVjCghMo2E/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "FIVjCghMo2E", "uploaded_at": "2012-02-06T02:02:17+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cartier-lodyssee-de-cartier", "title": "L'Odyssée de Cartier", "brand": "Cartier", "year": 2012, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Sends a living panther on an epic journey through snowbound St Petersburg, along the Great Wall and into an imagined Indian palace before returning to the Place Vendôme." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Parades heritage pieces and far-flung chapters of the house's history to display its breadth and pedigree to markets where its breadth was little known." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Brings the house's own emblem, the panther, to life as the hero who guides viewers through the world of Cartier." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "3-minute-30-second television and cinema film", "agency": "Marcel and Publicis 133, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Bruno Aveillan" }, { "role": "Original score (orchestra conducted by)", "name": "Pierre Adenot" }, { "role": "Featuring", "name": "Shalom Harlow" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Cartier's emblem, the panther, comes to life and sets off across the world of the house: through a snowbound St Petersburg, along the Great Wall of China and into an imaginary Indian palace inspired by the Tutti Frutti jewels, passing heritage pieces such as Maria Pavlovna's jewels and the Santos-Dumont watch, before returning to the Place Vendôme, where model Shalom Harlow waits. Directed by Bruno Aveillan for Marcel and Publicis 133, the three-and-a-half-minute film was Cartier's first institutional campaign since 1994, made for its 165th anniversary and aimed partly at emerging markets where the breadth of the brand was little known. It was first broadcast in March 2012 on TF1 and Canal+ outside the ad breaks, and in cinemas. It is studied as a benchmark of luxury storytelling on an epic scale: three real panthers filmed from Prague to the Dolomites, Spain and Paris, an 84-piece orchestra, and a reported budget of about €4 million. It won the Grand Prix Stratégies du luxe in 2012.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (julien d)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpDssef_Uac", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cartier en mode «fantasy»", "publisher": "Stratégies (2012)", "url": "https://www.strategies.fr/actualites/marques/182356W/cartier-en-mode-fantasy-.html" }, { "title": "\"L'Odyssée\" de Cartier remporte le Grand Prix du luxe 2012", "publisher": "Stratégies (2012)", "url": "https://www.strategies.fr/actualites/marques/195336W/-l-odyssee-de-cartier-remporte-le-grand-prix-du-luxe-2012.html" }, { "title": "L'odyssée du storytelling", "publisher": "Le Point (2012)", "url": "https://www.lepoint.fr/art-de-vivre/l-odyssee-du-storytelling-23-05-2012-1464586_4.php" }, { "title": "L'Odyssée de Cartier", "publisher": "British Vogue (2012)", "url": "https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/l-odyssee-de-cartier-film" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WpDssef_Uac/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from L'Odyssée de Cartier (Cartier, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “L'Odyssée de Cartier Pub 2012 HD1080”, uploaded by julien d", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpDssef_Uac", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WpDssef_Uac/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WpDssef_Uac", "uploaded_at": "2012-03-04T20:47:20+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cdc-tips-from-former-smokers", "title": "Tips From Former Smokers (\"Terrie\")", "brand": "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)", "year": 2012, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A real former smoker speaks from experience about getting ready each day after throat cancer treatment took her teeth, her hair and her larynx." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "It shows the lasting physical damage of smoking-related disease to frighten smokers into calling a quitline and trying to quit." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial (national multimedia campaign)", "agency": "Arnold Worldwide", "credits": [ { "role": "Featured former smoker", "name": "Terrie Hall" } ], "tagline": "Smoking causes immediate damage to your body.", "why_studied": "Terrie, a former smoker, shows viewers how she gets ready for the day now that treatment for throat cancer has cost her her teeth, her hair and her larynx, and she speaks through an artificial voice. The CDC's \"Tips From Former Smokers\", created with the agency Arnold, was the first time a US federal agency had developed and paid for national tobacco-education advertising, and it is studied as proof that unflinching testimony from ordinary people can move smokers to act. During its 12-week run in 2012, calls to the national quitline rose 132% and visits to the government's quit-smoking website rose 428%. A study in The Lancet estimated that the campaign prompted 1.6 million extra quit attempts, and the CDC says more than 100,000 people probably quit for good, double its target. The campaign cost $54 million, roughly what cigarette makers spend on advertising and promotion in two days.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Terrie H.'s Tip\" (CDC YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWB4dLYChM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Terrie H.'s story and ads (CDC Tips From Former Smokers)", "url": "https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/stories/terrie.html", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "More than 100,000 Americans quit smoking due to national media campaign", "publisher": "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013)", "url": "https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2013/p0909-tips-campaign-results.html" }, { "title": "Terrie H.'s Story", "publisher": "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tips From Former Smokers", "url": "https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/stories/terrie.html" }, { "title": "Increases in Quitline Calls and Smoking Cessation Website Visitors During a National Tobacco Education Campaign — March 19–June 10, 2012", "publisher": "CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (2012)", "url": "https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6134a2.htm" }, { "title": "Ex-Smokers Fight for Dignity in CDC's Brutal New Anti-Smoking Ads", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/ex-smokers-fight-dignity-cdcs-brutal-new-anti-smoking-ads-139063/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5zWB4dLYChM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Tips From Former Smokers (\"Terrie\") (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “CDC: Tips From Former Smokers - Terrie H.’s Tip Ad”, uploaded by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWB4dLYChM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5zWB4dLYChM/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "5zWB4dLYChM", "uploaded_at": "2012-03-15T16:33:19+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "channel4-meet-the-superhumans", "title": "Meet the Superhumans", "brand": "Channel 4 (London 2012 Paralympics)", "year": 2012, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Presents Paralympians as elite athletes first, reframing how disability is shown on screen around respect rather than sympathy." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Cuts without warning from training to a car crash, a warzone and a hospital, confronting viewers with the origins of disability before slamming back to sport." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Set to Public Enemy, its power, speed and swagger stir awe and excitement for the Games instead of pity." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second broadcast trailer", "agency": "4Creative (in-house)", "credits": [ { "role": "Director / Creative", "name": "Tom Tagholm" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Public Enemy, \"Harder Than You Think\"" } ], "tagline": "Meet the superhumans.", "why_studied": "The film that changed how disability is shown on screen. Set to Public Enemy, it presents Paralympians as elite athletes first — power, speed, attitude — then cuts without warning to the car crash, the warzone, the pregnant mother in a hospital, before slamming back to training. No pity, no euphemism, total swagger. Launched simultaneously across 78 UK channels at 9pm on July 17, 2012, it helped make the London Paralympics a mainstream broadcasting event and won the Cannes Film Craft Grand Prix, a D&AD Black Pencil and Campaign's campaign of the year. It is studied for reframing an entire social category through tone — the insight that respect, not sympathy, was the revolutionary stance — and as the high mark of in-house creative work by a broadcaster.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official upload on Channel 4's Paralympics YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuAPPeRg3Nw", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Meet the Superhumans (launch announcement with credits)", "publisher": "Channel 4 press office", "url": "https://www.channel4.com/press/news/meet-superhumans" }, { "title": "Paralympics Ad 'Meet the Superhumans' Powers to Film Craft Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2013)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/paralympics-ad-meet-superhumans-powers-film-craft-grand-prix-150593/" }, { "title": "Case Study: Superhumans (D&AD Black Pencil and four Yellow Pencils)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/meet-the-superhumans-case-study-insights" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tuAPPeRg3Nw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Meet the Superhumans (Channel 4 (London 2012 Paralympics), 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Channel 4 Paralympics - Meet the Superhumans”, uploaded by C4Paralympics", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuAPPeRg3Nw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tuAPPeRg3Nw/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pg-thank-you-mom-best-job", "title": "Best Job (\"Thank You, Mom\")", "known_as": "Thank You, Mom", "brand": "Procter & Gamble", "year": 2012, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "emmy-winners", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Honours the mothers behind Olympic athletes, waking, driving, washing and worrying, so the gratitude of the final moment attaches to P&G." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Follows mothers in four cities from pre-dawn wake-ups through driving and worrying, until the stands erupt and the camera finds each mother." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the emotion of the London Olympics for a detergent-and-nappies company by linking its products to the mothers behind the athletes." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute Olympic film", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Alejandro González Iñárritu" } ], "tagline": "The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world. Thank you, Mom.", "why_studied": "How a company with no sports products won the Olympics. P&G sells detergent and diapers, so its London 2012 anthem ignored athletes' triumphs and followed the mothers — waking children before dawn in London, Rio, LA and Beijing, driving, washing, worrying, until the stands erupt and the camera finds mom. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and shot on four continents, \"Best Job\" won the 2012 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial — P&G and W+K's unbroken fourth straight win in the category — and anchored the largest multi-brand campaign in P&G history. It is studied for sponsor-relevance engineering: finding the one honest connection between a packaged-goods portfolio and the world's biggest sporting event, then committing to it with cinema-grade craft.", "watch": [ { "label": "W+K London's campaign announcement, with the film", "url": "https://wklondon.com/2012/04/the-hardest-job-in-the-world-is-the-best-job-in-the-world/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The hardest job in the world is the best job in the world (campaign launch)", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy", "url": "https://wklondon.com/2012/04/the-hardest-job-in-the-world-is-the-best-job-in-the-world/" }, { "title": "P&G's \"Best Job\" Wins Primetime Spot Emmy (fourth consecutive P&G/W+K win)", "publisher": "SHOOTonline (2012)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/road-emmy-part-11-rundown-2012-creative-arts-emmy-honorees-pgs-best-job-wins-primetime-spot/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0ruHOaHrGnQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Best Job (\"Thank You, Mom\") (Procter & Gamble, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “P&G - Thank You Mama - Best Job 2012 HD 2M”, uploaded by ThankYouMamaSA", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ruHOaHrGnQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0ruHOaHrGnQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "0ruHOaHrGnQ", "uploaded_at": "2012-04-17T10:52:21+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "chipotle-back-to-the-start", "title": "Back to the Start", "brand": "Chipotle Mexican Grill", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Tells a fable of a farmer whose family pig farm grows into an industrial factory until a crisis of conscience sends him back to the start." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Sells a sourcing philosophy that turns away from cramped pens and hormone-pumped livestock, rather than anything on the menu." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Willie Nelson's cover of a Coldplay song carries the film's emotion so strongly that the recording tops the iTunes country chart in its own right." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Cinema and television commercial (2:20 animated film)", "agency": "Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Johnny Kelly" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Nexus Productions, London" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Willie Nelson, performing Coldplay's \"The Scientist\"" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A farmer's family pig farm grows, step by step, into an industrial animal factory of cramped pens and hormone-pumped livestock, until a crisis of conscience sends him \"back to the start.\" Johnny Kelly's animated film for Chipotle, scored to Willie Nelson singing Coldplay's \"The Scientist,\" sells a sourcing philosophy as a fable rather than a menu. Created with Creative Artists Agency and produced by Nexus in London, it launched on YouTube in 2011, played on some 10,000 cinema screens, then ran uncut during the 2012 Grammy Awards as the chain's first national TV ad in its 18-year history. It is studied as the breakout case for purpose-led branded content crossing into paid media: Nelson's recording went to No. 1 on the iTunes country chart, and at Cannes Lions 2012 the film took the Film Grand Prix while its wider Cultivate campaign won the festival's first-ever Branded Content & Entertainment Grand Prix.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Nexus Studios, the production company's channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUzzBPCLaGw", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Chipotle, Canal + win Grand Prix", "publisher": "shots (2012)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/chipotle-canal-win-grand-prix" }, { "title": "Chipotle's First National TV Ad Will Be a 2-Minute YouTube Video", "publisher": "Mashable (2012)", "url": "https://mashable.com/archive/chipotle-first-tv-ad-youtube" }, { "title": "Chipotle's Back to the Start (One Show 2012 entry)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/18749/chipotles-back-to-the-start/" }, { "title": "Willie Nelson Covers Coldplay for Chipotle Ad Endorsing Sustainable Farming", "publisher": "Billboard / Adweek (2011)", "url": "https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/willie-nelson-covers-coldplay-for-chipotle-ad-endorsing-1172430/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bUzzBPCLaGw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Back to the Start (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Chipotle - Back to the Start | Nexus Studios”, uploaded by Youtube Nexus", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUzzBPCLaGw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bUzzBPCLaGw/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "bUzzBPCLaGw", "uploaded_at": "2019-01-18T15:36:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "campofrio-comicos", "title": "Cómicos", "brand": "Campofrío", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Answers a country weighed down by bad news with a gathering of comedians determined to find the bright side, tying the brand to the national mood." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the affection Spain holds for its humourists, culminating at the resting place of Gila, whose famous telephone routine answers the call." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "150-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "McCann Erickson, Spain", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Álex de la Iglesia" } ], "tagline": "Que nada nos quite nuestra manera de disfrutar de la vida", "why_studied": "Santiago Segura, weighed down by the day's bad news, reveals a pact among the people whose job is making Spain laugh: when gloom starts winning, they meet where the great Gila is said to rest. Some twenty humourists arrive, from reunited double acts Martes y Trece and Esteso and Pajares to Chiquito de la Calzada and the cartoonist Forges, share bread and cold cuts on a checked tablecloth, then ask at his grave whether anyone can still see the bright side. A mobile rings, and Gila answers with his famous \"Is that the enemy?\" telephone routine. Directed by Álex de la Iglesia from a McCann script, it premiered on Christmas Eve 2011 and is studied for lifting a cold-meats brand out of product talk and into the national mood, beginning Campofrío's run of Christmas films; the idea even grew into a TVE gala of nearly two hours. It won Spain's 2012 Gran Premio a la Eficacia, as Campofrío's sales rose 11% and its cold-meats share grew 13%.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (mejoresanunciostv)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-83jNawPdk", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Los anuncios que más enganchan", "publisher": "El País (2012)", "url": "https://elpais.com/cultura/2012/10/31/television/1351714191_081731.html" }, { "title": "Campofrío reúne a los cómicos frente a la tumba de Gila", "publisher": "El Publicista (2011)", "url": "https://www.elpublicista.es/anunciantes/campofrio-reune-comicos-frente-tumba-gila" }, { "title": "Campofrío y sus Cómicos", "publisher": "El Publicista (2012)", "url": "https://www.elpublicista.es/eficacia-publicitaria-casos-exito/campofrio-y-sus-comicos" }, { "title": "Así se rodó el anuncio de Campofrío", "publisher": "El Mundo (2015)", "url": "https://www.elmundo.es/papel/pantallas/2015/12/18/5672fe3422601df7638b45bb.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/V-83jNawPdk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Cómicos (Campofrío, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Anuncio Campofrío - Cómicos”, uploaded by mejoresanunciostv", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-83jNawPdk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/V-83jNawPdk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "V-83jNawPdk", "uploaded_at": "2011-12-20T19:35:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nandos-last-dictator-standing", "title": "Last Dictator Standing", "brand": "Nando's", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A Mugabe lookalike dining alone fondly recalls water-pistol fights and karaoke with fellow strongmen, a deadpan joke ending in an invitation to share a Nando's." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Turns the year's fall of dictators into a festive-season offer, riffing on current affairs in the way the brand is known for." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Lampoons Mugabe and his fellow strongmen through lookalikes, a provocation risky enough to get the spot pulled from television after threats against staff." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial (also cut to 45 seconds)", "agency": "Black River FC, Johannesburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Dean Blumberg" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Bouffant" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Ahmed Tilly" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Suhana Gordhan" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Monde Siphamla" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Nhlanhla Ngcobo" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A Robert Mugabe lookalike sits alone at a dinner table laid for guests who will never arrive. To Mary Hopkin's \"Those Were the Days\" he remembers the good times with his fellow strongmen: a water-pistol fight with Gaddafi, sand angels with Saddam Hussein, karaoke with Mao, a Titanic pose on a tank with Idi Amin, and PW Botha too. The deadpan point: nobody should have to eat alone at this time of year, so share a Nando's. Black River FC turned 2011's fall of dictators into a festive-season offer, true to a brand known for riffing on current affairs, and director Dean Blumberg chose to make Mugabe lonely and human rather than simply mock him. It is studied as satire with real stakes. It passed a million YouTube views in six days, then Nando's pulled it from TV after Mugabe loyalists threatened its staff in Zimbabwe, saying no commercial was worth that risk. It still won the 2012 Loerie Grand Prix and a Bronze Lion at Cannes.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (MarkLives)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DymXLAVd5qo", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The One Show archive entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/17651/the-last-dictator-standing/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nando's axes Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe 'dictator' advert", "publisher": "BBC News (2011)", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16000522" }, { "title": "How to direct a dictator (as told by Dean Blumberg)", "publisher": "MarkLives (2012)", "url": "https://www.marklives.com/2012/11/how-to-direct-a-dictator-as-told-by-dean-blumberg/" }, { "title": "Nando's Last Dictator Standing campaign adds humour to festive season", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2011)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/67758.html" }, { "title": "The Last Dictator Standing", "publisher": "The One Club – One Show (2012)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/17651/the-last-dictator-standing/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DymXLAVd5qo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Last Dictator Standing (Nando's, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “MarkLives: Nando's Last Dictator Standing”, uploaded by MarkLives", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DymXLAVd5qo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "DymXLAVd5qo", "uploaded_at": "2012-09-24T15:04:44+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nzta-ghost-chips", "title": "Legend (\"Ghost Chips\")", "known_as": "Ghost Chips", "brand": "NZ Transport Agency (NZTA)", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Lightens a grim subject with comic touches, such as a dead mate's ghost offering chips, and hands viewers quotable lines for the awkward moment." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Casts young Māori men as cool and ordinary at a house party, speaking in their own idiom, so stopping a drunk mate feels socially natural." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO Wellington", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Steve Ayson" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Philip Andrew" }, { "role": "Writers", "name": "Mitch Alison, Brigid Alkema" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Brigid Alkema" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "The Sweet Shop" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Darcey-Ray Flavell-Hudson" }, { "role": "Composer", "name": "Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper" } ], "tagline": "Stop a mate driving drunk. Legend.", "why_studied": "At a house party, a young man silently agonises over whether to stop his drunk mate George from driving, and imagines what staying quiet might cost, including George's ghost offering him chips he can never take. NZTA's 'Legend', made by Clemenger BBDO Wellington and directed by Steve Ayson, first played before the Rugby World Cup final on October 23, 2011. It targeted young Māori men, who accounted for 34 percent of male drink-drivers in fatal or serious crashes, after years of blood-and-guts road-safety ads. It is studied for moving road-safety advertising from shock to social permission: it cast its audience as cool, handed them lines to use at the awkward moment, and rewarded intervention with one word: \"Legend.\" Those lines escaped into everyday Kiwi speech (\"You know I can't grab your ghost chips\"), the film became New Zealand's biggest meme of the year and passed a million YouTube views, and it won a D&AD Yellow Pencil in 2012.", "watch": [ { "label": "NZ On Screen: Legend (Ghost Chips)", "url": "https://www.nzonscreen.com/videos/legend-ghost-chips/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "YouTube (2011 upload, 4.4M views)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtWirGxV7Q8", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Legend (Ghost Chips) - Road Safety", "publisher": "NZ On Screen", "url": "https://www.nzonscreen.com/videos/legend-ghost-chips/" }, { "title": "Speak up, or forever hold your ghost chips: new NZTA campaign changes tack on drink-driving message", "publisher": "StopPress (2011)", "url": "https://stoppress.co.nz/news/speak-up-or-forever-hold-your-ghost-chips-new-nzta-campaign-changes-tack-on-drink-driving-message/" }, { "title": "Ghost Chips", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2012)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/ghost-chips" }, { "title": "New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) | Ghost Chips", "publisher": "The One Club / The One Show (2012)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/18491/ghost-chips/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/CtWirGxV7Q8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Legend (\"Ghost Chips\") (NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NZ Anti-Drink Driving Commercial - Legend”, uploaded by Anthony Parsons", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtWirGxV7Q8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/CtWirGxV7Q8/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "CtWirGxV7Q8", "uploaded_at": "2011-10-26T07:37:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "canal-plus-the-bear", "title": "The Bear (L'Ours)", "brand": "Canal+", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Follows a tantrum-prone director shooting a gothic epic, then reveals he is a bearskin rug whose love of film comes from years of watching Canal+." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Builds on the sly joke that a living-room rug sees more films than any person, dramatising the promise that watching the channel breeds a love of cinema." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial (released on YouTube four days before its TV debut)", "agency": "BETC Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Matthijs van Heijningen" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Soixante Quinze" }, { "role": "Visual effects", "name": "Mikros Image" }, { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Stéphane Xiberras" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Eric Astorgue" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Jean-Christophe Royer" }, { "role": "TV producer", "name": "Isabelle Menard" } ], "tagline": "The more you watch Canal+, the more you love cinema", "why_studied": "For most of the film, Paul Bearman is a tantrum-prone Hollywood director shooting a gothic epic; the twist is that he is a bearskin rug shaped by years of watching Canal+ from a living-room floor. BETC Paris built the spot on a sly observation, that a rug sees more films than any person, to dramatise the channel's promise that the more you watch Canal+, the more you love cinema. Director Matthijs van Heijningen shot a real actor in Prague; Mikros Image replaced that motion-captured performance, strand by strand, with a computer-generated bear, which is why the beast acts rather than animates. It is studied as a lesson in turning a brand promise into a character, with craft as proof of product. Launched on YouTube on October 12, 2011 and on TV four days later, it posted the best impact score of any Canal+ ad, won the Film Craft Grand Prix at Cannes in 2012 and a D&AD Yellow Pencil, and became the Gunn Report's most awarded TV commercial ever.", "watch": [ { "label": "BETC Paris on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3393O1uD_w8", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Culture Pub archive", "url": "https://www.culturepub.fr/videos/canal-l-ours/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Case Study: The Bear", "publisher": "D&AD (2014)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/bear-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "Film Craft Grand Prix Goes to BETC's 'The Bear' for Canal+", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/film-craft-grand-prix-goes-betcs-bear-canal-141383/" }, { "title": "BETC's 'The Bear' Picks Up The Biggest Gunn To Date", "publisher": "shots (2013)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/betc-s-the-bear-picks-up-the-biggest-gunn-to-date" }, { "title": "Gunn Report 2012: The bear rules", "publisher": "Creative Review (2013)", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/gunn-report-2012-the-bear-rules/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/3393O1uD_w8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Bear (L'Ours) (Canal+, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Canal+ \"The Bear\" by BETC Paris”, uploaded by BETC Paris", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3393O1uD_w8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/3393O1uD_w8/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "3393O1uD_w8", "uploaded_at": "2011-10-12T09:09:09+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "chrysler-imported-from-detroit", "title": "Born of Fire (\"Imported from Detroit\")", "known_as": "Imported from Detroit", "brand": "Chrysler", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "emmy-winners", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Turns the brand's biggest liabilities, a written-off city, bailouts and decline, into its whole argument for luxury that has been to hell and back." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Wraps the Chrysler 200 in Detroit's identity as the Motor City, so the car inherits the defiant pride of a town that refuses to be written off." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Eminem drives the Chrysler 200 through Detroit to the Fox Theatre, so the star himself embodies the defiant comeback the car stands for." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Two-minute television commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Eminem" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "\"Lose Yourself\" (instrumental)" } ], "tagline": "Imported from Detroit.", "why_studied": "A bankrupt car company from a written-off city bought the longest Super Bowl ad to that point — two full minutes during Super Bowl XLV, February 6, 2011 — and spent it on defiance rather than product. Eminem drives a Chrysler 200 through Detroit to the Fox Theatre as a narrator asks what a town that's \"been to hell and back\" knows about luxury, closing: \"This is the Motor City. And this is what we do.\" Watched by 111 million people, it is studied for turning a brand's greatest liability (Detroit, bailouts, decline) into its entire argument, for civic storytelling as commercial strategy, and for the nerve of its media buy. It won the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2011, and \"Imported from Detroit\" became a rallying cry beyond the brand.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official upload on Chrysler's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Chrysler: Imported From Detroit (agency case page)", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy", "url": "https://www.wk.com/work/chrysler-imported-from-detroit/" }, { "title": "Chrysler Brand's 2011 Super Bowl Commercial 'Born of Fire' Wins Creative Arts Emmy Award", "publisher": "Chrysler Group press release (PR Newswire)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chrysler-brands-2011-super-bowl-commercial-born-of-fire-wins-creative-arts-emmy-award-129616118.html" }, { "title": "Chrysler Brand Launches New Marketing and Advertising Campaign (two-minute spot, a Super Bowl first; shot in Detroit)", "publisher": "Chrysler Group press release (PR Newswire, Feb 6, 2011)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chrysler-brand-launches-new-marketing-and-advertising-campaign-115447944.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/SKL254Y_jtc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Born of Fire (\"Imported from Detroit\") (Chrysler, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Chrysler Eminem Super Bowl Commercial - Imported From Detroit”, uploaded by Chrysler", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/SKL254Y_jtc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "SKL254Y_jtc", "uploaded_at": "2011-02-05T18:27:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-the-force", "title": "The Force", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 2011, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A pint-sized Darth Vader fails to use the Force on the washing machine, dog and sandwich, escalating until Dad's remote key secretly starts the Passat." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Tells a wordless story through a child's eyes behind a mask, with failure after failure building to one apparent triumph any culture can read." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Deutsch, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Max Page as Darth Vader" } ], "tagline": "The all-new 2012 Passat.", "why_studied": "A pint-sized Darth Vader tries to use the Force on the laundry machine, the dog, a sandwich — and finally, apparently, on the family Passat, secretly started by Dad's remote key. No dialogue, one joke, perfect escalation. Released on YouTube days before Super Bowl XLV in 2011, it racked up tens of millions of views before kickoff — the move that invented the now-standard practice of pre-releasing Super Bowl ads online, converting a 60-second media buy into weeks of earned attention. It is studied for that distribution innovation as much as the craft: a wordless story any culture can read, built on a child's eyes behind a mask. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2011.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official upload on Volkswagen USA's YouTube channel (via press coverage)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-super-bowl-commercials", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Best Super Bowl commercials of all time: Ranking the top 25 ads", "publisher": "CBS Sports", "url": "https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-commercials-top-25-all-time-ranked/" }, { "title": "Wieden Picks Up Film Grand Prix for Nike's 'Write the Future' (notes VW's \"The Force\" by Deutsch LA among 2011 Gold Lion winners)", "publisher": "Adweek (2011)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/wieden-kennedy-picks-film-grand-prix-nikes-write-future-132915/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/YdZMypElBpo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Force (Volkswagen, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Force - Volkswagen Commercial”, uploaded by Estadão", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdZMypElBpo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/YdZMypElBpo/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "YdZMypElBpo", "uploaded_at": "2012-02-09T20:42:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "topsy-foundation-selinah", "title": "Selinah", "brand": "The Topsy Foundation", "year": 2010, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Ninety days of real footage, with no visual effects, prove that antiretroviral treatment can bring a patient back from the brink." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Running the footage backwards creates a twist: what seems to be a decline is revealed at the end to have been a recovery." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Ogilvy Johannesburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Kim Geldenhuys" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Egg Films" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Stephanie van Niekerk" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Robyn Bergmann" } ], "tagline": "The effects of AIDS can be reversed.", "why_studied": "Selinah, a woman with AIDS, gets into bed looking healthy, and over a series of shots taken across 90 days she seems to waste away until she is skin and bone. Only at the end does the viewer realise the sequence has been running in reverse: what looked like dying was her recovery on antiretroviral drugs. Ogilvy Johannesburg and the Topsy Foundation, a charity caring for HIV-positive people in Mpumalanga, filmed her every day of her treatment and used no visual effects; the only trick is the order of the pictures. It is studied as a demonstration in which the edit itself is the argument, overturning the familiar image of the AIDS patient wasting away. The film won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2010, South Africa's first Film Gold in 11 years, a Grand LIA at the London International Awards and a Gold Pencil at the One Show. Topsy reported an unprecedented influx of donors and a sharp rise in patients asking for treatment.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: Topsy Foundation \"Selinah\"", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/topsy-foundation/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "\"Selinah\" on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKdgF7DHTG0", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Gold Film Lion for Ogilvy Joburg", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2010)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/49398.html" }, { "title": "Grand LIA for Ogilvy Johannesburg's Selinah", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2010)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/54107.html" }, { "title": "Ad shows miracle of ARVs", "publisher": "Drum / News24 (2010)", "url": "https://www.news24.com/drum/news/ad-shows-miracle-of-arvs-20170728" }, { "title": "Topsy Foundation | Selinah", "publisher": "The One Club / The One Show (2011)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/13448/selinah/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vKdgF7DHTG0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Selinah (The Topsy Foundation, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Topsy Foundation Advert Commercial: Selinah - AIDS patients dramatic recovery”, uploaded by Tvspotblog1", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKdgF7DHTG0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "vKdgF7DHTG0", "uploaded_at": "2010-06-29T14:06:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "google-parisian-love", "title": "Parisian Love", "brand": "Google", "brand_slug": "google", "year": 2010, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Tells a love story entirely through typed searches, from studying abroad in Paris to impressing a French girl and finally assembling a cot." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Keeps the search box on screen throughout, so the product in use is both the storyteller and the proof of how it helps at each step of life." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial (originally an online film)", "agency": "Google Creative Lab", "credits": [], "tagline": "Search on.", "why_studied": "Google's first-ever TV commercial told a love story using nothing but a search box: \"study abroad paris france\" leads to \"impress a french girl,\" \"churches in paris,\" and finally \"how to assemble a crib.\" Made by Google's in-house Creative Lab as a cheap online film, it aired during Super Bowl XLIV in 2010 only after organic YouTube response convinced a company whose CEO had called brand advertising \"the last bastion of unaccountable spending\" to buy the most expensive airtime in the world. It is studied for product-as-protagonist storytelling — the interface itself carries the emotion — and as possibly the cheapest-produced great Super Bowl ad ever: a screen recording with sound design and perfect writing.", "watch": [ { "label": "Google's official blog post announcing the airing, with the film", "url": "https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-and-super-bowl.html", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Love and the Super Bowl (Eric Schmidt)", "publisher": "Official Google Blog (2010)", "url": "https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-and-super-bowl.html" }, { "title": "Google's Super Bowl Ad: A Romance in Search", "publisher": "Wired (2010)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/2010/02/googles-super-bowl-ad-a-romance-in-search/" }, { "title": "Meet the Google 5, the Team Behind 'Parisian Love' Super Bowl Spot", "publisher": "Ad Age (2010)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/meet-google-5-team-parisian-love-super-bowl-ad/146131/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/nnsSUqgkDwU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Parisian Love (Google, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Parisian Love”, uploaded by Google", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/nnsSUqgkDwU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "nnsSUqgkDwU", "uploaded_at": "2009-11-19T17:34:38+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "snickers-betty-white", "title": "Game (\"Betty White\")", "known_as": "Betty White", "brand": "Snickers", "year": 2010, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "slogans-that-stuck", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Casts an elderly Betty White as a hungry footballer flattened in a muddy game, a joke that dramatises how hunger turns you into someone else." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "BBDO, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Betty White, Abe Vigoda" } ], "tagline": "You're not you when you're hungry.", "why_studied": "The spot that launched one of the most durable creative platforms in modern advertising. An 88-year-old Betty White gets flattened in a muddy pickup football game — because, as the ad reveals, hungry men turn into divas — and a Snickers turns her back into a young man. Aired at Super Bowl XLIV in 2010, it introduced \"You're not you when you're hungry,\" a line elastic enough to run globally for over a decade with any celebrity in any market. It is studied for platform thinking (a mechanic, not a one-off joke), for reviving Betty White's career overnight, and as proof that casting against expectation is the fastest route to Super Bowl fame.", "watch": [ { "label": "Retrospective with the spot (Business Insider)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-super-bowl-commercials", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Best Super Bowl commercials of all time: Ranking the top 25 ads (No. 2)", "publisher": "CBS Sports", "url": "https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-commercials-top-25-all-time-ranked/" }, { "title": "23 of the Most Famous Super Bowl Commercials of All Time (tagline born in this spot)", "publisher": "Business Insider", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-super-bowl-commercials" }, { "title": "Old Spice: Smells Like a Commercial Emmy (lists Snickers \"Game\" by BBDO New York among 2010 Emmy nominees)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/old-spice-smells-commercial-emmy-103139/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GkAnLtqWDhc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Game (\"Betty White\") (Snickers, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Snickers - Betty White (Super Bowl 2010 Commercial) - [HD]”, uploaded by FriedmanTech", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkAnLtqWDhc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GkAnLtqWDhc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "GkAnLtqWDhc", "uploaded_at": "2010-02-08T01:49:36+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-write-the-future", "title": "Write the Future", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2010, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Branches a single touch of the ball into alternate futures of national glory or disgrace, making consequence itself the drama." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Star footballers such as Rooney and Ronaldo, plus a cameo from Kobe Bryant, carry the epic, closely identifying Nike with the players fans are about to watch." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the excitement of the World Cup for a brand that is not a tournament sponsor, attaching the event's stakes to Nike without official rights." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Three-minute film for the 2010 World Cup", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Alejandro González Iñárritu" } ], "tagline": "Write the future.", "why_studied": "The biggest canvas sports advertising has attempted: a three-minute epic in which a single touch — Rooney's loose pass, Ronaldo's free kick — branches into entire alternate futures of national glory or trailer-park disgrace, directed by Oscar-winner Alejandro González Iñárritu with cameos from Kobe Bryant and Homer Simpson. Launched on social media and then aired worldwide during the 2010 Champions League final, it framed Nike's World Cup without Nike being a tournament sponsor — ambush marketing elevated to cinema. It won the Film Grand Prix at Cannes in 2011 and is studied for its narrative engineering (consequence as drama), its blockbuster production logic, and the launch strategy that treated an ad's premiere like a film release.", "watch": [ { "label": "W+K Amsterdam's case page, with the film", "url": "https://wkams.com/work/write-the-future/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Wieden Picks Up Film Grand Prix for Nike's 'Write the Future'", "publisher": "Adweek (2011)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/wieden-kennedy-picks-film-grand-prix-nikes-write-future-132915/" }, { "title": "Anatomy Of A Cannes Winner: Nike \"Write The Future\" (Iñárritu; making-of)", "publisher": "Fast Company (2011)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1679189/cannes-anatomy-of-nike-write-the-future/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/igUF8Aa2OL0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Write the Future (Nike, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “WRITE THE FUTURE - FULL LENGTH VERSION: NIKE SOCCER”, uploaded by Nike Soccer", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igUF8Aa2OL0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "igUF8Aa2OL0", "uploaded_at": "2011-02-01T21:11:31+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "comparethemarket-compare-the-meerkat", "title": "Compare the Meerkat (\"Simples\")", "brand": "comparethemarket.com", "year": 2009, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Creates Aleksandr Orlov, a self-important meerkat whose mix-up between his site and the brand's makes the name unforgettable and far cheaper to search for." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Plays on a one-word pun as the meerkat complains to camera about insurance shoppers wrongly visiting his site, standing out amid shouty price claims." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial (launch of an integrated campaign)", "agency": "VCCP, London", "credits": [], "tagline": "Simples!", "why_studied": "Aleksandr Orlov, a self-important Russian meerkat in a smoking jacket, complains to camera that car-insurance shoppers keep turning up at his website, comparethemeerkat.com, when they mean comparethemarket.com, and asks them to stop. VCCP's January 2009 launch spot answered a problem most ads never admit to: the brand sat fourth of four in a category where share followed media spend, and it was being outbid on generic search terms. The Guardian reported that \"compare\" cost around £12 a click and \"market\" £5, while \"meerkat\" cost about 5p, so the joke doubled as a search strategy, backed by a working meerkat-comparison site and Facebook and Twitter accounts for the character. It is studied as a textbook case of a brand character solving memorability and media cost at once, in a category full of shouty price claims. The brand reported a 400% rise in site visits within about a year, and Marketing Week later noted it had become the leading UK motor-insurance comparison site.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (CompareMeerkat)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69kLbgK8_Us", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "From Russia with brand love", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2010)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/from-russia-with-brand-love/" }, { "title": "Meerkat mission: campaign that broke the online ad barrier", "publisher": "The Guardian (2010)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/video-advertising/meerkat-mission" }, { "title": "Why It Works: How two meerkats made insurance memorable", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2024)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/why-it-works-meerkats-insurance-memorable/" }, { "title": "comparethemeerkat.com", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2010)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/comparethemeerkatcom" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/69kLbgK8_Us/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Compare the Meerkat (\"Simples\") (comparethemarket.com, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Compare The Meerkat - 1st Advert”, uploaded by CompareMeerkat", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69kLbgK8_Us" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "69kLbgK8_Us", "uploaded_at": "2009-10-02T09:30:40+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "doritos-free-doritos", "title": "Free Doritos", "brand": "Doritos", "year": 2009, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Made by two brothers for a contest that invited consumers to create the brand's Super Bowl ad, the spot is the audience completing the campaign." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Slapstick drives it: a worker's snow-globe 'crystal ball' predicts free Doritos, smashes the vending machine and finds a man's crotch." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Creator", "name": "Joe Herbert" }, { "role": "Creator", "name": "Dave Herbert" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In an office break room, a worker insists his snow globe is a crystal ball, predicts free Doritos for everyone, then hurls it through the glass front of the vending machine; before the spot ends, the globe has also found a man's crotch. Joe and Dave Herbert, unemployed brothers from Batesville, Indiana, made the 30-second spot for under $2,000 for Frito-Lay's \"Crash the Super Bowl\" contest, which promised $1 million if a consumer-made ad topped USA Today's Ad Meter; the best previous finish had been fourth. The brothers had first studied what past Ad Meter winners had in common. It aired in the first quarter of Super Bowl XLIII on NBC on February 1, 2009, and won the poll with a score of 8.46, beating more than 50 professionally made spots and ending Anheuser-Busch's ten-year winning run. It is studied as the night user-generated advertising beat Madison Avenue on its own stage: the first Ad Meter champion not made by an ad agency.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Doritos Crash the Super Bowl channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UukD_cIw08E", "type": "official" }, { "label": "YouTube Official Blog: Doritos Wins Top Super Bowl Ad on YouTube", "url": "https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/doritos-wins-top-super-bowl-ad-on/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Amateur TV Ad Makers Are in the Chips", "publisher": "The New York Times (2009)", "url": "https://archive.nytimes.com/mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/amateur-tv-ad-makers-are-in-the-chips/" }, { "title": "'Two nobodies from nowhere' craft winning Super Bowl ad", "publisher": "USA Today via ABC News (2009)", "url": "https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=6792128&page=1" }, { "title": "'USA Today' Finds Doritos Crystal Ball Most Popular Super Bowl Ad", "publisher": "Editor & Publisher (2009)", "url": "https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/usa-today-finds-doritos-crystal-ball-most-popular-super-bowl-ad,135158" }, { "title": "Amateurs beat pros, win $1 million ad challenge", "publisher": "NBC News (2009)", "url": "https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28982084" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UukD_cIw08E/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Free Doritos (Doritos, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Free Doritos”, uploaded by DoritosCTSB", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UukD_cIw08E", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UukD_cIw08E/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "UukD_cIw08E", "uploaded_at": "2009-01-31T23:34:59+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heineken-walk-in-fridge", "title": "Walk-In Fridge", "brand": "Heineken", "brand_slug": "heineken", "year": 2009, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A role-reversal gag in which the men's shrieks over a beer-stocked walk-in fridge drown out the women's delight at a walk-in wardrobe." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "TBWA\\Neboko, Amsterdam", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Bart Timmer" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Czar, Amsterdam" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Jeroen van de Sande" }, { "role": "Art directors", "name": "Jorn Kruijsen and Cor den Boer" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "At a housewarming, a woman proudly shows her friends the new walk-in closet and they shriek with delight, until even louder screams erupt from the men elsewhere in the flat, who have just discovered the husband's own project: a walk-in fridge stacked with Heineken. Created by Jeroen van de Sande, Jorn Kruijsen and Cor den Boer at TBWA\\Neboko and directed by Bart Timmer, the Dutch spot rests on one universal role-reversal gag that needs no translation. It is studied as an early model of seeding a TV ad online first: released to Heineken fans on the Dutch social network Hyves a week before broadcast, it passed two million YouTube views within two weeks, spread so widely that Heineken marketers in other countries asked to air it, and inspired student-built fridges and rival parodies. Dutch viewers voted it the Gouden Loekie for the best television commercial of 2009.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (AdFreakTwo)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hYEKXE-4d0", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "verhaal achter de viral: walk-in fridge", "publisher": "Adformatie (2009)", "url": "https://www.adformatie.nl/media/media/verhaal-achter-de-viral-walk-in-fridge" }, { "title": "Gouden Loekie voor 'walk-in fridge'", "publisher": "Adformatie (2009)", "url": "https://www.adformatie.nl/media/data-en-insights/gouden-loekie-voor-walk-in-fridge" }, { "title": "HEINEKEN WALK-IN FRIDGE CASE", "publisher": "Stichting Adverteerdersjury Nederland (SAN)", "url": "https://sanaccent.nl/case/heineken-walk-in-fridge-case/" }, { "title": "View: Heineken Ad | By TBWA\\Neboko, Amsterdam", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/heineken-62/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1hYEKXE-4d0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Walk-In Fridge (Heineken, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Heineken | \"Walk-In Fridge\"”, uploaded by AdFreakTwo", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hYEKXE-4d0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1hYEKXE-4d0", "uploaded_at": "2009-01-13T18:08:26+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sos-mata-atlantica-xixi-no-banho", "title": "Xixi no Banho (\"Pee in the Shower\")", "brand": "Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica", "year": 2009, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A cheeky animated invitation to wee in the shower makes an environmental message playful instead of preachy." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The joke rests on simple arithmetic about the drinking water each toilet flush wastes and how much one shower wee a day saves." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Animated television commercial (integrated with radio, print and web)", "agency": "F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Fabio Fernandes, Eduardo Lima" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Eduardo Lima" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "João Linneu" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Fernando Sanches" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Prodigo Filmes" } ], "tagline": "Faça xixi no banho!", "why_studied": "A cheerful animated film inviting absolutely everyone to take up a slightly naughty habit: weeing in the shower. The Brazilian rainforest foundation SOS Mata Atlântica wanted to mobilise city dwellers for the environment, and F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi looked for a saving people could make without giving anything up: a toilet flush uses up to 12 litres of drinking water, so one shower wee a day saves 4,380 litres a year. As creative director Eduardo Lima put it, everyone who pees was invited. It is studied for proving that an environmental message can be cheeky instead of preachy, turning a private habit many people already had, and would never admit to, into a shareable cause. The campaign had no media budget, yet the agency says it generated about US$20 million in free exposure. At Cannes Lions in 2010 it became the first Brazilian work to win a Titanium Lion, taking silver, and it also won a Silver Lion in PR.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Xixi no Banho\" second-phase film (SOS Mata Atlântica YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KE3mRyHn1E", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Cannes 2010 case film (F/Nazca YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8wPIgpxygI", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Contra desperdício de água, ONG lança campanha em defesa do xixi no banho", "publisher": "Folha de S.Paulo (2009)", "url": "https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/cotidian/ff1205200926.htm" }, { "title": "\"Xixi no Banho\", o primeiro case brasileiro premiado em Titanium Lions", "publisher": "B9 (2010)", "url": "https://www.b9.com.br/xixi-no-banho-o-primeiro-case-brasileiro-premiado-em-titanium-lions/" }, { "title": "15 anos do primeiro Titanium Lions brasileiro: como \"Xixi no Banho\" fez história", "publisher": "B9 (2025)", "url": "https://www.b9.com.br/xixi-no-banho-15-anos-titanium-lions/" }, { "title": "Cannes 2010: Edu Lima comenta Leão de Prata em PR", "publisher": "Clube de Criação (2010)", "url": "https://clubedecriacao.com.br/ultimas/cannes-2010-476/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1KE3mRyHn1E/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Xixi no Banho (\"Pee in the Shower\") (Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Campanha Xixi no Banho - 2º fase”, uploaded by SOS Mata Atlântica", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KE3mRyHn1E" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1KE3mRyHn1E", "uploaded_at": "2009-07-29T19:26:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "vodafone-zoozoos", "title": "ZooZoos", "brand": "Vodafone", "year": 2009, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Invents egg-headed ZooZoo characters who return in a new film almost every day of the tournament, building a serial that people look forward to." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Tiny comic plots of gabbling, giggling creatures falling in love keep a run of feature-selling spots light and charming." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Each mini-story quietly shows one mobile service in use, from backing up a phonebook to group texting." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Series of 20- to 30-second television commercials", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather India", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Rajiv Rao" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Prakash Varma" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Nirvana Films" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Egg-headed white creatures with balloon bodies and stick-thin limbs gabble in a language nobody understands, giggle and fall in love through tiny comic plots, each one quietly demonstrating a Vodafone mobile service, from phonebook back-up to group texting. Vodafone was a main sponsor of the second Indian Premier League in 2009, and instead of repeating a handful of spots it ran a new film almost every day of the tournament. Animation would have cost ten to fifteen times more, so Ogilvy & Mather India and director Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films shot about 30 films in ten days in Cape Town, casting slight women and children in foam-padded suits and oversizing the props so the characters looked tiny; many viewers took them for cartoons. It is studied as a way of turning dull feature-selling into a serial people looked forward to. Within weeks ZooZoo fan pages had about 300,000 Facebook members, merchandise followed, and the work took an Integrated Grand Prix at Goafest 2010.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Nirvana Films)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7RieJeXmyE", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Vodafone’s ZooZoos, stars of IPL ad breaks", "publisher": "The Hindu BusinessLine (2009)", "url": "https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/vodafones-zoozoos-stars-of-ipl-ad-breaks/article1050629.ece" }, { "title": "ZooZoo vodafone slideshow (Welcome to the world of ZooZoos)", "publisher": "Rediff.com (2009)", "url": "https://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/may/29/slide-show-1-welcome-to-the-world-of-zoozoos.htm" }, { "title": "Remember the times when ZooZoos were all the rage?", "publisher": "Storyboard18 (2025)", "url": "https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/remember-the-times-when-zoozoos-were-all-the-rage-63977.htm" }, { "title": "More than cricket, Vodafone ZooZoos are what most Indians remember of the 2009 IPL season", "publisher": "ThePrint (2022)", "url": "https://theprint.in/feature/brandma/more-than-cricket-vodafone-zoozoos-are-what-most-indians-remember-of-the-2009-ipl-season/815125/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/N7RieJeXmyE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from ZooZoos (Vodafone, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Vodafone Zoozoo IPL advert - Cricket Alert”, uploaded by Nirvana Films", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7RieJeXmyE" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "N7RieJeXmyE", "uploaded_at": "2009-04-30T11:06:38+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tfl-awareness-test-moonwalking-bear", "title": "Awareness Test (\"Moonwalking Bear\")", "brand": "Transport for London", "year": 2008, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers are set a counting task and only complete the ad by discovering they missed the bear, so the lesson is experienced rather than told." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The test proves its claim on each viewer in real time: it is easy to miss something you are not looking for, such as a cyclist." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television, cinema and online film", "agency": "WCRS, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Chris Palmer" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Gorgeous" }, { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Yan Elliott, Luke Williamson" }, { "role": "Copywriters", "name": "Simon Aldridge, Tom Spicer" }, { "role": "Art Directors", "name": "Vince Chasteauneuf, Kit Dayaram" } ], "tagline": "It's easy to miss something you're not looking for. Look out for cyclists.", "why_studied": "A minute-long film that asks viewers to count how many passes a team in white makes in a game of basketball, gives the answer, then asks whether they saw the moonwalking bear. Most did not, although a man in a bear suit moonwalks straight across the screen. Shown the clip again, the bear is obvious, and the film signs off: \"It's easy to miss something you're not looking for. Look out for cyclists.\" Rather than tell drivers that they fail to notice cyclists, WCRS let them experience it, building the ad directly on a selective-attention test created by the psychologist Daniel Simons, which caused a row over copying when it launched. With only limited TV and cinema airtime, it was viewed more than ten million times online within a year and was a big part of why Campaign named TfL its Advertiser of the Year. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes, and TfL's marketing chief later wrote that it had also helped reduce cycling accidents.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: Transport for London \"Awareness Test\"", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/transport-for-london-5/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "\"Awareness Test\" on YouTube (Glassworks, post-production)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSgmm9FX2s", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Annual: Advertiser of the Year - Transport for London", "publisher": "Campaign (2008)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/annual-advertiser-year-transport-london/869120" }, { "title": "Invisible bear makes cyclists safer", "publisher": "The Guardian (2008)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/nov/16/transport-invisible-bear-cyclists-youtube" }, { "title": "Awareness Test", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2009)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/awareness-test" }, { "title": "'Creatively excellent and influential': the best TfL campaigns over 15 years of change", "publisher": "Campaign (2021)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/creatively-excellent-influential-best-tfl-campaigns-15-years-change/1725451" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xNSgmm9FX2s/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Awareness Test (\"Moonwalking Bear\") (Transport for London, 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “TFL Viral - Awareness Test (Moonwalking Bear)”, uploaded by GlassworksVFX", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSgmm9FX2s", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xNSgmm9FX2s/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "xNSgmm9FX2s", "uploaded_at": "2010-07-23T09:25:34+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "etrade-baby", "title": "Baby", "brand": "E*Trade", "year": 2008, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "An infant speaking in a grown man's voice buys stock with one click and then spits up, making online trading look absurdly easy." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The talking baby becomes the brand's recurring character, carrying its advertising for six years." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Grey, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Randy Krallman" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Ari Halper" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Randy Krallman" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Steve Krauss" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Tor Myhren" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Jonathan Cranin" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Smuggler" } ], "tagline": "If I can do it, you can do it.", "why_studied": "A baby at a computer keyboard, speaking in an adult man's voice, brushes off the idea that he is too young to invest. One click later: “You just saw me buy stock.” Then he spits up. Created by Grey New York and directed by Randy Krallman, the spot aired during Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008. Grey's chief creative officer, Tor Myhren, admitted he could not tell whether the talking baby was genius or the dumbest thing the agency had ever made. It is studied as a lesson in dramatizing ease: if an infant can trade online, so can anyone. TiVo reported it was the most-watched ad of the game among its users, and E*Trade opened more new accounts the next day than on any previous day in its history. The original spot won a One Show Bronze Pencil, and the baby ran for six years until Grey resigned the account in 2013; USA Today credited it with swapping cuddly ad babies for cantankerous ones.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoCapGs1508", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Super Bowl Commercial Archive", "url": "https://adage.com/super-bowl/super-bowl-commercial-archive/2008/e-trade-baby-trading/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Super Bowl Ad Stories: The eTrade Baby Was a Happy Accident", "publisher": "Fast Company (2011)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1722458/super-bowl-ad-stories-etrade-baby-was-happy-accident" }, { "title": "Viewers love the spitting image", "publisher": "The Hollywood Reporter (2008)", "url": "https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/viewers-love-spitting-image-104078/" }, { "title": "Will the E-Trade baby keep on talking?", "publisher": "USA Today (2013)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/28/etrade-baby-grey-new-york-super-bowl-advertising/2472711/" }, { "title": "E*Trade | Baby Trading", "publisher": "The One Club (2008)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/7101/baby-trading/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UoCapGs1508/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Baby (E*Trade, 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “E*Trade: Baby (Super Bowl 42 Commercial)”, uploaded by 5uperBowl42", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoCapGs1508" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "UoCapGs1508", "uploaded_at": "2008-02-05T07:47:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "xbox-halo-3-believe", "title": "Believe (\"Diorama\")", "brand": "Microsoft Xbox 360 (Halo 3)", "brand_slug": "xbox", "year": 2007, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Treats a video-game hero the way societies commemorate real war heroes, borrowing the gravitas of museum memorials and war cinema for the game." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A slow drift across exhausted soldiers on a frozen battlefield, set to Chopin, sells duty and sacrifice rather than gameplay or graphics." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "90-second television and cinema commercial (also cut to 60, 30 and 15 seconds)", "agency": "McCann Worldgroup San Francisco and T.A.G.", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Rupert Sanders" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "MJZ" }, { "role": "Diorama build", "name": "New Deal Studios" }, { "role": "Figures", "name": "Stan Winston Studios" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Scott Duchon" } ], "tagline": "Believe.", "why_studied": "No gameplay, no graphics, no product shots. A slow camera drifts across a frozen battlefield, a hand-built museum diorama of exhausted soldiers, alien attackers and a ruined city, while a Chopin prelude plays. The film was the centrepiece of \"Believe\", the launch campaign for Halo 3, which treated a video-game hero the way societies commemorate real war heroes, complete with a fictional Museum of Humanity and testimonial films in which aged \"veterans\" remember fighting beside Master Chief. Its makers wanted to win over people who had never played Halo, so they sold story, duty and sacrifice instead of features. The diorama was real: roughly 40 by 20 feet, built in about four weeks by New Deal Studios with figures from Stan Winston's studio, and shot by Rupert Sanders. It is studied as the moment game marketing borrowed the gravitas of war cinema. It shared the 2008 Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix with Cadbury's \"Gorilla\", took the Integrated Grand Prix and won a One Show Gold Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (GameDaily)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rridXskgWg", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes: Cadbury, Xbox Take Film Kudos", "publisher": "Adweek (2008)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/cannes-cadbury-xbox-take-film-kudos-96188/" }, { "title": "An oral history of the iconic 'Halo 3: Believe' diorama, including a version fans never saw", "publisher": "Polygon (2021)", "url": "https://www.polygon.com/22809986/halo-3-believe-ad-campaign-making-of-unreleased-version/" }, { "title": "Microsoft XBOX Halo 3 | Diorama — 2008 One Show Gold Pencil", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/7075/diorama/" }, { "title": "Believe", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2008)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/believe" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/3rridXskgWg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Believe (\"Diorama\") (Microsoft Xbox 360 (Halo 3), 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Halo 3 - 'Believe' Ad”, uploaded by gamedaily", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rridXskgWg" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "3rridXskgWg", "uploaded_at": "2007-09-28T15:34:23+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tata-tea-jaago-re", "title": "Jaago Re (Politician)", "brand": "Tata Tea", "year": 2007, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Recasts a tea sold on morning freshness as a brand that awakens citizens, showing a young man publicly questioning a haughty politician's record." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Grows into a voter-registration drive with an NGO whose website helps hundreds of thousands of mostly young people sign up ahead of a general election." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "45-second television commercial", "agency": "Lowe Lintas, Mumbai", "credits": [], "tagline": "Har subah sirf utho mat. Jaago Re! (Don't just wake up every morning. Awaken!)", "why_studied": "A haughty politician is put on the spot in front of a crowd by a young man who questions his credentials and record. Lowe Lintas made the film for Tata Tea in 2007 to recast a tea brand usually sold on morning freshness as a brand that awakens people rather than merely waking them up. It is studied as a landmark of Indian purpose-led brand building: the idea grew into Jaago Re! One Billion Votes, run with the Bangalore NGO Janaagraha, whose website helped some six lakh people, most of them young, register to vote ahead of the 2009 general election. Forbes India reported that over the campaign Tata Tea closed most of the gap in value share with market leader Hindustan Unilever, and the company's own executives insisted it was a brand campaign, not corporate social responsibility. Jaago Re has returned repeatedly since as Tata Tea's platform for social issues.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Siddharth Kothari)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ECJrnqPcI", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"It gave us the moral high-ground\": The guy who wrote the first 'Jaago Re' brief", "publisher": "afaqs! (2018)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/52647_it-gave-us-the-moral-high-ground-the-guy-who-wrote-the-first-jaago-re-brief" }, { "title": "Waking Up to Brand Success", "publisher": "Forbes India (2009)", "url": "https://www.forbesindia.com/article/breakpoint/waking-up-to-brand-success/2452/1" }, { "title": "Cause & Effect", "publisher": "The Financial Express (2009)", "url": "https://preprod.financialexpress.com/archive/cause-effect/446640/" }, { "title": "Effies 2009: A call not to wake, but awake", "publisher": "afaqs! (2009)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/25794_effies-2009-a-call-not-to-wake-but-awake" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/M5ECJrnqPcI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 450, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Jaago Re (Politician) (Tata Tea, 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Tata Tea Jaago Re 45 sec”, uploaded by Siddharth Kothari", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ECJrnqPcI" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "M5ECJrnqPcI", "uploaded_at": "2007-12-10T17:42:09+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sylvania-picnic", "title": "Picnic", "brand": "Sylvania", "year": 2007, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Folk ghosts drift past a cheerful family picnic until darkness falls and the bravado vanishes, a comic payoff that makes the claim that light banishes fear." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Jeh United, Bangkok", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Thanonchai Sornsrivichai" }, { "role": "Executive creative director and copywriter", "name": "Jureeporn Thaidumrong" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Suwit Ekudompong" }, { "role": "Art directors", "name": "Aniruth Assawanapanon, Apiwat Pattalarungkhan" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Phenomena, Bangkok" } ], "tagline": "Under the light nothing seem scary. Sylvania light bulbs.", "why_studied": "A Thai family picnics in broad daylight while a procession of folk ghosts drifts past their mat. The father names each one for his small son with matter-of-fact enthusiasm, even chasing off a spirit that ventures too close to the food; one of the apparitions turns out not to be a ghost at all. Then everything goes dark and the brave picnickers start to look nervous. The payoff makes the point: under the light, nothing seems scary. Written by Jureeporn Thaidumrong's independent agency Jeh United, opened only in 2005, and directed by Thanonchai Sornsrivichai of Phenomena, it is studied as a prime example of the off-the-wall Thai television comedy that American critics were celebrating at the time, and as proof that a commodity product can borrow an entire national folklore to make one simple claim. It won a Gold Lion for film at Cannes in 2008, a Silver Clio and a One Show Merit.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Weird Ads)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjT9ghDp_xs", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Jureeporn Thaidumrong (One Show judge biography)", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-judge/916/jureeporn-thaidumrong" }, { "title": "sylvania | Picnic", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity, One Show (2008)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/7070/picnic/" }, { "title": "Celebrating shameless hucksterism at the Clios.", "publisher": "Slate (2008)", "url": "https://slate.com/business/2008/05/celebrating-shameless-hucksterism-at-the-clios.html" }, { "title": "Havells Sylvania (Thailand) Ltd.: Picnic", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive (2008)", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/havells-sylvania-thailand-ltd/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bjT9ghDp_xs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Picnic (Sylvania, 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sylvania - Ghosts (2007, Thailand)”, uploaded by Weird Ads", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjT9ghDp_xs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bjT9ghDp_xs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "bjT9ghDp_xs", "uploaded_at": "2021-05-09T04:14:59+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rta-nsw-pinkie-speeding", "title": "Pinkie (\"Speeding. No One Thinks Big of You.\")", "brand": "Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales", "year": 2007, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Onlookers mock showing-off young drivers with a wiggled little finger, swapping crash footage for ridicule that makes speeding look unmanly." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "The crude small-penis gesture is deliberately provocative and draws complaints of sexism, which the advertising regulator dismisses." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television and cinema commercial (with outdoor and online executions)", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO, Sydney", "credits": [], "tagline": "Speeding. No one thinks big of you.", "why_studied": "Young men show off behind the wheel, and everyone they hope to impress, from young women by the road to an elderly woman and the mates riding with them, answers with the same gesture: a wiggled little finger, youth-culture shorthand for a small penis. The Roads and Traffic Authority believed blood-and-twisted-metal ads no longer frightened young drivers raised on violent films and video games, so Clemenger BBDO Sydney attacked the reason they speed instead, making it look unmanly rather than dangerous. It is studied as a switch from fear to social ridicule. Launched in June 2007, it drew complaints of sexism, which the advertising regulator dismissed, and the roads minister said young people were using the gesture to slow their mates down. In RTA tracking, 81% of young men said it was undermining the perceived benefits of speeding; the RTA noted that speed-related deaths of 17-to-24-year-olds fell from 75 in 2006 to 40 in 2007. It won the Grand Effie at Australia's first Effie Awards.", "watch": [ { "label": "Pinkie, 60-second version (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWxU_ICoHM", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: Roads and Traffic Authority \"Pinky\"", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/roads-and-traffic-authority/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Boy racers? They've got small ones, says new anti speed ad", "publisher": "The Times (2007)", "url": "https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/australasia-travel/australia/boy-racers-theyve-got-small-ones-says-new-anti-speed-ad-sqkg5wcp7mh" }, { "title": "Pinkie ads slow down speedsters", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2007)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/national/pinkie-ads-slow-down-speedsters-20071015-gdrciy.html" }, { "title": "Case Report 123/08: Roads & Traffic Authority", "publisher": "Advertising Standards Bureau (2008)", "url": "https://adstandards.com.au/sites/default/files/reports/123-08.pdf" }, { "title": "The 2009 Grand EFFIE Award Goes to NSW Road Safety Campaign", "publisher": "Effie Australia (2009)", "url": "https://advertisingcouncil.org.au/effies/news/the-2009-grand-effie-award-goes-to-nsw-road-safety-campaign/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5hWxU_ICoHM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 440, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Pinkie (\"Speeding. No One Thinks Big of You.\") (Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales, 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “RTA Pinkie - longer version”, uploaded by lokeypoke", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWxU_ICoHM" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "5hWxU_ICoHM", "uploaded_at": "2007-06-30T02:45:24+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "softbank-shirato-family", "title": "The Shirato Family (White Family)", "brand": "SoftBank", "year": 2007, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Presents an ordinary household where the father is a lecturing white dog and nobody explains why, a deadpan absurdity that gives the newcomer brand warmth." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The talking dog father and his family recur across the series as recognisable characters, popular enough to cross over with another brand's campaign." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial series", "agency": "Dentsu, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Hiroshi Sasaki" }, { "role": "CM planner", "name": "Yoshimitsu Sawamoto" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Aya Ueto, Kanako Higuchi, Dante Carver" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The Shirato household looks ordinary until you notice two things: the father is a white Hokkaido dog who lectures his family in a human voice, and the elder son is a Black American. Nobody explains either. The series began in June 2007 to sell a plan offering free calls within the family, for SoftBank, which had bought Vodafone's Japanese business the year before and given its advertising to creative director Hiroshi Sasaki; the films came from a Dentsu team including planner Yoshimitsu Sawamoto. Asked why the father was a dog, the company declined to say. The deadpan absurdity gave a newcomer brand a warm personality: the CM Research Institute's 2007 likeability survey put it first, and SoftBank topped the brand rankings for eight straight years. It won the 2008 ACC CM Festival Grand Prix, when the family, dog included, also took the performance award, and later crossed over with Suntory's Alien Jones. Campaign Asia called it one of Japan's most impressive TV campaigns in living memory.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (becauseofdreams JP translation project)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5DnXP5xhs", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "A tribute to SoftBank's original Otosan", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2018)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/a-tribute-to-softbanks-original-otosan/445638" }, { "title": "ソフトバンクCMのホワイト犬 「お父さん」になった理由 (Why SoftBank's white dog became 'Dad')", "publisher": "J-CAST News (2007)", "url": "https://www.j-cast.com/2007/12/07014303.html?p=all" }, { "title": "ソフトバンク、トヨタCMの二番煎じ避けた「5Gってドラえもん？」", "publisher": "Nikkei Cross Trend (2021)", "url": "https://xtrend.nikkei.com/atcl/contents/18/00008/00078/" }, { "title": "広告業界が選ぶ09年最優秀CM 「宇宙人ジョーンズ」がグランプリ受賞 ～『49th ACC CM FESTIVAL』", "publisher": "Oricon News (2009)", "url": "https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/70342/full/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Va5DnXP5xhs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Shirato Family (White Family) (SoftBank, 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “White Family SoftBank Dog CM #01. \"Unimaginable Family\" Japanese Commercial [ENG SUB]”, uploaded by becauseofdreams JP translation project", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5DnXP5xhs" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Va5DnXP5xhs", "uploaded_at": "2016-05-10T03:34:09+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cadbury-gorilla", "title": "Gorilla", "brand": "Cadbury Dairy Milk", "brand_slug": "cadbury", "year": 2007, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Offers no product message at all, only the joy of a gorilla drumming, trusting viewers to carry that feeling over to the chocolate brand." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "The drum fill of Phil Collins' song is the film's climax, so the music itself delivers the emotional charge the brand wants." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "90-second television commercial", "agency": "Fallon, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer / Director", "name": "Juan Cabral" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Phil Collins, \"In the Air Tonight\"" }, { "role": "Gorilla performer", "name": "Garon Michael" } ], "tagline": "A glass and a half full of joy.", "why_studied": "Ninety seconds of a gorilla waiting, then drumming the fill of Phil Collins' \"In the Air Tonight\" — no chocolate on screen until the end card. Briefed to make Cadbury loved again rather than to communicate any product message, Fallon's Juan Cabral wrote and directed a film whose only argument is the feeling of joy itself, trusting the audience to transfer it to the brand. Cadbury's own research said don't run it; the client ran it anyway on August 31, 2007, and it became a cultural event that put Phil Collins back in the charts. It is studied as the defining case for emotional priming over message-based advertising — the campaign most cited in debates about how advertising actually works — and for client bravery as a creative ingredient. It won the Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix in 2008, the first time in the festival's history that the top film prize was shared.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Guardian's oral history, with the film (The Guardian)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/jan/07/how-we-made-cadburys-gorilla-ad", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'I was basically told: you are never showing this' — how we made Cadbury's Gorilla ad", "publisher": "The Guardian (2016)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/jan/07/how-we-made-cadburys-gorilla-ad" }, { "title": "Cannes: Gorilla bags the top Lion", "publisher": "The Guardian (2008)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/jun/23/advertising" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/TnzFRV1LwIo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Gorilla (Cadbury Dairy Milk, 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Cadbury's Gorilla Advert Aug 31st 2007”, uploaded by macegrove", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "TnzFRV1LwIo", "uploaded_at": "2007-08-31T23:42:32+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "suntory-boss-alien-jones", "title": "Alien Jones (Earth Survey series)", "brand": "Suntory Boss", "year": 2006, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Casts Tommy Lee Jones as a recurring alien who surveys Earth through a new Japanese job each episode, a character premise that keeps renewing itself." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each episode ends with a dry, straight-faced verdict on the planet's inhabitants over a can of Boss, a sardonic tone that slowly warms into admiration." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Series of 30- and 60-second television commercials", "agency": "Shingata, One Sky and Dentsu, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Planner and copywriter", "name": "Shinichi Fukusato" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Hiroshi Sasaki" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Tommy Lee Jones" } ], "tagline": "This lousy, wonderful world (Kono rokudemonai, subarashiki sekai)", "why_studied": "In each episode Tommy Lee Jones, playing an alien sent to survey Earth, takes another Japanese job, from sumo referee to island doctor, watches the locals with a straight face, then gulps a can of Boss while his Japanese narration delivers a dry verdict on \"the inhabitants of this planet\". Suntory asked planner Shinichi Fukusato for a series that could run at least five years, keep Boss as the working person's ally and lift viewers' spirits amid relentless bad news. His answer was an outsider who starts out sardonic and slowly comes to admire the people he studies, a premise that renews itself with every new job, summed up in the line \"this lousy, wonderful world\". Made since 2006 under creative director Hiroshi Sasaki, it had passed 70 occupations by 2020. It is studied as a model of the endlessly extendable Japanese character series, and in 2009 it won the Grand Prix at the ACC CM Festival, one of Japan's biggest commercial competitions, by a wide margin.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Channel love cat)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWTjIc0Uj6I", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Tommy Lee Jones in Japan: Fifteen Years as “The Alien”", "publisher": "Nippon.com (2020)", "url": "https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/b00139/" }, { "title": "広告業界が選ぶ09年最優秀CM 「宇宙人ジョーンズ」がグランプリ受賞 ～『49th ACC CM FESTIVAL』 (Alien Jones wins Grand Prix at 49th ACC CM Festival)", "publisher": "Oricon News (2009)", "url": "https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/70342/full/" }, { "title": "“人間の営みのにおい”をさせつつ着飾る（前編） (interview with Hiroshi Sasaki)", "publisher": "Dentsu Live (2017)", "url": "https://www.dentsulive.co.jp/column/20170626" }, { "title": "ＢＯＳＳ「宇宙人ジョーンズ　大工」 (Alien Jones: Carpenter, 2009)", "publisher": "Broadcast Library, BPCJ", "url": "https://www.bpcj.or.jp/program/detail/A22245/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/MWTjIc0Uj6I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Alien Jones (Earth Survey series) (Suntory Boss, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “宇宙人ジョーンズの地球調査シリーズ ♯1「登場篇」 Japanese TV Commercials”, uploaded by Channel love cat", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWTjIc0Uj6I" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "MWTjIc0Uj6I", "uploaded_at": "2015-02-15T00:59:33+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ikea-spain-independent-republic-of-your-home", "title": "Bienvenido a la república independiente de tu casa", "brand": "IKEA Spain", "brand_slug": "ikea", "year": 2006, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Uses shaky camcorder footage shot by ordinary families, with a child reading out the home's constitution, so the brand speaks from real living rooms." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Casts the home as a family's own republic with an anthem, a flag and laws that change on a whim, appealing to how deeply people cherish home." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "*S,C,P,F..., Barcelona", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Carlitos, Patricia Luján and Toni Segarra" } ], "tagline": "Welcome to the independent republic of your home", "why_studied": "A child's voice reads out the constitution of a home over shaky family camcorder footage: every republic needs an anthem and a flag, the inhabitants look after the flora and fauna, invaders are respected by law, and any law can change the moment you feel like it. To launch IKEA Spain's new positioning, *S,C,P,F... handed video cameras to ordinary families with children aged eight to ten, asked them to imagine their home as a country, and cut some forty hours of footage into a minute. It is studied as positioning grounded in research, which found Spaniards ranked home as the most important thing in their lives, and for a line that left the screen: demand for the doormat seen in the ad was so strong that IKEA put it on sale. The campaign won Spain's Gran Premio a la Eficacia in 2009, with advertising awareness reported at 62 per cent, and IKEA lists a Bronze Lion at Cannes in 2006 among its awards.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (durbon)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXMsORKEBuY", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "La república independiente de la Eficacia", "publisher": "Control Publicidad (2009)", "url": "https://controlpublicidad.com/festivales-y-premios-publicidad/la-republica-independiente-de-la-eficacia/" }, { "title": "*S,C,P,F... realizó el lanzamiento del nuevo concepto de IKEA", "publisher": "LatinSpots (2006)", "url": "https://www.latinspots.com/noticia/scpf...-realiz-el-lanzamiento-del-nuevo-concepto-de-ikea/10493" }, { "title": "Bienvenido a la República Independiente de tu Casa", "publisher": "El Publicista (2006)", "url": "https://www.elpublicista.es/reportajes/bienvenido-republica-independiente-tu-casa" }, { "title": "IKEA celebra 30 años de su primer anuncio en España", "publisher": "IKEA Spain newsroom (2026)", "url": "https://www.ikea.com/es/es/newsroom/corporate-news/ikea-celebra-los-30-anos-de-su-primer-anuncio-en-espana-pubbf2ac960/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JXMsORKEBuY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bienvenido a la república independiente de tu casa (IKEA Spain, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Bienvenido a la república independiente de tu casa”, uploaded by durbon", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXMsORKEBuY" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "JXMsORKEBuY", "uploaded_at": "2006-04-19T11:06:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-happiness-factory", "title": "Happiness Factory", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2006, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Follows a coin into a vending machine and the bottle's journey through an animated kingdom of creatures that ferry, cap, kiss and chill it." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Turns buying a Coke into a burst of whimsical delight, with creatures firing themselves from cannons in celebration, linking the drink to happiness." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam", "credits": [ { "role": "Directors", "name": "Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick" }, { "role": "Animation / production company", "name": "Psyop" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Rick Condos and Hunter Hindman" } ], "tagline": "The Coke Side of Life", "why_studied": "A young man drops a coin into a Coca-Cola vending machine and the camera follows it into an animated kingdom inside: pig-helicopters ferry the bottle, a gold-toothed capper catapults the cap on, love puppies seal it with a kiss and snowmen chill it, before the creatures fire themselves from cannons to celebrate its exit into the real world. Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam made it with the animation studio Psyop, directed by Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick, to launch Coke's global “Coke Side of Life” campaign. It is studied as the point where a CG brand world was built like an entertainment franchise. Stash reported it was the highest-rated global spot the Coca-Cola Company had ever tested, and it spawned a three-and-a-half-minute sequel, “Happiness Factory: The Movie”, premiered in Second Life in 2007 and later named by Adweek's AdFreak among the most epic commercials ever made. The original took a One Show merit award.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (The Hall of Advertising)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx-zPheFnHo", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Happiness Factory", "publisher": "The One Club (One Show 2007)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/5667/happiness-factory/" }, { "title": "Psyop Coke “Happiness Factory” Credits", "publisher": "Motionographer (2006)", "url": "https://motionographer.com/2006/07/05/psyop-coke-happiness-factory-credits/" }, { "title": "Stash Boston 2007 screening booklet: Coca-Cola “Happiness Factory - The Movie”", "publisher": "Stash", "url": "https://www.stashmedia.tv/pdfs/Stashbos07_booklet_screen.pdf" }, { "title": "Freak Week: Go Big or Go Home", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/freak-week-go-big-or-go-home-102272/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gx-zPheFnHo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Happiness Factory (Coca-Cola, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca-Cola - Happiness Factory (2006, Netherlands)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx-zPheFnHo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gx-zPheFnHo/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gx-zPheFnHo", "uploaded_at": "2019-07-28T09:00:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-get-a-mac", "title": "Get a Mac (\"Mac vs. PC\")", "brand": "Apple", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 2006, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Personifies Mac and PC as two men side by side, turning every product difference, from viruses to crashes, into a direct swipe at the rival." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Plays the comparison as a deadpan sitcom in which the endearing, malfunctioning PC is a lovable loser, so the mockery never turns nasty." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The laid-back Mac and endearing PC return across dozens of spots in the same white void, becoming characters viewers instantly recognise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign (66 spots, 2006–2009)", "agency": "TBWA\\Media Arts Lab", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Phil Morrison" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Justin Long (Mac), John Hodgman (PC)" } ], "tagline": "Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC.", "why_studied": "Sixty-six spots, one white void, two guys. Justin Long's laid-back Mac and John Hodgman's endearing, malfunctioning PC turned a feature-comparison chart into a sitcom — every product difference (viruses, crashes, iLife) became a character beat. Running from May 2006 to October 2009, the campaign won the Grand Effie after driving what the Effie organization described as 42% market-share growth, and Adweek named it the best advertising campaign of the decade. It is studied for personification as strategy — making the competitor a lovable loser rather than a villain, so the mockery never curdled — and for serial discipline: the format was so sturdy it sustained three years of weekly comedy without exhausting the joke.", "watch": [ { "label": "All 66 spots, collected by Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/apples-get-mac-complete-campaign-130552/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Apple Wins Grand Effie (42% market-share growth)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/apple-wins-grand-effie-89278/" }, { "title": "Apple's 'Get a Mac,' the Complete Campaign (66 spots, 2006–2009; campaign of the decade)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/apples-get-mac-complete-campaign-130552/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gfWyI5ZhL2g/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Get a Mac (\"Mac vs. PC\") (Apple, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Apple Get a Mac ad - Better 2006”, uploaded by MacMuzeum", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfWyI5ZhL2g", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gfWyI5ZhL2g/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gfWyI5ZhL2g", "uploaded_at": "2017-01-11T15:09:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dos-equis-most-interesting-man", "title": "The Most Interesting Man in the World", "brand": "Dos Equis", "year": 2006, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Builds the campaign around a silver-bearded legend in his sixties, a recurring character embodying the opposite of the dullness young drinkers fear." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Absurdly heroic boasts, such as having an awkward moment just to see how it feels, turn the character's mystique into a running joke." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign", "agency": "Euro RSCG (Havas), New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Jonathan Goldsmith" }, { "role": "Voiceover", "name": "Will Lyman" } ], "tagline": "I don't always drink beer. But when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friends.", "why_studied": "Beer advertising's rulebook said young, party, bikinis; Dos Equis cast a silver-bearded man in his sixties and made him a legend: \"He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels.\" Built on Havas's research insight that young drinkers' deepest fear was being boring — \"they'd rather be dead than dull\" — the campaign launched in 2006, went national in 2009, and lifted U.S. sales roughly 22% in a year when imported beer overall declined 4%. The character became one of the most memed figures in advertising history, his template (\"I don't always X, but when I do, Y\") a permanent internet fixture. It is studied for insight-led character creation and for the courage of casting against every category norm.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Drum's marketing-moments entry on the campaign", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/2006-dos-equis-introduces-the-most-interesting-man-the-world", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "2006: Dos Equis introduces the most interesting man in the world", "publisher": "The Drum", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/2006-dos-equis-introduces-the-most-interesting-man-the-world" }, { "title": "King of beer sales, amigo (sales up ~22% while imports fell)", "publisher": "Maclean's (2009)", "url": "https://macleans.ca/economy/business/king-of-beer-sales-amigo/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6pIV8w66mXc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Most Interesting Man in the World (Dos Equis, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Most Interesting Man in The World®”, uploaded by Dos Equis", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pIV8w66mXc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6pIV8w66mXc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mla-australia-day-lamb", "title": "Australia Day Lamb", "brand": "Meat & Livestock Australia (Australian Lamb)", "year": 2005, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Seats its spokesman before the Australian flag and ties an everyday meat to Australia Day, borrowing patriotic ritual to make eating lamb a national duty." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A former footballer delivers a deadpan, mock-statesmanlike rant against all things he deems un-Australian, vegetarians included." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Deliberately provokes with its attacks on vegetarians and others, courting complaints and building that controversy into the yearly formula." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "BMF, Sydney", "credits": [ { "role": "Presenter", "name": "Sam Kekovich" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Former AFL footballer Sam Kekovich sits at a desk in front of the Australian flag and delivers a deadpan, mock-statesmanlike rant against all things he considers un-Australian, vegetarians included, ordering the nation to eat lamb on Australia Day. BMF's 2005 spot was briefed to halt a decline in lamb sales and did it by attaching an everyday meat to a national holiday and a patriotic ritual. It is studied for owning a moment in the calendar and for its deliberate use of provocation: the first ad drew a wave of complaints, and controversy became part of the formula. Meat & Livestock Australia reported that within a decade lamb sales in the week before Australia Day were running about 48 per cent above an average week. The campaign has returned every summer for twenty years, later made by The Monkeys, and in 2024 won Australian Effies for both short- and long-term effects.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (LambAustraliaDay)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0wegCDBts8", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Sam still selling lamb after a decade", "publisher": "ABC News (2014)", "url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-01-27/nrn-lamb-campaign/5220586" }, { "title": "MLA: “Provocation is the sweet spot” in latest Aussie Lamb ad", "publisher": "Mediaweek (2024)", "url": "https://www.mediaweek.com.au/meat-livestock-australia-mla-graeme-yardy-generation-gap-lamb-campaign" }, { "title": "Celebrating MLA's lamb ads and their impact", "publisher": "Farm Online (2025)", "url": "https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/8857938/celebrating-mlas-lamb-ads-and-their-impact/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Z0wegCDBts8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Australia Day Lamb (Meat & Livestock Australia (Australian Lamb), 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sam Kekovich We Love our Lamb - Australia Day 2005”, uploaded by LambAustraliaDay", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0wegCDBts8" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Z0wegCDBts8", "uploaded_at": "2012-01-06T00:48:20+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "smooth-e-love-story", "title": "Love Story", "brand": "Smooth E Babyface Foam", "year": 2005, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Unfolds a four-episode soap opera in which a tomboy's love, rejection and skincare makeover end with the twist that her best friend loved her all along." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Treats the hard sell as part of the joke, borrowing the open sales pitches of travelling-medicine film shows that stop at the most gripping moment." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Four-part serial television commercial", "agency": "JEH United, Bangkok", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director / copywriter", "name": "Jureeporn Thaidumrong" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Thanonchai Sornsriwichai" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Phenomena, Bangkok" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A four-episode soap opera that ran on Thai television for two months: Jum, a scruffy tomboy, blurts out her love for the school's handsome sepak takraw player and is rejected, takes a pharmacist's advice about her skin, wins him with a little help from Smooth E's foam, loses him when he flees a street fight, and finally learns that her timid best friend loved her all along. Jureeporn Thaidumrong of the newly founded JEH United modelled it on Thailand's rural travelling-medicine film shows, which stop the story at its most gripping moment to make an open sales pitch. It is studied as an influential early example of the episodic, comic long-form commercial that became a Thai specialty, treating the hard sell as part of the joke rather than something to hide. The series won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2006 and Best of Film at ADFEST.", "watch": [ { "label": "Episode one on YouTube (Adassothai)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWhUmSwCM_o", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Smooth E Baby Face Foam กลยุทธ์แบบ “หนังขายยา” (Smooth E Baby Face Foam's 'medicine-show film' strategy)", "publisher": "Positioning Magazine, Thailand (2005)", "url": "https://positioningmag.com/7716" }, { "title": "Jureeporn Thaidumrong | JED United", "publisher": "The One Club (One Show judge profile)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-judge/916/jureeporn-thaidumrong" }, { "title": "JEH United Thailand's Jureeporn Thaidumrong is ADFEST 2011 Film Lotus and Radio Lotus jury president", "publisher": "adobo magazine (2011)", "url": "https://www.adobomagazine.com/uncategorized/jeh-united-thailands-jureeporn-thaidumrong-is-adfest-2011-film-lotus-and-radio-lotus-jury-president/" }, { "title": "View: Smooth E Ad | By Jeh United Bangkok", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/smooth-e/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/cWhUmSwCM_o/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Love Story (Smooth E Babyface Foam, 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Love Story Series 01 - SmoothE Baby Face Foam [Gold]”, uploaded by Adassothai", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWhUmSwCM_o", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/cWhUmSwCM_o/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "cWhUmSwCM_o", "uploaded_at": "2016-10-25T05:10:51+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "montana-meth-project-not-even-once", "title": "Not Even Once (\"Just Once\")", "brand": "Montana Meth Project", "year": 2005, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "Graphic scenes of peers ruined by the drug warn that trying meth even once leads to stealing, sex for drugs and a sister following suit." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Deliberately disturbing imagery is the whole strategy, so raw that officials ask for the spots to be kept off air until the evening." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A girl's repeated promise of doing things just once escalates scene by scene until her little sister makes the same vow." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercials (with radio, print and billboards)", "agency": "Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Director (first two waves)", "name": "Tony Kaye" }, { "role": "Founder", "name": "Thomas Siebel" } ], "tagline": "Not even once.", "why_studied": "A teenage girl promises she will try meth \"just once\", then steals \"just once\", then sleeps with a man for the drug \"just once\", until her little sister repeats the same promise. In 2005 the software billionaire Thomas Siebel set out to \"unsell\" methamphetamine in Montana as if it were a consumer product; Venables Bell & Partners' research found that teenagers ignored preachy authority figures, so the spots showed peers ruined by the drug in graphic detail. Saturation buying made the project the biggest advertiser in the state, reaching most Montana teens three times a week, and officials asked that the ads not air before 7 p.m. It is studied as the textbook test of shock tactics. Its backers cited falling teen meth use, but a 2008 review in Prevention Science found the campaign associated with greater acceptance of meth and lower perceived danger, and a 2010 study in the Journal of Health Economics found effects on use statistically indistinguishable from zero once an existing downward trend was accounted for.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Just Once\" (Montana Meth Project, Phase 1) on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDJqDQKEb5k", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Unselling Meth", "publisher": "Stanford Social Innovation Review (2007)", "url": "https://ssir.org/articles/entry/unselling_meth" }, { "title": "With Scenes of Blood and Pain, Ads Battle Methamphetamine in Montana", "publisher": "The New York Times (2006)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/us/with-scenes-of-blood-and-pain-ads-battle-methamphetamine-in-montana.html" }, { "title": "Drugs, Money, and Graphic Ads: A Critical Review of the Montana Meth Project", "publisher": "Prevention Science via PubMed (2008)", "url": "https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18686033/" }, { "title": "Does Information Matter? The Effect of the Meth Project on Meth Use among Youths", "publisher": "Journal of Health Economics via PubMed Central (2010)", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4323270/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/EDJqDQKEb5k/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Not Even Once (\"Just Once\") (Montana Meth Project, 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Montana Meth Project - Phase 1 - Just Once”, uploaded by MontanaMethProject1", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDJqDQKEb5k" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "EDJqDQKEb5k", "uploaded_at": "2009-04-30T05:44:59+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "carlton-draught-big-ad", "title": "Big Ad", "brand": "Carlton Draught", "year": 2005, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Parodies advertising's own grandiosity, with two robed armies charging across mountains only to form a giant man drinking a beer." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Sets self-mocking lyrics about the ad's size and expense to O Fortuna, making the sung joke the centrepiece of the spot." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial (released online first)", "agency": "George Patterson Partners / Y&R, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer", "name": "Ant Keogh" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Grant Rutherford" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Paul Middleditch" } ], "tagline": "It's a big ad. My God, it's big!", "why_studied": "Advertising parodying its own megalomania. Two robed armies charge across New Zealand mountains singing, to \"O Fortuna,\" lyrics about the ad itself: \"It's a big ad... expensive ad... this ad better sell some bloooody beer!\" — before aerial shots reveal the armies form a man drinking a Carlton Draught. Seeded online on July 21, 2005, two weeks before TV, it drew hundreds of thousands of downloads in days and over a million viewers in 132 countries within a fortnight — an early, deliberate proof that a TV ad could be launched like a viral film. It is studied for self-aware comedy as a beer-brand strategy, for the online-first release model, and for its award sweep including a One Show Gold Pencil and Cannes Gold Lion.", "watch": [ { "label": "The One Show award record, with the spot", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/4294/big-ad/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Calling in the big shots (making and viral launch of Big Ad)", "publisher": "The Age (2005)", "url": "https://www.theage.com.au/business/calling-in-the-big-shots-20050815-ge0oym.html" }, { "title": "Big Ad — One Show Gold Pencil record (credits)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/4294/big-ad/" }, { "title": "Very Big Ad shows why we still call Carlton a beer", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2005)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/business/very-big-ad-shows-why-we-still-call-carlton-a-beer-20050728-gdlrls.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iU5XG-LnkBU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Big Ad (Carlton Draught, 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Carlton Draught - Big Ad (2005, Australia)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU5XG-LnkBU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iU5XG-LnkBU/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "iU5XG-LnkBU", "uploaded_at": "2023-06-01T08:00:18+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "guinness-noitulove", "title": "noitulovE", "brand": "Guinness", "brand_slug": "guinness", "year": 2005, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Reverses time as three drinkers de-evolve through ice ages and dinosaurs to primordial ooze, making the brand's patience line literal on an epic scale." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Ends with a mudskipper tasting muddy water and grimacing, a comic payoff to the idea that the pint has been aeons in the making." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Daniel Kleinman" }, { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Matt Doman, Ian Heartfield" }, { "role": "VFX", "name": "Framestore CFC" } ], "tagline": "Good things come to those who wait.", "why_studied": "Three drinkers raise their pints — and time reverses. They de-evolve backwards through decades, ice ages, dinosaurs and primordial ooze until, as mudskippers at a muddy puddle, one tastes the water and grimaces. Title: Evolution, backwards. \"noitulovE\" made Guinness's famous patience platform — \"Good things come to those who wait\" — literal on the scale of natural history: this pint was 500 million years in the making. It is studied for how a brand platform can be reinvented rather than repeated (it followed \"Surfer\" on the same strategy), for Daniel Kleinman's seamless effects filmmaking, and as a Cannes landmark: it won the Film Grand Prix in 2006 against \"Big Ad\" and Sony \"Balls\" in one of the strongest film years on record.", "watch": [ { "label": "The spot with full credits (SHOOTonline)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/shoot_video2/guinness-noitulove/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Guinness 'Noitulove' Wins Cannes Film Grand Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2006)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/cannes06/guinness-noitulove-wins-cannes-film-grand-prix/110209/" }, { "title": "Guinness' \"noitulovE\" (credits)", "publisher": "SHOOTonline", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/shoot_video2/guinness-noitulove/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qINiB3ndGmU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from noitulovE (Guinness, 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Guinness - noitulovE (2005, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qINiB3ndGmU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qINiB3ndGmU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1024, "height": 576 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "qINiB3ndGmU", "uploaded_at": "2015-01-07T10:20:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sony-bravia-balls", "title": "Balls (and \"Paint\")", "brand": "Sony Bravia", "year": 2005, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Releases a flood of brightly coloured balls down real San Francisco hills, with no CGI, to make the television's colour claim visible at heroic scale." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television and cinema commercials", "agency": "Fallon, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Concept", "name": "Juan Cabral" }, { "role": "Director (Balls)", "name": "Nicolai Fuglsig" }, { "role": "Director (Paint)", "name": "Jonathan Glazer" } ], "tagline": "Colour. Like no other.", "why_studied": "The shortest script in the business — \"we let 250,000 brightly coloured balls loose down the hills of San Francisco\" — produced one of the most beautiful commercials ever shot. No CGI: just bouncing colour, a frog hopping clear, and José González's cover of \"Heartbeats.\" Launched in the UK on 6 November 2005 with Sony buying an entire ad break, it made \"Colour like no other\" a platform; the 2006 sequel \"Paint,\" directed by Jonathan Glazer, detonated 70,000 litres of paint across a condemned Glasgow tower block. The pair is studied for literalism executed at heroic scale — demonstrating a TV's colour by filling the real world with it — for the production-as-event model that generated word of mouth before social media, and as the campaign that preceded creator Juan Cabral's \"Gorilla.\"", "watch": [ { "label": "D&AD case study on 'Balls', with the film", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/sony-balls-case-study-insights", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Case Study: Sony Balls (250,000 balls; launch details; director and agency)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/sony-balls-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "Remembering when a Glasgow tower block got 'paint bombed' for a TV advert", "publisher": "Glasgow Live", "url": "https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/remembering-glasgow-tower-block-paint-19486870" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0_bx8bnCoiU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Balls (and \"Paint\") (Sony Bravia, 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sony Bravia Bouncy Balls Full HD 1080p”, uploaded by 32cn32", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_bx8bnCoiU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0_bx8bnCoiU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "0_bx8bnCoiU", "uploaded_at": "2010-02-11T14:46:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "telecom-italia-gandhi", "title": "Gandhi", "brand": "Telecom Italia", "year": 2004, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows Gandhi's moral authority by imagining his message of peace broadcast by webcam to screens and crowds worldwide, lending his stature to a telecoms brand." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Sells the lofty idea of connection, summed up as communication being life, rather than any specific service." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Young & Rubicam Italia", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Spike Lee" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Colorado Film" } ], "tagline": "Communication is life", "why_studied": "Mahatma Gandhi walks into a bare hut, sits cross-legged, switches on a webcam and begins to speak, and his message of peace appears on a skyscraper facade, giant public screens, laptops and mobile phones before vast crowds and solitary listeners around the world. The words come from his 1947 address in New Delhi, and the closing line asks what kind of world we would have today if he had been able to communicate like this. Directed by Spike Lee for Young & Rubicam, it is studied as an audacious corporate-brand film that sold the idea of connection rather than any service, and as a much-debated example of a brand borrowing a historical figure's moral authority. It won a Bronze Lion at Cannes in 2005, a Clio and Italy's Mezzo Minuto d'Oro, and in 2012 the Key Award jury named it the Italian spot “best ever forever”.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Apple Ads Channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE03ULLVPoI", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Premiato lo spot della Telecom con Gandhi che parla via web", "publisher": "Il Tempo (2005)", "url": "https://www.iltempo.it/cultura-spettacoli/2005/06/28/news/premiato-lo-spot-della-telecom-con-gandhi-che-parla-via-web-337103/" }, { "title": "Telecom Italia: lo spot \"Gandhi\" vince il premio \"Best ever forever\"", "publisher": "FIRSTonline (2012)", "url": "https://www.firstonline.info/telecom-italia-lo-spot-gandhi-vince-il-premio-best-ever-forever/" }, { "title": "Da Gandhi a Chaplin, quando lo spot segna l'immaginario", "publisher": "TvBlog (2020)", "url": "https://www.tvblog.it/post/da-gandhi-a-chaplin-quando-lo-spot-segna-limmaginario" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UE03ULLVPoI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Gandhi (Telecom Italia, 2004)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Spot Telecom - Gandhi - \"Che mondo sarebbe...\" - 2004 (ita)”, uploaded by Apple Ads Channel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE03ULLVPoI" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "UE03ULLVPoI", "uploaded_at": "2007-12-21T02:11:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "honda-grrr", "title": "Grrr (\"Hate Something, Change Something\")", "brand": "Honda", "brand_slug": "honda", "year": 2004, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Leads with diesel's most hated qualities, turning an engineer's loathing of noisy old engines into the case for Honda's better one." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A crooned song built on the line about hating something and changing something carries the message through a candy-coloured animated wonderland." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second animated television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Directors", "name": "Smith & Foulkes (Nexus Studios)" }, { "role": "Writers", "name": "Sean Thompson, Michael Russoff, Richard Russell" }, { "role": "Vocals", "name": "Garrison Keillor" } ], "tagline": "Hate something, change something.", "why_studied": "A diesel-engine ad built on hate. Honda engineer Kenichi Nagahiro despised diesels — so he built a better one, and W+K turned that origin story into \"positive hate\": a candy-coloured animated wonderland where cheerful wildlife destroys noisy old diesel engines while Garrison Keillor croons \"hate something, change something.\" Released in 2004, it was the most-awarded campaign of its year, won the 2005 Cannes Film Grand Prix with the backing of 17 of 22 jurors, and was later named Adweek's commercial of the decade. The business case matched the craft: UK diesel Accord sales rose from 518 units in 2003 to 21,766 in 2004. It is studied for strategic jiu-jitsu — leading with the product's most hated attribute — and for proving animation could win advertising's top film prize.", "watch": [ { "label": "W+K London's case page, with the film", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/grr/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Honda 'Grrr' Wins Cannes Grand Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2005)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/cannes05/honda-grrr-wins-cannes-grand-prix/46138" }, { "title": "Honda — Grrr (results: sales, awards, Adweek commercial of the decade)", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy London", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/grr/" }, { "title": "Campaign: The Making of Honda 'Grrr'", "publisher": "Nexus Studios / Campaign", "url": "https://nexusstudios.com/insight/campaign-the-making-of-honda-grrr/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lYtANGkdSxQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Grrr (\"Hate Something, Change Something\") (Honda, 2004)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Honda - Grrr (2004, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYtANGkdSxQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lYtANGkdSxQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lYtANGkdSxQ", "uploaded_at": "2015-01-27T11:04:16+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hutch-pug", "title": "Boy and Pug (You and I)", "brand": "Hutch", "year": 2003, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Sells network coverage with no technology on screen, through a pug's devoted companionship as it trots after a small boy wherever he goes." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The faithful pug becomes the brand's recurring face, standing for unconditional support and fronting the network for years." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather India", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative directors (Ogilvy & Mather)", "name": "Rajiv Rao and Mahesh V" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Prakash Varma (Nirvana Films)" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Cheeka (pug)" } ], "tagline": "Wherever you go, our network follows.", "why_studied": "A small boy wanders through a rain-washed Goan day, to school, the barber's, the bath, and a pug trots after him wherever he goes, to the song \"You and I, in this beautiful world.\" Then the line: wherever you go, our network follows. Briefed to prove Hutch's coverage while India's mobile boom strained networks, Ogilvy's Rajiv Rao and Mahesh V chose to sell reach \"without the tech, using emotions,\" first imagining a pesky little sister, then swapping in a dog as the simplest image of unconditional support. Hutch chief Asim Ghosh approved it by asking the agency to leave before his courage did. Dog-lover Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films shot it in Goa in August 2003 with Cheeka, a fallback after a fox terrier. It is studied as the textbook case of selling a technical promise with no technology on screen. After its September launch, pet shops reported pug sales had more than doubled; the pug fronted Hutch for four years, then ushered in Vodafone after the 2007 takeover.", "watch": [ { "label": "Nirvana Films (production company) upload on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8ZC9uDg8Ik", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Top Dog! (Hutch campaign and Cheeka the pug)", "publisher": "Business Today (Dec 2003)", "url": "https://archives.digitaltoday.in/businesstoday/20031207/books.html" }, { "title": "Why everyone turned their TVs on to watch this pug", "publisher": "The Economic Times (2016)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/consumer-legal/why-everyone-turned-their-tvs-on-to-watch-this-pug/enter-cheeka-the-pug/slideshow/55650357.cms" }, { "title": "When the Pug leads", "publisher": "Business Standard (2008)", "url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/management/when-the-pug-leads-108010801006_1.html" }, { "title": "Bow, Wow: How Cheeka the pug made Hutch a household name", "publisher": "Storyboard18 (2024)", "url": "https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-marketing/bow-wow-how-cheeka-the-pug-made-hutch-a-household-name-42291.htm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/r8ZC9uDg8Ik/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Boy and Pug (You and I) (Hutch, 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “hutch boy dog”, uploaded by Nirvana Films", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8ZC9uDg8Ik" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "r8ZC9uDg8Ik", "uploaded_at": "2009-03-30T11:51:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "citibank-identity-theft-outfit", "title": "Outfit (Identity Theft)", "brand": "Citibank", "year": 2003, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "emmy-winners" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "Makes the invisible threat of identity theft vivid by putting a thief's gloating voice in a victim's mouth, then offers the bank's new service as protection." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The comic mismatch of a beer-drinking man voicing a giddy young woman's shopping spree keeps a frightening subject light rather than hectoring." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Fallon, Minneapolis", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Kevin Thomas (Thomas Thomas Films)" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "David Lubars" }, { "role": "Group creative director", "name": "John Matejczyk" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Steve Sage" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Ryan Peck" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A middle-aged man sits in his wood-panelled den with a can of beer in front of the TV, and out of his mouth comes the giddy voice of a young woman gloating about the $1,500 leather bustier she has just bought. The voice belongs to the thief who stole his card. Fallon built Citibank's launch of its Identity Theft Solutions service on that one device, a victim lip-syncing the criminal, repeated across spots with other mismatched pairs: a hip young woman with a nasal teenage boy, a sweet retiree with a gruff trucker. The team realised five days before the shoot that the voices were the idea, recorded them first and auditioned more than 250 for each role. It is studied as a lesson in dramatising an invisible, frightening crime without hectoring, through a single simple and repeatable idea. Directed by Kevin Thomas, the campaign was Adweek's campaign of the year for 2003, and \"Outfit\" won the 2004 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Steve Driggs)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48R5ABtXj2w", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Fallon Cops 3rd Primetime Spot Emmy", "publisher": "SHOOT (2004)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/fallon-cops-3rd-primetime-spot-emmy/" }, { "title": "Creative Best Spots: Campaign of the Year - Citibank", "publisher": "Adweek (2004)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/creative-best-spots-campaign-year-citibank-70263/" }, { "title": "Barbara Lippert's Critique: Look Who's Talking", "publisher": "Adweek (2003)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/barbara-lipperts-critique-look-whos-talking-68623/" }, { "title": "Outfit - Citibank Identity Theft Card Protection", "publisher": "Television Academy", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/outfit-citibank-identity-theft-card-protection" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/48R5ABtXj2w/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Outfit (Identity Theft) (Citibank, 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Citi Identity Theft, Outfit”, uploaded by Steve Driggs", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48R5ABtXj2w", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/48R5ABtXj2w/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "48R5ABtXj2w", "uploaded_at": "2012-01-02T14:35:11+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "terry-tate-office-linebacker", "title": "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker", "brand": "Reebok", "year": 2003, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A hulking linebacker flattens office workers for petty sins like leaving the coffee pot empty, pure slapstick entertainment with no product in sight." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial and online film series", "agency": "Arnell Group", "credits": [ { "role": "Creator / Director", "name": "Rawson Marshall Thurber" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Lester Speight" } ], "tagline": "You kill the joe, you make some mo'.", "why_studied": "A 300-pound linebacker levels office workers for leaving no coffee in the pot. Born as film-school graduate Rawson Marshall Thurber's self-funded short, Terry Tate was bought by Reebok and aired as a 60-second spot during Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003 — a $4 million buy featuring no product whatsoever. Every hit was real, not CGI. A Wall Street Journal poll voted it the most popular Super Bowl ad of the year, and the extended films were downloaded millions of times from Reebok's site, making it a bridge between the TV spot era and internet branded content. It is studied for the bet that pure entertainment builds brand affinity better than product messaging — and for launching Thurber's Hollywood directing career.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ad Age's profile of creator Rawson Thurber, with the campaign", "url": "https://adage.com/article/creativity-news/man-reebok-s-terry-tate/36723", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Man Behind Reebok's Terry Tate", "publisher": "Ad Age (2003)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/creativity-news/man-reebok-s-terry-tate/36723" }, { "title": "Rawson Thurber '97 is creator of Dodgeball (WSJ poll: most popular Super Bowl ad 2003)", "publisher": "Union College News (2004)", "url": "https://muse.union.edu/newsarchives/2004/06/29/rawson-thurber-97-is-creator-of-dodgeball/" }, { "title": "The Pain Train", "publisher": "Denver Westword", "url": "https://www.westword.com/arts-culture/the-pain-train-5072870/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Kg5cdZ-Fnpc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Terry Tate: Office Linebacker (Reebok, 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “OFFICIAL - Terry Tate Office Linebacker \"Superbowl Spot\"”, uploaded by Terry Tate, Office Linebacker", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg5cdZ-Fnpc" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Kg5cdZ-Fnpc", "uploaded_at": "2008-04-11T21:46:12+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "honda-cog", "title": "Cog", "brand": "Honda", "brand_slug": "honda", "year": 2003, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Accord parts topple and roll into each other in a flawless real-world chain reaction ending with the car, so the ad's own precision proves things just work." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Two-minute television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Antoine Bardou-Jacquet" }, { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Ben Walker, Matt Gooden" } ], "tagline": "Isn't it nice when things just work?", "why_studied": "Two minutes of Honda Accord parts toppling, rolling and swinging into each other in a flawless Rube Goldberg chain reaction — ending with a finished car rolling off a ramp and the line, \"Isn't it nice when things just work?\" Shot for real over months of testing (the finished film is two one-minute takes joined invisibly; the legendary \"606 takes\" figure was a joke from the making-of that the press took literally), it became one of the most talked-about and awarded commercials of its decade. It is studied for engineering-as-message — the ad's own precision is the product claim — and for earned-media economics before YouTube: people sought the film out, emailed it, and wrote news stories about it, multiplying a cinema budget many times over.", "watch": [ { "label": "W+K London's case page, with the film", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/cog/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'It was fun to destroy a beautiful car' — how we made Honda's Cog ad", "publisher": "The Guardian (2016)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/jun/02/how-we-made-hondas-cog-ad-wieden-kennedy" }, { "title": "FEATURE: The Making of Honda 'Cog' (the truth about the takes)", "publisher": "Campaign (2003)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/feature-making-honda-cog/181579" }, { "title": "Is This 'Honda Cog' Commercial Truly CGI-Free?", "publisher": "Snopes", "url": "https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/honda-cog-commercial/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bl2U1p3fVRk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Cog (Honda, 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Honda The Cog HD”, uploaded by amadaras", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl2U1p3fVRk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bl2U1p3fVRk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "bl2U1p3fVRk", "uploaded_at": "2012-04-11T11:37:26+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "vegas-what-happens-here-stays-here", "title": "What Happens Here, Stays Here", "brand": "Las Vegas (LVCVA)", "year": 2003, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Sells the thrill of adult freedom, the permission to be someone else for a weekend, rather than casinos or attractions." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Its vignettes hint at the secrets visitors carry home without ever showing a casino, letting implied stories do the selling." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign and destination slogan", "agency": "R&R Partners, Las Vegas", "credits": [ { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Jeff Candido, Jason Hoff" }, { "role": "Director (launch spots)", "name": "Bryan Buckley" } ], "tagline": "What happens here, stays here.", "why_studied": "The most successful destination slogan ever written — and a masterclass in selling an emotional truth instead of attractions. After Las Vegas's family-friendly repositioning flopped, R&R Partners' research landed on what visitors actually bought: adult freedom, the permission to be someone else for a weekend. The \"Vegas Stories\" ads never showed casinos; they showed the secrets people brought home. The NFL's refusal to air the launch spot during the 2003 Super Bowl generated a reported $6.7 million in free publicity, and the phrase — in its \"what happens in Vegas...\" form — became genuine American idiom, quoted by a First Lady on national television. It is studied for emotional-truth positioning and as evidence that a tourism brand can be built on discretion rather than imagery.", "watch": [ { "label": "LVCVA's 10th-anniversary campaign history", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/las-vegas-celebrates-10-years-of-iconic-what-happens-here-stays-here-advertising-campaign-with-new-television-commercials-226260181.html", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Las Vegas Celebrates 10 Years of Iconic \"What Happens Here, Stays Here\" Advertising Campaign", "publisher": "LVCVA press release (PR Newswire, 2013)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/las-vegas-celebrates-10-years-of-iconic-what-happens-here-stays-here-advertising-campaign-with-new-television-commercials-226260181.html" }, { "title": "A look back at the advertising magic of 'What Happens Here, Stays Here'", "publisher": "Las Vegas Weekly (2011)", "url": "https://lasvegasweekly.com/news/2011/sep/29/look-back-advertising-magic-what-happens-here-stay/" }, { "title": "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas: How an Ad Changed Vacation Forever", "publisher": "Thrillist", "url": "https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/what-happens-in-vegas-vacations-ad" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xydeSuAj_eQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from What Happens Here, Stays Here (Las Vegas (LVCVA), 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “2003 Las Vegas Commercial - Only Vegas - What Happens Here, Stays Here”, uploaded by VHS Daze", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xydeSuAj_eQ" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "xydeSuAj_eQ", "uploaded_at": "2023-11-18T23:28:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "fevicol-bus", "title": "Bus", "brand": "Fevicol", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Withholds the brand until the final shot, letting an absurdly overloaded bus swaying across the desert build to a comic reveal." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Villagers clinging to every side of the lurching bus never fall off, an exaggerated visual proof of the adhesive's holding power." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather India (Mumbai)", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Prasoon Pandey" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Taufiq Qureshi and Loy Mendonsa" } ], "tagline": "Fevicol: The Ultimate Adhesive", "why_studied": "A battered bus lurches across the Rajasthan desert so overloaded that villagers cling to every side and crowd the roof, swaying in eerie unison over each bump, yet nobody falls. The answer waits for the last shot: a small sign on the back reading \"Fevicol: The Ultimate Adhesive.\" Ogilvy had a print ad of a jammed train; director Prasoon Pandey spent weeks doubting it could become a film until he saw the trick was to withhold the answer, revealing the scene slowly, like cards turned one at a time. He moved the shoot from Mumbai's Film City to dunes near Jaisalmer, cast more than 200 villagers and dug alternating trenches so the bus would rock instead of hop. It won a Silver Lion at Cannes in 2002, which Storyboard18 records as the first Lion for an Indian film in six years. It is studied as the distilled Fevicol method of Ogilvy and the Pandey brothers: rural Indian life, absurd exaggeration, the brand held back as the punchline.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official Fevicol Pidilite upload (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzB5Yt3AS_w", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Culture Pub archive entry (Cannes Lion d'Argent 2002)", "url": "http://www.culturepub.fr/videos/fevicol-bus/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "When Fevicol 'Bus' ad stuck its way to a Silver Lion at Cannes Lions 2002", "publisher": "Storyboard18 (2025)", "url": "https://www.storyboard18.com/advertising/when-fevicol-bus-ad-stuck-its-way-to-a-silver-lion-at-cannes-2002-71860.htm" }, { "title": "The Fevicol film that nearly got canned", "publisher": "ETBrandEquity / The Economic Times (2022)", "url": "https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/research/advertising/the-fevicol-film-that-nearly-got-canned/89842302" }, { "title": "How Fevicol went on to enjoy equity that billion dollar cola and soap labels do", "publisher": "The Economic Times (2012)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/how-fevicol-went-on-to-enjoy-equity-that-billion-dollar-cola-and-soap-labels-do/articleshow/16548227.cms" }, { "title": "Fevicol : Bus (Inde - 2002)", "publisher": "Culture Pub", "url": "http://www.culturepub.fr/videos/fevicol-bus/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lzB5Yt3AS_w/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bus (Fevicol, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Fevicol - Bus Ad | Best Quality Adhesive For Extreme Situations”, uploaded by Fevicol Pidilite", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzB5Yt3AS_w" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lzB5Yt3AS_w", "uploaded_at": "2018-02-23T09:45:49+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "india-pulse-polio-do-boond-zindagi-ki", "title": "Do Boond Zindagi Ki (\"Two Drops of Life\")", "brand": "Government of India and UNICEF (Pulse Polio)", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "India's best-known film star fronts the campaign, using his fame to persuade reluctant parents to bring their children for the vaccine." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "He plays a stern family elder, borrowing the authority of the patriarch to scold parents who skip the two drops of life." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television and radio commercials", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather India", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative lead", "name": "Piyush Pandey" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Ajay Gahlaut" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Santosh Sivan" }, { "role": "Talent", "name": "Amitabh Bachchan" } ], "tagline": "Do boond zindagi ki.", "why_studied": "Amitabh Bachchan, India's best-known film star, stands at a polio vaccination booth and rebukes the nation for how few parents have turned up. In 2002 India was in the grip of a major polio outbreak concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where many families resisted the oral vaccine, so the health ministry and UNICEF brought in Ogilvy & Mather. Piyush Pandey's team recast Bachchan's \"angry young man\" screen persona as an angry old man: first a kindly elder clearing up doubts, then a stern one shaming parents who skipped the \"two drops of life\", then a visitor scolding them in their own homes. It is studied as celebrity casting matched to a cultural insight, the authority of the family patriarch, in a public-health emergency. A 2005 UNICEF survey found that 82.7% of respondents had seen or heard the polio ads in the previous two months. India, which had 741 polio cases as late as 2009, recorded its last case in January 2011 and was declared polio-free in 2014.", "watch": [ { "label": "Pulse Polio ad with Amitabh Bachchan (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEqPQ6kmJUQ", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Brand Saga: When 'Do Boond' helped make India Polio free", "publisher": "Social Samosa (2020)", "url": "https://www.socialsamosa.com/2020/03/brand-saga-pulse-polio-campaign/" }, { "title": "Why ad guru Piyush Pandey's Pulse Polio and public health campaigns worked: They spoke to the common man", "publisher": "The Indian Express (2025)", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/health-wellness/piyush-pandey-ad-guru-pulse-polio-public-health-campaigns-10324454/" }, { "title": "Amitabh Bachchan", "publisher": "UNICEF India", "url": "https://www.unicef.org/india/our-partners/celebrities/amitabh-bachchan" }, { "title": "Involvement of Civil Society in India's Polio Eradication Program: Lessons Learned", "publisher": "American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene via PubMed Central (2019)", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6776100/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QEqPQ6kmJUQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Do Boond Zindagi Ki (\"Two Drops of Life\") (Government of India and UNICEF (Pulse Polio), 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Polio Eradication Programme in India--AD”, uploaded by sanjubuddy", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEqPQ6kmJUQ" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "QEqPQ6kmJUQ", "uploaded_at": "2006-11-08T15:52:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "ikea-lamp", "title": "Lamp", "brand": "IKEA", "brand_slug": "ikea", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Builds real pity for an abandoned lamp in the rain, then has a Swedish-accented man call viewers crazy for feeling bad, puncturing the sentiment." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A woman discards her old lamp for a new one in a melancholy mini-drama whose twist turns the guilt of replacing furniture into the brand's argument." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky (Miami)", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Spike Jonze" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "MJZ (Morton Jankel Zander)" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Paul Keister" }, { "role": "Partner / executive creative director", "name": "Alex Bogusky" } ], "tagline": "Unböring", "why_studied": "A woman unplugs her old red desk lamp and leaves it on the curb. Rain falls, a mournful piano swells, and through the window we see her cosy up beside a gleaming new IKEA lamp. Then a bespectacled man with a Swedish accent steps into frame and scolds us: \"Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That is because you're crazy.\" Directed by Spike Jonze, it was the first spot Crispin Porter + Bogusky made for IKEA, a brand still unfamiliar to much of America, and it targeted the guilt that keeps people living with furniture they have outgrown. It is studied as the definitive rug-pull: build real sentiment, then puncture it so the punchline carries the brand's argument. The spot launched the \"Unböring\" tag, won the Grand Clio, and took the 2003 Cannes Film Grand Prix after a record-long jury session, pushing the favourite, Honda's \"Cog\", into third place.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (The Hall of Advertising)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "SPECIAL REPORT: Agency of the Year — Home Makeover", "publisher": "SHOOT (2003)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/special-report-agency-year-home-makeover/" }, { "title": "Cog slips into third place as Jonze ad triumphs at Cannes", "publisher": "The Guardian (2003)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jun/23/advertising" }, { "title": "The Spike Jonze ad that almost makes IKEA cool", "publisher": "Slate (2002)", "url": "https://slate.com/business/2002/09/the-spike-jonze-ad-that-almost-makes-ikea-cool.html" }, { "title": "Is Ikea's 'Lamp' Ad by Spike Jonze the Best Rug-Pull in Advertising History?", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/is-ikeas-lamp-ad-by-spike-jonze-the-best-rug-pull-in-advertising-history/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/jU-cori12KU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Lamp (IKEA, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “IKEA - Lamp (2002, USA)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/jU-cori12KU/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "jU-cori12KU", "uploaded_at": "2015-01-28T10:10:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "axe-metamorfosis", "title": "Metamorfosis", "brand": "Axe (Unilever Argentina)", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Passes the scent's pull from one creature or person to the next in a wordless chain reaction, visually proving the new formula lasts." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Turns a dull claim about longer-lasting fragrance into a comic relay set to a love song, starting with a young man swarmed by women." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "VegaOlmosPonce, Buenos Aires", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Laurence Dunmore" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "The Gang Films" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Hernán Ponce" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A young man drenches himself in Axe and is promptly swarmed by women. From there the scent's pull is passed on, in a wordless chain reaction set to “Love Is in the Air”, from one creature or person to the next, so that, as Página/12 put it, the fragrance lasts even to the grave. Made in Buenos Aires by VegaOlmosPonce to relaunch the deodorant with a longer-lasting formula, the spot turns a dull product claim into a comic relay that needs no copy at all. It is studied as a model of the pure visual demonstration, and as a symbol of Argentina's creative boom during the 2001–02 economic collapse, when Unilever began producing commercials in Argentina for markets from Uruguay to Spain, Germany and the UK. It won the television Grand Prix at El Ojo de Iberoamérica in 2002 and, as reported in Argentina and Brazil, a Gold Lion at Cannes that year.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Weird Ads)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCW3vii5d0", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Se entregaron los premios a los mejores comerciales de Iberoamérica", "publisher": "Clarín (2002)", "url": "https://www.clarin.com/ediciones-anteriores/entregaron-premios-mejores-comerciales-iberoamerica_0_rk-wPXgAKe.html" }, { "title": "El mejor aviso del año se hizo con unas latas", "publisher": "Página/12 (2002)", "url": "https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/espectaculos/6-14215-2002-12-16.html" }, { "title": "Love In The Air", "publisher": "B9 (2004)", "url": "https://www.b9.com.br/love-in-the-air/" }, { "title": "Unilever Argentina centraliza comerciales para varios países", "publisher": "PRODU (2003)", "url": "https://www.produ.com/mercadeo/noticias/unilever-argentina-centraliza-comerciales-para-varios-paises/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/HoCW3vii5d0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Metamorfosis (Axe (Unilever Argentina), 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Axe - Metamorphosis (2002, Argentina)”, uploaded by Weird Ads", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCW3vii5d0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/HoCW3vii5d0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "HoCW3vii5d0", "uploaded_at": "2025-06-04T01:33:13+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-para-todos", "title": "Para todos", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Lists every kind of person the drink is for, from optimists to those who cry or have nothing, building a quietly moving sense that it belongs to everyone." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "McCann Erickson, Buenos Aires", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Martín Mercado" } ], "tagline": "Para todos.", "why_studied": "Coca-Cola bottles and cans appear against a plain white background while a voice works through the people the drink is for: the fat and the thin, the tall and the short, those who laugh, the optimists, those who cry, those who have nothing, and finally everyone, \"para todos\". McCann Erickson Argentina, under creative director Martín Mercado, made it in 2002, in what Página/12 called the worst crisis anyone could remember, when budgets were tiny and commercials scarce. It is studied as crisis-era craft: one object, one voice and almost no production, yet the product never leaves the screen and the film moves without turning sentimental. It topped a Página/12 poll of thirty agency creatives on the year's best commercial. It won a Silver Lion at Cannes and El Ojo de Iberoamérica's Grand Prix for best regional campaign, and it travelled: in a 2011 survey in Spain, more respondents picked \"Para todos\" than any other ad as the one they most associated with Coca-Cola.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (McCann Buenos Aires)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMgnfaL3gPg", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (El Ojo de Iberoamérica)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjHJ-WnYa60", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "El mejor aviso del año se hizo con unas latas", "publisher": "Página/12 (2002)", "url": "https://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/espectaculos/6-14215-2002-12-16.html" }, { "title": "El Ojo 2002: El podio de Lowe", "publisher": "LatinSpots (2002)", "url": "https://www.latinspots.com/revista/detalle/nota/48/el-ojo-2002-el-podio-de-lowe/4288" }, { "title": "Los jurados de Argentina, Brasil y Venezuela de El Ojo de Iberoamérica", "publisher": "LatinSpots (2006)", "url": "https://www.latinspots.com/noticia/los-jurados-de-argentina-brasil-y-venezuela-de-el-ojo-de-iberoamrica/11555" }, { "title": "«Para todos», el eslogan que más asocian los españoles con Coca-Cola", "publisher": "Marketing Directo (2011)", "url": "https://www.marketingdirecto.com/anunciantes-general/para-todos-el-eslogan-que-mas-asocian-los-espanoles-con-coca-cola-en-sus-125-anos-de-historia" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/EMgnfaL3gPg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Para todos (Coca-Cola, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca Cola - Para Todos”, uploaded by McCann Buenos Aires", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMgnfaL3gPg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/EMgnfaL3gPg/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "EMgnfaL3gPg", "uploaded_at": "2012-10-30T20:30:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser-respect", "title": "Respect", "brand": "Budweiser", "brand_slug": "budweiser", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Clydesdales bowing towards the space where the towers stood channel a nation's grief, with the logo held back until the very end." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "The brand's horses pay their respects to lower Manhattan months after September 11, linking Budweiser to a shared moment of national mourning." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Hill Holliday, Boston", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Zack Snyder" }, { "role": "Production Company", "name": "Believe Media" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Five months after September 11, the Budweiser Clydesdales leave their stables, travel through snowy countryside and over the Brooklyn Bridge, then halt within sight of lower Manhattan and bow toward the space where the towers stood. Directed by Zack Snyder, it aired once, during Super Bowl XXXVI on February 3, 2002, and the original never ran on TV again. Anheuser-Busch got Mayor Rudy Giuliani's blessing and rare permission to film from a helicopter over the city. It is studied as the benchmark for a brand acknowledging national grief without cashing in on it: the logo is held back until the very end, and airing it only once made the restraint part of the message. Mike Sheehan, chief executive of Hill Holliday, the agency behind it, later argued that such a message only needs saying once, and objected when Anheuser-Busch InBev remade it for the tenth anniversary in 2011. Ad Age counts it among Budweiser's greatest Super Bowl spots.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MZUvib98Rs", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Creativity", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/respect/18695/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The real story behind Budweiser's 9/11 ad that aired just one time", "publisher": "Business Insider (2016)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/budweisers-911-ad-that-aired-one-time-2016-9" }, { "title": "Clydesdales show respect in 9/11 Budweiser ad that aired only once", "publisher": "FOX 2 St. Louis (2018)", "url": "https://fox2now.com/news/clydesdales-show-respect-in-9-11-budweiser-ad-that-aired-only-once/" }, { "title": "Budweiser's greatest Super Bowl commercial hits", "publisher": "Ad Age (2021)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/budweisers-greatest-super-bowl-commercial-hits/2309531/" }, { "title": "Ex-Budweiser Ad Chief Wrong To Criticize New Sept. 11 Ad", "publisher": "MediaPost (2011)", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/158590/ex-budweiser-ad-chief-wrong-to-criticize-new-sept.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1MZUvib98Rs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Respect (Budweiser, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Budweiser - Respect (2002, USA)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MZUvib98Rs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1MZUvib98Rs/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1MZUvib98Rs", "uploaded_at": "2014-09-11T08:13:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-india-thanda-matlab", "title": "Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola", "brand": "Coca-Cola India", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Drops slick Western cola imagery to speak to small-town and rural India in its own idiom and accents, claiming the everyday word for a cold drink." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Bollywood star Aamir Khan, disguised as a run of regional characters such as a Punjabi farmer, personally insists that a cold drink means Coca-Cola." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercials (campaign)", "agency": "McCann Erickson India", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer / national creative director", "name": "Prasoon Joshi" }, { "role": "Star", "name": "Aamir Khan" } ], "tagline": "Thanda matlab Coca-Cola (A cold drink means Coca-Cola)", "why_studied": "Bollywood star Aamir Khan, in a run of regional disguises from a Punjabi farmer who chills bottles in his well to a Bengali professor, insists that when anyone asks for a “thanda”, the everyday word for a cold drink, what they mean is Coca-Cola. Written by Prasoon Joshi at McCann Erickson, the campaign abandoned the slick, Western imagery of cola advertising and spoke to small-town and rural India in its own idiom and accents. It is studied as a defining case of a global brand going local by claiming a generic word: the catchphrase entered everyday speech, and the work won India's Grand Effie in 2003, with the agency reporting that, for the first time, Coca-Cola beat Pepsi in its research and became the most preferred soft-drink brand. It is also criticised for leaning on regional stereotypes.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (mktgbrainstorm)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGnkh9Wn0aA", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Thanda matlab solitary EFFIE Gold: EFFIE awards 2003", "publisher": "indiantelevision.com (2003)", "url": "https://indiantelevision.com/mam/thanda-matlab-solitary-effie-gold-effie-awards-2003/" }, { "title": "Prasoon Joshi: The 'Thanda matlab Coca-Cola' man", "publisher": "Rediff.com (2003)", "url": "https://www.rediff.com/business/special/profile/20030505.htm" }, { "title": "How Coca-Cola created a scorching hot campaign with Thanda Matlab", "publisher": "ETBrandEquity (2022)", "url": "https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/research/advertising/how-coca-cola-created-a-scorching-hot-campaign-with-thanda-matlab/95614930" }, { "title": "How Coke came to be known as Thanda and will now be synonymous with Ilaiyaraaja", "publisher": "ThePrint (2019)", "url": "https://theprint.in/feature/brandma/how-coke-came-to-be-known-as-thanda-and-will-now-be-synonymous-with-ilaiyaraaja/331434/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/XGnkh9Wn0aA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Thanda Matlab Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola India, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coke - Aamir Khan - Thanda Matlab.mp4”, uploaded by mktgbrainstorm", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGnkh9Wn0aA" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "XGnkh9Wn0aA", "uploaded_at": "2011-01-25T12:17:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "peugeot-206-the-sculptor", "title": "The Sculptor", "brand": "Peugeot", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A young man smitten with a print ad reshapes his boxy old car into a 206, a quest showing the car is wanted enough to sculpt by hand." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Absurd methods, from ramming walls to having an elephant sit on the bonnet, make the man's obsession comic and memorable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "45-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Euro RSCG Mezzano Costantini Mignani, Milan", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Matthijs van Heijningen" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Bandits" } ], "tagline": "Irresistible", "why_studied": "In India, a young man falls for the Peugeot 206 he has seen in a print ad and sets about turning his boxy Hindustan Ambassador into one. He rams it into walls, gets an elephant to sit on the bonnet and smooths its curves with a saw until the old car takes on the 206's shape. Created by Euro RSCG Mezzano Costantini Mignani in Milan and directed by Matthijs van Heijningen of the French production company Bandits, it sells desire without a word of specification: the car is so wanted that a man will sculpt one by hand. It is studied as the rare commercial from outside the English-speaking advertising centres to top the global award tables. At Cannes in 2003 it won a Gold Lion and the Journalists' Award, it took the Eurobest Grand Prix, and the Gunn Report ranked it the most awarded TV and cinema commercial of 2003, its only Commercial of the Year from outside the US or UK.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (flyeast)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No26JKQKZNE", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "About us", "publisher": "The Gunn Report", "url": "https://archive.gunnreport.com/about/" }, { "title": "Ikea's \"Lamp\" Shines At Cannes Advertising Festival", "publisher": "SHOOT (2003)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/ikeas-lamp-shines-cannes-advertising-festival/" }, { "title": "Spot \"The Sculptor\" für Peugeot 2003 am öftesten ausgezeichnet", "publisher": "Horizont Austria (2003)", "url": "https://www.horizont.at/agenturen/news/spot-the-sculptor-fuer-peugeot-2003-am-oeftesten-ausgezeichnet-13901" }, { "title": "Watch: An interesting 2002 ad that links Peugeot and Ambassador", "publisher": "Moneycontrol (2017)", "url": "https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/companies/watch-an-interesting-2002-ad-that-links-peugeotambassador-1005348.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/No26JKQKZNE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Sculptor (Peugeot, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Peugeot 206 advert: The Sculptor”, uploaded by flyeast - פלייאיסט", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No26JKQKZNE" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "No26JKQKZNE", "uploaded_at": "2011-04-27T08:44:33+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "levis-odyssey", "title": "Odyssey", "brand": "Levi's Engineered Jeans", "brand_slug": "levis", "year": 2002, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Sends a couple sprinting through wall after wall and up into the night sky, turning the jeans into an exhilarating feeling of freedom from constraint." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jonathan Glazer" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Stephen Butler" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Handel, \"Sarabande\"" } ], "tagline": "Freedom to move.", "why_studied": "A man and a woman sprint through wall after wall of a building — plaster exploding around them — then out into a forest, up two trees, and into the night sky, to Handel's Sarabande. No voiceover, no product shot beyond the clothes they're wearing. Jonathan Glazer's 2002 film for BBH, reportedly the most expensive ad Levi's had made at £2.5m, is studied as commercial filmmaking at the edge of cinema: a single metaphor (jeans as freedom from constraint) rendered with total conviction, intimate handheld camera inside an impossible stunt, and classical music where youth marketing demanded beats. It won a Cannes Gold Lion and a One Show Gold Pencil, and sales of the Engineered Jeans line were reported up 200% after it broke.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Guardian's report on the campaign and its impact", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/may/20/advertising", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Levi's engineers a reversal of fortune (Glazer; £2.5m; sales up 200%)", "publisher": "The Guardian (2002)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/may/20/advertising" }, { "title": "Breaking Through (awards; BBH credits; Framestore CG walls)", "publisher": "SHOOTonline", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/breaking-through/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bRVeRMaXcGQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Odyssey (Levi's Engineered Jeans, 2002)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Levi's commercial (Odyssey) (2002)”, uploaded by oonai5000", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRVeRMaXcGQ" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "bRVeRMaXcGQ", "uploaded_at": "2011-09-12T19:23:44+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "telecom-bostezo", "title": "Bostezo (Yawn)", "brand": "Telecom Argentina", "year": 2001, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Passes a yawn from person to person through a wordless day, inviting viewers to catch it themselves and so feel how instinctive communicating is." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "50-second television commercial", "agency": "Agulla & Baccetti", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Fabián Bielinsky" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Maximiliano Anselmo, Sebastián Wilhelm" }, { "role": "Art directors", "name": "Juan Cabral, Santiago Chaumont, Maximiliano Anselmo" }, { "role": "Copywriters", "name": "Cristian Camean, Javier Mentasti, Sebastián Wilhelm" }, { "role": "Agency producer", "name": "Hernán Carnavale" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Argentina Cine" }, { "role": "Music/sound", "name": "Symphony" } ], "tagline": "Comunicate, es simple.", "why_studied": "Not a word is spoken. A woman steps out into the street and yawns, and the yawn jumps from person to person as the day goes on until she arrives home, still yawning. Made by Agulla & Baccetti for Telecom Argentina in 2001, amid fierce competition among the country's phone companies, it shares its \"Comunicate, es simple\" idea with the sister spot \"Mirame\": communication is as instinctive and contagious as a yawn, and the viewer is invited to catch it too. It was directed by Fabián Bielinsky, the filmmaker behind Nueve Reinas, and its art-direction credits include Juan Cabral, who began his career at Agulla & Baccetti and went on to make Cadbury's \"Gorilla\". It is studied as a model of insight-led simplicity: one universal human behaviour, executed so plainly that it needs no translation. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes and the 2001 Grand Prix of El Ojo de Iberoamérica, then a Bronze Pencil at the 2002 One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on the Asociación Argentina de Publicidad's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5MIQXufxfg", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Watch on LatinSpots (El Ojo 20 Años archive)", "url": "https://www.latinspots.com/pieza/comercial/bostezo-gran-ojo-cinetv-2001-el-ojo-20-aos/27076", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Yawn (Telecom, Agulla & Baccetti) — 2002 One Show Bronze Pencil", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/906/yawn/" }, { "title": "Falleció Fabián Bielinsky", "publisher": "LatinSpots (2006)", "url": "https://www.latinspots.com/noticia/falleci-fabin-bielinsky/10926" }, { "title": "Del 'Dicen que soy aburrido' a 'La llama que llama'...: los 10 comerciales de Ramiro Agulla que revolucionaron la publicidad", "publisher": "Clarín (2026)", "url": "https://www.clarin.com/economia/llama-llama-serie-biblica-causo-escandalo-9-comerciales-ramiro-agulla-carlos-baccetti-revolucionaron-publicidad-anos-90_0_f5M34lJg8C.html" }, { "title": "81. Juan Cabral | Media top 100 2008", "publisher": "The Guardian (2008)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/jul/14/mediatop100200877" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/z5MIQXufxfg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bostezo (Yawn) (Telecom Argentina, 2001)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Bostezo\", de Agulla & Baccetti para Telecom, 2001”, uploaded by aapublicidad", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5MIQXufxfg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/z5MIQXufxfg/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "z5MIQXufxfg", "uploaded_at": "2014-08-27T20:43:47+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "truth-body-bags", "title": "Body Bags", "brand": "truth (American Legacy Foundation)", "year": 2000, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Young people heap body bags outside a tobacco company's headquarters, a confrontational spectacle designed to provoke rather than politely advise." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The pile makes a hard statistic visible, one bag for each person tobacco kills every day, in place of a lecture about health." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Arnold Worldwide and Crispin Porter + Bogusky", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Pete Favat" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Outside a major tobacco company's headquarters in New York, a group of young people unload body bags onto the street and pile them up, 1,200 of them, one for each person tobacco kills every day, while their leader addresses the executives inside through a megaphone. \"Body Bags\" was one of the first spots for truth, the national youth anti-smoking campaign launched in 2000 with money from the tobacco industry's Master Settlement Agreement with the states. It is studied for turning anti-smoking advertising inside out: rather than tell teenagers not to smoke, it confronted the industry with stark facts and exposed its marketing, casting the tobacco companies, not the smoker, as the villain. A peer-reviewed study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that the campaign accounted for about 22% of the fall in youth smoking between 1999 and 2002, roughly 300,000 fewer young smokers. In 2015 Ad Age ranked truth No. 10 among the top 15 ad campaigns of the 21st century.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Body Bags\" (Ad Age YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0fJyeW3v4o", "type": "press" }, { "label": "truth campaign ads, including \"Body Bags\" (CDC Media Campaign Resource Center)", "url": "https://nccd.cdc.gov/MCRC/apps/ExploreCampaignDetails.aspx?CampaignID=3", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Evidence of a Dose-Response Relationship Between \"truth\" Antismoking Ads and Youth Smoking Prevalence", "publisher": "American Journal of Public Health via PubMed Central (2005)", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1449196/" }, { "title": "Media Campaign Resource Center (MCRC) Campaign: Truth (ALF - American Legacy)", "publisher": "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention", "url": "https://nccd.cdc.gov/MCRC/apps/ExploreCampaignDetails.aspx?CampaignID=3" }, { "title": "Top 15 Ad Campaigns of the 21st Century", "publisher": "Ad Age (2015)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/agency-news/top-15-ad-campaigns-21st-century/2162916/" }, { "title": "truth Named One Of The Top 15 Ad Campaigns Of 21st Century", "publisher": "Truth Initiative via PR Newswire (2015)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/truth-named-one-of-the-top-15-ad-campaigns-of-21st-century-300018863.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/S0fJyeW3v4o/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Body Bags (truth (American Legacy Foundation), 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “No. 10 American Legacy: Truth - Body Bag”, uploaded by AdAge", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0fJyeW3v4o" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "S0fJyeW3v4o", "uploaded_at": "2015-01-12T12:03:43+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "bmw-mano", "title": "Mano (¿Te gusta conducir?)", "brand": "BMW", "year": 2000, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Shows only a driver's hand playing with the wind from dawn to a seaside sunset, selling the simple pleasure of driving instead of specifications." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "*S,C,P,F…, Barcelona", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Víctor García" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "MJZ" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "“Nono Song”, La Crem" }, { "role": "Voice", "name": "Luis Posada" } ], "tagline": "¿Te gusta conducir?", "why_studied": "Filmed from inside the car, the spot never shows a BMW. A driver's hand plays with the wind outside the open window from dawn to a sunset by the sea, and a gentle voice closes with a question instead of a claim: \"¿Te gusta conducir?\" Created by Barcelona's *S,C,P,F… and directed by Víctor García, who was told the camera must never leave the car, it was shot on the road between Los Angeles and Monument Valley. It is studied as the moment a cold, distant German brand found an emotional voice in Spain, selling a pleasure anyone recognises rather than specifications; the line went on to close some fifty BMW spots over fifteen years. It won the Grand Prix at the 2001 San Sebastián festival and the 2002 Gran Premio a la Eficacia, and in 2010 the media voted it the best film Grand Prix in El Sol's first 25 years. Citing Cinco Días, Forbes reports BMW's Spanish sales rose 11.4% the following year.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (BMW España)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmYYpHI6clY", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Museo Virtual de la Publicidad, Instituto Cervantes (El Sol 2001 – Gran Premio)", "url": "https://cvc.cervantes.es/artes/muvap/sala5/sol/2001/2001.htm", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "BMW gana el primer premio del Festival de Publicidad de San Sebastián con su anuncio de “La Mano”", "publisher": "Libertad Digital (2001)", "url": "https://www.libertaddigital.com/sociedad/2001-06-02/bmw-gana-el-primer-premio-del-festival-de-publicidad-de-san-sebastian-con-su-anuncio-de-la-mano-31966/" }, { "title": "“Mano” de BMW, el mejor spot de los últimos 25 años según la prensa del sector", "publisher": "Marketing Directo (2010)", "url": "https://www.marketingdirecto.com/especiales/el-sol/mano-de-bmw-el-mejor-spot-de-los-ultimos-25-anos-segun-la-prensa-del-sector" }, { "title": "La historia de una campaña histórica: “¿Te gusta conducir?” (BMW)", "publisher": "Forbes España (2022)", "url": "https://forbes.es/lifestyle/200441/la-historia-de-una-campana-historica-te-gusta-conducir-bmw/" }, { "title": "BMW: un lujo centenario que no envejece", "publisher": "Cinco Días (2016)", "url": "https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2016/03/11/sentidos/1457706547_973722.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/bmYYpHI6clY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Mano (¿Te gusta conducir?) (BMW, 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Mano BMW Marca -- Te gusta conducir (Spot 2000)”, uploaded by BMW España", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmYYpHI6clY" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "bmYYpHI6clY", "uploaded_at": "2011-11-03T08:13:27+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "yellow-pages-not-happy-jan", "title": "Not Happy, Jan!", "brand": "Yellow Pages (Sensis)", "year": 2000, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A boss who learns her employee forgot to book the directory ad struggles to stay composed, then bellows the title line out of the window as Jan flees." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Actor", "name": "Deborah Kennedy" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A businesswoman discovers that her employee, Jan, has forgotten to book the company's advertisement in the new Yellow Pages, so the business will miss the next edition. Jan flees the office; her boss struggles to stay composed, then throws open a window and bellows after her: “Not happy, Jan!” Made by Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, the spot was never meant as a consumer ad at all but as a reminder to small-business advertisers about the directory's closing date. Actor Deborah Kennedy's furious delivery, ad-libbed on the day of the shoot, turned the line into instant Australian vernacular, and it is studied as the rare commercial whose catchphrase escaped completely into the language: by 2004 it had been reworked into “Not Happy, John!”, the title of a book and a campaign against Prime Minister John Howard. It won no major awards at the time, yet in 2023 the Australian public voted it the country's greatest ad.", "watch": [ { "label": "NFSA collection item: Not Happy Jan", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/not-happy-jan-yellow-pages-advertisement", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (jetski314159)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2akt3P8ltLM", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Not Happy Jan: Yellow Pages advertisement", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/not-happy-jan-yellow-pages-advertisement" }, { "title": "Matter of fact, we've got it now", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/matter-of-fact-weve-got-it-now-20090619-cpnz.html" }, { "title": "“Not Happy Jan!” One Of Australian Advertising’s Finest Moments Celebrates Its 20th Birthday", "publisher": "B&T (2020)", "url": "https://www.bandt.com.au/not-happy-jan-one-of-australias-finest-ever-ad-moments-celebrates-its-20th-birthday/" }, { "title": "REVEALED: Australia’s Greatest-Ever Ad!!!", "publisher": "B&T (2023)", "url": "https://www.bandt.com.au/revealed-australias-greatest-ever-ad/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2akt3P8ltLM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Not Happy, Jan! (Yellow Pages (Sensis), 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NOT HAPPY JAN - Yellow Pages Ad”, uploaded by jetski314159", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2akt3P8ltLM" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "2akt3P8ltLM", "uploaded_at": "2006-09-19T07:46:56+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "molson-canadian-the-rant", "title": "The Rant (\"I Am Canadian\")", "brand": "Molson Canadian", "year": 2000, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Wraps the beer in Canadian national identity as an ordinary guy knocks down stereotypes and roars his nationality, borrowing patriotic pride for the brand." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "A polite everyman called Joe in a flannel shirt speaks for the nation, making the brand feel as ordinary and proud as its drinkers." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Invites Canadians to join in, with tens of thousands submitting their own rants online and Joe performing live at NHL arenas." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second cinema and television commercial", "agency": "Bensimon Byrne D'Arcy", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer", "name": "Glen Hunt" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Kevin Donovan" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Mad Films" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Jeff Douglas" } ], "tagline": "I am Canadian!", "why_studied": "A polite young man in a flannel shirt steps up to a cinema microphone and, building from a bashful murmur to a roar over \"Land of Hope and Glory\", knocks down one Canadian stereotype after another before bellowing, \"My name is Joe, and I am Canadian!\" Written by Glen Hunt at Bensimon Byrne D'Arcy, directed by Kevin Donovan and performed by Jeff Douglas, it played in cinemas for two weeks, then made its TV debut as a single spot in the Academy Awards' final break on March 26, 2000. It is studied as the textbook case of a brand claiming national identity: Joe performed live at NHL arenas, more than 40,000 Canadians submitted their own rants online, and the earned coverage was valued at $8.8 million. Within two months Molson Canadian's market share had climbed two points. It won the Cassies Grand Prix in 2001 and a Bronze Lion at Cannes, and business professors went on to teach it as a case.", "watch": [ { "label": "YouTube (SHNKArchives)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "CBC Radio: The 'I am Canadian' ad is back (embeds clips)", "url": "https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/i-am-canadian-returns-1.7452665", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Molson Canadian (CASSIES 2001 Grand Prix case)", "publisher": "Canadian Advertising Success Stories (CASSIES), 2001", "url": "https://www.cassies.ca/caselibrary/winners/MolsonsCase.pdf" }, { "title": "I Am Not American: What can beer ads tell us about our national identity?", "publisher": "National Post (2019)", "url": "https://nationalpost.com/life/food/i-am-not-american-what-can-beer-ads-tell-us-about-our-national-identity" }, { "title": "The 'I am Canadian' ad is back in a big way. Its star has mixed feelings", "publisher": "CBC Radio (2025)", "url": "https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/i-am-canadian-returns-1.7452665" }, { "title": "A Guide to Canadian Immortal Creativity", "publisher": "LBBOnline (2024)", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/a-guide-to-canadian-immortal-creativity" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WMxGVfk09lU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Rant (\"I Am Canadian\") (Molson Canadian, 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “I Am Canadian : The Rant”, uploaded by SHNKArchives", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WMxGVfk09lU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WMxGVfk09lU", "uploaded_at": "2012-09-14T04:22:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "eds-cat-herders", "title": "Cat Herders", "brand": "EDS (Electronic Data Systems)", "year": 2000, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Takes the cliché about herding cats literally, with grizzled cowboys driving thousands of house cats across the prairie and speaking reverently about lint rollers." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "John O'Hagan" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "David Lubars" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Greg Hahn" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Dean Hanson" } ], "tagline": "We ride for the brand.", "why_studied": "How to make an invisible IT company famous in sixty seconds: take the management cliché \"it's like herding cats\" literally. Grizzled cowboys drive thousands of house cats across the Montana prairie, speaking with straight-faced reverence about lint rollers and being \"a cat herder.\" Aired during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000, it is studied for turning a B2B brief — reposition a lumbering systems integrator for the dot-com age — into mainstream entertainment, and for its deadpan Western craft (director John O'Hagan studied John Ford films and cast real cowboys). President Bill Clinton named it his favorite commercial, and it earned an Emmy nomination — rare air for an ad about enterprise IT services.", "watch": [ { "label": "The spot with Ad Age's history of the campaign", "url": "https://adage.com/video/cat-herders-2/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cat Herders (video and campaign history)", "publisher": "Ad Age", "url": "https://adage.com/video/cat-herders-2/" }, { "title": "Creative: On Location: Kitty Slickers", "publisher": "Adweek (2000)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/creative-location-kitty-slickers-34612/" }, { "title": "Director profile: John O'Hagan (Emmy nomination, Clinton's favorite)", "publisher": "SHOOTonline", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/john-ohagan/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/m_MaJDK3VNE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Cat Herders (EDS (Electronic Data Systems), 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “EDS, an HP Company 'Cat Herders'”, uploaded by CBS", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_MaJDK3VNE" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "m_MaJDK3VNE", "uploaded_at": "2009-01-16T21:19:23+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "john-west-bear", "title": "Bear", "brand": "John West", "year": 2000, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A nature documentary is ambushed by a fisherman kung-fu fighting a grizzly for a salmon, an absurd brawl that dramatises the brand's claim to endure the worst." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Leo Burnett, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Daniel Kleinman" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Paul Silburn" } ], "tagline": "John West endure the worst to bring you the best.", "why_studied": "A nature documentary ambushed by slapstick: a fisherman kung-fu fights a grizzly bear for a salmon — crotch-kick included — to prove John West \"endure the worst to bring you the best.\" Paul Silburn's script was three words long (\"man fights bear\"); Daniel Kleinman shot it in the Scottish Highlands on a tiny budget, and it launched on November 21, 2000, the canned-fish brand's first TV ad in over a decade. Passed endlessly around early-internet inboxes, it has a serious claim to being one of the first viral video ads, was voted the funniest TV ad of all time in a 2008 industry poll, and won a Cannes Gold Lion and the British Television Advertising Awards Grand Prix. It is studied for comic rug-pull structure and for strategy hiding inside absurdity — the joke is the product claim.", "watch": [ { "label": "Creative Review's 25th-anniversary oral history, with the ad", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/john-west-bear-fight-ad-oral-history-daniel-kleinman/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "An oral history of the John West bear fight ad", "publisher": "Creative Review (2025)", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/john-west-bear-fight-ad-oral-history-daniel-kleinman/" }, { "title": "Fighting bear advert voted funniest of all time", "publisher": "The Telegraph (2008)", "url": "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3552470/Fighting-bear-advert-voted-funniest-of-all-time.html" }, { "title": "John West's \"Bear\" Tops LIAA Awards (credits)", "publisher": "SHOOTonline", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/john-wests-bear-tops-liaa-awards/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gP92j-uEnps/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bear (John West, 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “John West - Bear (2000, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP92j-uEnps", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gP92j-uEnps/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gP92j-uEnps", "uploaded_at": "2016-03-02T13:49:06+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "toyota-hilux-bugger", "title": "Bugger", "brand": "Toyota Hilux", "year": 1999, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each mishap with the powerful new ute, from a flattened fence to a dog that misses the tray, draws the same single exasperated word." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The farmer keeps underestimating the Hilux as it knocks down a fence, tips a tractor and sends a stump flying, comically showing off its power." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Builds the punchline and tagline around a mildly rude word, a cheeky provocation that draws a record number of complaints." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "45-second television commercial", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi, Wellington", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Tony Williams" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "John Plimmer" }, { "role": "Creative team", "name": "John Fisher" }, { "role": "Creative team", "name": "Howard Greive" }, { "role": "Farmer", "name": "John Kearney" }, { "role": "Dog trainer (Hercules)", "name": "Mark Vette" } ], "tagline": "Bugger.", "why_studied": "A farmer tries out his new Hilux around the property and keeps underestimating its power: a fence goes down, a tractor tips over, a tree stump flies through the air, a cow is stuck in a trench, and his dog misses the tray as the ute takes off and lands in the mud. Each mishap draws a single word from the farmer, his wife and finally the dog: \"Bugger.\" Written at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellington by John Plimmer, John Fisher and Howard Greive and directed by Tony Williams, it took over from Colenso's long-running Crumpy and Scotty Hilux ads. Although it was restricted to screening after 8.30pm, it drew 120 complaints, still the most for any New Zealand TV ad, but the Advertising Standards Complaints Board ruled that in its humorous rural context the word was unlikely to cause widespread offence. The ad is credited with shifting public attitudes to the word, and it won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 1999.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on NZ On Screen", "url": "https://www.nzonscreen.com/videos/bugger-toyota-hilux-commercial-1999/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (The Hall of Advertising)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUNJd06iyWU", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The history of ‘Bugger’ – the ad, the controversy, and the enduring legacy", "publisher": "NZ Herald (2024)", "url": "https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/the-history-of-bugger-the-ad-the-controversy-and-the-enduring-legacy/BRF3ZF27NFD3REP2RZAV3SLNGM/" }, { "title": "Complaint 99/23 – Toyota Hilux Ute (Bugger): decision, complaint not upheld", "publisher": "Advertising Standards Complaints Board (1999)", "url": "https://asa.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/ASA-Toyota-Bugger-Decision-1999.pdf" }, { "title": "From boy scouts to the ‘bugger’ dog: A brief history of ad complaints in New Zealand", "publisher": "The Spinoff (2024)", "url": "https://thespinoff.co.nz/culture/31-05-2024/from-boy-scouts-to-the-bugger-dog-a-brief-history-of-ad-complaints-in-new-zealand" }, { "title": "Golden “Bugger” for Toyota & Saatchi at Cannes", "publisher": "Scoop – Saatchi & Saatchi press release (1999)", "url": "https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU9906/S00065/golden-bugger-for-toyota-saatchi-at-cannes.htm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZUNJd06iyWU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bugger (Toyota Hilux, 1999)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Toyota Hilux - Bugger (1999, New Zealand)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUNJd06iyWU" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ZUNJd06iyWU", "uploaded_at": "2019-07-14T16:52:59+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "guinness-michael-power", "title": "Michael Power", "brand": "Guinness (Africa)", "brand_slug": "guinness", "year": 1999, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Gives the whole continent one recurring action hero, so famous that he appears in character on billboards, in bars and at events." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Each episode runs as a mini-adventure in which the hero foils villains and saves the day before unwinding with a Guinness." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Episodic television commercials (campaign)", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Michael Power, an impeccably dressed action hero of no specified African nationality, foils villains and saves the day in mini-adventures several minutes long, then unwinds with a Guinness. Created by Saatchi & Saatchi for Guinness's African markets from the turn of the century, the films gave the whole continent one recurring hero, and Power became so famous that he appeared in character on billboards, in bars and at events. It is studied as an early case of advertising turning into entertainment: in 2003 Guinness financed a feature film, Critical Assignment, starring Power, which its producer said took as much at the Kenyan box office as the James Bond film of the time. Saatchi says the campaign lifted Guinness sales volumes by up to 50 per cent in some markets between 1998 and 2004, and academics have since examined the aspirational, colonial-tinged masculinity it sold.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (steven shore)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMmzUqFu5_o", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad case study shows return of traditional masculine virtues", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2008)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/28361.html" }, { "title": "You loved the television ads. Now it’s Guinness the movie", "publisher": "The Times (2005)", "url": "https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/africa-travel/south-africa/you-loved-the-television-ads-now-its-guinness-the-movie-ltgx3d7xgs0" }, { "title": "Africa is the world’s largest market for Guinness beer – how its ad campaigns exploit men", "publisher": "The Conversation (2024)", "url": "https://theconversation.com/africa-is-the-worlds-largest-market-for-guinness-beer-how-its-ad-campaigns-exploit-men-239120" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZMmzUqFu5_o/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Michael Power (Guinness (Africa), 1999)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Guinness - Michael Power 'Race Against Time'”, uploaded by steven shore", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMmzUqFu5_o" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ZMmzUqFu5_o", "uploaded_at": "2018-05-29T11:46:54+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser-whassup", "title": "Whassup?", "brand": "Budweiser", "brand_slug": "budweiser", "year": 1999, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Casts the director's real childhood friends greeting each other in their own vernacular, so the beer belongs to ordinary mates rather than polished actors." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A drawn-out, repeated greeting becomes the comic hook, a catchphrase viewers can copy and pass along." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "60-second television commercial and campaign", "agency": "DDB Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Charles Stone III" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Vinny Warren" }, { "role": "Art Directors", "name": "Chuck Taylor, Justin Reardon" } ], "tagline": "Whassup?!", "why_studied": "Proof that advertising can borrow culture honestly instead of manufacturing it. DDB Chicago's Vinny Warren saw \"True,\" a short film by Charles Stone III in which Stone and his real childhood friends greet each other with a drawn-out \"whassup,\" and persuaded Anheuser-Busch to license it and hire Stone to direct — keeping his actual friends as the cast. The 60-second spot debuted during Monday Night Football on December 20, 1999 and ran during Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000; the catchphrase crossed borders faster than the beer did, becoming a global greeting even in countries where Budweiser wasn't sold. It is studied for authenticity of voice and casting, for bringing Black American vernacular to the center of mainstream advertising, and as one of the first campaigns to spread virally before 'viral' had infrastructure. It won the Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix in 2000.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign's retrospective on the spot (Campaign)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/day-26-cannes-winners-remembered-budweiser-whassup/1398369", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Budweiser's 'Whassup?' ushered in the era of viral ads", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2020)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/inside-story-budweiser-whassup/" }, { "title": "Cannes winners remembered — Budweiser \"Whassup\"", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/day-26-cannes-winners-remembered-budweiser-whassup/1398369" }, { "title": "The Untold History of Budweiser's 'Whassup?' Super Bowl Commercial", "publisher": "MEL Magazine", "url": "https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/budweiser-whassup-commercial-campaign-super-bowl-history" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/OWgXXyL3vEI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Whassup? (Budweiser, 1999)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Budweiser \"Wassup?\" 1999”, uploaded by BetterBrandsSC", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWgXXyL3vEI" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "OWgXXyL3vEI", "uploaded_at": "2012-12-12T20:05:24+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "monster-when-i-grow-up", "title": "When I Grow Up", "brand": "Monster.com", "year": 1999, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Children deadpan bleak career ambitions into the camera, such as filing all day or clawing up to middle management, to darkly comic effect." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "The gap between childhood dreams and adult resignation stirs uncomfortable recognition, selling the job site by dramatising the pain it solves." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Mullen, Boston", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Bryan Buckley" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Edward Boches" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Dylan Lee" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Monica Taylor" } ], "tagline": "When I grow up, I want to be a yes-man.", "why_studied": "The dot-com era's one unarguably great Super Bowl ad. Children stare into the camera and deadpan their dreams: \"When I grow up, I want to file... all day.\" \"I want to claw my way up to middle management.\" \"I want to be a yes-man.\" The gap between childhood ambition and adult resignation sells the job site without ever showing it. Aired during the January 1999 Super Bowl when Monster was an unknown against giant classified sections, it is studied for selling a service by dramatizing the pain it solves, for the discipline of black-and-white restraint amid Super Bowl bombast, and as the spot that made director Bryan Buckley the Super Bowl's most prolific filmmaker.", "watch": [ { "label": "Muse by Clios 20th-anniversary retrospective, with the spot", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/super-bowl/monster-revisits-its-when-i-grow-up-super-bowl-ad-20-years-later/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Monster Revisits Its 'When I Grow Up' Super Bowl Ad, 20 Years Later", "publisher": "Muse by Clios", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/super-bowl/monster-revisits-its-when-i-grow-up-super-bowl-ad-20-years-later/" }, { "title": "Wieden in Monster.com Semis (credits the 'lauded' spot to Mullen)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/wieden-monstercom-semis-38762/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/myG8hq1Mk00/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from When I Grow Up (Monster.com, 1999)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Monster.com - \"When I Grow Up\"”, uploaded by Alex Lasarenko", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myG8hq1Mk00" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "myG8hq1Mk00", "uploaded_at": "2008-02-25T20:12:05+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "guinness-surfer", "title": "Surfer", "brand": "Guinness", "brand_slug": "guinness", "year": 1999, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Recasts the long wait for a properly settled pint, an operational drawback, as the patient virtue that defines the whole brand." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A surfer waits out the ocean and then rides a wave that erupts into white horses, a parable whose payoff rewards patience." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jonathan Glazer" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Leftfield, \"Phat Planet\"" } ], "tagline": "Good things come to those who wait.", "why_studied": "A beer's pour time turned into myth. AMV BBDO won the Guinness account on a product truth — a proper pint takes time to settle — and expressed it as \"Good things come to those who wait.\" Jonathan Glazer's black-and-white film answers the brief with a Polynesian surfer waiting out the ocean, then riding a wave that erupts into white horses, cut to Leftfield's \"Phat Planet\" and a voiceover riffing on Moby-Dick's Ahab. Launched on St. Patrick's Day 1999, it is studied as the high-water mark of pure commercial film craft — metaphor, montage, sound design and restraint in sixty seconds — and for how an operational drawback became the brand's entire personality. It was voted the best ad of all time in Channel 4 and The Sunday Times' \"100 Greatest TV Ads\" poll, and Glazer went on to direct feature films including the BAFTA-winning The Zone of Interest.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Drum's retrospective, with the film (The Drum)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-2-the-classic-surfer-guinness-patience-everything", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "World's best ads ever #2: in Guinness's classic 'Surfer', patience is everything", "publisher": "The Drum", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-2-the-classic-surfer-guinness-patience-everything" }, { "title": "\"Here's to you, Ahab\": 25 years since the creation of the best ad ever made", "publisher": "Creative Salon (2024)", "url": "https://creative.salon/articles/features/guinness-surfer-learnings-qotw" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/w9ogzVyTtcw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Surfer (Guinness, 1999)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Guinness - Surfer (1999, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ogzVyTtcw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/w9ogzVyTtcw/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "w9ogzVyTtcw", "uploaded_at": "2020-01-01T11:00:19+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "levis-flat-eric", "title": "Flat Eric (Sta-Prest)", "brand": "Levi's Sta-Prest", "brand_slug": "levis", "year": 1999, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A scruffy yellow puppet nodding along in a beat-up American car becomes a cult character whose unexplained cool rubs off on the trousers." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Sets the puppet to a techno bassline that goes on to top the UK singles chart, making the music inseparable from the campaign." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign (three spots)", "agency": "Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director / Music", "name": "Quentin Dupieux (Mr Oizo)" } ], "tagline": "Sta-Prest. One crease. Always.", "why_studied": "A scruffy yellow glove puppet nodding to a techno bassline in a beat-up American car sold sharply creased trousers — and nobody could explain why it worked, including the research, which said it wouldn't. BBH aired it anyway in January 1999. Flat Eric became an instant cult: fan sites, merchandise demands, and a soundtrack — Mr Oizo's \"Flat Beat\" — that went to No. 1 in the UK singles chart on the puppet's popularity alone, outselling its nearest rival two to one. It is studied as a pure case of attitude transfer (the puppet's unexplained cool becoming the product's), of advertising driving the pop charts rather than borrowing from them, and of the limits of pre-testing against genuinely strange ideas.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Guardian's 'how we made' on the Flat Eric ads", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/mar/31/levis-flat-eric-advert-puppet", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'A character that will live forever' — how we made the Levi's Flat Eric ads", "publisher": "The Guardian (2016)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/mar/31/levis-flat-eric-advert-puppet" }, { "title": "No strings attached (the three spots; Dupieux directing)", "publisher": "The Guardian (1999)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/1999/mar/07/flateric.advertising" }, { "title": "Pretty fly for a flat guy (Flat Beat at UK No. 1)", "publisher": "BBC News (1999)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/306387.stm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/OYruRyvLp90/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Flat Eric (Sta-Prest) (Levi's Sta-Prest, 1999)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Levi’s Flat Eric TV Commercial (1999)”, uploaded by Back to the Past", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYruRyvLp90", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/OYruRyvLp90/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "OYruRyvLp90", "uploaded_at": "2022-10-12T19:03:59+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-think-different", "title": "Think Different (\"The Crazy Ones\")", "brand": "Apple", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 1997, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "emmy-winners", "slogans-that-stuck", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Black-and-white footage of Einstein, Dylan, Picasso and King lends the brand the aura of history's rebels and geniuses, with no computer shown." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "A prose poem saluting misfits who change the world sells an ideal of thinking differently while promising nothing specific about any product." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial, print and outdoor campaign", "agency": "TBWA\\Chiat\\Day, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Lee Clow" }, { "role": "Creative Director / Writer", "name": "Rob Siltanen" }, { "role": "Art Director (slogan concept)", "name": "Craig Tanimoto" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Jennifer Golub" } ], "tagline": "Here's to the crazy ones... Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.", "why_studied": "A manifesto in place of a product. With Apple ninety days from irrelevance and nothing new to sell, the returning Steve Jobs approved a campaign that showed no computers at all: black-and-white footage of Einstein, Dylan, Picasso, King and other \"crazy ones,\" over a prose poem saluting the misfits who change the world. Art director Craig Tanimoto's two-word line and Rob Siltanen's script — which Jobs initially called \"shit\" before championing it — first aired September 28, 1997 and won the 1998 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. It is studied as the canonical brand-turnaround ad: values first, products later, with the audience flattered into the brand's worldview. The iMac arrived a year later into a meaning the campaign had already built.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign history and credits (Lürzer's Archive)", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/apple-1997-heres-to-the-crazy-ones/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The People Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign", "publisher": "The New York Times (1998)", "url": "https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/08/biztech/articles/03apple-advertising.html" }, { "title": "The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign (Rob Siltanen, first person)", "publisher": "Forbes (2011)", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real-story-behind-apples-think-different-campaign/" }, { "title": "Apple Computer — Think Different (Emmy winner, Outstanding Commercial, 1998)", "publisher": "Television Academy", "url": "https://www.televisionacademy.com/shows/apple-computer-think-different" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/CLIyH2SyxZA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Think Different (\"The Crazy Ones\") (Apple, 1997)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Think Different - Steve Jobs (1997) - Apple”, uploaded by Apple Archive", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLIyH2SyxZA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/CLIyH2SyxZA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "CLIyH2SyxZA", "uploaded_at": "2023-04-16T19:47:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mastercard-priceless", "title": "Priceless", "brand": "Mastercard", "year": 1997, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Tallies the price of tickets and hot dogs, then sets a father-and-son conversation beyond price, attaching the card to feelings money cannot buy." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign", "agency": "McCann Erickson, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative lead", "name": "Joyce King Thomas and team" } ], "tagline": "There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Mastercard.", "why_studied": "A financial company admitting money isn't everything — and building the longest-running campaign formula in modern advertising on the admission. The first spot (a father and son at a baseball game, September 1997) priced the tickets, the hot dogs, and then the \"real conversation: priceless.\" The grocery-list structure proved infinitely writable across decades, markets and media; people were making their own 'priceless' lists within months, a meme before memes existed, and the campaign is still running more than 25 years later. It is studied for format as brand asset — a syntax so recognizable that any instance anywhere reinforces the brand — and for emotional positioning in a category that had only ever argued acceptance and interest rates.", "watch": [ { "label": "Mastercard's 25th-anniversary oral history of Priceless", "url": "https://mastercardcontentexchange.com/news/perspectives/2022/priceless-mccann-mastercard/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Mastercard's 'Priceless' campaign became part of the brand DNA", "publisher": "Marketing Week", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/mastercard-priceless-campaign/" }, { "title": "How Mastercard's Priceless was born — and where it's going, 25 years later", "publisher": "Mastercard Newsroom (brand archive)", "url": "https://mastercardcontentexchange.com/news/perspectives/2022/priceless-mccann-mastercard/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Q_6stXKGuHo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Priceless (Mastercard, 1997)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “MasterCard priceless baseball (commercial, 1997)”, uploaded by 20thcenturymase", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_6stXKGuHo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Q_6stXKGuHo", "uploaded_at": "2011-01-17T22:03:35+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "parmalat-mamiferos", "title": "Mamíferos", "brand": "Parmalat", "year": 1996, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Toddlers in baby-animal costumes playing before the camera make a commodity milk endearing, aimed squarely at winning children's affection." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The costumed little mammals become a recognisable cast, later collected as plush toys and brought back as teenagers in a sequel." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A slow, sung line declaring that the elephant is a fan of the brand carries the name into memory." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "DM9DDB, São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative", "name": "Erh Ray" }, { "role": "Creative", "name": "Nizan Guanaes" } ], "tagline": "Tomou?", "why_studied": "Three- and four-year-olds dressed as baby mammals play in front of the camera while an adult voice slowly sings \"O elefante é fã de Parmalat\" (the elephant is a Parmalat fan). The film ends with a toddler in a skunk suit asking another, dressed as a kitten, \"Tomou?\" (\"Drunk it?\"). Created at DM9DDB by Erh Ray and Nizan Guanaes, it was a way round Nestlé: as Guanaes tells it, mothers' hearts already belonged to the market leader, so Parmalat set out to win the children, borrowing the idea from an American photographer's pictures of children dressed as animals. It is studied as a commodity turned into a brand. Meio & Mensagem credits the films with cementing Parmalat's market leadership; they won awards including the Profissionais do Ano; and a follow-up promotion, in which barcodes plus a small payment bought one of 21 plush mammals, grew from a planned 300,000 toys to about 15 million. The same children came back as teenagers in a 2007 sequel.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Propagandas Históricas)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOKGQZxH2k", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Propagandas Históricas archive page", "url": "https://www.propagandashistoricas.com.br/2013/02/mamiferos-parmalat-1996.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Primeiro sutiã, mamíferos Parmalat e Garoto Bombril: publicitários contam bastidores de campanhas icônicas", "publisher": "O Globo (2023)", "url": "https://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/noticia/2023/06/roberto-medina-washington-olivetto-e-nizan-guanaes-relembram-acoes-emblematicas-da-publicidade-brasileira.ghtml" }, { "title": "Parmalat: cada vez menos mamíferos", "publisher": "Meio & Mensagem (2012)", "url": "https://www.meioemensagem.com.br/comunicacao/parmalat-cada-vez-menos-mamiferos" }, { "title": "Dez curiosidades sobre o comercial dos Mamíferos Parmalat", "publisher": "Veja São Paulo (2018)", "url": "https://vejasp.abril.com.br/coluna/memoria/mamiferos-parmalat/" }, { "title": "Parmalat resgata mamíferos e lança nova linha", "publisher": "Meio & Mensagem (2017)", "url": "https://www.meioemensagem.com.br/comunicacao/parmalat-resgata-mamiferos-e-lanca-nova-linha" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mZOKGQZxH2k/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Mamíferos (Parmalat, 1996)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Parmalat - Mamíferos (1996)”, uploaded by Propagandas Históricas", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOKGQZxH2k", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mZOKGQZxH2k/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mZOKGQZxH2k", "uploaded_at": "2013-02-24T23:31:55+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser-frogs", "title": "Frogs", "brand": "Budweiser", "brand_slug": "budweiser", "year": 1995, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Three swamp frogs croaking one syllable each become recurring brand characters whose only job is to say the name." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Comic timing does the work as the croaks stumble and finally sync into the brand name, with no product story at all." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Bud... weis... er.", "why_studied": "Three frogs on a swamp log croak one syllable each — \"Bud,\" \"weis,\" \"er\" — until the croaks sync into the brand name. That's the whole ad. Debuting at Super Bowl XXIX in 1995, it is studied as an extreme proof that brand recall needs no message at all: no product story, no benefit, just sound design, comic timing and a name made physical. The frogs became recurring characters (later joined by the scheming lizards Louie and Frank), one of the first cases of a Super Bowl spot spawning a running serialized campaign, and the croak entered the culture the way catchphrases usually do — except nobody in the ad ever says a word.", "watch": [ { "label": "Retrospective with the spot (Business Insider)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-super-bowl-commercials", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Best Super Bowl commercials of all time: Ranking the top 25 ads", "publisher": "CBS Sports", "url": "https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-commercials-top-25-all-time-ranked/" }, { "title": "The Best Super Bowl Commercials of All Time", "publisher": "IGN", "url": "https://me.ign.com/en/movies/217969/feature/the-best-super-bowl-commercials-of-all-time" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WkavReH4LE0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Frogs (Budweiser, 1995)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1995 Super Bowl Commercial \"Bud\" \"Weis\" \"Er\"”, uploaded by superbowladman", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkavReH4LE0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WkavReH4LE0", "uploaded_at": "2009-01-26T15:16:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cadbury-dairy-milk-cricket", "title": "Cricket (Kuch Khaas Hai)", "brand": "Cadbury Dairy Milk", "brand_slug": "cadbury", "year": 1994, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A young woman's awkward, euphoric dance across the pitch after the winning six ties the chocolate to unguarded joy and the kid in everyone." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A Hindi song carrying the line about the real taste of life does as much of the persuading as the pictures." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "45-second television commercial", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather India", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative lead and jingle lyricist (Ogilvy & Mather)", "name": "Piyush Pandey" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Mahesh Mathai" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Shimona Rashi" }, { "role": "Music (composer)", "name": "Louis Banks" }, { "role": "Singer (Hindi jingle)", "name": "Shankar Mahadevan" } ], "tagline": "Asli swaad zindagi ka (The real taste of life)", "why_studied": "A young woman in a patterned dress nibbles Dairy Milk in the stands; when her batsman hits the winning six, she slips past security and dances, awkward and euphoric, across the field. Ogilvy's Piyush Pandey wrote it after Cadbury, stalled as a treat parents bought children, put its account up for pitch in 1993; he drafted the jingle on a boarding pass. Director Mahesh Mathai filmed first-time model Shimona Rashi's unchoreographed jig at Mumbai's Brabourne Stadium. It is studied for three breaks at once: chocolate repositioned from kids to \"the kid in everyone,\" a woman claiming public joy in newly liberalised India, and a song that, Pandey said, worked ten times better once rewritten from English into Hindi for Shankar Mahadevan. Mondelez credits the campaign era, with wider distribution and cheaper packs, for 20%-plus growth over three to four straight years and a doubled category. It was named Campaign of the Century at India's Abby awards, and Ogilvy remade it in 2021 with the roles reversed.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official Cadbury Dairy Milk India upload of the original cricket film (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7JATezA1nY", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Asli swaad zindagi ka' — this 90s Cadbury Dairy Milk commercial changed Indian advertising", "publisher": "ThePrint (2021)", "url": "https://theprint.in/feature/brandma/asli-swaad-zindagi-ka-this-90s-cadbury-dairy-milk-commercial-changed-indian-advertising/623969/" }, { "title": "Cadbury Dairy Milk: Who moved my chocolate?", "publisher": "The Economic Times (2014)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cadbury-dairy-milk-who-moved-my-chocolate/articleshow/40399849.cms" }, { "title": "How Piyush Pandey discovered Cadbury girl Shimona Rashi who went viral before 'viral' existed", "publisher": "Mint (2025)", "url": "https://www.livemint.com/news/trends/how-piyush-pandey-discovered-cadbury-girl-shimona-rashi-who-went-viral-before-viral-existed-11761315189259.html" }, { "title": "Mondelez India recreates Cadbury Dairy Milk's 'Kuch Khaas Hai' ad with a twist", "publisher": "afaqs! (2021)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/mondelez-recreates-dairy-milks-kuch-khaas-hai-ad-with-a-twist" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/e7JATezA1nY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Cricket (Kuch Khaas Hai) (Cadbury Dairy Milk, 1994)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Cadbury Dairy Milk and Cricket are back”, uploaded by CadburyDairyMilkIn", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7JATezA1nY", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/e7JATezA1nY/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "e7JATezA1nY", "uploaded_at": "2013-03-29T14:38:17+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "vodacom-yebo-gogo", "title": "Yebo Gogo (Windmills)", "brand": "Vodacom", "year": 1994, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Makes a would-be streetwise white yuppie the butt of the joke, gently mocking racial assumptions rather than offering rainbow-nation platitudes." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A roadside haggle turns when the yuppie locks his keys in the car and the unflappable vendor calmly produces a Vodacom phone." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Lindsay Smithers FCB, Johannesburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Idea", "name": "Francois de Villiers" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Kole Omotoso and Michael de Pinna" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A white yuppie and his girlfriend stop at a roadside stall where an older Black man sells wire windmills. The yuppie greets him with a would-be-streetwise “Yebo gogo”, accuses him of overcharging, and then locks his keys in the car, while the vendor calmly produces a Vodacom phone. Released in the second half of 1994, as South Africa adjusted to democracy and to its first mobile networks, the spot from Lindsay Smithers FCB made the unflappable Black man the owner of the new technology and the white yuppie the butt of the joke. It is studied as one of the defining ads of the new South Africa, for joking about racial assumptions instead of offering rainbow-nation platitudes, and the Cape Argus later wrote that it broke new ground on race. With actors Kole Omotoso and Michael de Pinna the campaign ran for years, as Vodacom grew past a million subscribers by 1999.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (eNCA)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpoJXoiJIGM", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Exploitative or progressive? The post-apartheid power dynamics in Vodacom's \"Yebo Gogo\".", "publisher": "Daily Maverick (2021)", "url": "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-04-07-the-art-of-advertising-when-good-ads-speak-to-our-national-psyche/" }, { "title": "Ad of the Week: Yebo!", "publisher": "MarkLives (2014)", "url": "https://www.marklives.com/2014/07/ad-week-yebo/" }, { "title": "WATCH: FCB at 90 - Remember 'Yebo Gogo'?", "publisher": "Cape Argus (2016)", "url": "https://capeargus.co.za/news/2016-12-02-watch-fcb-at-90-remember-yebo-gogo/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zpoJXoiJIGM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Yebo Gogo (Windmills) (Vodacom, 1994)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Vodacom ‘Yebo Gogo Windpump’”, uploaded by eNCA", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpoJXoiJIGM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zpoJXoiJIGM/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "zpoJXoiJIGM", "uploaded_at": "2016-11-30T11:39:11+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mcdonalds-the-showdown", "title": "The Showdown (Jordan vs. Bird)", "brand": "McDonald's", "brand_slug": "mcdonalds", "year": 1993, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Two basketball greats play believable versions of themselves, with the burger as the stakes rather than the subject of their contest." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each trick shot is more absurd than the last, off a billboard and through a window, until both aim from atop a skyscraper." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Joe Pytka" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Michael Jordan, Larry Bird" } ], "tagline": "Nothing but net.", "why_studied": "Michael Jordan and Larry Bird play an escalating game of H-O-R-S-E for a Big Mac — \"off the expressway, over the river, off the billboard, through the window, off the wall... nothing but net\" — ending with both players lining up a shot from the top of the John Hancock Center. Aired during Super Bowl XXVII on January 31, 1993, it won USA Today's Ad Meter and \"nothing but net\" entered the American vernacular. It is studied as the archetype of celebrity-athlete advertising done right: the stars play a believable version of themselves, the product is the stakes rather than the subject, and the escalation structure (each shot more absurd) gives the spot a comic engine that works in any language. It inspired sequels and, indirectly, the premise of Space Jam.", "watch": [ { "label": "The spot in Ad Age's Super Bowl commercial archive", "url": "https://adage.com/super-bowl/super-bowl-commercial-archive/1993/mcbm2886/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Horsin' around: Michael Jordan and Larry Bird battle for a Big Mac", "publisher": "Sports Business Journal (2024)", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/01/08/woodward-commercial/" }, { "title": "The 12 best McDonald's ads from Leo Burnett's 35-year run", "publisher": "Campaign US", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.com/article/12-best-mcdonalds-ads-leo-burnetts-35-year-run/1409376" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1shK-j_u6LI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Showdown (Jordan vs. Bird) (McDonald's, 1993)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"The Showdown\" - Bird vs. Jordan McDonald's ad - 1993”, uploaded by VCRchivist", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1shK-j_u6LI" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1shK-j_u6LI", "uploaded_at": "2009-08-03T03:39:47+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dunlop-tested-for-the-unexpected", "title": "Tested for the Unexpected", "brand": "Dunlop", "year": 1993, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Sets a surreal gauntlet of hazards, from an evil magician to cascading marbles and a soap-scrubbed road, turning the tyre test into an art film." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A brooding Velvet Underground track sets the pace and menace, selling the engineering as atmosphere rather than argument." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Tony Kaye" }, { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Walter Campbell, Tom Carty" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "The Velvet Underground, \"Venus in Furs\"" } ], "tagline": "Tested for the unexpected.", "why_studied": "A tyre ad as art film. Tony Kaye set a surreal gauntlet — an evil magician, cascading marbles, a road scrubbed with soap — against The Velvet Underground's \"Venus in Furs,\" shot in black and white with colour added in post, a groundbreaking technique at the time. Launched in late 1993, it is studied as the moment British car-category advertising left literal product demonstration behind: the obstacles literalize \"the unexpected\" while everything else — pace, music, menace — sells engineering as atmosphere. It won two D&AD Yellow Pencils in 1994, is preserved by the History of Advertising Trust, and its influence echoes through two decades of surreal automotive advertising that followed it.", "watch": [ { "label": "Archive record and film (History of Advertising Trust)", "url": "https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/941a70a9-b086-4db4-b55c-ace879fa33c7/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dunlop SP Tyres Commercial: Unexpected (archive record)", "publisher": "History of Advertising Trust", "url": "https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/941a70a9-b086-4db4-b55c-ace879fa33c7/" }, { "title": "3 great ads: Robert Campbell (two D&AD Yellow Pencils, 1994; colourised b&w technique)", "publisher": "The Marketing Society", "url": "https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-cinema/3-great-ads-robert-campbell-beta" }, { "title": "Dunlop \"Tested for the Unexpected\" (credits)", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/dunlop-6/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/64xoAIfphaA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Tested for the Unexpected (Dunlop, 1993)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Dunlop - Tested for the Unexpected (1993, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xoAIfphaA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/64xoAIfphaA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "64xoAIfphaA", "uploaded_at": "2016-08-17T22:30:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "got-milk-aaron-burr", "title": "Aaron Burr (got milk?)", "known_as": "Got Milk?", "brand": "California Milk Processor Board", "year": 1993, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A history buff who knows the prize-winning answer cannot say it through a mouthful of peanut butter, making milk's absence the punchline." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "The plot builds towards a radio quiz prize and then strands its hero, dramatising the insight that people notice milk only when it runs out." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Michael Bay" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Sean Whalen" } ], "tagline": "got milk?", "why_studied": "The campaign that sold a product through its absence. Planner Jon Steel's research found people only notice milk when they run out of it, so Goodby, Silverstein & Partners built the entire strategy on deprivation — crystallized in Jeff Goodby's two-word, lower-case line \"got milk?\". The launch spot, first aired October 29, 1993 and directed by a young Michael Bay, strands a Hamilton-obsessed history buff with a mouth full of peanut butter just as a radio quiz offers $10,000 for the answer he knows: \"Aaron Burr.\" It is studied as a masterclass in strategy-led creativity (the insight dictates the drama), in comic structure under 60 seconds, and in how far a regional dairy board's budget can travel: \"Aaron Burr\" won Best in Show at the 1994 Clio Awards and the tagline became one of the most borrowed in American culture.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Aaron Burr\" spot (Ad Age creativity archive)", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/aaron-burr/7231/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "got milk? case history", "publisher": "ANA Educational Foundation", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/case-histories/got-milk/" }, { "title": "California Milk Processor Board: Aaron Burr", "publisher": "Ad Age creativity archive", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/aaron-burr/7231/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Mac0VHnNSLw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Aaron Burr (got milk?) (California Milk Processor Board, 1993)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Got Milk?'s 1993 \"Aaron Burr\" HALL OF FAME CLIO AWARD WINNING ADVERTISING”, uploaded by CLIO Awards: Brilliance In Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mac0VHnNSLw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Mac0VHnNSLw/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Mac0VHnNSLw", "uploaded_at": "2020-04-13T22:16:38+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-hare-jordan", "title": "Hare Jordan", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 1992, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Live action and hand-drawn slapstick combine as a basketball star and a cartoon rabbit outwit a gang of bullies on court." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Michael Jordan plays alongside Bugs Bunny, so the brand pairs its star athlete's fame with a much-loved cartoon character." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Joe Pytka" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Jim Riswold" } ], "tagline": "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.", "why_studied": "Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny team up in a gym to outwit a gang of basketball bullies, mixing live action with hand-drawn Looney Tunes slapstick until Bugs signs off: “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Created by Jim Riswold at Wieden & Kennedy and directed by Joe Pytka, it aired during Super Bowl XXVI on January 26, 1992. It took six months and nearly $1 million to make, about four times the cost of a typical spot, with some 3,000 drawings by Warner Bros. animators, and Pytka fought the studio for months to modernize Bugs. It is studied as the commercial that became intellectual property: Pytka has described its success as useful research for Warner Bros., a sequel followed, and the pairing became the basis for the 1996 film Space Jam, which he directed. It won USA Today's 1992 Ad Meter with a score of 8.51, and USA Today's editors later ranked it the second-best Ad Meter winner of the poll's first 24 years.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrTHJeqZA2o", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Super Bowl Commercial Archive", "url": "https://adage.com/super-bowl/super-bowl-commercial-archive/1992/hare-jordan-60/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Hare Jordan' May Give Animation Ads a Lift", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1992)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-01-28-fi-1078-story.html" }, { "title": "Watch 5 of the best Super Bowl commercials from 1992", "publisher": "USA Today (2015)", "url": "https://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2015/01/09/watch-5-of-the-best-super-bowl-commercials-from-1992/77675364007/" }, { "title": "Space Jam: The story behind Michael Jordan's improbable victory", "publisher": "Entertainment Weekly (2016)", "url": "https://ew.com/article/2016/11/15/space-jam-20th-anniversary-joe-pytka/" }, { "title": "Super Bowl ads: The best of the past 24 years", "publisher": "USA Today (2013)", "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/01/26/admeter-countdown-pepsi-mcdonald-winner-super-bowl/1862001/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NrTHJeqZA2o/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hare Jordan (Nike, 1992)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nike Shoe Company with Michael Jordan & Bugs Bunny 1992 TV Commercial HD”, uploaded by FM1156", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrTHJeqZA2o", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NrTHJeqZA2o/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "NrTHJeqZA2o", "uploaded_at": "2017-03-07T11:13:36+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nissin-cup-noodle-hungry", "title": "Hungry? (Moa / Synthetoceras)", "brand": "Nissin Cup Noodle", "year": 1992, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Starving Stone Age hunters worn out by absurd prey push hunger to comic extremes before a deadpan voice offers the noodles as the answer." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial series", "agency": "Hakuhodo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative (Hakuhodo)", "name": "Takuya Onuki" }, { "role": "CM planner (Hakuhodo)", "name": "Masahiko Ishii" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Shinya Nakajima" } ], "tagline": "Hungry?", "why_studied": "Starving cavemen chase dinner across a prehistoric plain, first a towering moa bird, then a Synthetoceras that wears the tribe out by popping up from hole after hole, until a deadpan voice asks, \"Hungry?\" and answers with Cup Noodle. Hakuhodo's Takuya Onuki began with the plainest proposition, eat this when you're hungry, then searched for people hungrier than anyone alive and landed in the Stone Age; he later called it a counter-message to bubble-era Japan, and said the English \"hungry?\" came late, during the shoot. Director Shinya Nakajima worked digitally but pushed the footage to look like film, staging his tribe on a dry lakebed north of Los Angeles. Two spots, \"Moa\" and \"Synthetoceras,\" shared the Film Grand Prix at Cannes in 1993. It is studied as proof that one blunt benefit, exaggerated to absurdity, needs no translation; DDB Mudra's Sonal Dabral credits it with shaping later Japanese, Thai and Indian comedy, and when Cannes looped past winners in 2013 it drew applause on every pass.", "watch": [ { "label": "'Moa Ostrich' spot (YouTube upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxtZHOE4ScY", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "'Primitive man' 1992 spot (YouTube upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUJxex-FNrM", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "My favourite Cannes Grand Prix: Sonal Dabral", "publisher": "Campaign India (2012)", "url": "https://www.campaignindia.in/article/my-favourite-cannes-grand-prix-sonal-dabral/416574" }, { "title": "「hungry？」の舞台裏（後）～カンヌ受賞作ができるまで (Behind 'hungry?', part 2: how the Cannes winner was made) — column by director Shinya Nakajima", "publisher": "AdverTimes / Sendenkaigi (2022)", "url": "https://www.advertimes.com/20221205/article402761/" }, { "title": "世の中に不足している空気を提示したい。――伝説のクリエイター大貫卓也の仕事術 3 (Takuya Onuki interview)", "publisher": "Bunshun Online (2018)", "url": "https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/6052" }, { "title": "SIXメンバーが見たCANNES LIONS 2013レポート（第4回） (Cannes Lions 2013 report)", "publisher": "AdverTimes / Sendenkaigi (2013)", "url": "https://www.advertimes.com/20130626/article118436/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZxtZHOE4ScY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hungry? (Moa / Synthetoceras) (Nissin Cup Noodle, 1992)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nissin Cup-O-Noodle Moa Ostrich”, uploaded by Daniel Leyva", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxtZHOE4ScY" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ZxtZHOE4ScY", "uploaded_at": "2007-03-06T17:05:13+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pepsi-new-can-cindy-crawford", "title": "New Can", "brand": "Pepsi", "brand_slug": "pepsi", "year": 1992, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A last-second twist reveals the two staring boys were admiring the new can, not the supermodel, turning the set-up into a punchline." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "The most famous supermodel of the moment drinks a Pepsi, lending her star power before the spot hands the spotlight back to the packaging." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "BBDO, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Joe Pytka" } ], "tagline": "Is that a great new Pepsi can or what?", "why_studied": "A red Lamborghini pulls into a dusty roadside café, Cindy Crawford steps out in a white tank top and cut-offs, and two small boys stare as she buys a Pepsi and drinks it to Doris Troy's “Just One Look.” Then the twist: “Is that a great new Pepsi can or what?” The boys were admiring the packaging all along. Made by BBDO New York and directed by Joe Pytka, it debuted during Super Bowl XXVI on January 26, 1992, to unveil Pepsi's redesigned cans. It is studied as one of advertising's great misdirects: it borrows the most famous supermodel of the moment, then hands the starring role back to the product. Pytka recalls that Crawford was cast just before the shoot, after the creative director spotted her on a drugstore calendar, and that she nailed it in two takes. It finished second in USA Today's 1992 Ad Meter, and Pepsi brought her back to remake it for Super Bowl LII in 2018, alongside her son Presley Gerber.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtK-yq-BQDU", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Super Bowl Commercial Archive", "url": "https://adage.com/super-bowl/super-bowl-commercial-archive/1992/pepsi-two-kids-with-cindy-crawfordmp4/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Watch 5 of the best Super Bowl commercials from 1992", "publisher": "USA Today (2015)", "url": "https://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2015/01/09/watch-5-of-the-best-super-bowl-commercials-from-1992/77675364007/" }, { "title": "Pepsi Updates Classic Cindy Crawford Spot For SB LII", "publisher": "MediaPost (2018)", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/312847/pepsi-updates-cindy-crawfords-1992-ad-for-campaig.html" }, { "title": "Cindy Crawford for Pepsi: Two Icons, One Perfect Super Bowl Ad", "publisher": "Muse by Clios (2022)", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/sports/cindy-crawford-for-pepsi-two-icons-one-perfect-super-bowl-ad/" }, { "title": "Cindy Crawford's 1992 Pepsi ad was iconic. Her latest project pays homage.", "publisher": "AOL / Yahoo Entertainment (2023)", "url": "https://www.aol.com/entertainment/cindy-crawfords-1992-pepsi-ad-215430476.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/YtK-yq-BQDU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from New Can (Pepsi, 1992)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Advertising Pepsi with Cindy Crawford - 1992”, uploaded by Advertising is an art! Proven! / Реклама это искусство! Доказано!", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtK-yq-BQDU" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "YtK-yq-BQDU", "uploaded_at": "2017-10-16T19:00:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tango-orange-man", "title": "Orange Man (\"You Know When You've Been Tango'd\")", "brand": "Tango", "year": 1992, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Replays a fat orange man slapping a drinker with mock sports-pundit commentary, dramatising the hit of orange as slapstick." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Deliberately breaks soft-drink conventions with a full face slap, provocative enough to spark a playground craze and force its withdrawal." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "40-second television commercial", "agency": "HHCL, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Creatives", "name": "Trevor Robinson, Al Young" } ], "tagline": "You know when you've been Tango'd.", "why_studied": "The anti-ad that out-punched Coca-Cola's budgets. To dramatize the \"hit\" of orange, a fat orange man sprints into frame and slaps a Tango drinker full across the face — replayed with sports-pundit commentary. Trevor Robinson and Al Young's 1992 spot for HHCL deliberately broke every soft-drink convention of aspirational lifestyle advertising, and the catchphrase ignited an actual playground slapping craze so widespread that, after a surgeon reported a child's damaged eardrum, the slap was pulled and replaced with a kiss — making it one of the most notorious withdrawals in British advertising. It is studied as the founding text of 1990s British \"anti-advertising,\" ranked No. 3 in the Channel 4/Sunday Times poll of the greatest TV ads and No. 4 in Campaign's ads of the century.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Guardian's 'how we made' with Trevor Robinson, with the ads", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/jun/15/how-we-made-you-know-youve-been-tango-orange-man-ad", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How we Tango'd Britain with the Orange Man", "publisher": "The Guardian (2015)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/jun/15/how-we-made-you-know-youve-been-tango-orange-man-ad" }, { "title": "Tango — Orange Man (Trevor Robinson's account)", "publisher": "ITV Media", "url": "https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/living-room-legends/tango---orange-man-" }, { "title": "Martian ad a Smash hit (Campaign's top 10 of the century: Tango at No. 4)", "publisher": "BBC News (1999)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/572903.stm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iqVFnxHWnlc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Orange Man (\"You Know When You've Been Tango'd\") (Tango, 1992)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Tango - Orange Man (1992, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqVFnxHWnlc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iqVFnxHWnlc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "iqVFnxHWnlc", "uploaded_at": "2016-07-30T15:26:31+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sasol-glug-glug", "title": "Glug Glug", "brand": "Sasol", "year": 1991, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A toy car filled with the fuel scorches across a bedroom and smashes through the wall, dramatising performance instead of merely claiming it." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The boy's genuinely startled stare at the hole in his wall gives the exaggeration a likeable comic payoff." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Lindsay Smithers FCB, Johannesburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Les Sharpe" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Gaby Bush" }, { "role": "Producer (Sharpe Productions)", "name": "Chris Briggs" }, { "role": "Boy", "name": "Istvan Gyori" } ], "tagline": "Pump up your performance.", "why_studied": "A small boy playing in his bedroom fills a toy red Ferrari with Sasol Super 100, the fuel going in with a \"glug glug\". The little car tears across the room, scorching the carpet, and smashes through the wall, leaving the boy staring wide-eyed at the hole. Lindsay Smithers FCB's brief was to set Sasol apart from rival fuels, and it chose to dramatise performance rather than claim it, in a 30-second spot that director Les Sharpe shot in camera, catching the boy's genuinely startled reactions. It is studied as a benchmark for likeability. In 2003 Millward Brown named it South Africa's most loved ad of the previous 20 years, and in 2019 Kantar's Adtrack, built on more than 100,000 tested TV commercials, still ranked it the country's best-liked ad of 35 years. It never won a Loerie, though it did win awards in England, at Cannes and in the US, and Sasol built a series of \"Ama-Glug-Glug\" ads on it before reviving it again in 2019.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Sasol)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXLI6VslOZE", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Kantar South Africa's Best Liked Ads of the last 35 years", "publisher": "Bizcommunity – issued by Kantar (2019)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/198713.html" }, { "title": "The story behind SA's favourite ad, Sasol's 'glug glug'", "publisher": "The Citizen (2019)", "url": "https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/the-story-behind-sas-favourite-ad-sasols-glug-glug/" }, { "title": "Sasol ad most loved", "publisher": "CAR magazine (2003)", "url": "https://www.carmag.co.za/news-blog/sasol-ad-most-loved/" }, { "title": "Sasol invokes iconic SA ad in latest campaign from FCB Joburg", "publisher": "Nahana Communications Group (2019)", "url": "https://www.nahanagroup.com/news-insights/sasol-invokes-iconic-sa-ad-in-latest-campaign-from-fcb-joburg" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NXLI6VslOZE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Glug Glug (Sasol, 1991)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sasol Glug Glug TV ad (original)”, uploaded by Sasol", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXLI6VslOZE" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heritage-minutes", "title": "Heritage Minutes", "brand": "CRB Foundation (now Historica Canada)", "year": 1991, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Each minute dramatises a moment from Canadian history, such as a surgeon mapping a patient's brain, with characters and a payoff rather than a lecture." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Uses commercial breaks for civic education, teaching young Canadians the heroes and myths their founder believed they were never taught." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television vignettes (series)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Sixty-second dramas about moments in Canadian history, broadcast in the commercial breaks: the three Victoria Cross winners from one Winnipeg street that became Valour Road, Jacques Plante's goalie mask, the Underground Railroad, and Dr Wilder Penfield's patient crying “I smell burnt toast” as he maps the brain. The philanthropist Charles Bronfman conceived them in the 1980s because he believed young Canadians were never taught their own heroes and myths, and the first Minutes appeared in 1991. It is studied as a pioneering use of the commercial format for civic education: the films ran between cartoons and other programmes, and “I smell burnt toast” became a generational catchphrase. Historica Canada, which produces them and relaunched the series in 2012, says that in a single month the Minutes still aired thousands of times and reached millions of viewers.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official Historica Canada upload: Wilder Penfield (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUOG2g4hj8s", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "From hokey nostalgia to hard-hitting history: The evolution of Canada's Heritage Minutes", "publisher": "CBC News (2016)", "url": "https://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/canada-heritage-minutes-evolution-of-new-series-best-of-1.3644430" }, { "title": "Canadian Identity—in Sixty Seconds or Less", "publisher": "The Walrus (2016)", "url": "https://thewalrus.ca/canadian-identity-in-sixty-seconds-or-less/" }, { "title": "How important moments in Canadian history become a Heritage Minute", "publisher": "Global News (2017)", "url": "https://globalnews.ca/news/3533466/how-important-moments-in-canadian-history-become-a-heritage-minute/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pUOG2g4hj8s/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Heritage Minutes (CRB Foundation (now Historica Canada), 1991)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Heritage Minutes: Wilder Penfield”, uploaded by Historica Canada", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUOG2g4hj8s", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pUOG2g4hj8s/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "pUOG2g4hj8s", "uploaded_at": "2016-03-03T00:00:27+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "brastemp-nao-e-assim-uma-brastemp", "title": "Não é assim uma Brastemp", "brand": "Brastemp", "year": 1991, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Ordinary owners damn rival appliances with faint praise, measuring them against Brastemp so the brand becomes the category benchmark without boasting." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The mock-confessional, embarrassed hesitation before admitting a rival is merely fine makes the faint praise funny and endlessly quotable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercials (campaign)", "agency": "Talent", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Ana Carmen Longobardi and Mauro Perez" } ], "tagline": "Não é assim uma Brastemp (It's not exactly a Brastemp)", "why_studied": "In a series of mock-confessional films, ordinary people settled in armchairs describe an appliance from another brand with embarrassed hesitation: it works, it is fine, it is just… “não é assim uma Brastemp”, not exactly a Brastemp. Created by the agency Talent in 1991 under creative directors Ana Carmen Longobardi and Mauro Perez, the campaign let faint praise for rivals do the selling, setting Brastemp up as the benchmark for its category without a single boast. It is studied because the line escaped advertising entirely: Brazilians still use it for anything merely adequate, from appliances to government budget policy. Brastemp kept it as the theme of its advertising until 2003, and in 2017 brought it back alongside internet memes, a rare case of a brand reclaiming a phrase the public had taken over. Talent's founder Júlio Ribeiro was remembered for it on his death in 2018.", "watch": [ { "label": "The four 1991 commercials on YouTube (Propaganda e Música by Lalala)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnLjj2G0hx4", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Brastemp (Não é uma Brastemp) - 1991", "publisher": "Propagandas Históricas", "url": "https://www.propagandashistoricas.com.br/2014/08/brastemp-nao-e-uma-brastemp-1991.html" }, { "title": "Depois de 14 anos, bordão 'não é assim uma Brastemp' volta a ser usado pela marca ao lado de memes", "publisher": "G1 (2017)", "url": "https://g1.globo.com/economia/midia-e-marketing/noticia/depois-de-14-anos-bordao-nao-e-assim-uma-brastemp-volta-a-ser-usado-pela-marca-ao-lado-de-memes.ghtml" }, { "title": "O fundador da agência Talent, Júlio Ribeiro, morre aos 84 anos", "publisher": "Jornal O Sul (2018)", "url": "https://www.osul.com.br/o-fundador-da-agencia-talent-julio-ribeiro-morre-aos-84-anos-o-publicitario-foi-o-responsavel-por-campanhas-como-bonita-camisa-fernandinho-e-nao-e-assim-uma-brastemp/" }, { "title": "Desvincular orçamento “não é assim, uma Brastemp”", "publisher": "Terraço Econômico (2019)", "url": "https://terracoeconomico.com.br/desvincular-orcamento-nao-e-assim-uma-brastemp/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NnLjj2G0hx4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Não é assim uma Brastemp (Brastemp, 1991)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NÃO É ASSIM UMA BRASTEMP | 4 comerciais de 1991 que imortalizaram o bordão”, uploaded by Propaganda e Música by Lalala", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnLjj2G0hx4", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NnLjj2G0hx4/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "NnLjj2G0hx4", "uploaded_at": "2020-10-03T03:15:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "diet-pepsi-uh-huh", "title": "Uh-Huh (You Got the Right One, Baby)", "brand": "Diet Pepsi", "brand_slug": "pepsi", "year": 1991, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A new sung slogan, answered by backing singers' knowing 'uh-huh', becomes a national catchphrase that people can sing back." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Ray Charles performs the jingle at a grand piano, lending a legendary musician's voice and charisma to a diet cola." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Series of 30- and 60-second television commercials", "agency": "BBDO, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Talent", "name": "Ray Charles" } ], "tagline": "You got the right one, baby. Uh-huh!", "why_studied": "Ray Charles sits at a grand piano with a big band behind him, while three backing singers in black minidresses and wigs answer each line with a knowing \"uh-huh.\" After weeks of teaser ads, Diet Pepsi had Charles premiere its new jingle, \"You got the right one, baby,\" across a handful of spots in Super Bowl XXV in January 1991; the one in which the song travels around the world finished first in USA Today's Ad Meter with a score of 8.52. BBDO's line became a national catchphrase, and the \"Uh-Huh Girls\" became celebrities in their own right, drawing autograph crowds at shopping malls. The campaign is taught as much for its aftermath. By 1993, after more than $100 million in spending, Diet Pepsi's supermarket sales were falling, and Video Storyboard Tests found that nearly three-quarters of viewers thought the ads were for regular Pepsi. It remains a classic illustration of advertising that people love, and can sing back, without crediting the brand that paid for it.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ray Charles | The Right One Baby, 1991 (Pepsi on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=599wTUR73p0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Diet Pepsi Super Bowl XXV ad, part 2: the jingle spreads around the world (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_S8BnWpi9E", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Watch 5 of the best Super Bowl commercials from 1991", "publisher": "USA Today (2015)", "url": "https://admeter.usatoday.com/story/sports/ad-meter/2015/01/08/watch-5-of-the-best-super-bowl-commercials-from-1991/77675230007/" }, { "title": "Takeall v. Pepsico, Inc., 809 F. Supp. 19 (D. Md. 1992)", "publisher": "U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, via Justia (1992)", "url": "https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/809/19/1455982/" }, { "title": "Uh-Oh Sales : Despite Popularity of ‘Uh-Huh Girls,’ Diet Pepsi Is in a Slump", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1993)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-05-25-fi-39520-story.html" }, { "title": "Right Slogan Is Key to an Ad’s Immortality", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1992)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-17-fi-4043-story.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/599wTUR73p0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Uh-Huh (You Got the Right One, Baby) (Diet Pepsi, 1991)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Ray Charles | The Right One Baby, 1991”, uploaded by Pepsi", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=599wTUR73p0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/599wTUR73p0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "599wTUR73p0", "uploaded_at": "2023-09-07T13:00:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "gatorade-be-like-mike", "title": "Be Like Mike", "brand": "Gatorade", "year": 1991, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "sports", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Footage of Jordan laughing and playing with children invites viewers not just to drink what he drinks but to become like him." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A catchy song wishing to be like Mike carries the whole aspiration, popular enough that listeners request it on the radio." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial and jingle", "agency": "Bayer Bess Vanderwarker, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Director / Lyrics", "name": "Bernie Pitzel" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Ira Antelis, Steve Shafer" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Michael Jordan" } ], "tagline": "Sometimes I dream that he is me. Be like Mike.", "why_studied": "The jingle that defined athlete aspiration — written on a tablecloth in a crisis. Gatorade had just signed Michael Jordan when Disney demanded too much to license The Jungle Book's \"I Wan'na Be Like You,\" the planned soundtrack. Creative director Bernie Pitzel wrote replacement lyrics in hours at his favourite Chicago restaurant; composers Ira Antelis and Steve Shafer built the melody over a weekend; and \"Be Like Mike\" launched on August 8, 1991, footage of Jordan laughing and playing with kids over a song people requested on the radio. It is studied as the purest distillation of aspirational endorsement — not 'buy what he drinks' but 'become him' — and as a study in creative constraint: the forced rewrite produced something far bigger than the licensed original would have been.", "watch": [ { "label": "Sports Business Journal's history of the campaign", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2014/02/17/Champions/Schmidt-Jordan/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "To 'Be Like Mike,' Gatorade had to poach Michael Jordan from Coke", "publisher": "Sports Business Journal (2014)", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2014/02/17/Champions/Schmidt-Jordan/" }, { "title": "'Be Like Mike' jingle almost didn't happen, ad creator says", "publisher": "Chicago Sun-Times (2020)", "url": "https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2020/5/12/21256020/michael-jordan-be-like-mike-gatorade-jingle-chicago-creator-bernie-pitzel-bayer-bess-vanderwarker" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/b0AGiq9j_Ak/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Be Like Mike (Gatorade, 1991)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Be Like Mike Gatorade Commercial (ORIGINAL)”, uploaded by bigwayne84", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AGiq9j_Ak" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "b0AGiq9j_Ak", "uploaded_at": "2006-10-24T06:54:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "perrier-le-lion", "title": "Le Lion (La Lionne)", "brand": "Perrier", "year": 1990, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A woman and a lion face off over one bottle on an African hilltop, a reversed Beauty and the Beast that she wins with a primal cry." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Sells the water through thirst, wildness and seduction rather than claims, making desire for the bottle almost animal." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jean-Paul Goude" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "\"I Put a Spell on You\" – Screamin' Jay Hawkins" } ], "tagline": "De l'eau, de l'air: la vie", "why_studied": "A woman and a lion meet nose to nose on an African hilltop, both desperate for the same bottle of Perrier, and she wins it with a cry so primal it cows the big cat. Jean-Paul Goude, who pitched the idea poolside to Ogilvy Paris's creative director, staged it as Beauty and the Beast in reverse; the film runs to Screamin' Jay Hawkins' \"I Put a Spell on You\" and signs off \"De l'eau, de l'air: la vie.\" Lions barely bare their fangs when they roar, so the crew waited a whole day for this one to yawn. It is studied as a masterclass in selling a mineral water through myth rather than claims, compressing thirst, wildness and seduction into one image. The 1990 film won the Grand Prix Stratégies and the Cannes Grand Prix in 1991; in 2014 Culture Pub still called it the last Cannes Grand Prix won by France. In 2018 Ogilvy remade it in miniature, a little girl facing a lion cub, for Perrier Fines Bulles.", "watch": [ { "label": "Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD Paris) on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sz8LtIR73I", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Les campagnes mythiques: Perrier, \"Le lion\"", "publisher": "Stratégies (2010)", "url": "https://www.strategies.fr/actualites/marques/132646W/les-campagnes-mythiques-perrier-le-lion-.html" }, { "title": "Le lion de Perrier, dernier Grand Prix français à Cannes", "publisher": "Culture Pub (2014)", "url": "https://www.culturepub.fr/le-lion-de-perrier-dernier-grand-prix-francais-cannes/" }, { "title": "Why Ogilvy Made a Miniature Homage to Perrier's Lion", "publisher": "shots (2018)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/95031-why-ogilvy-made-a-miniature-homage-to-perrier-s-lion" }, { "title": "Musique de la pub Perrier – le lion", "publisher": "La Réclame", "url": "https://lareclame.fr/57559+musique+perrier+lion" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1Sz8LtIR73I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Le Lion (La Lionne) (Perrier, 1990)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “[Perrier] La lionne, 1990”, uploaded by MAD Paris", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sz8LtIR73I", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1Sz8LtIR73I/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1Sz8LtIR73I", "uploaded_at": "2020-05-19T07:40:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser-bud-bowl", "title": "Bud Bowl", "brand": "Budweiser", "brand_slug": "budweiser", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Six stop-motion spots spread through the broadcast tell one continuing football game between beer bottles, so viewers follow it from pregame to the final quarter." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Scorecards, a prize contest and in-store displays invite viewers to follow and play along with the bottle game beyond the screen." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Serialized campaign of six 30-second television commercials", "agency": "D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, St. Louis", "credits": [ { "role": "Stop-motion animation", "name": "Broadcast Arts, New York" }, { "role": "Play-by-play voice", "name": "Bob Costas" }, { "role": "Color commentary voice", "name": "Paul Maguire" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Anheuser-Busch turned Super Bowl XXIII, on January 22, 1989, into a game within the game. Two teams of longneck bottles in tiny helmets, Budweiser against Bud Light, fought through six 30-second stop-motion spots placed in the pregame show, at kickoff and at the end of each quarter, with Bob Costas and Paul Maguire calling the plays; Budweiser won 27–24. It is studied as an early model of serialized Super Bowl storytelling and as a lesson in buying an event rather than a slot. The brewer made itself the broadcast's only beer advertiser, an exclusivity it kept every year for three decades, and backed the spots with scorecards, a $100,000 prize contest and displays in 200,000 stores, giving retailers its own trademark to rival the official Super Bowl logo that Miller controlled. Executives later credited it with a 17 percent sales lift in a normally dead January. Created by D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles and animated by Broadcast Arts, it returned for seven more editions, through 1997.", "watch": [ { "label": "Bud Bowl I, complete (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9k9Bao075c", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Budweiser Super Bowl XXIII ad, Bud Bowl I part 1 (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7SnP3V41FI", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Closing Shot: Bud’s big game", "publisher": "Sports Business Journal (2019)", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2019/01/14/People-and-Pop-Culture/Closing-Shot/" }, { "title": "Anheuser Busch gearing for 'Bad Bowl' Kickoff", "publisher": "UPI (1989)", "url": "https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/01/08/Anheuser-Busch-gearing-for-Bad-Bowl-Kickoff/1348600238800/" }, { "title": "Inside the creative process of Bud ads", "publisher": "Sports Business Journal (2009)", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2009/01/26/Super-Bowl-XLIII/Inside-The-Creative-Process-Of-Bud-Ads/" }, { "title": "Budweiser’s greatest Super Bowl commercial hits", "publisher": "Ad Age (2021)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/budweisers-greatest-super-bowl-commercial-hits/2309531/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/s9k9Bao075c/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bud Bowl (Budweiser, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Bud Bowl I”, uploaded by Bud Bowl", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9k9Bao075c", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/s9k9Bao075c/sd2.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "s9k9Bao075c", "uploaded_at": "2019-01-07T03:45:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tac-girlfriend-if-you-drink-then-drive", "title": "Girlfriend (\"If You Drink, Then Drive, You're a Bloody Idiot\")", "brand": "Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Filmed in a working emergency ward with a real medical crew, it lets the trauma unfold in order to upset, outrage and appal drink drivers." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "It confronts drink drivers with the injuries they could inflict on someone close to them, reinforced by an expansion of random breath testing." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Grey Advertising, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer", "name": "Greg Harper" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Stewart Byfield" } ], "tagline": "If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot.", "why_studied": "A young woman, injured in a crash caused by her drunk boyfriend, is rushed through a hospital emergency department while a trauma team works on her. Grey Advertising's Greg Harper and Stewart Byfield were asked for a commercial that would \"upset, outrage and appal\" drink drivers, and they filmed inside the working emergency ward of the Royal Melbourne Hospital with a real medical crew, letting the trauma unfold. It was the Transport Accident Commission's first ad, launched in December 1989, a year in which 776 people died on Victoria's roads, to back an expansion of random breath testing. It is studied as the origin of Victoria's model of pairing raw, emotional advertising with visible enforcement, and for a blunt tagline used for decades. The Age reports that the road toll fell 37% over the following year; by 1992 deaths had dropped to 396, the first time below 400 since 1948, a fall the TAC's own review attributes to a package of breath testing, speed cameras, publicity and other measures.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Girlfriend\", the first TAC ad (official TAC Victoria YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfhR5w5uYWs", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Greg Harper, mastermind behind 'Drink Drive, Bloody Idiot' ads passes away", "publisher": "The Age (2017)", "url": "https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/greg-harper-mastermind-behind-behind-drink-drive-bloody-idiot-ads-passes-away-20170114-gtrh5i.html" }, { "title": "History of TAC campaigns", "publisher": "Transport Accident Commission", "url": "https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/campaigns/history-of-tac-campaigns" }, { "title": "Road Safety – the Experience of the Transport Accident Commission in Victoria, Australia", "publisher": "International Transport Forum at the OECD, Discussion Paper 2011-24", "url": "https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2011/09/road-safety_g17a2055/5kg29s4v6448-en.pdf" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/TfhR5w5uYWs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Girlfriend (\"If You Drink, Then Drive, You're a Bloody Idiot\") (Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The first TAC ad ever produced, \"Girlfriend\"”, uploaded by Transport Accident Commission Victoria", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfhR5w5uYWs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/TfhR5w5uYWs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "TfhR5w5uYWs", "uploaded_at": "2009-12-02T02:02:55+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "bajaj-hamara-bajaj", "title": "Hamara Bajaj", "brand": "Bajaj", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Sells the scooter's Indianness rather than its engineering, wrapping it in pride in a strong nation through the possessive our Bajaj." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Unknown faces, not stars, polish scooters, check their hair and haggle over fish, so the brand belongs to everyday Indians." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A swelling raga-based chorus ending on the brand line is hummed nationwide, carrying the patriotic message into memory." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Lintas, Bombay", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Sumantra Ghosal" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Rahul daCunha" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Prashant Godbole" }, { "role": "National creative director", "name": "Kersey Katrak" }, { "role": "Lyrics", "name": "Jaikrit Rawat" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Louiz Banks" }, { "role": "Singer", "name": "Vinay Mandke" } ], "tagline": "Buland Bharat ki buland tasveer: Hamara Bajaj", "why_studied": "Ordinary Indians go about their day with their Bajaj scooters, polishing them, checking their hair in the mirror, haggling over fish; a woman rides one herself, under a swelling chorus ending \"Buland Bharat ki buland tasveer... Hamara Bajaj\" (the strong picture of a strong India: our Bajaj). In 1989 the ageing Chetak was losing sales to rivals such as Kinetic Honda, so Lintas, inspired by Chevrolet's \"Heartbeat of America\", sold the scooter's Indianness rather than its engineering; the creative team recalls that Bajaj's marketers balked and Rahul Bajaj approved it himself. Director Sumantra Ghosal cast unknown faces, not stars, and the raga-based jingle, with lyrics by Jaikrit Rawat and music by Louiz Banks, was hummed nationwide when India had one TV channel. It is studied as an early case of emotional positioning for a consumer durable. Its makers say it won best TV commercial at the 1989 Ad Club awards and that sales soared; in 2013 Bajaj went to court to keep the line off a film title.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (ET BrandEquity)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1UteS7IzkQ", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "40 years ago...and now - 'Hamara Bajaj': Clarion call for consumerism", "publisher": "Business Standard (2014)", "url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/40-years-ago-and-now-hamara-bajaj-clarion-call-for-consumerism-114100801244_1.html" }, { "title": "Hamara Bajaj Kindled Pride in Being Indian", "publisher": "Rediff.com (2022)", "url": "https://www.rediff.com/news/special/hamara-bajaj-kindled-pride-in-being-indian/20220224.htm" }, { "title": "Storyboard18 - Hamara Rahul Bajaj: It takes big men to recognise big ideas", "publisher": "Forbes India / Storyboard18 (2022)", "url": "https://www.forbesindia.com/article/storyboard18/storyboard18-hamara-rahul-bajaj-it-takes-big-men-to-recognise-big-ideas/73805/1" }, { "title": "Indian Ad-Age: How Hamara Bajaj felt the heartbeat of a nation", "publisher": "The Indian Express (2019)", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/opinion-entertainment/indian-ad-age-hamara-bajaj-ad-6018249/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/a1UteS7IzkQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hamara Bajaj (Bajaj, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Hamara Bajaj 1989 ad”, uploaded by ET BrandEquity", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1UteS7IzkQ" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "a1UteS7IzkQ", "uploaded_at": "2021-11-25T14:20:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "orion-choco-pie-jeong", "title": "Jeong", "brand": "Orion Choco Pie", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Shows the cakes quietly passed between pupils, teachers, relatives and neighbours, making the snack a token of warm, unspoken affection." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A jingle insisting nothing needs saying because the feeling comes from the heart turns the brand's emotional claim into a song." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercials (campaign)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Since 1989 Orion has sold its chocolate-coated marshmallow cake not simply as a snack but as a token of jeong, the Korean sense of warm, unspoken attachment that grows between people over time. The commercials show Choco Pies quietly passed between teachers and pupils, family members and neighbours, set to a jingle insisting that nothing needs to be said because the feeling comes from the heart. It is studied as a defining example of a brand claiming a national emotion: scholars have traced how three decades of Choco Pie ads helped shape popular ideas of jeong, from the wordless affection of the first campaign to later calls to say it out loud. Orion credits the strategy with carrying the snack abroad, adapting it with the character for benevolence in China and the Vietnamese word tinh, and the Korea Herald reported more than 18.3 billion Choco Pies sold worldwide by 2015.", "watch": [ { "label": "1989 commercial on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlfFAI4_BTU", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Choco-Pie building ‘Pie Road’", "publisher": "The Korea Herald (2011)", "url": "https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10344798" }, { "title": "41 years on, Choco Pie still evolving", "publisher": "The Korea Herald (2015)", "url": "https://www.koreaherald.com/article/737623" }, { "title": "From Unsaid Feelings to Frank Communication: Portrayals of Jeong in Orion Choco Pie Advertisements and the Encroachment of Emotional Capitalism in South Korea", "publisher": "Korea Citation Index (KCI) journal article", "url": "https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=ART002907804" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/TlfFAI4_BTU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Jeong (Orion Choco Pie, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1989 초코파이”, uploaded by 광고광고보아라대성아", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlfFAI4_BTU" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "TlfFAI4_BTU", "uploaded_at": "2019-01-15T00:55:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bzga-supermarkt-tina-wat-kosten-die-kondome", "title": "Supermarkt (\"Tina, wat kosten die Kondome?\")", "brand": "BZgA (Federal Centre for Health Education), Gib AIDS keine Chance", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A cashier's loud question about the price of condoms turns a shy customer's embarrassment into comedy, using a laugh rather than fear." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Set in an ordinary supermarket queue, it presents buying condoms as an everyday errand rather than something shameful." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Cinema and television commercial", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Talent", "name": "Ingolf Lück" }, { "role": "Talent", "name": "Hella von Sinnen" } ], "tagline": "Gib AIDS keine Chance.", "why_studied": "A shy young man (Ingolf Lück) tries to buy condoms without anyone noticing, until the supermarket cashier (Hella von Sinnen) wrecks his discretion with one loud question to a colleague: \"Tina, wat kosten die Kondome?\" (\"Tina, how much are the condoms?\"). The spot was shot in 1989 for \"Gib AIDS keine Chance\" (\"Give AIDS no chance\"), the HIV prevention campaign that Germany's Federal Centre for Health Education had launched in 1987 with a series of cinema and TV films. Of roughly 90 spots the campaign made by 2006, this is the one the agency calls the classic. It is studied for using comedy rather than fear to change behaviour: the BZgA says it took the taboo out of buying condoms, and the line is still remembered by many Germans decades later. The campaign ran for nearly 30 years, during which the BZgA reports rising condom sales, and in 2016 it paid tribute to the spot with a remake starring a grown-up Lück, now buying condoms alongside his film son.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Supermarkt\" spot on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEe2t3nRB9U", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "HIV/STI-Prävention – im Rückblick", "publisher": "BZgA / BIÖG press archive", "url": "https://www.bioeg.de/presse/pressemotive/hivsti-praevention-im-rueckblick/" }, { "title": "Aus \"Gib AIDS keine Chance\" wird LIEBESLEBEN", "publisher": "BZgA fact sheet (2016)", "url": "https://www.bioeg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/pressemitteilungen/daten_und_fakten/factsheet_kampagne--c0b88d725178867b496ccd4ad7ec983f.pdf" }, { "title": "Randnotiz: \"Wir machen's ohne\"", "publisher": "Deutsches Ärzteblatt (2015)", "url": "https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/randnotiz-wir-machens-ohne-07ef0a21-b9dc-4530-b177-313f2b4f3f58" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/XEe2t3nRB9U/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Supermarkt (\"Tina, wat kosten die Kondome?\") (BZgA (Federal Centre for Health Education), Gib AIDS keine Chance, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Tina was kosten die Kondome”, uploaded by Ben", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEe2t3nRB9U" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "XEe2t3nRB9U", "uploaded_at": "2007-01-23T16:55:57+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "british-airways-face", "title": "Face", "brand": "British Airways", "brand_slug": "british-airways", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "bandwagon", "note": "Thousands of people assemble into one smiling face while the voiceover counts millions brought together, literally picturing the claim to be the world's favourite." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A human face that becomes the globe sells warmth and togetherness rather than seats, with no aircraft shown until the very end." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Hugh Hudson" }, { "role": "Writers", "name": "Graham Fink, Jeremy Clarke" }, { "role": "Choreography", "name": "Judy Chabola" } ], "tagline": "The world's favourite airline.", "why_studied": "Thousands of schoolchildren in coloured costumes, filmed from helicopters over Utah, assemble into a winking eye, an ear, lips — and finally a smiling human face that becomes the globe, while a voiceover notes that \"every year, the world's favourite airline brings 24 million people together.\" Directed by Chariots of Fire's Hugh Hudson with the choreographer of the 1984 LA Olympics ceremonies, pitched to BA as a crumpled pencil sketch, and made for about £1m, it was seen by an estimated 600 million people in 70 countries. It is studied as the apex of the 1980s corporate mega-spot: scale itself as the message, a literal visualization of the brand claim, with no aircraft shown until Concorde's roar at the end.", "watch": [ { "label": "The story of the ad, with the film (London Air Travel)", "url": "https://londonairtravel.com/2019/09/01/british-airways-100-years-the-face/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Story Of British Airways' 1989 TV Advertisement \"The Face\"", "publisher": "London Air Travel", "url": "https://londonairtravel.com/2019/09/01/british-airways-100-years-the-face/" }, { "title": "British Airways (1989) — production details", "publisher": "Nostalgia Central", "url": "https://nostalgiacentral.com/television/tv-by-genre/advertisements/british-airways-1989/" }, { "title": "MAA blast from the past: Fink and Clarke's 'Face' for BA", "publisher": "More About Advertising", "url": "https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2021/05/maa-blast-from-the-past-fink-and-clarkes-face-for-ba/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QYJioZ73VHQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Face (British Airways, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “British Airways - Face (1989, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYJioZ73VHQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QYJioZ73VHQ/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "QYJioZ73VHQ", "uploaded_at": "2012-01-17T16:34:05+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "energizer-bunny", "title": "The Energizer Bunny", "brand": "Energizer (Eveready)", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A drum-beating pink bunny that never stops becomes the living symbol of a battery that keeps on going." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The bunny barges through spoof commercials for coffee, wine and nasal spray, parodying the clichés of advertising itself." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Parodies Duracell's drumming-bunny ads, borrowing the rival's own imagery to take a swipe at it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign", "agency": "DDB (character) / TBWA\\Chiat\\Day (campaign)", "credits": [], "tagline": "Still going. Nothing outlasts the Energizer.", "why_studied": "A parody that outlived everything it parodied. The pink, drum-beating bunny began as a one-off jab at Duracell's drumming-bunny ads, then TBWA\\Chiat\\Day found the format that made it immortal: the bunny barges through fake commercials for coffee, wine and nasal spray, interrupting advertising itself because \"nothing outlasts the Energizer.\" Launched in 1989, it is studied as a landmark of meta-advertising — spoofing the clichés of every category in one campaign — and of mascot durability: thirty-plus years on, \"like the Energizer Bunny\" is standard American English for anything that will not quit. It also carries a strategy footnote taught alongside the creative one: Duracell kept the sales lead for years, proving fame and market share are separate battles.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Drum's retrospective on 'Escape of the Bunny', with the work", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-53-energizer-drains-power-rival-with-escape-the-bunny", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "World's best ads ever #53: Energizer drains power from rival with 'Escape of the Bunny'", "publisher": "The Drum", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-53-energizer-drains-power-rival-with-escape-the-bunny" }, { "title": "A campaign that keeps 'going and going and going'...", "publisher": "The New York Times (1996)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/26/business/campaign-that-keeps-going-going-going-now-going-some-new-directions.html" }, { "title": "1989: Energizer Bunny hops onto screens", "publisher": "The Drum", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/1989-energizer-bunny-hops-screens" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-bo-knows", "title": "Bo Knows", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 1989, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Stars from other sports vouch that Bo knows their game, using the one athlete playing two professional sports to sell a shoe for every sport." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The tall tale escalates until the premise collapses, with a mangled guitar riff and a bluesman's verdict deflating the hero." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial and campaign", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Jim Riswold" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Bo Jackson, Bo Diddley" } ], "tagline": "Bo, you don't know Diddley.", "why_studied": "A product launch disguised as a tall tale. To sell cross-trainers — a shoe for every sport — W+K's Jim Riswold cast the one athlete playing two professional sports at once, Bo Jackson, and had stars from every discipline (Jordan, Gretzky, McEnroe) testify \"Bo knows...\" until the premise collapses gloriously with Jackson mangling a guitar riff and bluesman Bo Diddley delivering the verdict: \"Bo, you don't know Diddley.\" It debuted during the July 1989 MLB All-Star Game — the very night Jackson hit a leadoff home run and took MVP — a media-planning coincidence that became legend. The campaign helped Nike retake the No. 1 spot from Reebok and dominate the cross-training category. It is studied for myth-making as product demonstration, and for the perfectly engineered self-deflating punchline.", "watch": [ { "label": "The campaign's oral history, with the spot (Yahoo Sports)", "url": "https://sports.yahoo.com/iconic-sports-commercials-bo-knows-055017731.html", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Nike's Bo Knows campaign came to be", "publisher": "Yahoo Sports", "url": "https://sports.yahoo.com/iconic-sports-commercials-bo-knows-055017731.html" }, { "title": "Bo Knows Business of Shoes (contemporaneous review)", "publisher": "The Washington Post (1989)", "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1989/07/16/bo-knows-business-of-shoes/72d46ad4-529e-49e9-94a3-14850dab4eda/" }, { "title": "Closing Shot: Bo Knows (All-Star Game debut)", "publisher": "Sports Business Journal (2021)", "url": "https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2021/06/21/Closing-Shot/Closing-Shot/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/S4YP2SxvAGM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bo Knows (Nike, 1989)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Bo Jackson feat. Bo Diddley/\"Bo Knows...\" Nike Ad (1989)”, uploaded by Accept Your Own Be Yourself Productions (AYOBY)", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4YP2SxvAGM" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "S4YP2SxvAGM", "uploaded_at": "2021-12-18T09:00:21+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "jr-central-christmas-express", "title": "Christmas Express (Hometown Express X'mas)", "brand": "JR Central (JR Tokai)", "year": 1988, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Sells the bullet train through longing, framing it as the thing that carries people to one another rather than a fast service." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A girl waits on a night platform, the crowd disperses and her boyfriend seems absent, until he moonwalks out from behind a pillar with a gift." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial (series)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Kazuyoshi Hayakawa" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Tatsuro Yamashita, “Christmas Eve”" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Eri Fukatsu" } ], "tagline": "You coming home is the best present", "why_studied": "On a Shinkansen platform at night, a dressed-up teenage girl waits for her long-distance boyfriend; the passengers disperse, he seems not to have come, and then he moonwalks out from behind a pillar holding a gift. Set to Tatsuro Yamashita's “Christmas Eve”, the 1988 spot for the newly privatised JR Central starred a 15-year-old Eri Fukatsu and became the first of a Christmas Express series that ran until 1992. Director Kazuyoshi Hayakawa recalls the railway's brief: a telephone company could only carry voices, but the bullet train carried people to one another. It is studied for selling a rail line through longing rather than speed or service, and for its cultural reach: viewers flooded JR Central with calls asking about the actress and the song, and the series is credited with popularising the idea in Japan of Christmas Eve as a night for couples. Japanese media still cite it as a masterpiece commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (117cmVol1)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUmTrRV1jyw", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "CM「クリスマス・エクスプレス」が令和になっても色褪せない理由 (Why the 'Christmas Express' commercials have never faded)", "publisher": "Gendai Business, Kodansha (2019)", "url": "https://gendai.media/articles/-/69391" }, { "title": "バブル後期時代を思い出す「クリスマス・エクスプレスCM」\"待望論\"がやまない理由", "publisher": "ENCOUNT (2020)", "url": "https://encount.press/archives/118783/" }, { "title": "JR東海、CMに33年ぶり深津絵里を起用　コロナ禍反映して反響", "publisher": "Nikkei xTrend (2022)", "url": "https://xtrend.nikkei.com/atcl/contents/18/00008/00094/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iUmTrRV1jyw/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Christmas Express (Hometown Express X'mas) (JR Central (JR Tokai), 1988)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “CM　JR東海　X'mas Express　深津絵里　1988年”, uploaded by 117cmVol1", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUmTrRV1jyw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iUmTrRV1jyw/sd1.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "iUmTrRV1jyw", "uploaded_at": "2011-06-24T17:03:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mile-sur-mera-tumhara", "title": "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara", "brand": "Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad / Doordarshan", "year": 1988, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "One melody passes through fourteen languages and many voices, letting the song itself carry the idea that India's differences make one tune." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A public-service film for national integration presents the country's diversity as unity, resolving into the closing notes of the national anthem." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Six-minute public service film for television", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather (Ogilvy Benson & Mather), India", "credits": [ { "role": "Concept", "name": "Suresh Mullick" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Kailash Surendranath" }, { "role": "Lyrics", "name": "Piyush Pandey" }, { "role": "Music arrangement", "name": "Louis Banks" }, { "role": "Lead vocal", "name": "Pandit Bhimsen Joshi" } ], "tagline": "Mile sur mera tumhara, to sur bane hamara (When my note and yours meet, they become our note)", "why_studied": "Pandit Bhimsen Joshi sings a phrase in Raga Bhairavi beside a waterfall, and the same melody travels through fourteen languages, landscapes and faces, from film stars and sporting heroes to ordinary Indians, until it resolves into the closing notes of the national anthem. Commissioned by Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad, a public-service body promoted by Doordarshan, it was conceived by Ogilvy's creative head Suresh Mullick, directed by Kailash Surendranath, and given lyrics by a young Piyush Pandey, then in client servicing, whose eighteenth draft was approved. It is studied as the high point of India's national-integration films: an advertising agency packaging a country's diversity into a single tune whose message is unity rather than flag-waving. First broadcast on Doordarshan straight after the Prime Minister's Independence Day speech on 15 August 1988, it became an unofficial second anthem and is still aired on national holidays more than three decades later.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Far Commercials)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKueG7SnuWk", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "On the making of Mile Sur - 75th Independence Day", "publisher": "The Hindu (2022)", "url": "https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/making-of-mile-sur-75-years-of-independence/article65753319.ece" }, { "title": "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, an advertisement for unity in diversity and India's unofficial anthem", "publisher": "ThePrint (2020)", "url": "https://theprint.in/feature/brandma/mile-sur-mera-tumhara-an-advertisement-for-unity-in-diversity-and-indias-unofficial-anthem/520444/" }, { "title": "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara: When ‘one melody’ instilled nationalistic pride", "publisher": "Storyboard18 (2023)", "url": "https://www.storyboard18.com/quantum-brief/mile-sur-mera-tumhara-when-one-melody-instilled-nationalistic-pride-12048.htm" }, { "title": "22 years later, Suresh Mullick’s composition finds a new voice in ‘Phir Mile Sur’", "publisher": "exchange4media (2010)", "url": "https://www.exchange4media.com/advertising-news/22-years-latersuresh-mullicks-composition-finds-a-new-voice-in-phir-mile-sur-37068.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JKueG7SnuWk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Mile Sur Mera Tumhara (Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad / Doordarshan, 1988)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”, uploaded by Far Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKueG7SnuWk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JKueG7SnuWk/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "JKueG7SnuWk", "uploaded_at": "2011-02-22T11:34:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-just-do-it", "title": "Just Do It (launch spot, \"Walt Stack\")", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 1988, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Launches the slogan with an 80-year-old distance runner at dawn rather than a star, suggesting effort matters more than equipment or fame." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "His dry joke about leaving his teeth in his locker keeps the spot anti-heroic and makes the runner instantly likeable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial and slogan launch", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Tagline", "name": "Dan Wieden" }, { "role": "Featuring", "name": "Walt Stack" } ], "tagline": "Just Do It.", "why_studied": "Three words that outgrew sport. Dan Wieden wrote \"Just Do It\" in 1988 as a connecting device for a batch of otherwise unrelated Nike commercials, adapting the reported last words of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore before his 1977 execution — \"Let's do it\" — because the phrase's defiance in the face of an unwinnable moment struck him; he has told the story on the record, including to Dezeen. Nike co-founder Phil Knight's first reaction was \"We don't need that shit.\" The launch spot is deliberately anti-heroic: 80-year-old distance runner Walt Stack crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn, joking that he keeps his teeth from chattering by leaving them in his locker. It is studied for how a tagline can carry a brand's entire philosophy — effort over equipment, anyone's body, no excuses — and for the discipline of launching a universal idea with an ordinary athlete rather than a star. Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 4 among the top 100 campaigns of the 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Walt Stack\" 30-second spot (Ad Age video archive)", "url": "https://adage.com/video/nike-jdi-walt-stack-30-1988-sd/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nike's \"Just do it\" slogan is based on a murderer's last words, says Dan Wieden", "publisher": "Dezeen (2015, interview)", "url": "https://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/14/nike-just-do-it-slogan-last-words-murderer-gary-gilmore-dan-wieden-kennedy/" }, { "title": "'Just Do It': The surprising and morbid origin story of Nike's slogan", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (2018)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nike-colin-kaepernick-20180904-story.html" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/glbgPIXEvC0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Just Do It (launch spot, \"Walt Stack\") (Nike, 1988)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1988 Nike Air 80-Year-Old Runner Walt Stack Commercial | Just Do It”, uploaded by CRT Afterglow", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glbgPIXEvC0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/glbgPIXEvC0/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "glbgPIXEvC0", "uploaded_at": "2021-07-26T20:08:46+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "folha-de-sao-paulo-hitler", "title": "Hitler", "brand": "Folha de S.Paulo", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Dots slowly assemble a face while a voiceover praises a leader's achievements, then reveal it as Hitler's, a deliberately disturbing payoff." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Sells the newspaper's integrity by exposing the danger it guards against, rather than claiming virtue for itself." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Viewers are led by true facts to a false impression, proving on screen that you can lie while telling only the truth." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "W/GGK São Paulo (later W/Brasil)", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Washington Olivetto" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Nizan Guanaes" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Gabriel Zellmeister" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Andrés Bukowinski" }, { "role": "Narrator", "name": "Ferreira Martins" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "ABA (Andrés Bukowinski)" }, { "role": "Cinematography", "name": "Felix Monti" } ], "tagline": "É possível contar um monte de mentiras dizendo só a verdade.", "why_studied": "A single black dot appears on screen, then dozens, then hundreds, slowly assembling a face while Ferreira Martins' measured voiceover lists the economic and social gains a leader delivered in his first years in power. The face is Adolf Hitler's. Then the payoff: \"É possível contar um monte de mentiras dizendo só a verdade\" (you can tell a pack of lies telling only the truth), and the sign-off that Folha is the paper most bought and never sold. Made in late 1987 by W/GGK, with Washington Olivetto directing creative, Nizan Guanaes writing, Gabriel Zellmeister on art direction and Andrés Bukowinski behind the camera, it is studied as the model for selling journalistic integrity by demonstrating the danger a newspaper guards against rather than claiming virtue. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 1988; Shots magazine later named it among 40 finalists for best commercial of the 20th century, and Bernice Kanner's 1999 book The 100 Best TV Commercials included it, one of only two Brazilian films chosen.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on W/Cast, Washington Olivetto's official YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk9nEsVeMA", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Watch on W/Brasil's YouTube channel (wbrasilonline)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd9R7ZxhjJ8", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Olivetto foi o principal publicitário da história da Folha", "publisher": "Folha de S.Paulo (2024)", "url": "https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2024/10/olivetto-foi-o-principal-publicitario-da-historia-da-folha.shtml" }, { "title": "Morre o publicitário Washington Olivetto, criador do 'Garoto Bombril' e da Democracia Corinthiana, aos 73", "publisher": "Folha de S.Paulo (2024)", "url": "https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mercado/2024/10/morre-o-publicitario-washington-olivetto-criador-do-garoto-bombril-e-da-democracia-corinthiana-aos-73.shtml" }, { "title": "Hitler: Folha retoma filme, 22 anos depois (ficha técnica)", "publisher": "Clube de Criação (2010)", "url": "https://www.clubedecriacao.com.br/ultimas/hitler-4/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kpk9nEsVeMA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hitler (Folha de S.Paulo, 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “COMERCIAL FOLHA - HITLER”, uploaded by W/Cast por Washington Olivetto", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk9nEsVeMA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kpk9nEsVeMA/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "kpk9nEsVeMA", "uploaded_at": "2021-06-28T22:00:13+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sony-walkman-monkey", "title": "Monkey (Walk Man '87)", "brand": "Sony Walkman", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A macaque stands upright in headphones, eyes closed and lost in the music, while a wry line asks whether people have evolved as sound has." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Tokyu Agency International, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Producer / planner", "name": "Takashi Nakahata" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Hiroshi Ichikura" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Nakahata Advertising Production" } ], "tagline": "Sound has evolved. How about people?", "why_studied": "For thirty seconds a Japanese macaque named Choromatsu stands upright on two legs, Walkman in hand and headphones on, eyes closed as if lost in the music, while a voice observes that sound has evolved and asks whether people have. The spot launched Sony's WM-501 in 1987, a model with no dramatic new feature to shout about, so the producer and planner Takashi Nakahata proposed abandoning the usual list of improvements for a single striking image; copywriter Hiroshi Ichikura wrote the line. It is studied as a lesson in stillness and restraint, letting one arresting picture carry a mature product, and as one of the best-loved Japanese commercials of the 1980s. It won the top spot-commercial prize in the film category of the 27th ACC CM Festival, it is held in the Paley Center's advertising collection, and Nakahata later said sales rose 180 per cent, a figure that comes from its creator rather than from Sony.", "watch": [ { "label": "Broadcast Library catalogue entry (Japan)", "url": "https://www.bpcj.or.jp/program/detail/A24421/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Time Machine)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlhIQYd-qAg", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "ウォークマン WM－501「Walk Man'87 さる」 (Walkman WM-501 'Walk Man '87 Monkey')", "publisher": "Broadcast Library, Broadcast Programming Center of Japan", "url": "https://www.bpcj.or.jp/program/detail/A24421/" }, { "title": "番外編【ＣＭ】「Ｗａｌｋ　Ｍａｎ’８７　さる」（ソニー／1987年）＆ＣＭ上映会のお知らせ", "publisher": "Broadcast Library official note (2025)", "url": "https://broadcast-library.note.jp/n/n6affcb7e0b9a" }, { "title": "仲畑貴志さんに聞く、「好きだから、あげる。」「おしりだって、洗ってほしい。」など名作コピーが生まれるまで 前編 (Interview with Takashi Nakahata)", "publisher": "AdverTimes / Sendenkaigi (2024)", "url": "https://www.advertimes.com/20240912/article473676/4/" }, { "title": "SONY WALKMAN: MONKEY {AN ADVERTISING ALBUM: 1950-1994}", "publisher": "The Paley Center for Media", "url": "https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item?item=AT%3A38536.039&p=542&q=the" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/SlhIQYd-qAg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Monkey (Walk Man '87) (Sony Walkman, 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sony Walkman CM 1987”, uploaded by Time Machine", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlhIQYd-qAg" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "SlhIQYd-qAg", "uploaded_at": "2012-04-08T19:29:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "valisere-primeiro-sutia", "title": "O Primeiro Sutiã (My First Bra)", "brand": "Valisère", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Captures the tender, awkward rite of a girl's first bra, including the moment she sees herself in it, with no sales pitch at all." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Ninety seconds follow one girl through a rite of passage, ending on a line that ties the brand to a first you never forget." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second television commercial", "agency": "W/GGK São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Washington Olivetto" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Camila Franco" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Rose Ferraz" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Júlio Xavier (da Silveira)" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Espiral" }, { "role": "Cinematography", "name": "Rodolfo Sanches" }, { "role": "Editor", "name": "Luis Elias" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Patrícia Lucchesi" } ], "tagline": "O primeiro Valisère a gente nunca esquece.", "why_studied": "Ninety seconds, no sales pitch: 11-year-old Patrícia Lucchesi lives through a girl's first bra, including the moment she first sees herself in it, scored with Puccini. As W/GGK was winning the Valisère account, Washington Olivetto briefed copywriters Camila Franco and Rose Ferraz on a film about that rite of passage; two days later they returned with a script that was shot exactly as written, directed by Júlio Xavier. Olivetto's one change was the sign-off, swapping \"Se eu fosse você, só usava Valisère\" for \"O primeiro Valisère a gente nunca esquece\" (you never forget your first). Launched in April 1987, it dealt with puberty and femininity when there was little openness to either, and it is studied for how a brand line can escape into the language: the full cut aired only three times on Globo, yet \"o primeiro a gente nunca esquece\" became a saying used even by people born after it ran. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes and appears in Bernice Kanner's The 100 Best TV Commercials.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on W/Cast, Washington Olivetto's official YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ9EjVwVvFQ", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Washington Olivetto: 'O primeiro sutiã foi emblemático'", "publisher": "Jornal do Brasil (2008)", "url": "https://www.jb.com.br/cultura/noticias/2008/09/07/washington-olivetto-o-primeiro-sutia-foi-emblematico.html" }, { "title": "O primeiro sutiã versão 2019", "publisher": "Clube de Criação (2019)", "url": "https://clubedecriacao.com.br/ultimas/o-primeiro-sutia-versao-2019/" }, { "title": "Clássicos: Primeiro Sutiã (ficha técnica)", "publisher": "Clube de Criação (2006)", "url": "https://clubedecriacao.com.br/ultimas/classicos-29/" }, { "title": "Garoto Bombril, Primeiro Sutiã: o legado de Washington Olivetto para a publicidade", "publisher": "Propmark (2024)", "url": "https://propmark.com.br/mercado/principais-trabalhos-washington-olivetto/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iQ9EjVwVvFQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from O Primeiro Sutiã (My First Bra) (Valisère, 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “COMERCIAL VALISÈRE - MEU PRIMEIRO SUTIÔ, uploaded by W/Cast por Washington Olivetto", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ9EjVwVvFQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iQ9EjVwVvFQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "iQ9EjVwVvFQ", "uploaded_at": "2021-07-30T22:00:14+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bud-light-spuds-mackenzie", "title": "Spuds MacKenzie: The Original Party Animal", "brand": "Bud Light", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A bull terrier billed as the Original Party Animal becomes the beer's character, so popular that licensed merchandise spreads far beyond the advertising." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Treating a dog in a white tuxedo as the celebrity guest arriving by limousine at a nightclub gives the spot its tongue-in-cheek swagger." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "DDB Needham Worldwide, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Talent (as Spuds MacKenzie)", "name": "Honey Tree Evil Eye (“Evie”), a female bull terrier" } ], "tagline": "The Original Party Animal.", "why_studied": "A limousine pulls up outside a club and the guest of honor appears: a bull terrier with a black patch over one eye who, by the end, is strutting across the dance floor in a white tuxedo. Bud Light's \"Original Party Animal\" had been a cult poster on college campuses since 1983, but this fourth-quarter spot in Super Bowl XXI, in January 1987, introduced him to a national television audience. What followed is studied as a mascot that outgrew its advertising. Within months there were more than 200 licensed Spuds products, Spuds boutiques inside Macy's and a run on bull-terrier puppies, and The New York Times later credited the dog with helping lift Bud Light sales 20 percent between 1987 and 1988 and with starting a fashion for animal pitchmen. It is equally a cautionary tale: the macho party dog turned out to be a female named Evie, and Senator Strom Thurmond led critics who said the character lured young people toward alcohol, pushing Anheuser-Busch into moderation messages.", "watch": [ { "label": "1987 Bud Light Spuds MacKenzie (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLuLsS5LgIg", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Spuds MacKenzie: An Underdog’s Triumph : ‘The Original Party Animal’ Has Become the Nation’s Most Unlikely Sex Symbol", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1987)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-07-16-vw-4213-story.html" }, { "title": "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Ads in Which Animals Speak Better Than Humans", "publisher": "The New York Times (1989)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/17/business/the-media-business-ads-in-which-animals-speak-better-than-humans.html" }, { "title": "Advertising: Spuds Brews Puppy Love", "publisher": "TIME (1987)", "url": "https://time.com/archive/6708827/advertising-spuds-brews-puppy-love/" }, { "title": "‘Party Animal’ Spuds Changes His Line--for Holidays at Least : Change Prompted by Claim That Beer Ads Influence Children", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1987)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-12-15-ca-29191-story.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZLuLsS5LgIg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Spuds MacKenzie: The Original Party Animal (Bud Light, 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1987 Bud Light Spuds MacKenzie”, uploaded by Beta MAX", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLuLsS5LgIg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZLuLsS5LgIg/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ZLuLsS5LgIg", "uploaded_at": "2014-11-17T16:42:41+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nacaids-grim-reaper", "title": "The Grim Reaper", "brand": "National Advisory Committee on AIDS (Australia)", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "A hooded Death bowls down men, women and children as pins, warning that the disease is no longer confined to any one group." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Deliberately horrifying imagery of people knocked down like pins forces attention onto the epidemic, at the cost of public outcry and deepening stigma." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Grey Advertising", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer", "name": "Siimon Reynolds" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Marcus Jackson (then Marcus Barnett)" }, { "role": "Voice-over", "name": "John Stanton" } ], "tagline": "Always use condoms. Always.", "why_studied": "A hooded Death waits at the end of a bowling alley and rolls a ball into men, women and children standing in as pins, while a grave narrator warns that AIDS is no longer confined to gay men and drug users. Written by Siimon Reynolds at Grey Advertising for the National Advisory Committee on AIDS, the 60-second spot first aired on April 5, 1987. It is studied as the definitive case for, and against, fear appeals in public health. A Sydney doctor recalled that the media had largely ignored the epidemic until these ads pushed AIDS onto front pages, and the Treasurer then found money for a national response in the 1987 Budget. Yet the spot was pulled after three weeks amid public outcry, and Dr Ron Penny, who had diagnosed Australia's first case, later admitted that viewers came to associate the Reaper with gay men, deepening stigma. The predicted catastrophe never came: new HIV infections peaked in 1987 and fell steadily through the 1990s.", "watch": [ { "label": "NFSA collection: The Grim Reaper public awareness commercial", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/the-grim-reaper-public-awareness-commercial", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "YouTube (Double Denim Days)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSmaWEK_rD4", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Grim Reaper: Public awareness commercial", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/the-grim-reaper-public-awareness-commercial" }, { "title": "The commercial that scared us - and might have saved us", "publisher": "The Age (2012)", "url": "https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/the-commercial-that-scared-us-and-might-have-saved-us-20120404-1wcyy.html" }, { "title": "The original storyboards for the Grim Reaper AIDS commercial have surfaced", "publisher": "AdNews (2022)", "url": "https://www.adnews.com.au/news/the-original-storyboards-for-the-grim-reaper-aids-commercial-have-surfaced" }, { "title": "Standing up to the Grim Reaper: the early days of AIDS", "publisher": "O&G Magazine, RANZCOG (2017)", "url": "https://www.ogmagazine.org.au/18/1-18/standing-grim-reaper-early-days-aids/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mSmaWEK_rD4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Grim Reaper (National Advisory Committee on AIDS (Australia), 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “AIDS 'Grim Reaper' Ad Campaign (1987)”, uploaded by Double Denim Days", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSmaWEK_rD4" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mSmaWEK_rD4", "uploaded_at": "2016-07-15T06:26:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hamlet-photo-booth", "title": "Photo Booth (\"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet\")", "brand": "Hamlet Cigars", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A balding man battles a photo booth, fussing over his comb-over and missing every flash, until cigar smoke rises as consolation." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "The Bach theme marks the moment of consolation, a sound signature that stands in for the brand while the pack never appears." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Collett Dickenson Pearce, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Gregor Fisher" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Graham Rose" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Jacques Loussier's jazz arrangement of Bach's \"Air on the G String\"" } ], "tagline": "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet.", "why_studied": "The finest execution of one of advertising's longest-running comic formulas: life goes wrong, a Hamlet is lit, Bach plays, dignity is restored. Gregor Fisher's balding man fights a photo booth — arranging his comb-over, missing every flash, his stool collapsing — before the smoke rises from below the frame. The cigar, the pack and even the logo never appear. Produced by CDP in 1987 near the end of UK tobacco TV advertising, it was voted ad of the century by a special jury at Cannes in 1997 and sits in the Paley Center's collection. It is studied for pure situational comedy craft — a product whose entire promise is consolation, demonstrated rather than claimed — and for how a sound signature (the Loussier Bach) can carry a brand for decades.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad at ITV Media's Living Room Legends", "url": "https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/living-room-legends/hamlet-photobooth", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Top 10 funniest TV ads of all time (credits; 1997 Cannes 'ad of the century' jury vote)", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/top-10-funniest-tv-ads-time/865453" }, { "title": "Hamlet Cigars: Photo Booth (archive record and credits)", "publisher": "The Paley Center for Media", "url": "https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item?item=AT%3A31484.057" }, { "title": "Hamlet's Photo Booth (1987)", "publisher": "ITV Media", "url": "https://www.itvmedia.co.uk/living-room-legends/hamlet-photobooth" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FvNdhriwGuM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Photo Booth (\"Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet\") (Hamlet Cigars, 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Hamlet Cigars Advert 1987: Photo Booth”, uploaded by HamletCigarsComercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvNdhriwGuM" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "FvNdhriwGuM", "uploaded_at": "2013-08-11T18:47:46+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pdfa-this-is-your-brain-on-drugs", "title": "This Is Your Brain on Drugs (\"Fried Egg\")", "brand": "Partnership for a Drug-Free America", "year": 1987, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "Equates drug use with a brain frying like an egg in a hot pan, a blunt threat to health delivered in seconds." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Borrows the structure of a product demonstration, holding up an egg, a pan and the result, so the metaphor proves itself on screen." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public service announcement", "agency": "Keye/Donna/Pearlstein, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Larre Johnson" } ], "tagline": "This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?", "why_studied": "Ten seconds of visual rhetoric that defined a decade: an egg (\"this is your brain\"), a hot pan (\"this is drugs\"), the sizzle (\"this is your brain on drugs\"), and the era's most quoted closing line — \"Any questions?\" Created in 1987 by LA agency Keye/Donna/Pearlstein for the ad industry's volunteer anti-drug coalition, it became the most remembered PSA of the 1980s and ranked among TV Guide's greatest commercials. It is studied for pure metaphor economy — a product demonstration structure applied to a public-health message — and for its contested legacy: endlessly parodied, criticized by researchers as fear-based oversimplification, and yet permanently lodged in the language. The Drum lists it among the most influential commercials ever made; its structure is quoted every time anyone holds up two objects and draws an analogy.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Drum's marketing-moments entry, with the PSA", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/1987-partnership-drug-free-america-releases-your-brain-drugs-psa", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "1987: Partnership for a Drug-Free America releases 'This Is Your Brain On Drugs' PSA", "publisher": "The Drum", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/1987-partnership-drug-free-america-releases-your-brain-drugs-psa" }, { "title": "Partnership for a Drug-Free America (creator Larre Johnson's agency account; TV Guide ranking)", "publisher": "Big Honkin' Ideas", "url": "https://www.bighonkinideas.com/works/pdfa/" }, { "title": "The Story Behind \"This is Your Brain on Drugs\"", "publisher": "JSTOR Daily", "url": "https://daily.jstor.org/the-story-behind-this-is-your-brain-on-drugs/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/o5wwECXTJbg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from This Is Your Brain on Drugs (\"Fried Egg\") (Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 1987)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Partnership for a Drug-Free America \"This is Your Brain on Drugs\" PSA (1987)”, uploaded by Dwayne Pounds (Wannie)", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5wwECXTJbg" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "o5wwECXTJbg", "uploaded_at": "2013-09-14T04:32:54+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "txdot-dont-mess-with-texas", "title": "Don't Mess with Texas", "brand": "Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)", "year": 1986, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "It borrows fierce Texan pride, recasting an anti-litter plea as a defiant boast so that littering feels like an insult to the state itself." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan delivers the launch spot's closing command, lending a home-grown star's cool to a message aimed at young men." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television public service announcement", "agency": "GSD&M, Austin", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Tim McClure" }, { "role": "Talent", "name": "Stevie Ray Vaughan" } ], "tagline": "Don't mess with Texas.", "why_studied": "An anti-litter campaign that never uses the word litter. Texas was spending $20 million a year clearing rubbish from its highways, and research showed the worst offenders were young men aged 16 to 24. GSD&M's Tim McClure, noticing trash on a morning walk, remembered his mother calling his childhood bedroom a mess and realised Texans say \"mess\", not \"litter\". Bumper stickers carrying the line, with no government branding, were left at truck stops and fast-food restaurants; on New Year's Day 1986 Stevie Ray Vaughan played the launch spot during the Cotton Bowl broadcast, and viewers phoned stations asking for the \"music video\". It is studied as a lesson in speaking the target's language and turning a civic chore into a matter of pride: the slogan became a battle cry of Texan swagger used far beyond its original meaning. Highway litter fell 29% in the first year and 72% by 1990, and TxDOT still runs the campaign forty years on.", "watch": [ { "label": "Stevie Ray Vaughan's 1986 launch spot (official Don't mess with Texas YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KISppQMhOuI", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Don't mess with Texas campaign page (TxDOT)", "url": "https://www.txdot.gov/about/campaigns-outreach/dont-mess-with-texas.html", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Trashy Beginnings of \"Don't Mess With Texas\"", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2017)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/trashy-beginnings-dont-mess-texas-180962490/" }, { "title": "TxDOT salutes 40 years of \"Don't mess with Texas\"", "publisher": "Texas Department of Transportation (2026)", "url": "https://www.txdot.gov/about/newsroom/statewide/txdot-salutes-40-years-of-dont-mess-with-texas.html" }, { "title": "Don't mess with Texas", "publisher": "Texas Department of Transportation", "url": "https://www.txdot.gov/about/campaigns-outreach/dont-mess-with-texas.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/KISppQMhOuI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Don't Mess with Texas (Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), 1986)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Stevie Ray Vaughan plays with soul in iconic campaign kick-off”, uploaded by Don't mess with Texas® - Official", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KISppQMhOuI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/KISppQMhOuI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "KISppQMhOuI", "uploaded_at": "2025-05-01T17:23:06+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "california-raisins", "title": "The California Raisins (\"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\")", "brand": "California Raisin Advisory Board", "year": 1986, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Turns dried grapes into clay pop stars with attitude, characters famous enough to release albums of their own." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Dancing raisins perform I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a song whose title neatly puns on where raisins come from." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second claymation television commercial", "agency": "Foote, Cone & Belding, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Seth Werner" }, { "role": "Animation", "name": "Will Vinton Productions" } ], "tagline": "I heard it through the grapevine.", "why_studied": "A commodity board with a boring product — dried grapes — created pop stars out of clay. FCB copywriter Seth Werner's half-joking pitch (\"raisins dancing to 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'\") became, in Will Vinton's painstaking stop-motion, the coolest thing on television when it debuted on September 14, 1986. The Raisins released four albums, charted on Billboard, earned an Emmy nomination, and their clay figures are now held by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The case is studied for how craft and attitude can transform the least charismatic product imaginable — and as the high-water mark of the licensed-character economy an ad campaign can generate.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Raisins' figures and campaign record at the Smithsonian", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/ar/collections/object/nmah_1170671", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "California Raisin (collection record: Will Vinton Productions figures, ads 1986–1991)", "publisher": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/ar/collections/object/nmah_1170671" }, { "title": "The California Raisins: How a Bunch of Dried Grapes Became a Hit Band", "publisher": "Mental Floss", "url": "https://www.mentalfloss.com/entertainment/tv/california-raisins-how-bunch-dried-grapes-became-hit-band" }, { "title": "'Claymation' Reshapes Prime Time, Video After Dancing Raisins", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1987)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-10-fi-19900-story.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vcDGbaCsatQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The California Raisins (\"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\") (California Raisin Advisory Board, 1986)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1986 - The California Raisins”, uploaded by RetroTy: The Pulse of Nostalgia", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcDGbaCsatQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vcDGbaCsatQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "vcDGbaCsatQ", "uploaded_at": "2010-07-01T20:19:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "uk-aids-dont-die-of-ignorance", "title": "Don't Die of Ignorance (\"Monolith\")", "brand": "UK Government (DHSS)", "year": 1986, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "A granite tombstone carved with the disease's name and a funereal voiceover warn that ignoring it could be the death of you." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Puts apocalyptic imagery such as an exploding cliff face on television, deliberately terrifying a nation into reading a leaflet sent to every household." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television, cinema and household leaflet campaign", "agency": "TBWA, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director (TV films)", "name": "Nicolas Roeg" }, { "role": "Voiceover", "name": "John Hurt" }, { "role": "Campaign lead", "name": "Sammy Harari" } ], "tagline": "AIDS. Don't die of ignorance.", "why_studied": "The most consequential public-health advertising Britain has produced. Facing an epidemic no government had addressed honestly, TBWA's 1986–87 campaign sent a leaflet to every household in the country and put apocalypse on television: Nicolas Roeg's films showed an exploding cliff face and a chiselled granite tombstone reading \"AIDS,\" over John Hurt's funereal voiceover — \"If you ignore AIDS, it could be the death of you.\" Deliberate terror, approved at cabinet level (Thatcher herself reportedly softened the original cut), aimed at making an entire nation read a leaflet. It is studied for the ethics and efficacy of fear appeals at maximum scale, for its cultural imprint on a generation, and as the moment state communication adopted the full craft of commercial advertising. The V&A and BFI both preserve the campaign.", "watch": [ { "label": "The \"Monolith\" film (BFI, official upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iroty5zwOVw", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'It was a life-and-death situation': How we made the Don't Die of Ignorance Aids campaign", "publisher": "The Guardian (2017)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/sep/04/how-we-made-dont-die-of-ignorance-aids-campaign" }, { "title": "Aids. Don't Die Of Ignorance (museum record)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O45663/" }, { "title": "AIDS: Iceberg / Tombstone (1986) — campaign history", "publisher": "BFI Screenonline", "url": "http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1210462/index.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iroty5zwOVw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Don't Die of Ignorance (\"Monolith\") (UK Government (DHSS), 1986)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “AIDS: Monolith (1987)”, uploaded by BFI", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iroty5zwOVw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iroty5zwOVw/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "iroty5zwOVw", "uploaded_at": "2016-05-20T10:26:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "centraal-beheer-even-apeldoorn-bellen", "title": "Even Apeldoorn bellen", "brand": "Centraal Beheer", "year": 1985, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each spot stages an absurd mishap and resolves it with the same deadpan advice to just call the insurer's home town." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television and cinema commercial campaign", "agency": "Geudeker/Oerlemans (launch); DDB Amsterdam (from the late 1980s)", "credits": [], "tagline": "Even Apeldoorn bellen", "why_studied": "Something goes absurdly wrong, and the fix arrives in three words: \"Even Apeldoorn bellen,\" just call Apeldoorn, the town where insurer Centraal Beheer has its head office. Created by the agency Geudeker/Oerlemans and run for some 35 years by DDB Amsterdam, the format has produced more than 60 commercials since the first reached Dutch screens in 1985, becoming the longest-running campaign on Dutch television. It is studied as proof that one elastic line can carry a brand for four decades: within two years Centraal Beheer ranked among the country's three best-known insurers, and the company now counts the phrase as part of Dutch culture. Spots such as \"Rio,\" \"Leeuw\" and \"Acupunctuur\" won Gouden Loekies, the campaign has collected prizes from Effies to Cannes Lions, and in 2011 visitors to the ReclameKlassiekers exhibition in Amsterdam voted it the Netherlands' advertising classic of all time. It is also a cautionary case: in the 1990s the late advertising professor Giep Franzen complained that hardly anyone knew which brand was behind the famous line.", "watch": [ { "label": "'Dinosaurus' (1986) on Centraal Beheer's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgbIUYD4_zM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "'Pitstop' (1987) at Beeld en Geluid", "url": "https://schatkamer.beeldengeluid.nl/serie/2101608030021828731/ster-reclame/aflevering/2101608040033946731", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "STER Reclame - Centraal Beheer Schadeverzekeringen - Pitstop", "publisher": "Beeld en Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision)", "url": "https://schatkamer.beeldengeluid.nl/serie/2101608030021828731/ster-reclame/aflevering/2101608040033946731" }, { "title": "Pitch Centraal Beheer in afrondende fase", "publisher": "Adformatie (2024)", "url": "https://www.adformatie.nl/communicatie/bureaus/pitch-centraal-beheer-in-afrondende-fase" }, { "title": "Even Apeldoorn bellen: de reclames", "publisher": "Centraal Beheer", "url": "https://www.centraalbeheer.nl/over-ons/commercials/" }, { "title": "Campagne 'Even Apeldoorn bellen' van Centraal Beheer Achmea uitgeroepen tot reclameklassieker aller tijden", "publisher": "ReclameArsenaal (2011)", "url": "https://www.reclamearsenaal.nl/campagne-even-apeldoorn-bellen-van-centraal-beheer-achmea-uitgeroepen-tot-reclameklassieker-aller-tijden/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pgbIUYD4_zM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 450, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Even Apeldoorn bellen (Centraal Beheer, 1985)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Commercial Dinosaurus (1986) - Even Apeldoorn bellen - Centraal Beheer”, uploaded by Centraal Beheer", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgbIUYD4_zM" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "pgbIUYD4_zM", "uploaded_at": "2008-01-28T12:45:35+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nhtsa-vince-and-larry-crash-test-dummies", "title": "Vince and Larry, the Crash Test Dummies (\"You Could Learn a Lot from a Dummy\")", "brand": "U.S. Department of Transportation (NHTSA) / Ad Council", "year": 1985, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Two talking crash test dummies, cynical Vince and eager Larry, become recurring characters who carry the seat-belt message from spot to spot." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Slapstick collisions replace gruesome crash footage, so the warning about seat belts arrives as comedy that families welcome into their living rooms." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television public service announcement", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Jim Ferguson" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Joel Machak" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "William Dear" } ], "tagline": "You could learn a lot from a dummy. Buckle your safety belt.", "why_studied": "Two talking crash test dummies, the cynical veteran Vince and his eager young partner Larry, who take every collision so that viewers don't have to. When the Department of Transportation and the Ad Council asked Leo Burnett for a seat-belt campaign in 1985, writer Jim Ferguson and art director Joel Machak first pictured dummies dragged unwillingly into cars to be smashed; Machak pushed for comedy instead. It is studied as the great counter-example to gruesome road-safety advertising: slapstick and two lovable characters made the message welcome in living rooms and turned a laboratory instrument into a pop-culture mascot, complete with a line of toys. The campaign won a Bronze Lion at Cannes, Clio awards and a Gold Effie. In its first year a federal survey in 19 cities found belt use rising from 23% to 39%, and the Ad Council credits the dummies with helping lift usage from 14% to 79% and saving an estimated 85,000 lives. Their costumes are now in the Smithsonian.", "watch": [ { "label": "Vince and Larry seat belt PSA (NHTSA YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_8hkdZkF7Q", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Vince and Larry \"crash\" into the Smithsonian (National Museum of American History)", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/vince-and-larry-dummies-crash-smithsonian", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Vince and Larry dummies \"crash\" into the Smithsonian", "publisher": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History (2010)", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/vince-and-larry-dummies-crash-smithsonian" }, { "title": "Seat Belt Education (1985-Present)", "publisher": "ANA Educational Foundation", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/social-responsibility/ad-council-campaigns-made-difference/seat-belt-education/" }, { "title": "Historic Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Council (archived 2011)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20110905050415/www.adcouncil.org/default.aspx?id=61" }, { "title": "Annapolis ad man one of the brains behind the Crash Test Dummies", "publisher": "The Baltimore Sun (2010)", "url": "https://www.baltimoresun.com/2010/07/30/annapolis-ad-man-one-of-the-brains-behind-the-crash-test-dummies/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1_8hkdZkF7Q/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Vince and Larry, the Crash Test Dummies (\"You Could Learn a Lot from a Dummy\") (U.S. Department of Transportation (NHTSA) / Ad Council, 1985)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Vince and Larry Seat Belt PSA”, uploaded by USDOTNHTSA", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_8hkdZkF7Q", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1_8hkdZkF7Q/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1_8hkdZkF7Q", "uploaded_at": "2013-10-23T14:12:56+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "levis-launderette", "title": "Launderette", "brand": "Levi's 501", "brand_slug": "levis", "year": 1985, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A man strips to his boxers to wash his jeans in a launderette, a scandalous scene that quietly shows off shrink-to-fit denim." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A Marvin Gaye soundtrack sets the mood and climbs the charts, starting a habit of ads that launch hit records." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "The gawping room and calm undressing make the jeans an object of desire, selling an identity rather than a pair of trousers." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "50-second television commercial", "agency": "Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "John Hegarty" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Nick Kamen" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Marvin Gaye's \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\" (cover)" } ], "tagline": "Levi's 501. The original shrink-to-fit jeans.", "why_studied": "The ad that relaunched a fading product as the most desired object in Britain. In a 1950s American launderette, Nick Kamen calmly strips to his boxer shorts to wash his 501s while the room gawps — a product demonstration (stonewash, button fly, shrink-to-fit) disguised as a scandal, scored to Marvin Gaye. Airing from Boxing Day 1985, it drove 501 sales up a reported 800% until demand outstripped supply, made boxer shorts a mainstream fashion item almost overnight, and sent its soundtrack up the charts — establishing BBH's playbook of ads that launch hit records. It is studied for selling identity rather than denim, for the then-rare female gaze on a male body, and as the spot that made BBH's name. It placed sixth in the Channel 4/Sunday Times poll of the 100 greatest TV ads.", "watch": [ { "label": "BBC Culture's 40th-anniversary history, with the ad", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20251216-the-risqu-80s-jeans-ad-that-created-shockwaves", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Levi's 'Laundrette' ad led to an 800% sales boost", "publisher": "Marketing Week", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/levis-laundrette-sales-boost/" }, { "title": "'A female gaze on a male body': The risqué '80s jeans ad that 'created shockwaves'", "publisher": "BBC Culture", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20251216-the-risqu-80s-jeans-ad-that-created-shockwaves" }, { "title": "The 100 Greatest TV Ads — full results (No. 6)", "publisher": "Channel 4 (archived)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100403035953/www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/G/greatest/tv_ads/results.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FwG_wym3p68/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Launderette (Levi's 501, 1985)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1985 Levis 501 'Launderette' commercial - made by Bartle Bogle Hegarty”, uploaded by History of Advertising Trust", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwG_wym3p68", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FwG_wym3p68/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "FwG_wym3p68", "uploaded_at": "2016-05-09T15:27:16+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "australian-tourist-commission-come-and-say-gday", "title": "Come and Say G'day (Shrimp on the Barbie)", "brand": "Australian Tourist Commission", "year": 1984, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Sells a friendly, cheeky national character through barbecues, pubs and an invitation to say G'day, as if hosting viewers personally." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A local television star addresses Americans directly as their host, personally promising to slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for them." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Mojo, Sydney (with N W Ayer in the US)", "credits": [ { "role": "Presenter", "name": "Paul Hogan" }, { "role": "Actress", "name": "Delvene Delaney" } ], "tagline": "Come and say G'day.", "why_studied": "Paul Hogan, a television star at home but unknown in the United States, speaks straight to Americans: they look like they need a \"fair dinkum\" holiday in the land down under. In about a minute the spot takes in beaches, Uluru, Sydney Harbour and the Opera House, a football match and a pub, coaching viewers to say \"G'day\" before Hogan, at the barbecue, promises to \"slip an extra shrimp on the barbie\" for them. Mojo first wrote \"banger\", then tried \"prawn\", before settling on the American word, and the line became synonymous with Australia for Americans, often misquoted. It is studied as destination marketing that sold a national character (friendly, cheeky, English-speaking) rather than scenery alone. The Australian Tourist Commission put about $6 million behind the campaign; officials credited it with a one-third rise in American visa applications in early 1984, and Australia reportedly jumped from 78th to 7th on Americans' most-desired holiday list within three months. The Smithsonian now features it as an example of 20th-century advertising.", "watch": [ { "label": "View at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/shrimp-barbie-paul-hogan", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (CrossMediaOwnership)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn_CPrCS8gs", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Paul Hogan: luring Americans to Australia on TV ad", "publisher": "The Christian Science Monitor (1984)", "url": "https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0921/092117.html" }, { "title": "Shrimp on the barbie - Paul Hogan", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/shrimp-barbie-paul-hogan" }, { "title": "The story behind five commercials from Australia's golden days of advertising", "publisher": "ABC News (2017)", "url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-13/five-iconic-australian-ads-and-the-story-behind-them/9123108" }, { "title": "Selling Australia: A walk through history", "publisher": "Travel Weekly (2015)", "url": "https://travelweekly.com.au/selling-australia-a-walk-through-history/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xn_CPrCS8gs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Come and Say G'day (Shrimp on the Barbie) (Australian Tourist Commission, 1984)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Paul Hogan Ad 1984”, uploaded by CrossMediaOwnership", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn_CPrCS8gs" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Xn_CPrCS8gs", "uploaded_at": "2009-03-28T19:29:36+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "surf-lalitaji", "title": "Lalitaji", "brand": "Surf", "year": 1984, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "A careful shopper explains the difference between a cheap product and a good one, arguing that the pricier powder is the sensible buy." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Set in a busy market, a thrifty homemaker haggling over vegetables gives the argument the voice of an ordinary, shrewd customer." }, { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Defends the higher price instead of cutting it, recasting the gap with a much cheaper rival as proof of better value." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Lintas, Bombay", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Siraj-Ayesha Sayani" }, { "role": "Script", "name": "Balwant Tandon" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Kaveta Chaudhry" }, { "role": "Voice", "name": "Sarita Sethi" } ], "tagline": "Surf ki kharidari mein hi samajhdari hai", "why_studied": "In a busy market a housewife in a crisp white sari haggles with a vegetable seller over a few rupees. Asked by an off-screen voice why so careful a shopper pays more for Surf, she explains the difference between a cheap product and a good one, then taps her head: \"Surf ki kharidari mein hi samajhdari hai\" (buying Surf is the sensible choice). Nirma was selling at Rs 7 a kilo against Surf's Rs 28 and racing ahead, and Lintas's research unit found Surf users still felt they got more value, so instead of cutting the price the agency defended it, through a shrewd, unsentimental homemaker rather than the doting mothers of the day. Kaveta Chaudhry, cast after about a hundred screen tests, asked to play the scene as a bargaining session. Rushed onto television during the 1984 Olympics, the stopgap spot ran for 18 months, was made in 16 languages and posted Lever's highest day-after recall; the account team says it revived Surf's growth and checked Nirma's.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Surf Excel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALxiXkHxqCc", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Throwback: When Lalitaji shielded Surf from redundancy", "publisher": "Storyboard18 (2022)", "url": "https://www.storyboard18.com/quantum-brief/throwback-when-lalitaji-shielded-surf-from-redundancy-4437.htm" }, { "title": "A brand recall like no other: What Lalitaji's character did to Surf Excel's market share", "publisher": "BestMediaInfo (2024)", "url": "https://bestmediainfo.com/2024/02/a-brand-recall-like-no-other-what-lalitaji-s-character-did-to-surf-excel-s-market-share" }, { "title": "How Lalitaji got Surf riding the washing powder waves", "publisher": "The Indian Express (2019)", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/opinion-entertainment/how-lalita-ji-got-surf-riding-the-washing-powder-waves-6156421/" }, { "title": "Lalitaji: The ‘Kharidaari Mai Samajhdari’ icon for Surf", "publisher": "ETBrandEquity (2021)", "url": "https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/marketing/lalithaji-the-kharidaari-mai-samajhdari-icon-for-surf/87056812" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ALxiXkHxqCc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Lalitaji (Surf, 1984)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Surf Excel Lalitaji”, uploaded by Surf excel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALxiXkHxqCc" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ALxiXkHxqCc", "uploaded_at": "2012-06-14T09:16:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-1984", "title": "1984", "brand": "Apple", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 1984, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Casts the dominant rival as Orwell's Big Brother and the new computer as the hammer that shatters it, positioning the brand by its enemy." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Stages the launch as a short dystopian film whose climax shatters Big Brother, mentioning no features and showing no product in use." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "Conjures an Orwellian future of conformity under Big Brother and offers the new computer as the reason that future will not arrive." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Chiat/Day, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Ridley Scott" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Lee Clow" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Steve Hayden" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Brent Thomas" } ], "tagline": "On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like \"1984.\"", "why_studied": "A product launch staged as dystopian cinema. Chiat/Day cast IBM's dominance as Orwell's Big Brother and the Macintosh as the hammer that shatters it — a 60-second film that mentions no features and shows no product in use. It aired nationally only once, during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984 (after a quiet late-December 1983 airing in Twin Falls, Idaho to qualify for that year's awards), and the news coverage it generated effectively invented the Super Bowl ad as an annual cultural event. It is studied as the archetype of positioning by enemy: define what you are against, and let scale, craft and a single airing do the rest. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1984 and entered the Clio Hall of Fame in 1995; Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 12 among the top 100 campaigns of the 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Apple \"1984\" ad, 30-second version (Internet Archive)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/1983-30sec", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Smithsonian retrospective with production stills (National Museum of American History)", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/remembering-apples-1984-super-bowl-ad", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Remembering Apple's \"1984\" Super Bowl ad", "publisher": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/remembering-apples-1984-super-bowl-ad" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "How The Greatest Super Bowl Ad Ever — Apple's '1984' — Almost Didn't Make It To Air", "publisher": "Business Insider (2014)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-super-bowl-retrospective-2014-1" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/VtvjbmoDx-I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from 1984 (Apple, 1984)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial (HD)”, uploaded by Mac History", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/VtvjbmoDx-I/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "VtvjbmoDx-I", "uploaded_at": "2012-02-01T15:59:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wendys-wheres-the-beef", "title": "Fluffy Bun (\"Where's the Beef?\")", "known_as": "Where's the Beef?", "brand": "Wendy's", "brand_slug": "wendys", "year": 1984, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Mocks an unnamed rival's absurdly fluffy bun, implying its burgers lack substance without ever naming the competitor." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "An 81-year-old woman's raspy demand to know where the beef is turns a burger complaint into a deadpan comic catchphrase." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Dancer Fitzgerald Sample", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Cliff Freeman" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Joe Sedelmaier" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Clara Peller" } ], "tagline": "Where's the beef?", "why_studied": "Three elderly women inspect an absurdly fluffy competitor's bun until 81-year-old Clara Peller barks the question that ate American culture: \"Where's the beef?\" Breaking on January 10, 1984, Cliff Freeman's spot — directed by comedy specialist Joe Sedelmaier, who cast Peller after her raspy voice made the line funnier than any script read — is studied as the gold standard of comparative advertising by comedy: it mocked the competition's substance without naming anyone. The campaign was credited with a 31% jump in Wendy's annual revenue, and within weeks Walter Mondale was using the line in a presidential debate — the fastest an ad catchphrase has ever crossed into politics.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign's History of Advertising entry, with the spot", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-no-182-clara-pellers-hamburger/1421235", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "History of advertising No 182: Clara Peller's hamburger", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-no-182-clara-pellers-hamburger/1421235" }, { "title": "Over 3 Decades Ago, Wendy's Made History With 'Where's the Beef?'", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/over-3-decades-ago-wendys-made-history-with-wheres-the-beef/" }, { "title": "'Where's The Beef?' The Iconic Clara Peller Spot For Wendy's Turns 40", "publisher": "Forbes (2024)", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcberman1/2024/01/10/wheres-the-beef-the-iconic-clara-peller-spot-for-wendys-turns-40/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Lv8wluGFdMU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Fluffy Bun (\"Where's the Beef?\") (Wendy's, 1984)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Wendy's - \"Fluffy Bun\" (Where's the Beef?) Commercial (1984)”, uploaded by 1980s Child", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv8wluGFdMU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Lv8wluGFdMU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Lv8wluGFdMU", "uploaded_at": "2025-10-07T21:00:32+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "reagan-morning-in-america", "title": "Prouder, Stronger, Better (\"Morning in America\")", "known_as": "Morning in America", "brand": "Reagan-Bush '84 campaign", "year": 1984, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Golden footage of commuters and weddings under warm narration makes optimism and nostalgia the argument, while the opponent is only implied." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Flag-raisings and the image of a new morning for the nation wrap the candidate in national pride without naming policies." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Promises a country that is prouder, stronger and better, feel-good words that set the mood but commit to nothing specific." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second political television commercial", "agency": "The Tuesday Team", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer / Narrator", "name": "Hal Riney" } ], "tagline": "It's morning again in America.", "why_studied": "The most influential positive political ad ever made — the counterweight to \"Daisy\" in every politics-of-advertising syllabus. Over golden footage of commuters, weddings and flag-raisings, Hal Riney's warm narration recites gentle statistics (\"today, more men and women will go to work than ever before...\") and asks why anyone would return to \"where we were less than four short years ago.\" Created by the Tuesday Team, the all-star volunteer agency group assembled for Reagan's 1984 re-election, it attacks without an attack: the opponent is never named, only implied by nostalgia's warmth. It is studied as the definitive case of national mood as message — production values, music and voice doing the persuasive work of a thousand policy arguments — and 'Morning in America' remains the phrase U.S. political optimism is measured against.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad at the Museum of the Moving Image's Living Room Candidate archive", "url": "https://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1984/prouder-stronger-better", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Prouder, Stronger, Better (1984) — with transcript and Tuesday Team history", "publisher": "Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate", "url": "https://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1984/prouder-stronger-better" }, { "title": "\"It's Morning Again in America\": How the Tuesday Team Revolutionized the Use of Music in Political Ads", "publisher": "Music & Politics (University of Michigan)", "url": "https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mp/9460447.0010.105/--it-s-morning-again-in-america-how-the-tuesday-team?rgn=main&view=fulltext" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/m_B2gZCB85c/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Prouder, Stronger, Better (\"Morning in America\") (Reagan-Bush '84 campaign, 1984)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Prouder, Stronger, Better”, uploaded by Museum of the Moving Image", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_B2gZCB85c", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/m_B2gZCB85c/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "m_B2gZCB85c", "uploaded_at": "2016-06-10T22:02:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ad-council-friends-dont-let-friends-drive-drunk", "title": "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk", "brand": "U.S. Department of Transportation (NHTSA) / Ad Council", "year": 1983, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Two glasses colliding and shattering stand in for a car crash, turning a drink into the image of a collision without showing a road." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "It appeals to loyalty between friends, casting intervention as an act of friendship, and later spots add grief through stories of real people killed by drunk drivers." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public service campaign (television, radio, print and outdoor)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Friends don't let friends drive drunk.", "why_studied": "The Ad Council and the U.S. Department of Transportation began their campaign against drunk driving in 1983 with \"Crashing Glasses\", in which two glasses collide and shatter. What outlived every spot was a line: \"Friends don't let friends drive drunk.\" President Reagan was already promoting a holiday campaign under that name in December 1983, and from 1990 it became the national campaign's tagline. It is studied for moving responsibility from the drinker to the people around them: instead of lecturing drivers, it gave friends a duty, a script and social permission to take the keys. \"Crashing Glasses\" won a Clio in 1984, and later spots told the stories of real people killed by drunk drivers. In 2015 the Ad Council said the slogan was recognised by 90% of American adults. A National Academies review notes that the campaign was never rigorously evaluated, but that it is often regarded as integral to the change in social norms around drinking and driving.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Crashing Glasses\" (1983) on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSwHup5inDo", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Drunk Driving Prevention (1983-Present)", "publisher": "ANA Educational Foundation", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/social-responsibility/ad-council-campaigns-made-difference/drunk-driving-prevention/" }, { "title": "Radio Address to the Nation on Drunk Driving", "publisher": "Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (1983)", "url": "https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/radio-address-nation-drunk-driving" }, { "title": "National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Ad Council Launch First-Ever Public Service Campaign Targeting Underage Drinking and Driving", "publisher": "Ad Council via PR Newswire (2015)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/national-highway-traffic-safety-administration-and-ad-council-launch-first-ever-public-service-campaign-targeting-underage-drinking-and-driving-300161966.html" }, { "title": "Generating Action (Getting to Zero Alcohol-Impaired Driving Fatalities)", "publisher": "National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine via NCBI Bookshelf (2018)", "url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK500066/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sSwHup5inDo/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk (U.S. Department of Transportation (NHTSA) / Ad Council, 1983)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Drunk Driving PSA - Crashing Glasses (1983)”, uploaded by K.J. Norman", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSwHup5inDo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "sSwHup5inDo", "uploaded_at": "2011-07-21T15:42:54+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "yellow-pages-jr-hartley", "title": "J.R. Hartley (\"Fly Fishing\")", "brand": "Yellow Pages", "year": 1983, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "An elderly man fails to find a fly-fishing book in shop after shop until the directory locates a copy, and the twist reveals he wrote it." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Gentle warmth repositions a directory tied to blocked drains as a helper for the nice things in life." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Abbott Mead Vickers, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative", "name": "David Abbott" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Norman Lumsden" } ], "tagline": "Good old Yellow Pages. We're not just there for the nasty things in life.", "why_studied": "An elderly man trudges from bookshop to bookshop seeking a copy of \"Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley,\" fails, and comes home defeated — until his daughter hands him the Yellow Pages. A shop has it. He gives his name: \"J.R. Hartley.\" David Abbott's 1983 twist-ending spot repositioned a directory associated with blocked drains as something for \"the nice things in life,\" lifting non-emergency enquiries from 6% to 20%. The fictional author became so real to the public that a ghost-written Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley was published in 1991 and became a Christmas bestseller — an ad generating a real product, decades before 'transmedia' had a name. It is studied as perhaps the purest example of warmth and narrative surprise changing the perceived purpose of a utility brand.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Drum's 'world's best ads ever' entry, with the ad", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-96-jr-hartley-gets-people-using-the-yellow-pages-non", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "World's best ads ever #96: JR Hartley gets people using the Yellow Pages for non-emergencies", "publisher": "The Drum", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-96-jr-hartley-gets-people-using-the-yellow-pages-non" }, { "title": "3 great ads, chosen by Peter Souter (David Abbott's debut for Yellow Pages)", "publisher": "The Marketing Society", "url": "https://www.marketingsociety.com/the-cinema/3-great-ads-chosen-peter-souter" }, { "title": "The 100 Greatest TV Ads — full results (No. 13)", "publisher": "Channel 4 (archived)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100403035953/www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/G/greatest/tv_ads/results.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/uj8qktWBYYo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from J.R. Hartley (\"Fly Fishing\") (Yellow Pages, 1983)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Yellow Pages - J.R. Hartley (1983, UK)”, uploaded by The Hall of Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj8qktWBYYo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "uj8qktWBYYo", "uploaded_at": "2012-01-12T21:13:12+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "fedex-fast-paced-world", "title": "Fast Paced World (\"Fast Talker\")", "brand": "Federal Express", "year": 1981, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A breathless executive hires, delegates and closes deals at absurd speed, parodying business chatter so the promise of speed becomes a comic performance." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Ally & Gargano, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Joe Sedelmaier" }, { "role": "Performer", "name": "John Moschitta Jr." } ], "tagline": "When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.", "why_studied": "A frantic executive, played by John Moschitta, fires through a working day without drawing breath: hiring a candidate in seconds, putting Pete in charge of Pittsburgh, closing a deal with Dick, Dave and Don, booking New York and LA on alternate days. Then a calm voice asks whether you are glad there is one company that can keep up. Ally & Gargano's spot for Federal Express turned the promise of speed into a performance rather than a claim, and it parodied self-important management chatter so precisely that the business audience laughed at itself. The director, Joe Sedelmaier, who later made Wendy's \"Where's the Beef?\", brought his deadpan casting and timing. It is studied as a model of dramatising a benefit through form and of comedy in business-to-business advertising. Moschitta won a Clio for the role, Ad Age ranked the Federal Express \"fast talker\" campaign No. 11 of the 20th century, and New York magazine named the spot the most memorable ad Madison Avenue ever sold.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (RetroStatic)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjO6EJIyxGw", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Most Memorable Advertisements Madison Avenue Ever Sold", "publisher": "New York magazine (2008)", "url": "https://nymag.com/anniversary/40th/50671/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century", "publisher": "CNBC (2011), after Ad Age's Top 100", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" }, { "title": "Old-Fashioned Charm", "publisher": "Adweek (2003)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/old-fashioned-charm-67076/" }, { "title": "Is the Micro-Machines Guy Still the Fastest-Talking Man on the Planet?", "publisher": "New York magazine (2016)", "url": "https://nymag.com/speed/2016/12/is-the-micro-machines-guy-still-the-fastest-talking-man-on-the-planet.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sjO6EJIyxGw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Fast Paced World (\"Fast Talker\") (Federal Express, 1981)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Federal Express \"Fast Paced World\" commercial (1981)”, uploaded by RetroStatic", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjO6EJIyxGw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sjO6EJIyxGw/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "sjO6EJIyxGw", "uploaded_at": "2015-12-28T19:29:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cancer-council-slip-slop-slap", "title": "Slip! Slop! Slap! (Sid the Seagull)", "brand": "Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria", "year": 1981, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Three sung verbs, slip, slop and slap, turn sun protection into a chant children can repeat, letting the rhythm do the remembering." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A likeable cartoon seagull in board shorts, T-shirt and hat models each step, giving the health message a friendly messenger." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Animated television commercial", "agency": "Monahan Dayman Adams", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director / writer", "name": "Phillip Adams" }, { "role": "Composer", "name": "Peter Best" }, { "role": "Designer / animator", "name": "Alex Stitt" } ], "tagline": "Slip, Slop, Slap!", "why_studied": "A cartoon seagull in board shorts, T-shirt and hat dances across the screen singing three verbs that became a national reflex: slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, slap on a hat. Made for the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria by Monahan Dayman Adams, the 'Life. Be in it.' trio of Phillip Adams (words), Peter Best (music) and Alex Stitt (design and animation), the 1981 spot adapted a Queensland Cancer Fund jingle and turned sun protection into a chant children could repeat. It is studied as a model of behaviour-change advertising: one concrete instruction, a likeable messenger and a rhythm that does the remembering. The pilot was so effective it spread to radio, print, other states and the Australian Cancer Society, paved the way for the SunSmart program in 1988, and is widely credited with a dramatic shift in Australians' sun-protection behaviour. Cancer Council says the slogan has entered the Australian language; in 2023 the National Film and Sound Archive added Sid's jingle to its Sounds of Australia registry.", "watch": [ { "label": "SunSmart Victoria (official YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGgn5nwYtj0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "SunSmart: campaigns of the 1980s (embeds the original ad)", "url": "https://www.sunsmart.com.au/about-sunsmart/media-and-communications/sunsmart-campaigns/1980s", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Slip! Slop! Slap! jingle by Peter Best and Phillip Adams", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/slip-slop-slap-jingle-peter-best-and-phillip-adams" }, { "title": "SunSmart campaigns from the 1980s", "publisher": "SunSmart / Cancer Council Victoria", "url": "https://www.sunsmart.com.au/about-sunsmart/media-and-communications/sunsmart-campaigns/1980s" }, { "title": "Slip! Slop! Slap! jingle, I am Australian, Sherbet's Howzat ... among new Sounds of Australia", "publisher": "ABC News (2023)", "url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-14/nfsa-adds-11-new-recordings-to-sounds-of-australia-registry/103101898" }, { "title": "Slip! Slop! Slap! SunSmart campaigns", "publisher": "ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image)", "url": "https://www.acmi.net.au/works/125251--sun-smart-campaigns/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tGgn5nwYtj0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Slip! Slop! Slap! (Sid the Seagull) (Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria, 1981)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Slip! Slop! Slap! - The Original SunSmart Campaign with Sid the Seagull”, uploaded by SunSmart Victoria", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGgn5nwYtj0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "tGgn5nwYtj0", "uploaded_at": "2012-05-10T02:01:35+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "army-be-all-you-can-be", "title": "Be All You Can Be", "brand": "U.S. Army", "year": 1981, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Reframes enlistment from obligation or last resort into self-fulfilment, an uplifting ideal that promises personal growth without specifics." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A sung slogan carries the line so well that a whole generation can still sing it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television and recruitment campaign", "agency": "N.W. Ayer & Son", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Earl Carter" }, { "role": "Jingle", "name": "Jake Holmes" } ], "tagline": "Be all you can be.", "why_studied": "The line that rebuilt an institution's self-image. The post-Vietnam, all-volunteer Army was struggling for recruits and respect when N.W. Ayer copywriter Earl Carter's line — debuting during the New Year's bowl games of January 1981 — reframed enlistment from obligation or last resort into self-actualization with a jingle an entire generation can still sing. It ran for twenty years, an eternity in advertising, was credited with improving both recruit volume and quality, and was ranked the No. 18 campaign of the century by Ad Age (which also called the jingle one of the century's defining refrains). It is studied for institutional rebranding at national scale — and the Army's 2023 revival of the line is the strongest endorsement an old campaign can get.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "All We Could Be: How an Advertising Campaign Helped Remake the Army", "publisher": "Army Historical Foundation", "url": "https://armyhistory.org/all-we-could-be-how-an-advertising-campaign-helped-remake-the-army/" }, { "title": "Army recruiting messages help keep Army rolling along", "publisher": "U.S. Army (army.mil)", "url": "https://www.army.mil/article/322/army_recruiting_messages_help_keep_army_rolling_along" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 18)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ww2FUaR2Xbk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Be All You Can Be (U.S. Army, 1981)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Be All That You Can Be In The Army commercial 1981”, uploaded by Kevin Noonan", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww2FUaR2Xbk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ww2FUaR2Xbk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ww2FUaR2Xbk", "uploaded_at": "2014-01-27T11:08:41+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ncpc-mcgruff-take-a-bite-out-of-crime", "title": "Take a Bite Out of Crime (\"McGruff the Crime Dog\")", "brand": "National Crime Prevention Council / Ad Council", "year": 1980, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A world-weary cartoon bloodhound in a trench coat fronts every message, giving crime prevention a recognisable face in the mould of Smokey Bear." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Instead of stoking fear, it hands viewers simple practical steps, such as locking doors and asking a neighbour to watch the house." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television public service announcement", "agency": "Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (now Saatchi & Saatchi)", "credits": [ { "role": "Creator and voice of McGruff", "name": "Jack Keil" }, { "role": "Character concept", "name": "Sherry Nemmers and Ray Krivascy" } ], "tagline": "Take a bite out of crime.", "why_studied": "A world-weary cartoon bloodhound in a trench coat, modelled partly on the TV detective Columbo, who first appeared on American television in February 1980 urging viewers to \"take a bite out of crime\". The Ad Council gave the brief to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, where Jack Keil wanted a mascot that could do for crime what Smokey Bear had done for forest fires; he ended up voicing the dog himself, and the name McGruff came from a public naming contest. The campaign is studied because it answered a frightened public with simple, doable steps rather than more fear: lock your doors, ask a neighbour to watch the house, call the police about anything suspicious, and write off for a free booklet. A federally funded evaluation found that just over half of American adults recalled the ads, and that exposure was linked to changes in six of the seven prevention behaviours they promoted, most strongly joining local crime-prevention efforts. By 1981 more than a million booklets had been sent out.", "watch": [ { "label": "McGruff's first PSA, \"Stop a Crime\" (official McGruff the Crime Dog YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmlvY5Z_HZk", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "McGruff History", "publisher": "National Crime Prevention Council", "url": "https://www.ncpc.org/about-ncpc/mcgruff/history/" }, { "title": "Paw Enforcement: A History of McGruff the Crime Dog", "publisher": "Mental Floss (2017)", "url": "https://www.mentalfloss.com/animals/dogs/paw-enforcement-history-mcgruff-crime-dog" }, { "title": "\"Taking a Bite Out of Crime\": The Impact of a Public Information Campaign", "publisher": "ERIC / Garrett J. O'Keefe (1983)", "url": "https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED233356" }, { "title": "Crime Prevention (1979-Present)", "publisher": "ANA Educational Foundation", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/social-responsibility/ad-council-campaigns-made-difference/crime-prevention/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JmlvY5Z_HZk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Take a Bite Out of Crime (\"McGruff the Crime Dog\") (National Crime Prevention Council / Ad Council, 1980)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “McGruff the Crime Dog first PSA - \"Stop a Crime\" (1980)”, uploaded by McGruff the Crime Dog", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmlvY5Z_HZk" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "JmlvY5Z_HZk", "uploaded_at": "2010-03-18T16:23:02+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-mean-joe-greene", "title": "Hey Kid, Catch! (\"Mean Joe Greene\")", "known_as": "Mean Joe Greene", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 1979, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A child's kindness melts the most feared lineman in football, attaching the drink to a moment of unexpected warmth." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A scowling, limping star accepts a Coke from a young fan, drains it and repays him with his jersey, a complete character reversal." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A famously fearsome football star plays himself, so his gratitude for the drink works as a warm celebrity endorsement." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "McCann Erickson", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "\"Mean\" Joe Greene, Tommy Okon" } ], "tagline": "Have a Coke and a smile.", "why_studied": "The template for the heartwarming Super Bowl spot. A limping, scowling Joe Greene — the most feared defensive lineman in football — accepts a Coke from a young fan, drains it, and repays the kindness with his game jersey and two words: \"Hey kid — catch.\" First aired in 1979 and cemented by its airing during Super Bowl XIV in January 1980, a game Greene's Steelers actually won, it is studied as a masterclass in character reversal: the product as the hinge that turns menace into warmth. It was so beloved it spawned an NBC television movie and international remakes with stars like Diego Maradona, and it still anchors every list of the greatest Super Bowl commercials ever aired.", "watch": [ { "label": "Retrospective with the spot (Business Insider)", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-super-bowl-commercials", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Best Super Bowl commercials of all time: Ranking the top 25 ads", "publisher": "CBS Sports", "url": "https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/super-bowl-commercials-top-25-all-time-ranked/" }, { "title": "23 of the Most Famous Super Bowl Commercials of All Time", "publisher": "Business Insider", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/most-famous-super-bowl-commercials" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xffOCZYX6F8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hey Kid, Catch! (\"Mean Joe Greene\") (Coca-Cola, 1979)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca-Cola classic ad: 'Mean' Joe Greene [Full Version] (1979)”, uploaded by stiggerpao", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "xffOCZYX6F8", "uploaded_at": "2007-07-17T23:18:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bombril-garoto-bombril", "title": "Garoto Bombril (first spot)", "brand": "Bombril", "year": 1978, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A shy young spokesman, presented as the company's own chemist, becomes a recurring character who fronts hundreds of films over decades." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Replaces the usual housewife or macho hero with a modest, fragile man speaking colloquially and claiming only a certain something in the formula." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial (first of a long-running series)", "agency": "DPZ, São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Washington Olivetto" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Francesc Petit" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "ABA (Andrés Bukowinski)" }, { "role": "Spokesman", "name": "Carlos Moreno" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A slight, shy young man looks straight at the viewer and introduces a Bombril detergent that promises to be gentler on the skin. His character, presented as the company's own chemist, would become famous for claiming no more than that the products had \"um negócio\", a certain something, in the formula. It was DPZ's first job for Bombril, in 1978. Francesc Petit found Brazilian advertising arrogant towards women, and Washington Olivetto reasoned that women were by then more charmed by Woody Allen's fragility than John Wayne's machismo; so instead of the usual housewife, a cleaning product was sold by a modest man, Carlos Moreno, a stage actor found through André Bukowinski's production company ABA. Moreno was hired for four films and stayed for hundreds, over more than three decades, and in 1994 the campaign entered the Guinness Book for its longevity. It is studied for that consistency and for what Olivetto calls bringing colloquial speech into Brazilian advertising.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Propagandas Históricas)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q_MbQgfAcs", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Propagandas Históricas archive page", "url": "https://www.propagandashistoricas.com.br/2013/03/bombril-carlos-moreno-1978.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "O nascimento do Garoto Bombril", "publisher": "Exame (2014)", "url": "https://exame.com/marketing/o-nascimento-do-garoto-bombril/" }, { "title": "Primeiro sutiã, mamíferos Parmalat e Garoto Bombril: publicitários contam bastidores de campanhas icônicas", "publisher": "O Globo (2023)", "url": "https://oglobo.globo.com/cultura/noticia/2023/06/roberto-medina-washington-olivetto-e-nizan-guanaes-relembram-acoes-emblematicas-da-publicidade-brasileira.ghtml" }, { "title": "Olivetto criou obras-primas da publicidade, do ‘Garoto Bombril’ ao ‘meu primeiro sutiã’; assista", "publisher": "Estadão (2024)", "url": "https://www.estadao.com.br/economia/washington-olivetto-obras-primas-publicidade/" }, { "title": "Garoto Bombril: Por onde anda Carlos Moreno dos comerciais de Olivetto", "publisher": "UOL Splash (2024)", "url": "https://www.uol.com.br/splash/noticias/2024/10/15/por-onde-anda-o-garoto-bombril-das-propagandas-de-washington-olivetto.htm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5q_MbQgfAcs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Garoto Bombril (first spot) (Bombril, 1978)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Bombril (Carlos Moreno) - 1978”, uploaded by Propagandas Históricas", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q_MbQgfAcs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5q_MbQgfAcs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "5q_MbQgfAcs", "uploaded_at": "2013-02-25T04:38:18+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "xerox-monks", "title": "Monks (\"Brother Dominic\")", "brand": "Xerox", "year": 1977, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A monk asked for 500 more copies of an illuminated manuscript slips off to a duplicator, and his superior hails the result as a miracle." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Shows the machine turning out hundreds of copies of a manuscript in the time it takes to step through a doorway and back." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The monk becomes a character so fused with the brand that he is revived decades later." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Needham, Harper & Steers", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative lead", "name": "Allen Kay" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Jack Eagle as Brother Dominic" } ], "tagline": "It's a miracle!", "why_studied": "The ad that proved the Super Bowl could launch a product story, seven years before Apple's \"1984.\" Monk Brother Dominic, asked to produce 500 more copies of an illuminated manuscript, slips through a doorway to a Xerox 9200 duplicator and returns with the sets — prompting his superior to gasp, \"It's a miracle!\" Debuting during Super Bowl XI in 1977, it was described by the Hagley Museum as perhaps the first \"viral\" Super Bowl commercial. Creator Allen Kay's spot swept the industry's awards — a Cannes Gold Lion among them — entered the Clio Hall of Fame, and was judged by The New York Times one of the top 25 commercials of the 20th century. Xerox brought Brother Dominic back 40 years later, a measure of how completely one character had fused with the brand.", "watch": [ { "label": "The original spot and campaign history (DigiBarn, with Allen Kay's account)", "url": "https://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/digibarn-tv/xerox-monks/index.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The First \"Viral\" Super Bowl Commercial", "publisher": "Hagley Museum and Library", "url": "https://www.hagley.org/research/programs/nam-project-news/first-viral-super-bowl-commercial" }, { "title": "\"Xerox Monks\" 1977 Super Bowl ad (awards history from creator Allen Kay)", "publisher": "DigiBarn Computer Museum", "url": "https://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/digibarn-tv/xerox-monks/index.html" }, { "title": "MAA blast from the past: Xerox's brother Dominic (agency credit)", "publisher": "More About Advertising", "url": "https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2024/04/maa-blast-from-the-past-xeroxs-brother-dominic/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/D5KCrK0GRqg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Monks (\"Brother Dominic\") (Xerox, 1977)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “DigiBarn TV: The XEROX Monks 1977 Super Bowl commercial Korey Kay & Assoc.”, uploaded by Dr. Bruce Damer", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5KCrK0GRqg" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "D5KCrK0GRqg", "uploaded_at": "2014-02-03T04:55:34+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "holden-football-meat-pies-kangaroos", "title": "Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars", "brand": "Holden (General Motors-Holden's)", "year": 1976, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Intercuts the cars with beaches, cricket, kangaroos, meat pies and the flag, so a GM subsidiary borrows the feeling of being Australian." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A chanting crowd sings a list of national loves ending with the cars, slotting the brand among the things Australians cherish." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial with jingle", "agency": "George Patterson Pty Ltd", "credits": [ { "role": "Voice-over", "name": "Ken Sparkes" } ], "tagline": "Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars", "why_studied": "A quick-cut montage of beaches, yachting, cricket, Aussie Rules, koalas, kangaroos, meat pies and the flag, intercut with Kingswoods, Toranas and Monaros, while a chanting crowd sings that they love “football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars”. The jingle was a direct localisation of General Motors' American line “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet”, with Australian icons swapped in; a South African radio version for Chevrolet sang of braaivleis and rugby. It is studied as the textbook case of borrowed patriotism: at a time when rising costs and Japanese competition were eating into Holden's position, a GM subsidiary positioned itself as part of being Australian. The National Film and Sound Archive calls it one of the most memorable catchcries in Australian television advertising, while noting that its picture of the nation was narrow and left out much of the country's diversity.", "watch": [ { "label": "NFSA curated collection: General Motors Holden ads", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/asset/97002-general-motors-holden-football-meat-pies-kangaroos-and-holden-cars", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Official Holden upload (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeWbMY6pduI", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "General Motors Holden: Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/asset/97002-general-motors-holden-football-meat-pies-kangaroos-and-holden-cars" }, { "title": "General Motors Holden – Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars (c.1976)", "publisher": "australianscreen online (NFSA)", "url": "https://aso.gov.au/titles/ads/football-meat-pies-holden-cars/clip1/" }, { "title": "Collection - General Motors Holden", "publisher": "australianscreen online (NFSA)", "url": "https://aso.gov.au/titles/collections/general-motors-holden/" }, { "title": "Un-Australian! The truth behind 1970s TV ad ‘Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars’", "publisher": "news.com.au (2017)", "url": "https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/unaustralian-the-truth-behind-1970s-tv-ad-football-meat-pies-kangaroos-and-holden-cars/news-story/addcca872d166cf9d2c1b801d72735de" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/CeWbMY6pduI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars (Holden (General Motors-Holden's), 1976)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Holden Television Ad from 1970's - We love football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden Cars!”, uploaded by Holden", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeWbMY6pduI" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "CeWbMY6pduI", "uploaded_at": "2010-05-12T06:25:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "liril-waterfall-girl", "title": "Liril Girl (Waterfall)", "brand": "Liril", "year": 1975, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A woman splashing beneath a forest waterfall sells a few minutes of private escape, rather than the fairer skin rival soaps promised." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A wordless la-la-la jingle carries the carefree mood that links the waterfall to an ordinary bathroom shower." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television and cinema commercial", "agency": "Lintas, Bombay", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Alyque Padamsee" }, { "role": "Co-creator", "name": "Neena Merchant" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Kailash Surendranath" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Vanraj Bhatia" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Karen Lunel" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A young woman plays, dives and splashes beneath a forest waterfall, the film cutting between the cascade and an ordinary bathroom shower to a \"La, lalala, la, la, la\" jingle. Lintas made it to launch Hindustan Lever's new lime soap, India's first, after Alyque Padamsee commissioned research into what housewives felt behind the bathroom door: the daily bath, they said, was the only time that belonged to them. So where rival soaps promised fairer or clearer skin, Liril sold a few minutes of escape, with the waterfall standing in for the shower. Air India stewardess Karen Lunel was picked from about a hundred hopefuls and filmed in near-freezing water at Kodaikanal, and Vanraj Bhatia wrote the tune. A Lever product manager balked at the bikini; the spot aired uncut. Padamsee says Liril reached a 25 per cent share within a year and became Lever's top-selling brand. The waterfall format ran for some 35 years, and the falls are still promoted as the Liril Falls.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Kailash Surendranath)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHb3GLmAD00", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "40 Years Ago...and now: Liril Girl showed how to target a state of mind", "publisher": "Business Standard (2014)", "url": "https://www.business-standard.com/article/management/40-years-ago-and-now-liril-girl-showed-how-to-target-a-state-of-mind-114101501095_1.html" }, { "title": "Freedom in a soap", "publisher": "The Telegraph India (2011)", "url": "https://www.telegraphindia.com/entertainment/freedom-in-a-soap/cid/379465" }, { "title": "How a soap, a model and the lather over a water cascade led to the legend of the Liril falls", "publisher": "The Economic Times (2015)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/how-a-soap-a-model-and-the-lather-over-a-water-cascade-led-to-the-legend-of-the-liril-falls/articleshow/48168590.cms" }, { "title": "Koffee with Karen Lunel - the Liril girl", "publisher": "The Economic Times, Brand Equity (2009)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Brand-Equity/Koffee-with-Karen-Lunel--the-Liril-girl/articleshow/4858665.cms" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lHb3GLmAD00/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Liril Girl (Waterfall) (Liril, 1975)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “When Freshness Changed Indian Advertising II Liril Soap”, uploaded by Kailash Surendranath", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHb3GLmAD00", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lHb3GLmAD00/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lHb3GLmAD00", "uploaded_at": "2012-10-09T09:50:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "master-lock-tough-under-fire", "title": "Tough Under Fire", "brand": "Master Lock", "year": 1974, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A marksman fires a rifle bullet clean through a padlock in slow motion, and the lock stays shut, proving the claim in a single shot." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "With no celebrity, joke or jingle, the whole argument rests on visible proof that the lock survives a bullet." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Cramer-Krasselt, Milwaukee", "credits": [], "tagline": "Tough under fire.", "why_studied": "A marksman loads a .30-caliber rifle, aims at a padlock hanging on a bull's-eye target and, in slow motion, blows a half-inch hole clean through it. The lock stays shut. \"Tough under fire,\" the announcer concludes. Master Lock first ran the 30-second demonstration during Super Bowl VIII on January 13, 1974, paying $107,000 for the slot, and it is studied on two counts. Creatively, it is the torture test at its purest: one shot proves the claim with no celebrity, joke or jingle. Strategically, it is an early case for pouring a modest budget into a single annual event. The Milwaukee company came back to the game every year for two decades; by 1995 that lone spot consumed a third of its yearly advertising budget. Adweek reports annual sales climbing from $35 million in 1973 to $200 million by 1994 as the name became shorthand for padlocks. Its agency, Cramer-Krasselt, says the ad set Master Lock apart at a time when shoppers saw all locks as alike.", "watch": [ { "label": "Great Super Bowl Ad - Shot Lock from Master Lock (Master Lock on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8BBGV2ypI", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Super Bowl Ad That Worked so Well It No Longer Needs to Be in the Big Game", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/the-super-bowl-ad-that-worked-so-well-it-no-longer-needs-to-be-in-the-big-game/" }, { "title": "Super Sunday: A Shared American Experience", "publisher": "The Washington Post (1995)", "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1995/01/29/super-sunday-a-shared-american-experience/5be69a8b-6142-4a76-ac04-c6aa3d6dd6ec/" }, { "title": "C-K’s history of Super Bowl ads", "publisher": "Cramer-Krasselt (2022)", "url": "https://c-k.com/history-of-super-bowl-ads/" }, { "title": "Master Lock Has Had a Hold on the Industry for 100 Years", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2021)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/master-lock-has-had-hold-on-industry-for-100-years-180977743/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pk8BBGV2ypI/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Tough Under Fire (Master Lock, 1974)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Great Super Bowl Ad - Shot Lock from Master Lock”, uploaded by Master Lock", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk8BBGV2ypI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pk8BBGV2ypI/sd2.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "pk8BBGV2ypI", "uploaded_at": "2018-12-20T13:50:02+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heineken-refreshes-the-parts", "title": "Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach", "brand": "Heineken", "brand_slug": "heineken", "year": 1974, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each spot finds some ailing part of British life, from policemen's tired feet to a stubborn elocution lesson, and absurdly revives it with lager." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign (68 commercials, 1974–1988)", "agency": "Collett Dickenson Pearce, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer (campaign line)", "name": "Terry Lovelock" }, { "role": "Voiceover (early spots)", "name": "Victor Borge" } ], "tagline": "Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach.", "why_studied": "A pseudo-scientific absurdity that ran for three decades. Terry Lovelock's 1974 line launched with \"Policemen's Feet\" — a lab study of bobbies' tired toes revived by lager, narrated with deadpan authority by Victor Borge — and spawned 68 commercials on one elastic formula: some ailing part of British life, miraculously restored by Heineken. The most loved, 1985's \"Water in Majorca,\" inverted My Fair Lady, with a refined elocution student finally mastering Cockney (\"the wa'er in Majorca don' taste like wot it ough' to\") after a sip. It is studied as the great case for campaign architecture: a single ridiculous promise, endlessly renewable, that made a premium import the wittiest brand in Britain. Campaign ranked it among its top ten ads of the century, and the Heineken Collection Foundation preserves the full series.", "watch": [ { "label": "The series in the Heineken Collection Foundation's archive", "url": "https://www.heinekencollection.com/en/collection/15081", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Campaign Hall of Fame (Heineken 'refreshes the parts', CDP, 1974, with credits)", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-hall-fame-part-2-2/36084" }, { "title": "Refreshes the Parts... series record (68 commercials, 1974–1988)", "publisher": "Heineken Collection Foundation (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.heinekencollection.com/en/collection/15081" }, { "title": "Water in Majorca (1985) — archive record with credits", "publisher": "Heineken Collection Foundation (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.heinekencollection.com/en/collection/15422" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ab6dJYDgj48/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Refreshes the Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach (Heineken, 1974)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “TDADB0003 Heineken Refreshes The Parts Other Beers Cannot Reach Policemen 1974)”, uploaded by findaclip", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab6dJYDgj48", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ab6dJYDgj48/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ab6dJYDgj48", "uploaded_at": "2013-07-04T21:38:09+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "smash-martians", "title": "Martians (\"For Mash Get Smash\")", "brand": "Cadbury's Smash", "brand_slug": "cadbury", "year": 1974, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Giggling robot Martians collapse in laughter at humans who peel, boil and smash potatoes, making instant mash look like the future." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The metallic Martian family becomes a set of beloved puppets that draw fan mail and fix the brand in memory." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign", "agency": "Boase Massimi Pollitt, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "John Webster" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Chris Wilkins" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Bob Brooks" } ], "tagline": "For mash get Smash.", "why_studied": "A family of giggling robot Martians watch Earth people peel potatoes, boil them \"for twenty of their minutes\" and \"smash them all to bits\" — and collapse into metallic laughter at the primitive species. John Webster's 1974 creation for instant mash broke the cardinal rule of food advertising (never mock your consumer), made the convenience product feel like the future rather than a compromise, and took Smash to market leadership. Fan mail poured in for the puppets; three now sit in the National Science and Media Museum. It was named TV advert of the century by Campaign magazine in 1999 and ranked second in the Channel 4/Sunday Times poll of the 100 greatest TV ads — a double crown no other British ad holds.", "watch": [ { "label": "BBC News report on the 'ad of the century' award, with campaign details", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/572903.stm", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Campaign Hall of Fame (overall winner: Cadbury's Smash Martians, BMP, 1974, with credits)", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-hall-fame-part-2-2/36084" }, { "title": "Martian ad a Smash hit (Campaign's ad of the century, 1999)", "publisher": "BBC News", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/572903.stm" }, { "title": "The 100 Greatest TV Ads — full results (No. 2)", "publisher": "Channel 4 (archived)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100403035953/www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/G/greatest/tv_ads/results.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/3qs24dM2oiA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Martians (\"For Mash Get Smash\") (Cadbury's Smash, 1974)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Cadbury’s Smash Martians 1970, UK”, uploaded by Old TV adverts", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qs24dM2oiA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/3qs24dM2oiA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "3qs24dM2oiA", "uploaded_at": "2020-06-30T07:57:40+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "miller-lite-tastes-great-less-filling", "title": "Tastes Great, Less Filling", "brand": "Miller Lite", "year": 1974, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Retired athletes and gruff celebrities stage mock arguments over whether the beer tastes great or is less filling, hammering both benefits." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Masculine sports stars and tough-guy celebrities lend the light beer credibility with exactly the drinkers who might have mocked a diet product." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign", "agency": "McCann Erickson", "credits": [], "tagline": "Tastes great! Less filling!", "why_studied": "The campaign that created the light-beer category. Low-calorie beer in 1974 carried a fatal image problem — diet products were for dieters, not beer drinkers — so McCann staged mock arguments between retired athletes and gruff celebrities over which of the beer's two virtues mattered more: \"Tastes great!\" \"Less filling!\" The argument structure did double duty, hammering both benefits while making the product the subject of barroom debate among exactly the men who might have mocked it. Ad Age ranked it the No. 8 campaign of the 20th century. It is studied as a masterclass in de-positioning a category stigma through humor and masculine casting — the strategic groundwork without which no 'light' product in any category launches the way it now does.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 8: Miller Lite, \"Tastes great, less filling,\" McCann Erickson, 1974)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century (gallery of the Ad Age ranking)", "publisher": "CNBC", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/d2HiIdObYTo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Tastes Great, Less Filling (Miller Lite, 1974)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Tastes Great. Less Filling.\" John Madden's 1st Miller Lite Ad”, uploaded by Wandering Eye Marketing", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2HiIdObYTo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "d2HiIdObYTo", "uploaded_at": "2023-03-07T20:10:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "noxzema-cream-your-face", "title": "Let Noxzema Cream Your Face", "brand": "Noxzema", "year": 1973, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Jets quarterback Joe Namath fronts the shaving cream, lending a famous athlete's celebrity and grin to the product." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The promise of getting 'creamed' reads as both locker-room banter and something racier, and that knowing wink is the whole strategy." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A strutting jingle sings the slogan so the suggestive phrase sticks and gets repeated the next morning." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "William Esty Company", "credits": [ { "role": "Talent", "name": "Joe Namath" }, { "role": "Talent", "name": "Farrah Fawcett" } ], "tagline": "Let Noxzema cream your face.", "why_studied": "Joe Namath, the Jets quarterback and Super Bowl III MVP, grins into the camera: \"I'm so excited. I'm gonna get creamed.\" Farrah Fawcett, three years before Charlie's Angels made her famous, lathers his face while a strutting jingle urges, \"Let Noxzema cream your face.\" The line reads as locker-room talk about being flattened by tacklers and as something considerably racier, and that wink is the entire strategy. First aired during the 1973 Super Bowl, the spot is studied as an early blueprint for the Super Bowl ad as a conversation piece: a famous athlete, sex appeal and a phrase built to be repeated the next morning. Smithsonian magazine credits it with establishing the game as an event for advertisers, and Quartz with setting off a wave of celebrity endorsements. It came from the William Esty agency; a 1988 Adweek critique said its suggestive Noxzema shave-cream work, from Gunilla Knutson's \"Take it off\" commercials onward, had captured two decades of mass-market sexual humor.", "watch": [ { "label": "Noxema with Farrah (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM59nSkjEWU", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "What the Earliest Super Bowl Commercials Tell Us About the Super Bowl", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2019)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-earliest-super-bowl-commercials-tell-us-about-super-bowl-180971391/" }, { "title": "How the Super Bowl became an unrivaled US cultural phenomenon", "publisher": "Quartz (2020)", "url": "https://qz.com/1794113/how-the-nfl-super-bowl-became-a-cultural-phenomenon" }, { "title": "A Close Shave", "publisher": "Antique Trader (2026)", "url": "https://www.antiquetrader.com/a-close-shave" }, { "title": "Sign of the Times: Noxzema Puts Man and Wife Into Lather (Adweek Critique, March 28, 1988; clipping in the Cover Girl Make-Up Advertising collection)", "publisher": "Adweek via Smithsonian NMAH Archives Center (1988)", "url": "https://amhistory.si.edu/media/NMAH-AC0374-B01F03.pdf" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "participaction-60-year-old-swede", "title": "The 60-Year-Old Swede", "brand": "ParticipACTION", "year": 1973, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Pitting the average 30-year-old Canadian against the average 60-year-old Swede turns national fitness into an unflattering head-to-head with another country." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "The provocative claim embarrasses a nation so effectively that it sparks a debate in Parliament after only six airings." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "15-second television public service announcement", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "President, ParticipACTION", "name": "Keith McKerracher" } ], "tagline": "Let's get Canada moving again.", "why_studied": "Two men jog side by side at the same easy pace while a narrator explains that they are evenly matched, because the average 30-year-old Canadian is in about the same shape as the average 60-year-old Swede. The spot came from ParticipACTION, a new national fitness body run by the marketing consultant Keith McKerracher, who fused two unrelated ideas from a book by the exercise scientist Roy Shephard, one showing that an active 60-year-old could be as fit as a sedentary 30-year-old and one ranking Sweden far above Canada. It aired only six times, during Canadian Football League games in 1973, yet the national embarrassment it caused sparked a debate in Parliament and the comparison was repeated in the media for years. It is studied as a lesson in how one provocative, quotable comparison can set a national agenda on almost no budget. ParticipACTION became one of the world's longest-running physical-activity campaigns; by 1978, 79% of Canadians knew its name.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"The 60-year old Swede\" (1973) on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMD35tUh-Ek", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "ParticipACTION Archives Project: The Early Years (University of Saskatchewan, archived)", "url": "https://wayback.archive-it.org/14753/20201022162400/http://digital.scaa.sk.ca/gallery/participaction/english/motivate/theearlyyears.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "No Country Mouse: Thirty Years of Effective Marketing and Health Communications", "publisher": "Canadian Journal of Public Health (2004)", "url": "https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03403997" }, { "title": "The Early Years: TV, Radio and Print Media", "publisher": "ParticipACTION Archives Project, University of Saskatchewan (archived)", "url": "https://wayback.archive-it.org/14753/20201022162400/http://digital.scaa.sk.ca/gallery/participaction/english/motivate/theearlyyears.html" }, { "title": "Oh, the Humanities!: The cure for Canadian disunity -- ParticipACTION", "publisher": "National Post (2012)", "url": "https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/oh-the-humanities-the-cure-for-canadian-disunity-participaction" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PMD35tUh-Ek/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The 60-Year-Old Swede (ParticipACTION, 1973)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “ParticipACTION - The 60-year old Swede (1973)”, uploaded by RetroWinnipeg", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMD35tUh-Ek" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "PMD35tUh-Ek", "uploaded_at": "2007-02-06T06:00:09+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "hovis-boy-on-the-bike", "title": "The Bike Ride (\"Boy on the Bike\")", "known_as": "Boy on the Bike", "brand": "Hovis", "year": 1973, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A baker's boy pushing his bike up a cobbled hill, then freewheeling home to brass-band music, sells bread through warm, manufactured nostalgia." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Heritage is the whole argument, with the past implying the bread is as good for you today as it always was." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial", "agency": "Collett Dickenson Pearce, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Ridley Scott" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Carl Barlow" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Dvořák's New World Symphony, arranged for brass" } ], "tagline": "As good for you today as it's always been.", "why_studied": "Forty-seven seconds of manufactured nostalgia so potent it rewired Britain's memory. A baker's boy pushes his delivery bike up a cobbled hill, then freewheels home to a brass-band Dvořák — a scene everyone remembers as the industrial North, though Ridley Scott shot it on Gold Hill in Dorset with a West Country voiceover. First aired in October 1973, it has repeatedly been voted Britain's favourite or most iconic ad, and the BFI restored it frame-by-frame for its anniversary re-broadcast. It is studied for the mechanics of nostalgia as brand equity — heritage as the entire argument — and as early evidence of Scott's cinematic eye: the warmth, light and music carry a claim (\"as good for you today as it's always been\") that is never argued, only felt.", "watch": [ { "label": "BFI Replay: the restored original film", "url": "https://replay.bfi.org.uk/video/b993f873-b7c2-5191-a0f1-6918500ad209", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Hovis: Boy on the Bike (BFI restoration and history)", "publisher": "BFI Replay", "url": "https://replay.bfi.org.uk/video/b993f873-b7c2-5191-a0f1-6918500ad209" }, { "title": "Hovis brings its iconic 'The Bike Ride' ad back to TV (CDP; Ashington Colliery Band)", "publisher": "Marketing Week", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/hovis-bike-ride-advert/" }, { "title": "Hovis 'boy on the bike' returns to Dorset hill after 50 years", "publisher": "BBC News (2023)", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-67284727" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/-KoLwAdkcdk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Bike Ride (\"Boy on the Bike\") (Hovis, 1973)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Hovis - Boy On The Bike (Ridley Scott) 1973 restored”, uploaded by Adthology", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KoLwAdkcdk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/-KoLwAdkcdk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "-KoLwAdkcdk", "uploaded_at": "2022-05-19T14:00:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "life-cereal-mikey", "title": "Three Brothers (\"Mikey Likes It\")", "known_as": "Mikey Likes It", "brand": "Life Cereal (Quaker Oats)", "year": 1972, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Two boys too wary to try a healthy cereal test it on their little brother who hates everything, and his surprising approval is the payoff." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Three real brothers in a slice-of-life scene let a sibling's verdict, not an adult claim, vouch for the cereal." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "John, Mike and Tommy Gilchrist" } ], "tagline": "He likes it! Hey Mikey!", "why_studied": "Two boys refuse to try a cereal that's \"supposed to be good for you,\" so they push it on their little brother Mikey, \"who hates everything\" — and he eats it. \"He likes it! Hey Mikey!\" Cast with three real brothers and first aired in 1972, the spot ran until the mid-1980s, one of the longest continuous runs in television advertising history, and entered the TV Commercial Hall of Fame. It is studied for how a single slice-of-life insight — kids trust a sibling's verdict over any adult claim — can carry a brand for a generation, and for the strange afterlife of advertising fame: \"Mikey likes it\" became a universal phrase, and Mikey himself the subject of a national urban legend.", "watch": [ { "label": "Forbes retrospective on the making of the spot", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/04/09/mad-men-money-and-mikey-how-a-tv-commercial-icon-was-born-part-1/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Mad Men, Money and Mikey: How a TV Commercial Icon Was Born", "publisher": "Forbes (2012)", "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/04/09/mad-men-money-and-mikey-how-a-tv-commercial-icon-was-born-part-1/" }, { "title": "'Mikey Likes It': The Origins of Life Cereal's Most Famous Slogan (DDB; ran 1972–1986)", "publisher": "Mental Floss", "url": "https://www.mentalfloss.com/food/mikey-likes-it-phrase-origins" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zYXvuqPjvcI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Three Brothers (\"Mikey Likes It\") (Life Cereal (Quaker Oats), 1972)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1972 Life Cereal TV Commercial Featuring Mikey”, uploaded by The Dot Eaters", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYXvuqPjvcI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zYXvuqPjvcI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "zYXvuqPjvcI", "uploaded_at": "2025-11-26T18:10:13+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-hilltop", "title": "Hilltop (\"I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke\")", "known_as": "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 1971, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "The song is the commercial, a jingle about buying the world a Coke that radio listeners request and that goes on to become a pop hit." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Young people from around the world gather on a hillside holding bottles, attaching a feeling of unity and harmony to the drink." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "McCann Erickson", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Director / Lyrics", "name": "Bill Backer" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Billy Davis, Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Harvey Gabor" } ], "tagline": "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.", "why_studied": "The template for the brand anthem: no product demo, no claims — just a song, a hillside outside Rome, and young people from around the world holding bottles. Creative director Bill Backer wrote the line \"I'd like to buy the world a Coke\" on a napkin after a fog-grounded flight left furious strangers sharing Cokes in a Shannon airport café; the resulting jingle became the commercial, and the commercial became a pop song twice over (\"I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing\"). Released in July 1971 against the backdrop of the Vietnam era, it drew more than 100,000 letters to Coca-Cola, with radio stations fielding requests to play an advertisement. It is studied as the purest case of a brand selling a feeling — unity — and attaching the product to it with a single possessive line. Its $250,000 budget made it the most expensive commercial produced to that point.", "watch": [ { "label": "Restored spot on Coca-Cola's CokeConversations YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2msbfN81Gm0", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Creating \"I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke\"", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/creating-id-like-to-buy-the-world-a-coke" }, { "title": "The Origins of the Iconic Hilltop Commercial", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/id-like-to-buy-the-world-a-coke" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2msbfN81Gm0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hilltop (\"I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke\") (Coca-Cola, 1971)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke Commercial - 1971”, uploaded by CokeConversations", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2msbfN81Gm0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "2msbfN81Gm0", "uploaded_at": "2009-08-27T18:00:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "loreal-because-im-worth-it", "title": "Because I'm Worth It", "brand": "L'Oréal (Preference)", "year": 1971, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Reframes the purchase as an act of self-respect, appealing to a woman's pride in herself rather than to male approval." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A woman speaks for herself about her own choice, replacing the familiar male voiceover in which a husband praises his wife's hair." }, { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Turns the higher price into a virtue, since she pays more precisely because she is worth it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign and slogan", "agency": "McCann Erickson, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Ilon Specht" } ], "tagline": "Because I'm worth it.", "why_studied": "Four words, written in fury, that changed who beauty advertising talks to. In 1971, 23-year-old McCann copywriter Ilon Specht — the only woman in the room as her colleagues drafted another ad in which a man praised his wife's hair — rejected the male voiceover entirely and wrote a woman speaking for herself: she pays more for Preference \"because I'm worth it.\" At a time when women's product ads were pitched to male approval, the line reframed a purchase as self-respect. It became L'Oréal's corporate signature, translated into 40 languages and still running after five decades. It is studied as a hinge point in advertising's treatment of women: the moment the beauty category's default voice changed from his to hers.", "watch": [ { "label": "L'Oréal's official history of the tagline", "url": "https://www.loreal.com/en/videos/brands/manifesto-loreal-paris", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Because You're Worth It (official history: Ilon Specht, 1971, 40 languages)", "publisher": "L'Oréal (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.loreal.com/en/videos/brands/manifesto-loreal-paris" }, { "title": "Ilon Specht, 81, a copywriter who told women they were 'worth it' (obituary)", "publisher": "Jewish Telegraphic Agency (2024)", "url": "https://www.jta.org/2024/05/08/obituaries/jewish-life-stories-a-voice-for-women-in-an-age-of-mad-men-and-a-legend-in-the-world-of-crossword-puzzles/" }, { "title": "50 Years of Celebrating Women's Worth", "publisher": "L'Oréal Paris press release (2021)", "url": "https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/50-years-of-celebrating-women-s-worth-873123604.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6_GvlikmZzc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Because I'm Worth It (L'Oréal (Preference), 1971)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “L'Oreal 'Because You're Worth It' - 1973”, uploaded by L'Oreal Because You're Worth It (Meredith Baxter) - 1973", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_GvlikmZzc" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "6_GvlikmZzc", "uploaded_at": "2014-04-24T17:41:12+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mcdonalds-you-deserve-a-break-today", "title": "You Deserve a Break Today", "brand": "McDonald's", "brand_slug": "mcdonalds", "year": 1971, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A melody telling families they deserve a break and urging them to get away becomes one of America's most recognised pieces of commercial music." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Sells a burger stop as a small act of self-kindness for overworked families, offering the feeling of deserving rather than the food." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television campaign and jingle", "agency": "Needham, Harper & Steers", "credits": [], "tagline": "You deserve a break today — so get up and get away, to McDonald's.", "why_studied": "The jingle that turned fast food into permission. Launched in 1971, \"You deserve a break today\" reframed a hamburger stop not as convenience or value but as a small act of self-kindness for an overworked family — an emotional benefit no competitor was claiming. The melody became one of the most recognized pieces of commercial music in America and the platform carried McDonald's through its explosive national growth. Ad Age ranked it the No. 5 campaign of the 20th century, and its core move — selling the feeling of deserving rather than the food itself — remains the template for nearly every comfort-category brand since.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 5: McDonald's, \"You deserve a break today,\" Needham, Harper & Steers, 1971)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century (gallery of the Ad Age ranking)", "publisher": "CNBC", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0fp3co77MQw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from You Deserve a Break Today (McDonald's, 1971)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “70's Ads: McDonald's You Deserve A Break Today 1971”, uploaded by PhakeNam", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fp3co77MQw" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "0fp3co77MQw", "uploaded_at": "2015-08-09T14:56:19+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kab-crying-indian", "title": "The Crying Indian (\"People Start Pollution. People Can Stop It.\")", "brand": "Keep America Beautiful / Ad Council", "year": 1971, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A single tear on the face of a man paddling through industrial waste compresses guilt and sorrow into one wordless close-up." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Ties the message to an anti-litter cause, telling viewers that because people start pollution, people can stop it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public service announcement", "agency": "Marsteller Advertising", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Iron Eyes Cody" } ], "tagline": "People start pollution. People can stop it.", "why_studied": "One of the most effective — and most re-examined — PSAs ever aired. Debuting on Earth Day 1971, it showed a buckskin-clad figure canoeing through industrial waste; a bag of litter lands at his feet, and a single tear falls. The campaign ran until 1983, won two Clios, made Ad Age's top 100 campaigns of the century, and was credited with helping cut litter dramatically in hundreds of communities. It is studied today on two levels: as craft (the single-tear close-up remains a masterclass in wordless emotional compression) and as a cautionary text — the 'Indian' was Italian-American actor Iron Eyes Cody, the imagery stereotyped Native people, and critics note the campaign shifted pollution's blame from industry to individuals. In 2023 Keep America Beautiful formally retired the ad, transferring it to the National Congress of American Indians, which called it \"inappropriate then and now.\" Few ads teach more about both the power and the responsibility of persuasion.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign history at the ANA Educational Foundation", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/social-responsibility/ad-council-campaigns-made-difference/pollution-prevention/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pollution Prevention: Keep America Beautiful — Iron Eyes Cody (campaign history and results)", "publisher": "ANA Educational Foundation", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/social-responsibility/ad-council-campaigns-made-difference/pollution-prevention/" }, { "title": "After the 'Crying Indian,' Keep America Beautiful Starts a New Campaign (Marsteller; ran until 1983)", "publisher": "The New York Times (2013)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/business/media/decades-after-a-memorable-campaign-keep-america-beautiful-returns.html" }, { "title": "National Congress of American Indians Acquires Rights, Retires \"Crying Indian\"", "publisher": "NCAI (2023)", "url": "https://archive.ncai.org/news/articles/2023/02/23/national-congress-of-american-indians-acquires-rights-retires-crying-indian" }, { "title": "Rights to famed PSA of a crying Native American now held by an Indigenous group", "publisher": "NPR (2023)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2023/02/26/1159590343/crying-indian-ad-rights-national-congress-of-american-indians" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/uTFapfvmmmA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Crying Indian (\"People Start Pollution. People Can Stop It.\") (Keep America Beautiful / Ad Council, 1971)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1971 Advertising Council PSA - Keep America Beautiful - Crying Indian”, uploaded by Classic PSAs", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTFapfvmmmA" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "uTFapfvmmmA", "uploaded_at": "2022-03-21T13:29:50+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-funeral", "title": "Funeral", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 1969, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A dead man settles scores from beyond the grave, leaving his spendthrift wife and sons almost nothing, which makes thrift funny." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A funeral procession and a spoken will build to the reveal of a nephew in a Beetle, the sensible one who inherits the lot." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach (New York)", "credits": [ { "role": "Art director", "name": "Roy Grace" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "John Noble" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Howard Zieff" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Zieff Films, New York" } ], "tagline": "Gee, Uncle Max, it sure pays to own a Volkswagen.", "why_studied": "A procession of limousines heads to a funeral while the dead man, Maxwell E. Snavely, reads his own will in voice-over and settles scores. His wife, who spent money like there was no tomorrow, gets $100 and a calendar; his sons, who blew every dime on fancy cars and fast women, get $50 in dimes. Bringing up the rear in a Beetle is nephew Harold, who always said it pays to own a Volkswagen, and who inherits the whole $100 billion. Art-directed by Roy Grace, written by John Noble and directed by Howard Zieff, the DDB spot is studied for making thrift funny and for holding the product back until the final reveal. Ad Age named \"Funeral\" with \"Lemon\" and \"Think Small\" as the loudest salvos of advertising's creative revolution. David Ogilvy called it the funniest commercial he had seen, Entertainment Weekly listed it among TV's 100 greatest moments, and New York magazine's 2008 poll of creative directors ranked it fourth.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (nishiot DDB archive upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLNhqca0Qc", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Restored version on the Roy Grace retrospective site", "url": "https://www.roygraceadman.com/home/volkswagen-2", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Most Memorable Advertisements Madison Avenue Ever Sold", "publisher": "New York magazine (2008)", "url": "https://nymag.com/anniversary/40th/50671/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns (archived)", "publisher": "Advertising Age (1999), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" }, { "title": "Roy Grace (obituary)", "publisher": "Variety (2003)", "url": "https://variety.com/2003/scene/people-news/roy-grace-1117885448/" }, { "title": "VW Volkswagen 'Funeral' - DDB New York", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/vw-volkswagen-104/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/LPLNhqca0Qc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Funeral (Volkswagen, 1969)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “TV commercial film for Volkswagen Beetle \"Funeral\" 1969”, uploaded by nishiot", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLNhqca0Qc" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "LPLNhqca0Qc", "uploaded_at": "2008-02-22T16:23:46+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "alka-seltzer-spicy-meatball", "title": "Spicy Meatball", "brand": "Alka-Seltzer", "year": 1969, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Parodies advertising itself, as an actor shooting a meatball commercial fluffs his line take after take while eating ever more meatballs." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "The botched shoot escalates until only the antacid can save the fifty-ninth take." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Jack Somack" } ], "tagline": "Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball!", "why_studied": "A commercial inside a commercial: an actor shooting a spot for fictional \"Magadini's\" meatballs blows take after take — \"Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball!\" — eating so many meatballs that only Alka-Seltzer can save take fifty-nine. Debuting in 1969 at the height of DDB's creative revolution, it is studied as advertising's first great act of self-parody: it acknowledged that viewers knew ads were artifice, and made that knowledge the joke. It is also a canonical cautionary tale — the catchphrase became immortal while sales initially dipped, because audiences remembered the fake meatball brand as readily as the antacid. Craft and commerce, the case reminds every strategy class, are not the same thing.", "watch": [ { "label": "Retrospective with the spot (Ace Metrix)", "url": "https://www.acemetrix.com/insights/blog/alka-seltzer-tbt/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Alka-Seltzer's \"Spicy Meatball\" Grows Better With Age (1969 debut; initial sales dip)", "publisher": "Ace Metrix", "url": "https://www.acemetrix.com/insights/blog/alka-seltzer-tbt/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (Alka-Seltzer campaigns, incl. DDB, ranked No. 13)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ErgdUhZteqw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Spicy Meatball (Alka-Seltzer, 1969)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Alka Seltzer Commercial - Spicy Meatball (1969)”, uploaded by Retroist Commercials", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErgdUhZteqw" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ErgdUhZteqw", "uploaded_at": "2008-08-18T12:10:34+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "benson-and-hedges-disadvantages", "title": "The Disadvantages", "brand": "Benson & Hedges 100's", "year": 1966, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Cheerfully lists the awkward disadvantages of an extra-long cigarette, so each supposed flaw quietly advertises the extra length and extra puffs." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Rapid two-second vignettes of smokers caught out by the cigarette's length make the selling fast, visual and self-mocking." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercials (campaign)", "agency": "Wells Rich Greene, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Dick Rich" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Stewart Greene" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Howard Zieff" } ], "tagline": "Oh, the disadvantages of Benson & Hedges 100's.", "why_studied": "A rapid sequence of two-second black-and-white vignettes in which smokers discover all the awkward ways an extra-long cigarette gets in the way of ordinary life. Written by Dick Rich and art-directed by Stewart Greene in the first months of Wells Rich Greene, and directed by Howard Zieff, the films launched a new 100mm cigarette by cheerfully listing its “disadvantages”, so that every gag doubled as proof of the extra length and the extra puffs that came with it. It is studied as a signature piece of the 1960s creative revolution on television: fast, visual, self-mocking selling that treated the viewer as someone who enjoys being let in on the joke, and a lesson in how admitting a flaw can make a claim memorable. Ad Age ranked it No. 32 among the 100 best campaigns of the 20th century, and when Rich died in 2014 The New York Times cited it among the spots with which he helped redefine television advertising.", "watch": [ { "label": "Benson & Hedges TV ads, including “Oh, the Disadvantages” (Internet Archive)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/tobacco_bpv08h00", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (STEFAZON500)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEUHV20kH9g", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dick Rich, Who Helped Redefine TV Advertising, Dies at 84", "publisher": "The New York Times (2014)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/business/media/dick-rich-is-dead-at-84-put-whimsy-into-tv-spots.html" }, { "title": "View: Benson & Hedges Ad | By Wells Rich Greene New York", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/benson-hedges-9/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UEUHV20kH9g/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Disadvantages (Benson & Hedges 100's, 1966)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Disadvantages with the Benson&Hedges 100's”, uploaded by STEFAZON500", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEUHV20kH9g" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "UEUHV20kH9g", "uploaded_at": "2008-11-07T18:25:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-snow-plow", "title": "Snow Plow", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 1964, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A Beetle ploughs through thigh-deep drifts on screen, proving winter traction without the narrator ever claiming it." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Poses a question nobody had asked, how the snowplough driver reaches his snowplough, and lets viewers draw the logical conclusion themselves." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second black-and-white television commercial", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach (New York)", "credits": [ { "role": "Art director", "name": "Len Sirowitz" } ], "tagline": "Have you ever wondered how the man who drives the snowplow drives to the snowplow?", "why_studied": "A Beetle ploughs through thigh-deep drifts while an unhurried narrator asks a question nobody had thought to ask: \"Have you ever wondered how the man who drives the snowplow drives to the snowplow?\" The answer takes one more line: this one drives a Volkswagen, so you can stop wondering. Made by Doyle Dane Bernbach, with Len Sirowitz as art director, the 1964 spot is studied as a masterclass in demonstration by implication. It never claims winter traction; it simply hands the proof to the one witness whose job depends on getting through, and trusts the viewer to finish the argument. It carried DDB's dry, self-assured print voice into television with nothing added. Ad Age ranked DDB's Volkswagen work the No. 1 campaign of the 20th century, and when \"Snow Plow\" entered the Clio Hall of Fame in 2013, speakers at the ceremony noted that it could still run today if a modern car were swapped in.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (nishiot DDB archive upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcckOTVqao", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Lürzer's Archive entry", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/vw-volkswagen-304/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Volkswagen: Snow Plow (Clio Awards 2013, Hall of Fame - Film)", "publisher": "The Clios (2013)", "url": "https://clios.com/winners-gallery/details/45446" }, { "title": "Clio Awards 2013: Will Ferrell frenching a woman on a bus, and the other best ads of the year", "publisher": "Slate (2013)", "url": "https://slate.com/business/2013/05/clio-awards-2013-will-ferrell-frenching-a-woman-on-a-bus-and-the-other-best-ads-of-the-year.html" }, { "title": "VW Volkswagen 'Snow Plow' - DDB New York", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/vw-volkswagen-304/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns (archived)", "publisher": "Advertising Age (1999), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ABcckOTVqao/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Snow Plow (Volkswagen, 1964)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “TV commercial film for Volkswagen \"Snow Plow\" 1964”, uploaded by nishiot", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABcckOTVqao" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ABcckOTVqao", "uploaded_at": "2009-04-01T09:23:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lbj-daisy", "title": "Daisy (\"Peace, Little Girl\")", "brand": "Lyndon B. Johnson presidential campaign", "year": 1964, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "A little girl's petal count dissolves into a missile countdown and nuclear blast, presenting nuclear war as the stake of the vote." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "The jarring cut from childhood innocence to annihilation provokes such controversy that news broadcasts replay it, multiplying a single paid airing." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Never names the opponent, leaving viewers to supply the rival themselves, so the attack happens entirely in their heads." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "60-second television commercial", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Sound / Concept", "name": "Tony Schwartz" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Doyle Dane Bernbach" } ], "tagline": "These are the stakes.", "why_studied": "The most famous political ad ever made aired exactly once. A little girl counts daisy petals; her count dissolves into a missile countdown, her eye into a nuclear blast, and Johnson's voice intones \"These are the stakes.\" Barry Goldwater is never named — sound designer Tony Schwartz called it \"the first Rorschach test on the American public,\" because the attack happens in the viewer's head. Broadcast on September 7, 1964 during NBC's Monday Night at the Movies, it provoked such controversy that the networks replayed it in full on the news, multiplying its single paid airing into saturation coverage. It is studied as the foundation of modern political advertising: emotion over argument, implication over accusation, and earned amplification of a paid spot. It is preserved by the Library of Congress and documented by the Museum of the Moving Image.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad at the Museum of the Moving Image's Living Room Candidate archive", "url": "https://livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Peace Little Girl (Daisy), 1964", "publisher": "Museum of the Moving Image, The Living Room Candidate", "url": "https://livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/peace-little-girl-daisy" }, { "title": "[Peace, little girl — political spot] (catalog record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2024601043/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/riDypP1KfOU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Daisy (\"Peace, Little Girl\") (Lyndon B. Johnson presidential campaign, 1964)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Daisy\" Ad (1964): Preserved from 35mm in the Tony Schwartz Collection”, uploaded by Library of Congress", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riDypP1KfOU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/riDypP1KfOU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "riDypP1KfOU", "uploaded_at": "2016-09-07T16:13:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "strand-never-alone", "title": "You're Never Alone with a Strand (The Lonely Man)", "brand": "Strand (W.D. & H.O. Wills)", "year": 1959, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Offers the cigarette as companionship for a lone man on a rain-soaked night street, though the mood risks making him look merely lonely." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A mournful theme carries the line and becomes the first jingle to chart as a pop record." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Black-and-white television commercial", "agency": "S.H. Benson", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "John May" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Terence Brook" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Cliff Adams ('The Lonely Man Theme')" } ], "tagline": "You're never alone with a Strand.", "why_studied": "A lone man in a trench coat, hat pushed back Sinatra-style, lights a cigarette on a rain-soaked London street at night while a mournful theme plays: \"You're never alone with a Strand.\" S.H. Benson copywriter John May reportedly wrote it within 24 hours after W.D. & H.O. Wills rejected earlier work, and the 1959 launch was a sensation. Awareness of the brand and its advertising passed 90 per cent within weeks, actor Terence Brook received marriage proposals, and Cliff Adams' theme became the first jingle to chart as a pop record, reaching No. 39. Almost nobody bought the cigarettes: only 0.3 per cent of male smokers ever did, and the brand vanished. It endures as advertising's great cautionary tale, proof that a famous, loved ad and an effective one are different things, and the argument over why it failed still runs: a hero who looked lonely, a cigarette that smoked too hot, or simply a poor product. The line survived as an ironic catchphrase.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (uploaded by ad historian Andrew Cracknell)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBHUQEiTPw", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The history of advertising 18: Strand cigarettes", "publisher": "Campaign (2011), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20231211165605/https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-18-strand-cigarettes/1074298" }, { "title": "John May (obituary)", "publisher": "The Daily Telegraph (2002)", "url": "https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1388331/John-May.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WjBHUQEiTPw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from You're Never Alone with a Strand (The Lonely Man) (Strand (W.D. & H.O. Wills), 1959)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1959 Strand cigarettes - Lonely Man”, uploaded by Andrew Cracknell", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjBHUQEiTPw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WjBHUQEiTPw/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WjBHUQEiTPw", "uploaded_at": "2013-01-07T11:45:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mortein-louie-the-fly", "title": "Louie the Fly", "brand": "Mortein", "year": 1957, "category": "commercials", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Personifies the pest as a boastful cartoon gangster fly who fears only the can, so every appearance ends with the product winning." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A long-running jingle and the same gravel voice for decades make the villain instantly recognisable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Animated television commercials (campaign)", "agency": "McCann Erickson (Australia)", "credits": [ { "role": "Creator", "name": "Bryce Courtenay" }, { "role": "Animator", "name": "Geoff Pike" }, { "role": "Jingle", "name": "Jimmy White" }, { "role": "Voice", "name": "Ross Higgins" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A gravel-voiced cartoon gangster fly boasts about spreading disease and fears no one except the man with the can of Mortein. Bryce Courtenay, then a copywriter at McCann Erickson and later a best-selling novelist, devised Louie for the insecticide in 1957, a year after Australian television began, with animation by Geoff Pike; the jingle by Jimmy White arrived in 1962, and actor Ross Higgins voiced the character for more than five decades. It is studied as a masterclass in the villain mascot: instead of a hero, the brand personified the pest it kills, so every ad carried its own punchline and every outing ended with the product winning. The Sydney Morning Herald called it Australia's longest-running campaign, the Advertising Federation of Australia ranked it fifth among the country's 50 best ads in 2006, and the National Film and Sound Archive added the jingle to its Sounds of Australia registry.", "watch": [ { "label": "NFSA: Louie the Fly, the making of an iconic jingle", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/stories/articles/louie-fly", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Go Ba)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcO2UlIMkpo", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Louie the Fly", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (2018)", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/stories/articles/louie-fly" }, { "title": "'Louie the Fly' Mortein Jingle (1962)", "publisher": "National Film and Sound Archive of Australia", "url": "https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/item/louie-fly-mortein-jingle-1962" }, { "title": "Louie finally told to buzz off after 50 years", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2011)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/louie-finally-told-to-buzz-off-after-50-years-20110910-1k39d.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QcO2UlIMkpo/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Louie the Fly (Mortein, 1957)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Classic Louie the Fly commercial”, uploaded by Go Ba", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcO2UlIMkpo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "QcO2UlIMkpo", "uploaded_at": "2008-09-01T20:35:40+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "timex-takes-a-licking", "title": "Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking (torture tests)", "brand": "Timex", "year": 1956, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Puts watches through cliff dives, jackhammers and seaplane landings, then shows each still running, with some tests broadcast live so failure is possible." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "A former network news anchor presents each ordeal and delivers the verdict, lending a cheap watch a newsman's trustworthiness." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial campaign (1956–1977), many spots broadcast live", "agency": "W.B. Doner & Co. and predecessor agencies", "credits": [ { "role": "Presenter", "name": "John Cameron Swayze" } ], "tagline": "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.", "why_studied": "For two decades from 1956, former NBC anchorman John Cameron Swayze put Timex watches through televised ordeals: strapped to a cliff diver, attacked with a jackhammer, tossed in a dishwasher, fixed to the pontoon of a landing seaplane, stomped by elephants. Then he held each one to the camera, still running, and delivered the verdict: \"Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.\" Some tests went out live, and the risk was the point. On The Steve Allen Show one watch vanished from an outboard-motor propeller in a water tank, and Swayze calmly promised viewers they would see it next time. The campaign is studied as the archetype of the torture-test demonstration, and of lending a newsman's credibility to a cheap, durable product. Timex sales passed five million by 1958, and by the end of the decade one in three watches sold in the United States was a Timex. Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 40 of the 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "'Still Ticking' (1962), Brooklyn College TV & Radio dept. upload", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSv6Z5BA6e8", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "1958 live torture test from the Timex All Star Jazz Show", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NevOXyKvSBQ", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Campaigns (archived)", "publisher": "Advertising Age (1999), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" }, { "title": "John Cameron Swayze, 89; TV Newscaster", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1995)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-17-mn-36068-story.html" }, { "title": "Timex Watches (Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell-Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th-Century America)", "publisher": "Gale/UXL via Encyclopedia.com", "url": "https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/culture-magazines/timex-watches" }, { "title": "Swayze, John Cameron (The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives)", "publisher": "Scribner via Encyclopedia.com", "url": "https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/swayze-john-cameron" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hSv6Z5BA6e8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking (torture tests) (Timex, 1956)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Timex Commercial \"Still Ticking\"”, uploaded by Dept. of Television Radio & Emerging Media", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSv6Z5BA6e8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hSv6Z5BA6e8/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "hSv6Z5BA6e8", "uploaded_at": "2014-03-21T20:53:34+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pg-tips-chimps", "title": "The PG Tips Chimps", "brand": "PG Tips (Brooke Bond)", "year": 1956, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Dressed-up chimpanzees become the brand's recurring cast for decades, building affection for tea through a spectacle only television could deliver." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Lip-synced to stars' voices and cast in sitcom roles such as a piano-shifting removal man, the chimps deliver gentle, parochial British comedy." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Television commercial campaign (1956–2002)", "agency": "Davidson Pearce Berry & Spottiswoode", "credits": [ { "role": "Voices (over the campaign's run)", "name": "Peter Sellers, Kenneth Williams" }, { "role": "Art director (\"Mr Shifter\", 1970)", "name": "David English" }, { "role": "Writer (\"Mr Shifter\", 1970)", "name": "Tony Toller" }, { "role": "Director (\"Mr Shifter\", 1970)", "name": "Berny Stringle" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In 1956 Brooke Bond began dressing chimpanzees in human clothes for its PG Tips commercials, borrowing the idea from the chimps' tea parties at London Zoo. It became one of the longest-running campaigns in British television, ending only in 2002. The chimps, trained at Twycross Zoo, were lip-synced to the voices of stars including Peter Sellers, and graduated to sitcom roles such as the piano-shifting Mr Shifter (\"You hum it, son, I'll play it\"). The campaign is studied as a textbook of brand-building through affection: a spectacle only television could deliver, wrapped in parochial British humour, with the product mentioned often but never oversold. PG Tips was fourth in its market when the chimps arrived; within two years it had overtaken Typhoo for first place, and by 1977 it held 26 per cent of the British tea market. Today the campaign is also revisited critically, with Twycross Zoo, which supplied the animals, saying their use was wrong.", "watch": [ { "label": "1956 launch spot on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4bYvs5FEZE", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "'Mr Shifter' on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54WMwFB86I", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Campaign Hall of Fame (Part 2 of 2) - No. 11 PG Tips (archived)", "publisher": "Campaign (1999), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20250125175607/https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-hall-fame-part-2-2/36084" }, { "title": "PG Tips: Hairdressers", "publisher": "BFI Replay", "url": "https://replay.bfi.org.uk/video/432/d7b31a1f-f3f7-5e4a-af84-27874ba09056" }, { "title": "PG Tips chimps: The last of the tea-advertising apes", "publisher": "BBC News (2014)", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23508215" }, { "title": "Aliens, chimps and a pregnant man: iconic British adverts - in pictures", "publisher": "The Guardian (2026)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/jul/08/aliens-chimps-and-a-pregnant-man-iconic-british-adverts-in-pictures" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/U4bYvs5FEZE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The PG Tips Chimps (PG Tips (Brooke Bond), 1956)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1956 PG Tips Chimps Tea Time Advert”, uploaded by Cereal & Other Ads", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4bYvs5FEZE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/U4bYvs5FEZE/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "U4bYvs5FEZE", "uploaded_at": "2017-11-28T06:08:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hamms-beer-bear", "title": "The Hamm's Bear", "brand": "Hamm's Beer", "year": 1953, "category": "commercials", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A clumsy, good-natured cartoon bear tumbling around the North Woods becomes the brand's lovable face." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A tom-tom beat and chorus singing of sky blue waters sell the purity of the lakes, a sound as recognisable as the bear." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Animated television commercials (campaign)", "agency": "Campbell-Mithun, Minneapolis", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director (credited with first drawing the bear)", "name": "Cleo Hovel" } ], "tagline": "From the land of sky blue waters", "why_studied": "A clumsy, good-natured cartoon bear tumbles off a rolling log, plays hockey, fishes and fumbles his way around the North Woods while a tom-tom beat and chorus sing “From the land of sky blue waters”. Campbell-Mithun brought the bear to television in 1953 for the St. Paul brewer, which had hired the agency to turn a regional beer into a national one by selling the purity of Minnesota's lakes. It is studied as a regional brand's leap onto national television and for how much work the sound did: Ray Mithun reportedly based the drumbeat on Haitian drumming, and it became as recognisable as the bear. The spots were so popular that newspapers printed when they would air, in 1959 a marketing organisation picked a Hamm's spot as one of its top ten advertisements, and Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 75 of the century. The bear's retirement, amid concern about cartoons selling alcohol to children, is part of the lesson.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Throwback)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxBEodMKSDI", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Hamm's Bear", "publisher": "MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society", "url": "https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/thing/hamms-bear" }, { "title": "From the land of sky-blue waters, a history of Hamm’s beer", "publisher": "MinnPost (2019)", "url": "https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2019/11/from-the-land-of-sky-blue-waters-a-history-of-hamms-beer/" }, { "title": "Schmaltz hero: The story of the Hamm's Beer Bear", "publisher": "MinnPost (2012)", "url": "https://www.minnpost.com/max-about-town/2012/01/schmaltz-hero-story-hamms-beer-bear/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qxBEodMKSDI/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Hamm's Bear (Hamm's Beer, 1953)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Hamm's Beer Commercial (1950s)”, uploaded by Throwback", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxBEodMKSDI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qxBEodMKSDI/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "qxBEodMKSDI", "uploaded_at": "2011-04-30T14:19:56+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "vaseline-verified", "title": "Vaseline Verified", "brand": "Vaseline (Unilever)", "year": 2025, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "The brand's own scientists test popular Vaseline hacks in the lab, so a heritage brand reasserts its expertise over how its jelly should be used." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Thousands of users' own posts supply the material, and the findings go back to the creators who posted them, making them co-authors of the brand." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Playful lab-style videos show which hacks actually work, awarding a seal to the proven ones and debunking the rest." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social and creator campaign", "agency": "Ogilvy, Singapore", "credits": [ { "role": "Supporting agencies", "name": "Ogilvy UK, Edelman, Mindshare, VaynerMedia" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Vaseline Verified began with social listening: more than 6,000 organic posts showed people using Vaseline Jelly in unexpected ways, from make-up primer to a buffer against fiery snacks, and some of those uses were unsafe. Instead of issuing warnings, Unilever’s scientists took popular hacks into the lab, awarded a ‘Vaseline Verified’ seal to those that worked, debunked the rest in playful lab-style videos, and shared the findings directly with the creators who had posted them. Developed by Ogilvy Singapore and launched in March 2025, it is studied as a 150-year-old brand handing authorship to its users while still asserting expertise; its global brand director described creators as ‘co-authors’ of the brand’s stories, and Marketing Week reported a double-digit sales effect. At Cannes 2025 it won two Grands Prix, in Health & Wellness and in Social & Creator, where the jury president called it a platform founded in the feed, and a Titanium Lion.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on The One Club for Creativity’s YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhAcq-XHDrg", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ogilvy case page", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/work/vaseline-verified", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ogilvy Singapore scores second Grand Prix for the week in the Cannes Social & Creator Lions", "publisher": "Campaign Brief Asia (2025)", "url": "https://campaignbriefasia.com/2025/06/19/ogilvy-singapore-scores-second-grand-prix-for-the-week-in-the-cannes-social-creator-lions/" }, { "title": "Ogilvy Singapore’s ‘Vaseline Verified’ takes out Grand Prix in Cannes Health & Wellness Lions", "publisher": "Campaign Brief Asia (2025)", "url": "https://campaignbriefasia.com/2025/06/17/ogilvy-singapores-vaseline-verified-takes-out-grand-prix-in-cannes-health-wellness-lions/" }, { "title": "Vaseline puts viral beauty hacks to the test in playful new campaign", "publisher": "Marketing-Interactive (2025)", "url": "https://www.marketing-interactive.com/vaseline-puts-viral-beauty-hacks-to-the-test-in-playful-new-campaign" }, { "title": "How Vaseline made creators ‘co-authors of its stories’", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2025)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/vaseline-sales-creators-co-authors/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/EhAcq-XHDrg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Vaseline Verified (Vaseline (Unilever), 2025)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Vaseline \"Verified\"”, uploaded by The One Club for Creativity", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhAcq-XHDrg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/EhAcq-XHDrg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "EhAcq-XHDrg", "uploaded_at": "2025-11-18T22:10:12+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cerave-michael-cerave", "title": "Michael CeraVe", "brand": "CeraVe", "year": 2024, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "An online hoax has Michael Cera acting as if he invented the brand, and the paid Super Bowl spot is the punchline." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "The reveal lands the credibility point that the products are developed with dermatologists, shown as an unconvinced boardroom." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "30-second television commercial and social-first influencer campaign", "agency": "Ogilvy PR, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Directors", "name": "Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric)" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Prettybird" } ], "tagline": "Developed with dermatologists.", "why_studied": "A Super Bowl ad that was really the final act of a three-week online hoax. Building on old internet jokes that the brand was his namesake, Michael Cera started acting as if he had invented CeraVe: paparazzi-style photos, a perfume-ad parody teaser and videos made with TikTok creators and dermatologist influencers fed the rumour, while dermatologists publicly pushed back. The 30-second spot, directed by Tim & Eric and aired in the first quarter of Super Bowl LVIII on February 11, 2024, revealed Cera's sultry pitch film being screened for a boardroom of unconvinced CeraVe dermatologists, and landed the real point: the products are developed with dermatologists, and \"Cera\" refers to ceramides. It is studied as the template for social-first Super Bowl planning, where the paid spot is the punchline rather than the idea. It won the Super Clio on the night and the 2024 Cannes Lions Grand Prix in Social & Influencer, where the results cited were 32 billion impressions and a 25% rise in sales.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (CeraVe)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAf5TjiUJgo", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions 2024: Social & Influencer winners", "publisher": "Contagious (2024)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-2024-social-influencer-winners" }, { "title": "Cerave’s ‘Michael Cerave’ Scores Super Clio for Creative Excellence in SuperBowl LVIII Advertising", "publisher": "The Clio Awards (2024)", "url": "https://clios.com/press-article/ceraves-michael-cerave-scores-super-clio-for-creative-excellence-in-superbowl-lviii-advertising/" }, { "title": "AdAge: CeraVe Awarded Super Clio for Best Super Bowl Ad", "publisher": "Ad Age, via The Clio Awards (2024)", "url": "https://clios.com/press-article/adage-cerave-awarded-super-clio-for-best-super-bowl-ad/" }, { "title": "CeraVe Collaborates with Michael Cera and TikTok Stars on First-of-its-Kind Global Campaign", "publisher": "CeraVe via PR Newswire (2024)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cerave-collaborates-with-michael-cera-and-tiktok-stars-on-first-of-its-kind-global-campaign-302059487.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vAf5TjiUJgo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Michael CeraVe (CeraVe, 2024)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Michael CeraVe”, uploaded by CeraVe", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAf5TjiUJgo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vAf5TjiUJgo/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "vAf5TjiUJgo", "uploaded_at": "2024-02-12T00:07:45+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "xbox-the-everyday-tactician", "title": "The Everyday Tactician", "brand": "Xbox (Football Manager 2024)", "brand_slug": "xbox", "year": 2023, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "sports", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "An unscripted three-part documentary follows a stadium tour guide through a season that ends in promotion via a play-off shoot-out he helped prepare for." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Players compete for a real tactician's job at a football club, turning the game's founding fantasy of doing the manager's job into an open contest." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment campaign and online docuseries", "agency": "McCann, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Directors", "name": "Josh and Luke Exell (Exell Films)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "To launch Football Manager 2024 on Xbox, McCann London took the series' founding fantasy, that a fan could do the manager's job better, and made it a real vacancy. In November 2023 players were invited to compete for a role as a tactician at Bromley, then in the National League; the job went to Nathan Owolabi, a 23-year-old Wembley Stadium tour guide. His time at the club became a three-part documentary released on TNT Sports' YouTube channel and Xbox's own platforms, and the season ended with Bromley promoted to the Football League for the first time in their 132-year history, through a play-off penalty shoot-out Owolabi had helped prepare for. It is studied as long-form, unscripted storytelling chosen over a conventional launch spot. At Cannes in 2024 it won Grands Prix in Direct and in Entertainment Lions for Gaming, plus a Titanium Lion; the entry reported a 190% rise in Xbox players compared with the previous edition.", "watch": [ { "label": "Episode 1 on TNT Sports Football's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbTs3MFUB1Q", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Competition launch film on TNT Sports Football's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC97OmpYSAw", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "‘Beyond a telly ad’: why Xbox and McCann went long-form for ‘The everyday tactician’", "publisher": "Campaign (2024)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/beyond-telly-ad-why-xbox-mccann-went-long-form-the-everyday-tactician/1880293" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions Awards Spotlight: Gaming", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2024)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/awards/winners-spotlight/gaming" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2024: Direct winners", "publisher": "Contagious (2024)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-viewscannes-lions-2024-direct-winners-3710ded32fd04e63b7c9c4da89614523" }, { "title": "The Dan Wieden Titanium Lions: Cannes 2024 Decoded", "publisher": "Creative Salon (2024)", "url": "https://creative.salon/cannes-lions-curated/cannes-lions-2024/the-dan-wieden-titanium-lions-cannes-2024" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/MbTs3MFUB1Q/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Everyday Tactician (Xbox (Football Manager 2024), 2023)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Meet Nathan, Bromley FC’s unorthodox recruit! 🎮⚽ Ep.1 The Everyday Tactician | Xbox X TNT Sports”, uploaded by TNT Sports Football", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbTs3MFUB1Q", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/MbTs3MFUB1Q/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "MbTs3MFUB1Q", "uploaded_at": "2024-03-22T14:00:17+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "backup-ukraine", "title": "Backup Ukraine", "brand": "Blue Shield Denmark and the Danish UNESCO National Commission", "year": 2022, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Rather than a message, the campaign is a working tool that preserves Ukraine's threatened statues, churches and monuments as 3D models for possible reconstruction." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Civilians do the work themselves, scanning heritage on their own phones so that ordinary people become guardians of their nation's culture." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Mobile app and cloud archive", "agency": "Virtue, Copenhagen", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Tao Thomsen" }, { "role": "Group creative director", "name": "Iain Thomas" }, { "role": "Technology partner", "name": "Polycam" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Backup Ukraine gave people in Ukraine a way to save their heritage on a phone. Using the 3D-scanning app Polycam, volunteers photographed statues, churches, monuments and everyday objects threatened by the Russian invasion; the images were processed into detailed models, geotagged and stored in a cloud archive that could guide reconstruction if the originals were destroyed. Launched in April 2022, it was devised by Vice's agency Virtue with Blue Shield Denmark and Denmark's national commission for UNESCO. It is studied as award-winning work that was a functioning tool rather than a message about one: the campaign was the act of preservation, carried out by civilians on their own phones. The Cannes Lions jury gave it the Digital Craft Grand Prix in 2022, its president describing a project that turned citizens into guardians of their national heritage. Reported uptake depends on who is counting: CNN and ABC News cited around 6,000 downloads in mid-2022, while the agency's 2023 Clio entry claimed more than 35,000 captures.", "watch": [ { "label": "Virtue case page with case film", "url": "https://www.virtueworldwide.com/work/backup-ukraine", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Case film (re-upload on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bTFNaxE7ks", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Digital effort to preserve Ukraine's cultural artifacts amid war wins Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "The Drum (2022)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/digital-effort-preserve-ukrainian-cultural-artifacts-amid-war-scores-grand-prix" }, { "title": "Ukrainians are using 3D technology to preserve hundreds of cultural artifacts in a digital archive, far away from Russia’s attacks", "publisher": "CNN (2022)", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/style/article/ukraine-uses-3d-technology-to-preserve-cultural-heritage" }, { "title": "Ukrainians using new smartphone app to make precious 3D records of war-threatened historic buildings and monuments", "publisher": "ABC News (2022)", "url": "https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/ukraine-archivists-preserve-lost-buildings/101319376" }, { "title": "UNESCO: Backup Ukraine", "publisher": "Ads of the World (2023)", "url": "https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/backup-ukraine" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0bTFNaxE7ks/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Backup Ukraine (Blue Shield Denmark and the Danish UNESCO National Commission, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Polycam x UNESCO - Backup Ukraine (Case Study) | Campaign”, uploaded by Campaign Unpacked", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bTFNaxE7ks", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/0bTFNaxE7ks/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "0bTFNaxE7ks", "uploaded_at": "2024-03-19T07:43:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "samsung-flipvertising", "title": "Flipvertising", "brand": "Samsung (Galaxy Z Flip4)", "year": 2022, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Ad-wary young buyers are dared to make an ad find them, following influencer clues through searches that unlock product films and a chance of free phones." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social and search campaign", "agency": "CHEP Network, Sydney", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Max Barden" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "The Sweetshop" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "To launch the Galaxy Z Flip4 in Australia in 2022, Samsung inverted the logic of targeted advertising: instead of chasing ad-wary young buyers, it dared them to make an ad find them. Clues seeded through influencers sent people to Google particular phrases; each correct search unlocked one of three short product-demo films, and anyone who watched all three entered a retargeting pool served a hidden YouTube pre-roll carrying codes for free phones. Along the way, searchers’ feeds filled with reviews and unboxings that Samsung had not paid for. It is studied as creative work made from the media plumbing itself, built with Google’s help, in which the targeting mechanism became the game. It won the Social & Influencer Grand Prix at Cannes 2023, where the jury president said it broke taboos about what ads can do; the agency reported a 34% rise in sales.", "watch": [ { "label": "Launch film on Samsung Australia’s YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhO5m7BodYA", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Clemenger BBDO (formerly CHEP Network) case page", "url": "https://clemengerbbdo.com/work/flipvertising/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions: Social & Influencer winners 2023", "publisher": "Contagious (2023)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/social-influencer-cannes-lions-winners-2023-5d7937d737d441d88615e41156a5da60" }, { "title": "CHEP Network wins Cannes Social & Influencer Lions Grand Prix for Samsung ‘Flipvertising’", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2023)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/chep-network-wins-cannes-social-influencer-lions-grand-prix-for-samsung-flipvertising/" }, { "title": "Samsung creates the first ad you wanted to be targeted by in Flipvertising campaign via CHEP", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2022)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/samsung-creates-the-first-ad-you-wanted-to-be-targeted-by-in-flipvertising-campaign-via-chep/" }, { "title": "How To Win A B&T Award: CHEP's Gavin McLeod On The Flipping Remarkable Success Of \"Flipvertising\"", "publisher": "B&T (2024)", "url": "https://www.bandt.com.au/how-to-win-a-bt-award-cheps-gavin-mcleod-on-the-flipping-remarkable-success-of-flipvertising/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/rhO5m7BodYA/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Flipvertising (Samsung (Galaxy Z Flip4), 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Welcome to Flipvertising”, uploaded by Samsung Australia", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhO5m7BodYA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/rhO5m7BodYA/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "rhO5m7BodYA", "uploaded_at": "2022-08-18T23:15:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-never-done-evolving-serena", "title": "Never Done Evolving feat. Serena", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2022, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "The ad is built entirely around Serena Williams, pitting her teenage and veteran selves against each other to embody the brand's theme of constant evolution." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Machine learning stages an impossible match between two eras of one player, so the technology serves a story about growth rather than replacing one." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "AI-generated livestream (data-driven online film)", "agency": "AKQA (Melbourne, Portland, São Paulo)", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "AKQA (Melbourne, Portland, São Paulo)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "For Nike's 50th anniversary, AKQA staged a tennis match that could never happen: Serena Williams at 17, when she won her first Grand Slam title at the 1999 US Open, against Serena at 35, winning the 2017 Australian Open. Machine-learning models built from archive footage and tournament data captured each era's playing style, and an adaptation of Stanford's vid2player technique animated the two versions so they could rally against each other. Released two days after Williams announced her retirement, the simulated final was streamed as a live virtual match on Nike's YouTube channel. It is studied as a rare AI campaign in which the technology serves a story about growth rather than standing in for one. The Cannes 2023 Digital Craft jury, whose president said more than half of the 600 entries leaned on AI or machine learning, gave it the Grand Prix. AKQA reports more than 130,000 simulated games and a record for organic views on Nike's channel.", "watch": [ { "label": "AKQA case page", "url": "https://www.akqa.com/work/nike/nike-50th-anniversary/never-done-evolving/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/nike-50th-never-done-evolving", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nike and AKQA win Digital Craft Grand Prix for Serena Williams project", "publisher": "Campaign (2023)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nike-akqa-win-digital-craft-grand-prix-serena-williams-project/1827064" }, { "title": "Nike’s AI Serena Williams Match Wins Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2023)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/nikes-ai-serena-williams-match-wins-grand-prix-in-digital-craft-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "Nike 50th - Never Done Evolving", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2023)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/nike-50th-never-done-evolving" }, { "title": "Never Done Evolving", "publisher": "AKQA (agency case study)", "url": "https://www.akqa.com/work/nike/nike-50th-anniversary/never-done-evolving/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2ehJczf2FEk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Never Done Evolving feat. Serena (Nike, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nike - Never Done Evolving, ft Serena (case study)”, uploaded by LLLLITL", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ehJczf2FEk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2ehJczf2FEk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "2ehJczf2FEk", "uploaded_at": "2023-06-20T21:07:19+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tuvalu-first-digital-nation", "title": "The First Digital Nation", "brand": "Government of Tuvalu", "year": 2022, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A government uses a film, a digital twin and a website to argue about climate and sovereignty, aiming at policy rather than sales." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "The camera pulls back to reveal a digital replica, confronting viewers with a nation whose islands are expected to be lost to rising seas." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Online film, digital twin and website", "agency": "The Monkeys (Accenture Song), Sydney", "credits": [ { "role": "Production company", "name": "Collider" }, { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Tara Ford (The Monkeys)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In November 2022 Tuvalu’s foreign minister, Simon Kofe, addressed the COP27 climate summit by video from what appeared to be a beach on Te Afualiku, one of the islets expected to be lost first to rising seas. As he spoke, the camera pulled back to reveal that the island was a digital replica, and he announced that Tuvalu would become the first digital nation, copying its land, culture and records into the cloud so that it could go on functioning as a state if its territory went under. Built by The Monkeys with Collider, the film, the digital twin and an advocacy website turned a technology idea into an argument about sovereignty under international law. It is studied because its target was policy rather than sales. The jury gave it the 2023 Titanium Grand Prix, saying it scored highest from the first day of judging to the last; Accenture later reported that ten countries had agreed to recognise Tuvalu’s statehood permanently.", "watch": [ { "label": "The COP27 address on Simon Kofe’s YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXpeO5BgAOM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Tuvalu.tv, the campaign’s advocacy website", "url": "https://www.tuvalu.tv/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Glory for Australia as The Monkeys’ ‘The First Digital Nation’ for The Government of Tuvalu takes out Dan Wieden Titanium Lions Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2023)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/glory-for-australia-as-the-monkeys-the-first-digital-nation-for-the-government-of-tuvalu-takes-out-dan-wieden-titanium-lions-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "Tuvalu turns to the metaverse as rising seas threaten existence", "publisher": "Reuters (2022)", "url": "https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/tuvalu-turns-metaverse-rising-seas-threaten-existence-2022-11-15/" }, { "title": "From despair to digital hope, The Monkeys talk Tuvalu's Titanium triumph", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2023)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/from-despair-to-digital-hope-the-monkeys-talk-tuvalus-titanium-triumph/kc6husee0hy1zpo0yt5j2msb0k" }, { "title": "Accenture Song Wins Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix for Tuvalu “The First Digital Nation”", "publisher": "Accenture (2023)", "url": "https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2023/accenture-song-wins-dan-wieden-titanium-grand-prix-for-tuvalu-the-first-digital-nation" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lXpeO5BgAOM/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The First Digital Nation (Government of Tuvalu, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Rising sea levels force Tuvalu to move to the Metaverse: COP27 speech”, uploaded by Simon Kofe", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXpeO5BgAOM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lXpeO5BgAOM/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lXpeO5BgAOM", "uploaded_at": "2022-11-15T10:38:43+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pedidosya-world-cup-delivery", "title": "World Cup Delivery", "brand": "PedidosYa", "year": 2022, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Sent as Argentina wins, the notification opens the app's tracking screen to follow the trophy's flight home from Qatar live, plotted from public air-traffic data." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "The delivery app borrows the nation's World Cup triumph, swapping its burger icon for the trophy so the country's pride attaches to its own product." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Mobile app campaign (push notification and live tracking)", "agency": "GUT, Buenos Aires", "credits": [ { "role": "Digital agency", "name": "Lanzallamas, Buenos Aires" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Paisanos.io, Buenos Aires" } ], "tagline": "Tu pedido está en camino (Your order is on the way)", "why_studied": "When Argentina won the 2022 football World Cup, the delivery app PedidosYa sent about six million users a push notification that looked like any other: ‘Your order is on the way.’ Some assumed they had been charged for something they never ordered. Opening it led to the app's usual tracking screen, but instead of the familiar moving burger icon it showed the trophy crossing the map, following in real time the flight bringing it home from Qatar, plotted from public air-traffic data. It is studied as a brand using its own product as the medium: no media was bought, and the Mobile jury president, Shannon Washington of R/GA, praised the way it began with something people dislike, an unsolicited notification, and turned it into a moment the whole country shared. Cannes Lions noted that it became the number one trending topic. It won the Mobile Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2023, plus Gold Lions in Social & Influencer and in Media.", "watch": [ { "label": "GUT's case page, with the case film", "url": "https://www.gut.agency/work/world-cup-delivery", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The Cannes case film on Contagious's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRJZaV8ir44", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lion-winners announced on the penultimate day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2023)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lion-winners-announced-on-the-penultimate-day-of-the-cannes-lions" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Mobile winners 2023", "publisher": "Contagious (2023)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-mobile-winners-2023" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Além da Copa no Catar, Argentina leva para casa um Grand Prix por campanha sobre 'entrega da taça'", "publisher": "Estadão (2023)", "url": "https://www.estadao.com.br/economia/midia-marketing/cannes-lions-alem-da-copa-no-catar-argentina-leva-para-casa-um-grand-prix-por-campanha-sobre-entrega-da-taca/" }, { "title": "PedidosYa alcanzó el GP de Mobile con World Cup Delivery", "publisher": "LatinSpots (2023)", "url": "https://www.latinspots.com/noticia/pedidosya-alcanz-el-gp-de-mobile-con-world-cup-delivery/66523" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PeYVcEoFYuI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from World Cup Delivery (PedidosYa, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “ORO: PedidosYa \"Tu pedido está en camino\" (GUT)”, uploaded by DossierNet", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeYVcEoFYuI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PeYVcEoFYuI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "PeYVcEoFYuI", "uploaded_at": "2023-03-29T19:53:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "duolingo-duo-the-owl-tiktok", "title": "Duo the Owl on TikTok", "brand": "Duolingo", "year": 2021, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The green owl mascot, played by a person in a giant costume, becomes the channel's star and a personality first, ahead of any language lesson." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A passive-aggressive, deliberately unhinged persona hijacks trending sounds and memes and pops up in other brands' comment sections for laughs." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "The team takes its cues from trending sounds, memes and its own comment section, reacting to the platform as it moves." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social media (TikTok) channel", "agency": "In-house (Duolingo social team)", "credits": [ { "role": "Social Media Coordinator (later Global Senior Social Media Manager)", "name": "Zaria Parvez" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A language app that decided its TikTok should not be about languages. From September 2021, Duolingo's in-house social team rebuilt its channel around Duo, the green owl mascot, played by a person in a giant costume who jumps on trending sounds and memes and turns up in other creators' and brands' comment sections with a passive-aggressive, deliberately unhinged persona. The team treats its own comment section as the brief. It is studied as the template for a brand behaving like a creator rather than an advertiser, with a mascot that is a personality first; Adweek notes a wave of imitators. In its 2022 Shorty Awards entry, Duolingo said it had grown from 50,000 TikTok followers in September 2021 to 2.9 million, with 55 million likes and no budget; by 2025 Adweek counted 16.8 million followers and tied the strategy to monthly active users rising from 40.5 million in 2021 to 116.7 million. It won the 2022 Shorty Award for TikTok Presence and a 2024 Webby for Best Overall Social Presence.", "watch": [ { "label": "Shorty Awards entry, with example videos", "url": "https://shortyawards.com/14th/duolingo-tiktok-2", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Adweek's profile of the Duo strategy", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/duolingo-duo-owl-marketing-strategy/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Duolingo TikTok Channel (Winner, TikTok Presence)", "publisher": "The Shorty Awards (2022)", "url": "https://shortyawards.com/14th/duolingo-tiktok-2" }, { "title": "Hi! It's Duo: The Marketing Strategy Behind the Internet's Favorite Green Menace", "publisher": "Adweek (2025)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/duolingo-duo-owl-marketing-strategy/" }, { "title": "Duolingo (Webby Winner, Best Overall Social Presence – Brand)", "publisher": "The Webby Awards (2024)", "url": "https://winners.webbyawards.com/2024/social/features/best-overall-social-presence-brand/284015/duolingo" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kiyan-prince-foundation-long-live-the-prince", "title": "Long Live the Prince", "brand": "Kiyan Prince Foundation (with EA Sports and QPR)", "year": 2021, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "sports", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Ageing a stabbed academy prospect to 30, the age he would have reached, lets fans feel the footballing life that knife crime cut short." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Made for a knife-crime charity, it uses squad lists, trading cards and in-game rewards to steer young players towards the foundation's services." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "In-game campaign", "agency": "Engine, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Production and post-production", "name": "Framestore, London" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "On 18 May 2021, fifteen years after Kiyan Prince was stabbed at the gates of his north London school while trying to break up a fight, the former Queens Park Rangers academy prospect became a playable footballer in EA Sports' FIFA 21. His likeness was aged to 30, the age he would have reached; QPR gave him the squad number 30, and he gained a Match Attax trading card and became the face of the retailer JD. Made by Engine for the knife-crime charity his father runs, it is studied for borrowing the machinery of football fandom, from squad lists to collectables and kit deals, to reach young players who would ignore a conventional warning; rewards in the game's Ultimate Team mode linked through to the foundation's services. Its D&AD entry says the publicity brought in more than three years' worth of donations. In 2022 it won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.", "watch": [ { "label": "The launch film on the Kiyan Prince Foundation's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=293tWLiSFGA", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/long-live-the-prince", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lion Winners on Day Five of Festival", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2022)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lions-winners-day-five" }, { "title": "Cannes' Top Titanium Winner Is 'Long Live the Prince'", "publisher": "Adweek (2022)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/cannes-lions-top-titanium-winner/" }, { "title": "Kiyan Prince’s legacy lives on for Queens Park Rangers in Fifa 21", "publisher": "The Guardian (2021)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/18/kiyan-princes-legacy-lives-on-for-queens-park-rangers-in-fifa-21" }, { "title": "Long Live the Prince", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2022)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/long-live-the-prince" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/293tWLiSFGA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Long Live the Prince (Kiyan Prince Foundation (with EA Sports and QPR), 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “LONG LIVE THE PRINCE”, uploaded by The Kiyan Prince Foundation", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=293tWLiSFGA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/293tWLiSFGA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "293tWLiSFGA", "uploaded_at": "2021-05-17T23:41:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "magalu-lu-from-magalu", "title": "Lu from Magalu", "brand": "Magazine Luiza (Magalu)", "year": 2021, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A virtual sales assistant grows into the brand's spokesperson and a social-media personality, dancing, explaining technology and answering customers as the retailer's human face." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Virtual influencer (social media)", "agency": "Ogilvy, São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Original concept (2003)", "name": "Frederico Trajano, Magazine Luiza" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Lu began in 2003 as a virtual sales assistant on the website of Magazine Luiza, the Brazilian retailer now called Magalu, giving a human face to online shopping when e-commerce was only starting to take off. She grew into the brand's spokesperson and a social-media personality in her own right, explaining technology, joining dance trends, speaking out on domestic violence and LGBT rights, and being hired by other brands such as Adidas. From 2021 Magalu and Ogilvy São Paulo pushed her further into pop culture: music videos, a celebrity dance contest on TV Globo, football commentary. She is studied as a widely cited example of a brand-owned virtual influencer that grew into a media channel: by 2024 she had around 32 million followers, had appeared on the cover of Vogue Brazil and was answering customers on WhatsApp. She won a Gold Lion in Social & Influencer at Cannes in 2022 and a Grand Clio in 2023 for use of talent and influencers.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ogilvy's case page, with the case film", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/work/lu-magalu", "type": "official" }, { "label": "‘Anitta feat. Lu do Magalu’ (2021) on Lu's official YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YpP8Q8kQXk", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lu, do Magalu, conquista Ouro em Social & Influencer", "publisher": "Meio & Mensagem (2022)", "url": "https://www.meioemensagem.com.br/cannes/lu-do-magalu-conquista-ouro-em-social-influencer-2" }, { "title": "Corona's 'Plastic Fishing Tournament' and GEPAE's 'Morning After Island' Each Win 3 Grand Clios", "publisher": "Muse by Clios (2023)", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/advertising/coronas-plastic-fishing-tournament-and-gepaes-morning-after-island-each-win-3-grand-clios/" }, { "title": "Meet Lu, The Non-Human Influencer With 25 Million Followers", "publisher": "Observer (2021)", "url": "https://observer.com/2021/05/meet-lu-the-non-human-influencer-with-25-million-followers/" }, { "title": "Marketing machines: inside the world of virtual influencers", "publisher": "Raconteur (2024)", "url": "https://www.raconteur.net/marketing-sales/virtual-influencers" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xb8SS7u0KGs/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Lu from Magalu (Magazine Luiza (Magalu), 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “5 fatos sobre mim - Canal da Lu - Magalu”, uploaded by Canal da Lu - Magalu", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb8SS7u0KGs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xb8SS7u0KGs/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Xb8SS7u0KGs", "uploaded_at": "2018-03-29T14:00:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "cadbury-shah-rukh-khan-my-ad", "title": "Not Just a Cadbury Ad (\"Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad\")", "brand": "Cadbury Celebrations (Mondelez India)", "brand_slug": "cadbury", "year": 2021, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "With small shops hit hard by the pandemic, the brand turns its festive ad into promotion for neighbourhood retailers rather than itself." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Machine learning recreates the face and voice of India's biggest film star so that he names stores near each viewer." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "A microsite lets shopkeepers and shoppers generate their own personalised versions of the star's ad for local stores." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "AI-personalised video ads and ad-maker microsite", "agency": "Ogilvy, Mumbai", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officers, Ogilvy India", "name": "Sukesh Nayak, Harshad Rajadhyaksha, Kainaz Karmakar" }, { "role": "Media agency", "name": "Wavemaker India" }, { "role": "AI technology partner", "name": "Rephrase.ai" } ], "tagline": "Kuch accha ho jaaye, kuch meetha ho jaaye.", "why_studied": "India's biggest film star, advertising the shop around the corner by name. For Diwali 2021, with small retailers hit hard by the pandemic, Cadbury Celebrations and Ogilvy Mumbai worked with Rephrase.ai to recreate Shah Rukh Khan's face and voice with machine learning, so that geo-targeted versions of the ad had him name stores near each viewer; a microsite let shopkeepers and shoppers generate their own personalised versions. It built on the 2020 'Not Just a Cadbury Ad', in which the brand shared its own ad space with local businesses. It is studied as an early use of synthetic media at scale for a generous rather than deceptive end, and as purpose marketing with a hard commercial result: the brand's APAC Effie case reports 130,000 store videos created, 35% sales growth over Diwali 2019 and 41% more stores stocking Celebrations. It won the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix at Cannes 2023.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad on Cadbury Celebrations' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FnhpelBR0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Ogilvy case page", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/work/shah-rukh-khan-my-ad", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ogilvy wins Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix for Cadbury's 'Shah Rukh Khan My Ad'", "publisher": "Ogilvy (2023)", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/ideas/ogilvy-wins-creative-effectiveness-grand-prix-cadburys-shah-rukh-khan-my-ad" }, { "title": "Not Just a Cadbury Ad 2.0 (APAC Effie Awards 2022 winning case)", "publisher": "APAC Effie Awards", "url": "https://apaceffie.com/docs/default-source/resource-library/apac-effie-2022-winner_not-just-a-cadbury-ad-2-0" }, { "title": "Ogilvy India releases the second edition of 'Not Just a Cadbury Ad' for Mondelez India", "publisher": "Campaign Brief Asia (2021)", "url": "https://campaignbriefasia.com/2021/10/28/ogilvy-india-releases-the-second-edition-of-not-just-a-cadbury-ad-for-mondelez-india-empowering-small-businesses-once-again/" }, { "title": "Ogilvy Mumbai scores Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lions Grand Prix for 'Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad'", "publisher": "Campaign Brief Asia (2023)", "url": "https://campaignbriefasia.com/2023/06/23/ogilvy-mumbai-scores-cannes-creative-effectiveness-lions-grand-prix-for-shan-rukh-khan-my-ad/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/R3FnhpelBR0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Not Just a Cadbury Ad (\"Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad\") (Cadbury Celebrations (Mondelez India), 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Cadbury Celebrations | Not Just A Cadbury Ad”, uploaded by Cadbury Celebrations", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FnhpelBR0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/R3FnhpelBR0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "R3FnhpelBR0", "uploaded_at": "2021-10-22T18:29:36+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dove-reverse-selfie", "title": "Reverse Selfie", "brand": "Dove (Unilever)", "brand_slug": "dove", "year": 2021, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "The film comes with a confidence kit that helps parents and teachers talk to teenagers about selfies, pairing awareness with a practical tool." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Rewinding a polished selfie edit by edit until a girl barely into her teens appears turns everyday retouching into a jolt of concern." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film and integrated campaign", "agency": "Ogilvy UK, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Benito Montorio" }, { "role": "Global Executive Creative Director", "name": "Daniel Fisher" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Sophie Harris-Taylor" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Fifteen years after 'Evolution' exposed how advertising manufactured beauty, Dove showed that the retouching had moved into teenagers' own hands. 'Reverse Selfie' plays a social-media post backwards: what looks like a young woman's selfie is undone, tweak by tweak and filter by filter, until the person behind it is revealed as a girl barely into her teens. Directed by Benito Montorio for Ogilvy UK and released in April 2021, the 60-second film recreated every edit from the apps its young cast really used, and came with portrait posters and a Self-Esteem Project confidence kit to help parents and teachers have 'the Selfie Talk'. Dove called it a sequel to 'Evolution'. It is studied as a brand updating its own landmark argument for the social-media era and pairing awareness with a practical tool. The One Show entry cites 6 billion impressions, 66.3 million teenagers reached on TikTok and a 2,650% jump in kit downloads in week one. In 2022 it won two One Show Gold Pencils and two D&AD Yellow Pencils.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Dove US's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2T-Rh838GA", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Ogilvy case page", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/work/reverse-selfie", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dove tackles self-esteem and heavily-edited selfies in latest campaign", "publisher": "Creative Review (2021)", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/dove-reverse-selfie-ad-campaign/" }, { "title": "Dove: Reverse Selfie (2022 Gold Pencil, Health & Wellness / Integrated Campaign)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/43931/reverse-selfie/" }, { "title": "Dove: Reverse Selfie (2022 Gold Pencil, Out of Home / Dynamic Billboards & Transit)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/44403/reverse-selfie/" }, { "title": "Reverse Selfie (awards archive entry: Yellow Pencils, Press Campaigns and Entertainment / Integrated)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/reverse-selfie" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/z2T-Rh838GA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Reverse Selfie (Dove (Unilever), 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Reverse Selfie: Social Media's Impact on Girls' Self-Esteem | Dove”, uploaded by Dove US", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2T-Rh838GA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/z2T-Rh838GA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "z2T-Rh838GA", "uploaded_at": "2021-04-20T12:02:55+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sinyi-realty-in-love-we-trust", "title": "In Love We Trust", "brand": "Sinyi Realty", "year": 2020, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A seven-minute film follows a registry clerk who loses faith in commitment until a devoted widower persuades her that love can last." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Rather than selling homes, it moves viewers with tenderness about lasting love, attaching to the brand the trust that leads couples to set up home." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "dentsu mcgarrybowen, Taipei", "credits": [ { "role": "Production company", "name": "Palace Film, Taipei" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A film of seven minutes and 23 seconds, released online on 30 October 2020 by the Taiwanese real-estate company Sinyi Realty. It follows a young clerk at a household registration office who records marriages and divorces all day, watches the divorces outnumber the weddings and quietly loses faith in commitment, until an elderly widower still devoted to his late wife persuades her that love can last, and she agrees to marry her boyfriend. It is studied as long-form brand storytelling in a category people buy from rarely: rather than selling homes, the film argues for the trust that leads couples to set one up, a link the agency drew because newlyweds are a core source of property buyers. The agency reported more than four million views within a week, and the ad-review platform Judge_Ad named it Taiwan's most shared ad of 2020. It won the Entertainment Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2021, the first Cannes Grand Prix for an agency in Taiwan.", "watch": [ { "label": "The full film on Sinyi Realty's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx4fTBh9PFo", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The film on Sinyi Realty's news site", "url": "https://www.sinyinews.com.tw/s_channel/videodetail/34", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dentsu mcgarrybowen Taiwan snares the Cannes Entertainment Lions Grand Prix for Sinyi Realty “In Love We Trust”", "publisher": "Campaign Brief Asia (2021)", "url": "https://campaignbriefasia.com/2021/06/23/dentsu-mcgarrybowen-taiwan-snares-the-cannes-entertainment-lions-grand-prix-for-sinyi-realty-in-love-we-trust/" }, { "title": "Lil Nas X, Asics and Tinder Win Grand Prix Lions in Entertainment at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/lil-nas-x-asics-and-tinder-win-grand-prix-lions-in-entertainment-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "How a real estate company’s effort to restore faith in love became Taiwan’s most shared ad", "publisher": "Campaign Brief Asia (2021)", "url": "https://campaignbriefasia.com/2021/04/15/how-a-real-estate-companys-effort-to-restore-faith-in-love-became-taiwans-most-shared-ad/" }, { "title": "Sinyi Realty's 'In Love We Trust' bags Cannes Entertainment Grand Prix for 2021", "publisher": "Ad Age (2021)", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/sinyi-realty-love-we-trust/2345696/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fx4fTBh9PFo/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from In Love We Trust (Sinyi Realty, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “【信義房屋】2020年形象廣告 - 信任幸福篇首部曲完整版 - 幸福是和信任的人一起找到永遠”, uploaded by 信義房屋", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx4fTBh9PFo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fx4fTBh9PFo/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "fx4fTBh9PFo", "uploaded_at": "2020-10-30T00:35:26+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rsf-the-uncensored-library", "title": "The Uncensored Library", "brand": "Reporters Without Borders (RSF)", "year": 2020, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A press-freedom charity hides banned journalism inside Minecraft, which stays reachable where news sites are blocked, so young people under censorship can read it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Minecraft server and game world", "agency": "DDB Germany, Berlin", "credits": [ { "role": "Minecraft design and build", "name": "BlockWorks" }, { "role": "Production", "name": "MediaMonks" } ], "tagline": "#TruthFindsAWay", "why_studied": "A library of banned journalism, hidden inside a video game. Opened on 12 March 2020, the World Day Against Cyber Censorship, The Uncensored Library is a vast neoclassical Minecraft build, over 12.5 million blocks made by 24 builders from 16 countries with the studio BlockWorks, whose in-game books hold articles by journalists from five countries that censored their work. Minecraft remains reachable where news sites are blocked, and its books can be read but not edited, so the game itself became the loophole. It is studied as a breakthrough in treating a game as a medium rather than as ad space, reaching young people under censorship on their own turf. D&AD's archive records more than 20 million gamers reached, over 790 news articles and a 62% rise in donations to RSF. By Monks' count it went on to win nine Cannes Lions and eight D&AD Pencils, and the library has stayed open.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official site, with launch film, 360° tour and downloadable map", "url": "https://www.uncensoredlibrary.com/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Launch film on RSF's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfyxvNfVXrQ", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "RSF opens \"The Uncensored Library\" – the digital home of press freedom within a global computer game", "publisher": "Reporters Without Borders (2020)", "url": "https://rsf.org/en/rsf-opens-uncensored-library-digital-home-press-freedom-within-global-computer-game" }, { "title": "The Uncensored Library (awards archive entry and results)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-uncensored-library" }, { "title": "The Uncensored Library: circumventing censorship in a whole new way (case study)", "publisher": "Monks", "url": "https://www.monks.com/case-studies/uncensored-library" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NfyxvNfVXrQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Uncensored Library (Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Uncensored Library – The Film”, uploaded by Reporters sans frontières", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfyxvNfVXrQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NfyxvNfVXrQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "NfyxvNfVXrQ", "uploaded_at": "2020-03-12T10:06:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "burger-king-burn-that-ad", "title": "Burn That Ad", "brand": "Burger King Brazil", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2019, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "The app turns McDonald's billboards, print ads and coupons into triggers for its own offer, so the rival's media spending works for Burger King." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Customers point their phones at a rival's ads and watch them burn in augmented reality, uncovering a voucher for a free Whopper." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Augmented-reality app feature", "agency": "DAVID São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "DAVID São Paulo" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Rafael Donato" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Edgard Gianesi" }, { "role": "AR production", "name": "VZLab (Vetor Zero)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Burger King Brazil's answer to a rival that, by its own account, outspent it four to one: turn the rival's advertising into Burger King's. A new augmented-reality feature in the BK app let people aim their phones at McDonald's billboards, print ads or coupons and watch them go up in virtual flames, a nod to Burger King's flame grilling, revealing a voucher for a free Whopper to collect through BK Express, the app's order-ahead service. Created by DAVID São Paulo and launched in March 2019, it is studied as a model of competitive hacking: the more the competitor spent on media, the more triggers existed for Burger King's offer, and every redemption nudged people into the app the brand wanted them using. The company said it expected to give away around half a million Whoppers. At Cannes that June it won a Gold Lion in Direct, the year the category's Grand Prix went to Burger King's Whopper Detour, and it later collected D&AD pencils.", "watch": [ { "label": "Launch film on Burger King Brasil's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGByvh25uE0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/burn-that-ad", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions: Direct Winners 2019", "publisher": "Contagious (2019)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-direct-winners-2019" }, { "title": "Burger King's App Lets Fans in Brazil 'Burn' Competitors' Ads and Score Free Whoppers", "publisher": "Adweek (2019)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/burger-kings-app-lets-fans-in-brazil-burn-competitors-ads-and-score-free-whoppers/" }, { "title": "burger king encourages users to ‘burn’ rival ads in augmented reality campaign", "publisher": "designboom (2019)", "url": "https://www.designboom.com/technology/burger-king-burn-that-ad-free-whopper-virtual-reality-03-21-2019/" }, { "title": "Burn That Ad", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2020)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/burn-that-ad" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PGByvh25uE0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Burn That Ad (Burger King Brazil, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “BK - Burn That Ad”, uploaded by Burger King BR", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGByvh25uE0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PGByvh25uE0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "PGByvh25uE0", "uploaded_at": "2019-03-19T20:40:57+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "burger-king-stevenage-challenge", "title": "Stevenage Challenge", "brand": "Burger King", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2019, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Players manage a lowly club in the game, complete set challenges and share goal clips, filling feeds with star players wearing the sponsor's logo." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "In-game social campaign", "agency": "DAVID, Madrid and Miami", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Burger King put its logo on the shirts of Stevenage, a club at the bottom of English football's fourth tier, knowing the kit would be reproduced in EA Sports' FIFA 20. In October 2019 it launched the Stevenage Challenge, inviting players to manage Stevenage in the game, complete set challenges and post clips of their goals on social media in return for food rewards. Because players stocked the virtual squad with the world's best, the result was a stream of fan-made footage of stars such as Messi wearing a Burger King logo the brand never paid them to wear. It is studied for finding media value inside a game's rules rather than paying for it. The club and agency reported that Stevenage became the most-played side in FIFA's career mode during the two-week challenge, with more than 25,000 goals shared and its shirts selling out. At Cannes in 2021 it won three Grands Prix: Direct, Social & Influencer, and Brand Experience & Activation.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on The One Club for Creativity's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qjIcK-cvbg", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "WPP case study (DAVID Madrid)", "url": "https://www.wpp.com/en/case-studies/david-madrid-stevenage-challenge", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "DAVID Madrid/Miami's \"Stevenage Challenge\" For Burger King Takes 3rd Grand Prix At Cannes Lions", "publisher": "SHOOT (2021)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/david-madridmiamis-stevenage-challenge-burger-king-takes-3rd-grand-prix-cannes-lions/" }, { "title": "Stevenage: How Burger King sponsorship led to Fifa game popularity", "publisher": "BBC Sport (2020)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/54279530" }, { "title": "Reddit, Burger King Win Cannes Social and Influencer Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/reddit-burger-king-win-cannes-social-and-influencer-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "DAVID Madrid: Stevenage Challenge", "publisher": "WPP", "url": "https://www.wpp.com/en/case-studies/david-madrid-stevenage-challenge" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/7qjIcK-cvbg/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Stevenage Challenge (Burger King, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Stevenage Challenge\" by DAVID The Agency for Burger King | The One Show 2020”, uploaded by The One Club for Creativity", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qjIcK-cvbg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/7qjIcK-cvbg/sd3.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "7qjIcK-cvbg", "uploaded_at": "2020-08-20T14:54:11+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tinder-swipe-night", "title": "Swipe Night", "brand": "Tinder", "year": 2019, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers steer each episode by swiping left or right within seconds, and their choices then shape matches and appear as badges on profiles." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A first-person end-of-the-world drama, told in four weekly episodes inside the app, gives strangers a shared story to talk about." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive in-app series", "agency": "72andSunny, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Karena Evans" }, { "role": "Production", "name": "m ss ng p eces" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An interactive, end-of-the-world series built into the Tinder app. Viewers learn an asteroid will wipe out the planet in three hours and steer the story, shot from a first-person point of view, by swiping left or right within seven seconds on choices such as whether to save a person or a puppy. Four episodes went out on successive Sunday nights in the US from October 2019, and the decisions then shaped who users were matched with and appeared as badges on their profiles, giving strangers something to talk about. It is studied as a brand turning its own signature gesture into a storytelling device and placing entertainment inside the product rather than around it; Tinder said it had to rebuild the app to carry video. Tinder reported that 15 million users took part in the first run and that its match rate rose by more than 25%. At Cannes in 2021 it won one of two Entertainment Lions Grands Prix, plus a Gold in Social & Influencer.", "watch": [ { "label": "72andSunny case page", "url": "https://www.72andsunny.com/work/tinder-swipe-night", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Swipe Night trailer on Tinder España's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC3NDO9lj0Q", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions announces award winners on day three", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2021)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/cannes-lions-2021-winners-day-3" }, { "title": "How Tinder created an apocalyptic, choose-your-own-adventure love story for Gen Z", "publisher": "The Drum (2021)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/how-tinder-created-apocalyptic-choose-your-own-adventure-love-story-gen-z" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Entertainment Winners 2021", "publisher": "Contagious (2021)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-viewscannes-lions-entertainment-winners-2021-1efc06ee6fce400e8c3eb536a67e141a" }, { "title": "Tinder Wins Entertainment Grand Prix for Swipe Night at Cannes Festival 2021", "publisher": "Tinder Newsroom (2021)", "url": "https://www.tinderpressroom.com/2021-06-25-Tinder-Wins-Entertainment-Grand-Prix-for-Swipe-Night-at-Cannes-Festival-2021" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DC3NDO9lj0Q/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Swipe Night (Tinder, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Swipe Night trailer | Tinder”, uploaded by Tinder España", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC3NDO9lj0Q", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DC3NDO9lj0Q/sd3.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "DC3NDO9lj0Q", "uploaded_at": "2020-09-08T08:23:46+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "carlings-address-the-future", "title": "adDRESS the Future (Neo-Ex)", "brand": "Carlings", "year": 2018, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A retailer turns its online store into an argument about waste, selling clothes with no physical garment and giving the money to WaterAid." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Buyers upload a photo of themselves and receive it back wearing the chosen digital garment, ready to post." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Digital-only fashion collection", "agency": "Virtue, Copenhagen", "credits": [ { "role": "Virtual influencer", "name": "Perl.www" }, { "role": "Charity partner", "name": "WaterAid" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Neo-Ex was a 19-piece clothing collection that existed only as 3D files. Launched in November 2018 by the Norwegian denim retailer Carlings with the virtual influencer Perl.www, it let buyers pay €10 to €30, upload a photo of themselves and receive it back with the chosen garment fitted to their body by the brand's 3D designers, ready to post; the money went to WaterAid. Developed with the agency Virtue, it targeted a habit the fashion trade rarely names, buying clothes to be photographed in once and then returning them, and offered a version with no physical garment at all. It is studied as the first fully virtual collection launched by a fashion brand, and as the opening of a retailer's online store turned into an argument about waste. It won the Digital Craft Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019 and a Gold Pencil at the One Show. A 2025 academic case study credits its novelty but notes that the zero-impact claim was never independently verified.", "watch": [ { "label": "Virtue case page with films", "url": "https://www.virtueworldwide.com/work/carlings", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Campaign film (re-upload on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cQUwF-BFfw", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "An all-digital clothing line took the Digital Craft Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Ad Age (2019)", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/carlingsaddress-future/2178966/" }, { "title": "Influencers can now influence you with clothes they haven’t even tried on", "publisher": "Dazed (2018)", "url": "https://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/42220/1/influencers-carlings-perl-digital-collection-instagram" }, { "title": "Carlings | adDRESS_THE_FUTURE", "publisher": "The One Club (2019)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/32978/addressthefuture/" }, { "title": "Communicating Virtual Fashion: A Case Study of the Virtual Collection ‘Neo-Ex’", "publisher": "Springer Nature (2025)", "url": "https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-99481-4_18" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/4cQUwF-BFfw/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from adDRESS the Future (Neo-Ex) (Carlings, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “adDRESS THE FUTURE”, uploaded by Admarket", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cQUwF-BFfw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/4cQUwF-BFfw/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "4cQUwF-BFfw", "uploaded_at": "2019-07-11T06:22:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wendys-keeping-fortnite-fresh", "title": "Keeping Fortnite Fresh", "brand": "Wendy's", "brand_slug": "wendys", "year": 2018, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Joining a live in-game food fight event, the brand streams itself smashing every freezer in sight, turning its fresh-beef promise into gameplay." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Playing as a character modelled on its red-pigtailed mascot, the brand enters the game as a player rather than an advertiser." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live Twitch stream and in-game activation", "agency": "VMLY&R, Kansas City", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "McKay Hathaway" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Directors", "name": "Derek Clark, Chris Corley" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer, North America", "name": "John Godsey" } ], "tagline": "Fresh, never frozen.", "why_studied": "During Thanksgiving week 2018, Fortnite ran a 'Food Fight' event that split players into Team Burger and Team Pizza. Wendy's agency noticed that the game's burger restaurant kept its beef in freezers, an affront to a chain built on fresh, never frozen beef. So on 26 November Wendy's went live on Twitch as a character that looked just like its red-pigtailed mascot and, instead of fighting other players, spent the stream destroying every freezer it could find; by the team's own account, they played the game wrong for nine hours. Fans and streamers joined in unprompted. D&AD's case study reports 5,000 concurrent viewers by 5pm and more than 1.5 million minutes watched, with no paid influencers, and says the idea went from pitch to approval in three days. It is studied as the moment a brand entered gaming culture as a player rather than an advertiser, turning a product claim into gameplay. It won the first-ever Social & Influencer Grand Prix at Cannes in 2019.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on VMLY&R's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2lGGIk9NA", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/keeping-fortnite-fresh", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Case Study: Keeping Fortnite Fresh", "publisher": "D&AD (2019)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/keeping-fortnite-fresh-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "VMLY&R Collects the Inaugural Social and Influencer Grand Prix for Wendy's Work", "publisher": "Adweek (2019)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/vmlyr-collects-the-inaugural-social-and-influencer-grand-prix-for-wendys-work/" }, { "title": "Keeping Fortnite Fresh (awards archive entry and credits)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/keeping-fortnite-fresh" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zg2lGGIk9NA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Keeping Fortnite Fresh (Wendy's, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Keeping Fortnite Fresh”, uploaded by VMLY&R", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg2lGGIk9NA" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "zg2lGGIk9NA", "uploaded_at": "2021-03-29T20:31:37+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-nothing-beats-a-londoner", "title": "Nothing Beats a Londoner", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2018, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Young Londoners from Dalston, Peckham and Brixton are the heroes, out-boasting each other while famous athletes and musicians are reduced to cameos." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Before broadcast, each young athlete posts their own scene on Instagram linking to the next, so the participants become the film's distribution." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social campaign and online film", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Megaforce" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Riff Raff Films" } ], "tagline": "Nothing beats a Londoner", "why_studied": "A three-minute film in which 258 young Londoners try to outdo one another's sporting feats across Dalston, Peckham and Brixton, with Mo Farah, Harry Kane, Skepta and other stars reduced to cameos. Before it reached television, Wieden+Kennedy London released it in pieces: each young athlete was given their own scene to post on Instagram, linking to the next competitor in the chain, and only then did the famous names amplify it and the full cut run across TV, cinema and online from 9 February 2018. It is studied as an early, large-scale case of a brand treating ordinary participants as its influencers, and of a crafted film designed to be broken apart for social feeds. In 2018 it won the first Grand Prix in Cannes Lions' new Social & Influencer category, along with a Titanium Lion; the agency also reported, citing the fashion search platform Lyst, a 93% rise in London searches for Nike products after launch.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Wieden+Kennedy London's Vimeo", "url": "https://vimeo.com/300516370", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Wieden+Kennedy London case page", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/nothing-beats-londoner/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "“Nothing Beats” Nike For Grand Prix In 1st Cannes Social & Influencer Lions", "publisher": "SHOOT (2018)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/nothing-beats-nike-grand-prix-1st-cannes-social-influencer-lions/" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Social and Influencer winners 2018", "publisher": "Contagious (2018)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-social-and-influencer-winners-2018" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions winners: Titanium, Glass, Grand Prix for Good and more", "publisher": "The Drum (2018)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/cannes-lions-winners-titanium-glass-grand-prix-good-and-more" }, { "title": "Nike - Nothing Beats a Londoner", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy London (2018)", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/nothing-beats-londoner/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mEB1C59hCvs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Nothing Beats a Londoner (Nike, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NIKE - NOTHING BEATS A LONDONER”, uploaded by SportsOnScreen", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB1C59hCvs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mEB1C59hCvs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mEB1C59hCvs", "uploaded_at": "2018-02-09T13:15:21+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ruavieja-tenemos-que-vernos-mas", "title": "Tenemos que vernos más (\"We Have to See More of Each Other\")", "brand": "Ruavieja (Pernod Ricard)", "year": 2018, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Real friends and relatives learn how little time they statistically have left together, a painful realisation that drives home the plea to see more of each other." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The film's arithmetic rests on official Spanish life-expectancy data, so a cold statistic becomes the whole argument." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "A companion website lets anyone run the same calculation for their own relationships, extending the film's idea to every viewer." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film and data-driven web calculator", "agency": "Leo Burnett Madrid", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Félix Fernández de Castro" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Tesauro" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Juan García-Escudero" } ], "tagline": "Tenemos que vernos más", "why_studied": "An obscure Spanish herbal liqueur made one of the most shared Christmas films of 2018 by doing some unsettling arithmetic. In Leo Burnett Madrid's four-minute film, real friends and relatives say how often they meet and how old they are, then learn how much time, statistically, they have left together; the answers are painfully small. A companion website let anyone run the same calculation, built on official Spanish life-expectancy data. Ruavieja launched online first, with a day on YouTube's homepage and pre-roll, and moved to television only after five or six days, by which point the film had six million views. It is studied as a data idea in which the number itself is the emotional hook, and as a small brand outmanoeuvring the big Christmas advertisers. The agency reported more than 11 million views and half a million completed calculations, and it was Spain's most-watched YouTube ad that November. At Cannes in 2019 it won Gold in Creative Strategy and Silvers in Social & Influencer and Creative Data.", "watch": [ { "label": "The four-minute film (YouTube re-upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXiLDMEKF-U", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "We Have To See More Of Each Other, Ruavieja", "publisher": "Contagious (2019)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/insight-strategy-we-have-to-see-more-of-each-other-ruavieja-31c34aa10e8e415e9722b8ac118b39cc" }, { "title": "Así es el anuncio de Ruavieja: Tenemos que vernos más", "publisher": "Reason Why (2018, Spanish)", "url": "https://www.reasonwhy.es/actualidad/ruavieja-tenemos-vernos-mas-2018" }, { "title": "Los anuncios más vistos en YouTube en el mes de noviembre", "publisher": "MarketingNews (2018, Spanish)", "url": "https://www.marketingnews.es/medios/noticia/1119284028405/anuncios-mas-vistos-youtube-mes-de-noviembre.1.html" }, { "title": "La campaña de Ruavieja de Leo Burnett Madrid ha triunfado hoy en #CannesLions2019", "publisher": "Merca2.0 (2019, Spanish)", "url": "https://www.merca20.com/la-campana-de-ruavieja-de-leo-burnett-madrid-ha-triunfado-hoy-en-canneslions2019/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WXiLDMEKF-U/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Tenemos que vernos más (\"We Have to See More of Each Other\") (Ruavieja (Pernod Ricard), 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Ruavieja 2018 – Tenemos que vernos más”, uploaded by Los mejores anuncios de siempre y de hoy", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXiLDMEKF-U", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WXiLDMEKF-U/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WXiLDMEKF-U", "uploaded_at": "2018-11-20T18:48:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-homepod-welcome-home", "title": "Welcome Home", "brand": "Apple (HomePod)", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 2018, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A single song, requested from the speaker, drives the dance and every transformation, so the music becomes the visible proof of room-filling sound." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A worn-out woman comes home after a draining day and, once the music starts, her cramped apartment stretches and blooms in colour around her." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "TBWA\\Media Arts Lab, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Spike Jonze" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "MJZ" }, { "role": "Agency", "name": "TBWA\\Media Arts Lab" }, { "role": "Choreographer", "name": "Ryan Heffington" }, { "role": "Cinematographer", "name": "Hoyte van Hoytema" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Anderson .Paak, \"'Til It's Over\"" }, { "role": "Post-production", "name": "Final Cut; Framestore" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "FKA twigs plays a woman who drags herself home after a draining day, asks Siri on her HomePod for some music, and dances as her cramped apartment stretches, slides and blooms in colour around her to Anderson .Paak's \"'Til It's Over\". Spike Jonze directed the four-minute film for TBWA\\Media Arts Lab; Apple released the full version on YouTube in March 2018 and kept a shorter cut for television. It is studied for making an invisible product benefit, sound that fills a room, into something you can watch, and for how much of the illusion was built rather than rendered: the behind-the-scenes film showed the room-stretching effects relied on relatively little CGI, with choreographer Ryan Heffington shaping the movement and Hoyte van Hoytema on cinematography. At Cannes 2018 it took one of two Grand Prix in the Entertainment Lions for Music, and in 2019 it won a One Show Gold Pencil for long-form online film.", "watch": [ { "label": "MJZ (production company) work page", "url": "https://mjz.com/directors/spike-jonze/work/apple-homepod-welcome-home/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Full film on the Internet Archive", "url": "https://archive.org/details/homepod-expand-tpl-cc-us-20180306_1920x1080h", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Apple Wins 2 Grand Prix at Cannes for Its Mind-Blowing HomePod Ad and In-Store Experience", "publisher": "Adweek (2018)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/apple-wins-2-grand-prix-at-cannes-for-its-mind-blowing-homepod-ad-and-in-store-experience/" }, { "title": "Apple Shares 'Welcome Home' HomePod Ad Directed by Spike Jonze and Starring FKA Twigs", "publisher": "MacRumors (2018)", "url": "https://www.macrumors.com/2018/03/06/apple-homepod-spike-jonze-fka-twigs/" }, { "title": "Apple pulls back curtain for rare, exhilarating look at Spike Jonze HomePod ad production", "publisher": "AppleInsider (2018)", "url": "https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/22/apple-pulls-back-curtain-for-rare-exhilarating-look-at-spike-jonze-homepod-ad-production" }, { "title": "Apple | Welcome Home", "publisher": "The One Club (2019)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/33210/welcome-home/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xwc22EK8qE0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Welcome Home (Apple (HomePod), 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Apple HomePod - Welcome Home (Spike Jonze) [Full HD]”, uploaded by AlisamiXploration", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwc22EK8qE0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Xwc22EK8qE0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Xwc22EK8qE0", "uploaded_at": "2020-04-24T16:07:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bk-whopper-detour", "title": "Whopper Detour", "brand": "Burger King", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2018, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "A one-cent Whopper unlocks only within 600 feet of a McDonald's, then the app navigates buyers away to the nearest Burger King." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Geofencing more than 14,000 rival restaurants turns a competitor's own real estate into the trigger for Burger King's promotion." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Geofenced mobile promotion", "agency": "FCB, New York", "credits": [], "tagline": "Order a Whopper for a penny — at McDonald's.", "why_studied": "The best use of a competitor's real estate in marketing history. For nine days in December 2018, Burger King's app sold the Whopper for one cent — but the offer only unlocked within 600 feet of a McDonald's, geofencing more than 14,000 rival locations and then navigating buyers to the nearest Burger King. The troll logic drove 1.5 million app downloads, took the app from #686 to #1 in the App Store in 48 hours, produced over half a million redemptions and a reported 37:1 ROI, and permanently shifted the chain's mobile-ordering behavior. It swept Cannes 2019 (Titanium and Direct Grand Prix among them). It is studied as the model 'product-ized' promotion: media, technology, PR stunt and sales mechanic collapsed into a single idea you could explain in one sentence.", "watch": [ { "label": "FCB's case page, with the campaign film", "url": "https://fcb.com/our-work/whopper-detour/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Whopper Detour (agency case: mechanics, ROI, awards)", "publisher": "FCB", "url": "https://fcb.com/our-work/whopper-detour/" }, { "title": "Burger King's 'Whopper Detour' Ends Triumphant Week at Cannes With Titanium Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2019)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/burger-kings-whopper-detour-ends-triumphant-week-at-cannes-with-titanium-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "Burger King's 'Whopper Detour' generated 1.5M app downloads (CEO confirmation)", "publisher": "Marketing Dive (2019)", "url": "https://www.marketingdive.com/news/burger-kings-whopper-detour-generated-15m-app-downloads/548203/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wendys-nuggsforcarter", "title": "#NuggsForCarter", "brand": "Wendy's", "brand_slug": "wendys", "year": 2017, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "A throwaway reply to a teenager's tweet becomes a national event as the brand moves the goalposts live, setting him the retweet record to beat." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Millions of people retweet one customer's plea for free nuggets, letting the public rather than the brand drive the story." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Real-time social media (Twitter) campaign", "agency": "Ketchum, Atlanta, and VML, Kansas City", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A teenager's tweet that became the most retweeted ever, with a fast-food brand as his co-conspirator. On 6 April 2017 Carter Wilkerson, a 16-year-old from Reno, asked Wendy's how many retweets he would need to earn a year of free chicken nuggets; the brand's account answered 18 million. When he passed a million retweets within 48 hours, Wendy's and its agencies moved the goalposts to something achievable: beating Ellen DeGeneres's celebrity Oscars selfie, then the most retweeted tweet ever. DeGeneres played along on her show, and on 9 May, NPR reported, his plea passed her record at more than 3.47 million shares. Wendy's gave him the nuggets anyway and pledged $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. It is studied as a brand letting a customer own the story while its social voice and PR turned a throwaway reply into a national event; the Shorty Awards entry claims 213,000 new followers for @Wendys. It won a One Show Gold Pencil for real-time response.", "watch": [ { "label": "Carter Wilkerson's original tweet", "url": "https://x.com/carterjwm/status/849813577770778624", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Shorty Awards entry", "url": "https://shortyawards.com/10th/nuggsforcarter", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Quest For Free Chicken Nuggets Inspires Twitter's Most Retweeted Tweet", "publisher": "NPR (2017)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/09/527597422/quest-for-free-chicken-nuggets-inspires-twitters-most-retweeted-tweet" }, { "title": "Wendy's: #NuggsforCarter (2018 Gold Pencil, PR / Real-Time Response)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/31016/nuggsforcarter/" }, { "title": "#NuggsforCarter (entry)", "publisher": "The Shorty Awards (2018)", "url": "https://shortyawards.com/10th/nuggsforcarter" }, { "title": "Wendy's Gives Industrious Teen Who Set a Retweet Record a Year's Worth of Chicken Nuggets", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/wendys-gives-industrious-teen-who-set-a-retweet-record-a-years-worth-of-chicken-nuggets/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mailchimp-did-you-mean-mailchimp", "title": "Did You Mean MailChimp?", "brand": "Mailchimp", "year": 2017, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Surreal oddities with names that only sound like the brand, from a shrimp film to a whale synthesiser, turn a mispronunciation into a running joke." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Each curiosity is designed to provoke a search, so audiences piece the joke together and discover the brand for themselves." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Integrated search campaign (short films, microsites, interactive pieces)", "agency": "Droga5, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Droga5, New York" }, { "role": "Chief creative officers", "name": "David Droga, Ted Royer" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Neil Heymann" }, { "role": "Directors (films)", "name": "The Sacred Egg" }, { "role": "Production company (films)", "name": "Riff Raff Films" }, { "role": "Digital production", "name": "Resn, Wellington" }, { "role": "Media agency", "name": "PHD, New York" } ], "tagline": "Did You Mean MailChimp?", "why_studied": "Mailchimp's first campaign with Droga5 barely said \"Mailchimp\" at all. Droga5 took the \"MailKimp\" stumble from the company's 2014 ad on the podcast Serial and turned mispronunciation into a system: nine projects whose names only sound like the brand, among them MailShrimp, KaleLimp and JailBlimp (three surreal 60-second films made for cinemas and the web), FailChips, SnailPrimp, MaleCrimp, VeilHymn, WhaleSynth and NailChamp. Resn built the digital pieces, including an interactive music video and a whale synthesiser. Each oddity was designed to provoke a search, and a looping web of microsites routed the curious to a single page that explained the joke. It is studied as a search campaign disguised as a scattering of curiosities, letting small, specific audiences discover the brand for themselves rather than being told about it. Launched in January 2017, it was one of three Cyber Grand Prix winners at Cannes that June, and in 2018 it collected a Best of Discipline Pencil at the One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign film on Mailchimp's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4KnG4iZMnk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Droga5 case page", "url": "https://droga5.com/work/mailchimp/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Droga's MailChimp Campaign Wins One of 3 Cyber Grand Prix Awarded at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/drogas-mailchimp-campaign-wins-one-of-3-cyber-grand-prix-awarded-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "MailChimp | Did You Mean MailChimp?", "publisher": "The One Club (2018)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/30950/did-you-mean-mailchimpa/" }, { "title": "MailChimp plays the name game in gorgeously absurdist Droga5 films", "publisher": "Campaign (2017)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/mailchimp-plays-name-game-gorgeously-absurdist-droga5-films/1421745" }, { "title": "Kiwi digital agency roars at Cannes Lions", "publisher": "M+AD (2017)", "url": "https://www.mad-daily.com/resn-roars-at-lions/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/L4KnG4iZMnk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Did You Mean MailChimp? (Mailchimp, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Did You Mean MailChimp?”, uploaded by Intuit Mailchimp", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4KnG4iZMnk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/L4KnG4iZMnk/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "L4KnG4iZMnk", "uploaded_at": "2017-02-17T14:02:32+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ol-pejeta-tinder-most-eligible-bachelor", "title": "The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World", "brand": "Ol Pejeta Conservancy (with Tinder)", "year": 2017, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A conservancy puts the last male of a rhino species on a dating app, where swiping right leads to donations for rhino IVF." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "His profile sells extinction as a dating catch, boasting of a vast home and armed bodyguards and joking that his species depends on him." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Dating-app profile (social campaign)", "agency": "Ogilvy Africa, Nairobi", "credits": [ { "role": "Regional creative director", "name": "Joao Espirito Santo" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In April 2017 Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, joined Tinder. Ogilvy Africa wrote his profile for Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in partnership with the app, and sold his predicament as a catch: 43 years old, one of a kind, a 90,000-acre home and a team of armed bodyguards. 'I don't mean to be too forward, but the fate of my species literally depends on me,' it read. Swiping right led to a donation page, because Sudan could no longer mate naturally and the conservancy needed around $10 million to develop IVF for rhinos. It is studied as a cause appeal slipped into a platform built for something else entirely, using the app's own grammar of profiles and swipes to make extinction personal. The agency reported that the donation site crashed within an hour of launch and that two million people swiped right. It won Lions in three categories at Cannes in 2017 and a Gold for media innovation at the Loeries. Sudan died in March 2018.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign film on Ogilvy Africa's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDQ6JaNvsmM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Ogilvy Africa case page with award list", "url": "https://ogilvy.africa/work/most-eligible-bachelor-2/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Last male northern white rhino joins Tinder to raise money", "publisher": "BBC News (2017)", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-39713327" }, { "title": "Ogilvy Africa Worlds Most Eligible Bachelor", "publisher": "Direct New Ideas (2017, agency-supplied case)", "url": "https://www.directnewideas.com/magazine/ogilvy_africa_worlds_most_eligible_bachelor/?id=2339" }, { "title": "Bachelor rhino wins Ogilvy a gold medal", "publisher": "Business Today Kenya (2017)", "url": "https://businesstoday.co.ke/most-eligible-rhino-earns-ogilvy-gold-medal-at-the-loeries/" }, { "title": "Northern white rhino: Last male Sudan dies in Kenya", "publisher": "BBC News (2018)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43468066" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GDQ6JaNvsmM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World (Ol Pejeta Conservancy (with Tinder), 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Ol Pejeta Conservancy | The World's Most Eligible Bachelor”, uploaded by Ogilvy Africa", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDQ6JaNvsmM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GDQ6JaNvsmM/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "GDQ6JaNvsmM", "uploaded_at": "2021-05-18T15:54:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "brooke-bond-red-label-6-pack-band", "title": "6 Pack Band", "brand": "Brooke Bond Red Label (Hindustan Unilever)", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A tea brand sponsors a pop group of six singers from India's hijra community, presented as the country's first transgender band." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "The band's songs, starting with a cover of Pharrell Williams's 'Happy', spread across YouTube, radio, streaming and caller tunes with the brand as sponsor." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded music videos (YouTube)", "agency": "Y-Films (Yash Raj Films) with Mindshare Mumbai", "credits": [ { "role": "Conceived and produced by", "name": "Ashish Patil (Y-Films)" }, { "role": "Curator and composer", "name": "Shameer Tandon" }, { "role": "Media agency and Cannes entrant", "name": "Mindshare Mumbai" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Launched on 6 January 2016 with 'Hum Hain Happy', a cover of Pharrell Williams's 'Happy', the 6 Pack Band was presented as India's first transgender pop group: six singers from the country's hijra community, curated by the composer Shameer Tandon and sponsored by Hindustan Unilever's Brooke Bond Red Label tea. Its songs were released on YouTube, music television, radio and streaming apps, and even as mobile caller tunes. It is studied as branded content made without an advertising agency: the idea came from Yash Raj Films' youth arm, Y-Films, through HUL's media agency Mindshare, and took 19 presentations to win over doubtful HUL executives. The brand accepted a sponsor's role, and HUL said that while 92 per cent of viewers did not mention it after the first song, 68 per cent linked the band to Red Label by the fifth. It won the Glass Lion Grand Prix at Cannes in 2016.", "watch": [ { "label": "'Hum Hain Happy' on the YFilms YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvOBnSRfVc", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Yash Raj Films 6 Pack Band page", "url": "https://www.yashrajfilms.com/movies/6-pack-band", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions 2016: Glass Grand Prix for Hindustan Unilever's '6 Pack Band'", "publisher": "afaqs! (2016)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/48285_cannes-lions-2016-glass-grand-prix-for-hindustan-unilevers-6-pack-band" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2016: The making of Glass Grand Prix winning ad '6 Pack Band'", "publisher": "The Economic Times (2016)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cannes-lions-2016-the-making-of-glass-grand-prix-winning-ad-6-pack-band/articleshow/52955225.cms" }, { "title": "Indian transgender band releases debut single", "publisher": "The Indian Express (2016)", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/music/indian-transgender-band-releases-debut-single/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/blvOBnSRfVc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from 6 Pack Band (Brooke Bond Red Label (Hindustan Unilever), 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Hum Hain Happy - 6 Pack Band”, uploaded by YFilms", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blvOBnSRfVc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/blvOBnSRfVc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "blvOBnSRfVc", "uploaded_at": "2016-01-06T10:15:21+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ariel-dads-share-the-load", "title": "Dads #ShareTheLoad", "brand": "Ariel (P&G India)", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A detergent brand challenges the idea that laundry is only a mother's job, arguing that household inequality is learned and passed on." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A father's voiceover apology to his married daughter for the example he set turns the issue into a moment of tender regret." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "The film follows a father who watches his daughter juggle everything, writes to her, then goes home and starts doing the laundry himself." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "BBDO India, Mumbai", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Shimit Amin" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Hemant Shringy" }, { "role": "Chairman, BBDO India", "name": "Josy Paul" } ], "tagline": "#ShareTheLoad", "why_studied": "Released by Ariel India in February 2016, this two-minute film watches a father visit his married daughter and see her handle cooking, her child and the household chores while her husband watches television. In voiceover he writes her an apology for the example he set, then goes home and starts doing the laundry with his own wife as the screen asks why laundry is only a mother's job. BBDO India's sequel to the 2015 'Share the Load' launch moved the argument from how unequal Indian homes are to how that inequality is learned and passed on. It is studied as a purpose campaign that also sold product. Sheryl Sandberg shared it as one of the most powerful videos she had ever seen; it won five Cannes Lions in 2016, including a Gold Glass Lion; and the WARC 100 named Share the Load the world's top-ranked campaign of 2017, reporting that Ariel's value and volume sales more than doubled.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Ariel India's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJukf4ifuKs", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg applauds Indian detergent ad", "publisher": "CNBC (2016)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/26/facebooks-sheryl-sandberg-applauds-indian-detergent-ad.html" }, { "title": "BBDO's 'Ariel Dads #Share the Load' ad drives premium segment of brand sales by 76%", "publisher": "exchange4media (2016)", "url": "https://www.exchange4media.com/advertising-news/bbdo's-'ariel-dadsshare-the-load'-ad-drives-premium-segment-of-brand-sales-by-76-65355.html" }, { "title": "WARC 100 Reveals World's Most Effective Campaigns, Brands and Agencies of 2017", "publisher": "LBB Online (2017)", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/warc-100-reveals-worlds-most-effective-campaigns-brands-and-agencies-of-2017" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wJukf4ifuKs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Dads #ShareTheLoad (Ariel (P&G India), 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Why is Laundry only a mother’s job? Dads #ShareTheLoad (Hindi) – Ariel”, uploaded by Ariel India", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJukf4ifuKs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wJukf4ifuKs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "wJukf4ifuKs", "uploaded_at": "2016-02-19T09:17:16+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "snickers-hungerithm", "title": "Hungerithm", "brand": "Snickers (Mars Chocolate Australia)", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "An algorithm reads thousands of social posts a day, and the angrier the internet gets, the cheaper a Snickers becomes, updating over 140 times daily." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The long-running joke that hunger makes you someone else becomes a pricing mechanism, discounting the bar as online tempers rise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Data-driven pricing algorithm and website", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Ant Keogh" }, { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Evan Roberts, Stephen de Wolf" }, { "role": "Digital Creative Director", "name": "Ben Keenan" } ], "tagline": "You're not you when you're hungry.", "why_studied": "Snickers' long-running idea that you're not yourself when you're hungry, turned into a live price. From 25 May to 27 June 2016, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne's Hungerithm read around 14,000 social posts a day against a 3,000-word lexicon, slang and sarcasm included, to gauge how angry the Australian internet was. The angrier it got, the cheaper a Snickers became at 7-Eleven: the price updated more than 140 times a day and could fall to 82% off, claimed with a barcode generated on the brand's website. It is studied as a landmark of real-time, data-driven creativity in which the media, the pricing and the joke are one mechanism, and as proof that a celebrity-led brand platform could be rebuilt for the social age without a celebrity. The agency's One Show entry claims a 67% rise in Snickers unit sales at 7-Eleven. Campaign Brief counts six Gold Lions among 21 at Cannes in 2017, and it won a One Show Gold Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on BBDO Asia's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLDINyDoVAU", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/hungerithm", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and Mars Create New Snickers 'Hungerithm'", "publisher": "B&T (2016)", "url": "https://www.bandt.com.au/clemenger-bbdo-melbourne-mars-create-new-snickers-hungerithm/" }, { "title": "Snickers 'Hungerithm' Sets the Candy's In-Store Price Based on the Internet's Mood", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/snickers-hungerithm-sets-candys-store-price-based-internets-mood-171674/" }, { "title": "Mars: Hungerithm (2017 Gold Pencil, Social Media / Real-Time Response)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/26574/hungerithm/" }, { "title": "Australian Campaigns of the Decade: Snickers 'Hungerithm' (2016) via Clemenger BBDO Melbourne", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2019)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/australian-campaigns-of-the-decade%E2%80%88snickers-hungerithm-2016-via-clemenger-bbdo-melbourne/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PLDINyDoVAU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hungerithm (Snickers (Mars Chocolate Australia), 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Snickers Hunger-ithm”, uploaded by BBDO Asia", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLDINyDoVAU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PLDINyDoVAU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "PLDINyDoVAU", "uploaded_at": "2020-07-29T08:18:31+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kenzo-world", "title": "Kenzo World (My Mutant Brain)", "brand": "Kenzo Parfums", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Swapping the poised perfume heroine for a guest who flails, kicks and fires lasers from her fingertips makes gleeful absurdity the film's engine." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "An original track powers the frantic dance from start to finish, so the music carries the film's uninhibited mood." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "Black Frame, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Spike Jonze" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "MJZ" }, { "role": "Choreographer", "name": "Ryan Heffington" }, { "role": "Director of photography", "name": "Hoyte van Hoytema" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Sam Spiegel & Ape Drums feat. Assassin, 'Mutant Brain'" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Posted online at the end of August 2016 to launch the Kenzo World fragrance, Spike Jonze's four-minute film follows Margaret Qualley as a guest at a formal function who slips away and throws herself into a frantic, uninhibited dance through the venue: kicking, flailing and finally shooting lasers from her fingertips to the original track 'Mutant Brain' by Sam Spiegel and Ape Drums. It openly echoes Jonze's own video for Fatboy Slim's 'Weapon of Choice'. It is studied because it turned the perfume-ad formula inside out, trading the poised, seductive heroine for a woman abandoning all composure, and because it treated the web as a home for a full short film rather than a cut-down spot. Campaign reported 200,000 views within days and an enthusiastic reception online. At Cannes 2017 it received one of only three Titanium Lions awarded that year, along with two Gold Film Craft Lions.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film as the official 'Mutant Brain' music video on Ape Drums' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAp6w9hTAqk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "SHOOT Top Spot of the Week, with full credits", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/shoot_video2/top-spot-week-spike-jonze-writes-directs-kenzo-parfums-ad-starring-margaret-qualley/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Kenzo gets the internet tapping its toes with frenetic Spike Jonze dance ad", "publisher": "Campaign (2016)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/kenzo-gets-internet-tapping-its-toes-frenetic-spike-jonze-dance-ad/1407289" }, { "title": "Titanium Lions winners!", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2017)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/163763.html" }, { "title": "Film Craft Lions winners!", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2017)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/163748.html" }, { "title": "Top Spot of the Week: Spike Jonze Writes, Directs Kenzo Parfums Ad Starring Margaret Qualley", "publisher": "SHOOT (2016)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/shoot_video2/top-spot-week-spike-jonze-writes-directs-kenzo-parfums-ad-starring-margaret-qualley/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/XAp6w9hTAqk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Kenzo World (My Mutant Brain) (Kenzo Parfums, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sam Spiegel & Ape Drums “Mutant Brain” Music Video (Kenzo World)”, uploaded by Ape Drums", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAp6w9hTAqk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/XAp6w9hTAqk/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "XAp6w9hTAqk", "uploaded_at": "2020-06-23T20:59:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "addict-aide-like-my-addiction", "title": "Like My Addiction (\"Louise Delage\")", "brand": "Addict'Aide (Fonds Actions Addictions)", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "A reveal film races through an admired Instagrammer's whole feed, exposing that she was an alcoholic whose followers cheered her on without seeing it." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Made pro bono for a public addiction portal, it shows how easily a friend's drinking problem goes unnoticed." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Instagram influencer account and reveal film", "agency": "BETC, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Stéphane Xiberras" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Pierre Edouard Joubert" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Francine Framboise" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "For about two months in 2016, Louise Delage looked like any rising Parisian Instagrammer: 25, stylish and always out, at after-work drinks, on boats, at parties and on holiday, collecting followers and tens of thousands of likes. She did not exist. BETC Paris created her, pro bono, for Addict'Aide, a French public portal on addiction, and every one of her 150 or so posts featured a drink, sometimes obvious, often not. On 22 September the account posted a reveal film that raced through the whole feed so the pattern finally became visible: Louise was an alcoholic, and her followers had cheered her on without seeing it. It is studied as the campaign that turned influencer culture against itself, using the platform's own likes and admiring comments to show how easily a friend's addiction is missed. The Guardian put her following at 65,000 once the story broke. At Cannes in 2017 it collected 19 Lions, and it won a Gold Pencil for influencer marketing at the One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "The reveal film (YouTube re-upload by Campaigns of the World)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzrnrWR8ilU", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "BETC's campaign page on La Réclame (French)", "url": "https://lareclame.fr/betcparis/realisations/campagne-digitale-addict-aide-like-my-addiction", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Who is Louise Delage? New Instagram influencer not what she seems", "publisher": "The Guardian (2016)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/06/shell-drink-to-that-fake-instagram-louise-delage-profile-highlights-alcoholism" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions : BETC brille à l'ombre des Gafa", "publisher": "Les Echos (2017, French)", "url": "https://www.lesechos.fr/2017/06/cannes-lions-betc-brille-a-lombre-des-gafa-155115" }, { "title": "Campagne Digitale Addict' Aide - Like my addiction", "publisher": "BETC via La Réclame (2016, French)", "url": "https://lareclame.fr/betcparis/realisations/campagne-digitale-addict-aide-like-my-addiction" }, { "title": "One Show 2017 credits: Like my addiction (BETC Paris)", "publisher": "The One Club (2017)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-credit/72580/2017" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/LzrnrWR8ilU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Like My Addiction (\"Louise Delage\") (Addict'Aide (Fonds Actions Addictions), 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Addict Aide: Like My Addiction | Social media can often portray addiction in a positive light”, uploaded by Campaigns of the World ®", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzrnrWR8ilU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/LzrnrWR8ilU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "LzrnrWR8ilU", "uploaded_at": "2023-08-28T14:48:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sk-ii-marriage-market-takeover", "title": "Marriage Market Takeover", "brand": "SK-II (Procter & Gamble)", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A premium skincare brand takes a side in China's argument over so-called leftover women, urging them not to let pressure dictate their future." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Intimate conversations between unmarried women and their parents about marriage pressure carry the film's emotional weight, framed as documentary rather than beauty advertising." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online documentary film", "agency": "Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Floyd Russ" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Tool of North America" } ], "tagline": "Don’t let pressure dictate your future.", "why_studied": "A four-minute film in which unmarried Chinese women in their late twenties, branded sheng nu or ‘leftover women’, talk with their parents about the pressure to marry, before turning up at the marriage market in Shanghai’s People’s Park, where parents post their children’s details, with portraits and messages of their own. Made for P&G’s Japanese skincare brand SK-II as part of a global push urging women to shape their own destiny, and released on YouTube and Weibo in April 2016, it is framed as a documentary rather than a beauty advertisement. It is studied as a premium beauty brand taking a side in a live social argument in China, and as evidence that a purpose-led online film can move sales. The BBC reported within days that it had gone viral in China. It won a Glass Lion at Cannes 2016, then the Grand Prix at the WARC Prize for Asian Strategy and a Silver at the IPA Effectiveness Awards, whose summary says sales nearly doubled in a year.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on SK-II’s official YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irfd74z52Cw", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Forsman & Bodenfors case page", "url": "https://www.forsman.com/work/marriage-market-takeover/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Warc announces Asian Strategy 2017 winners", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2017)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/warc-announces-asian-strategy-2017-winners/440675" }, { "title": "Emotional advert about China's 'leftover women' goes viral", "publisher": "BBC News (2016)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35994366" }, { "title": "Glass Lions winners!", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2016)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/146587.html" }, { "title": "SK-II: The Marriage Market Takeover: How giving ‘leftover’ women in China a voice transformed a luxury skin care brand", "publisher": "IPA Effectiveness Awards (2018)", "url": "https://ipaeffectivenessawards.awardsengine.com/winners/view_awards_entry.cfm?id_entry=100065" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/irfd74z52Cw/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Marriage Market Takeover (SK-II (Procter & Gamble), 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “SK-II: Marriage Market Takeover (Please turn on subtitle)”, uploaded by SK-II", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irfd74z52Cw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/irfd74z52Cw/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "irfd74z52Cw", "uploaded_at": "2016-04-06T07:35:06+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "visit-faroe-islands-sheep-view-360", "title": "Sheep View 360", "brand": "Visit Faroe Islands", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Tired of waiting for Google's cars, the tourist board straps 360-degree cameras to sheep, an absurd but true image that puts the islands on the map." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online 360-degree content and PR campaign", "agency": "Liquid Minds, Copenhagen, with Sansir, Tórshavn", "credits": [ { "role": "Project lead, Visit Faroe Islands", "name": "Durita Dahl Andreassen" }, { "role": "Agencies", "name": "Liquid Minds (Copenhagen) and Sansir (Tórshavn)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In July 2016, tired of waiting for Google's cars, the Faroe Islands' tourist board fitted five sheep with 360-degree cameras and let them map the archipelago instead. Durita Dahl Andreassen of Visit Faroe Islands uploaded what the animals captured, released 360-degree video that let viewers roam the hills as a sheep, and petitioned Google under the hashtag #wewantgooglestreetview to come and finish the job. It is studied as a model of small-budget destination marketing: one absurd but true image that introduced a little-known place to the world while handing the press a David-and-Goliath story. Google answered within two months, lending a Street View Trekker and 360-degree cameras that residents and tourists could borrow. Made with Liquid Minds of Copenhagen and Sansir of Tórshavn, it won a Gold PR Lion at Cannes in 2017; its entrants reported a budget of about $280,000 and some two billion media impressions.", "watch": [ { "label": "Sheep-view 360 film on the Visit Faroe Islands YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywdqiyoQNgQ", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Visit Faroe Islands campaign page", "url": "https://visitfaroeislands.com/en/about-vfi/marketing-development-campaigns/sheepview360", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Faroe Islands fit cameras to sheep to create Google Street View", "publisher": "The Guardian (2016)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/jul/12/sheep-view-360-faroe-islands-google-mapping-project" }, { "title": "Sheep View: Where there’s a wool, there’s a way", "publisher": "Google, The Keyword blog (2016)", "url": "https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/sheep-view-where-theres-wool-theres-way/" }, { "title": "PR Lions winners!", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2017)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/111/163467.html" }, { "title": "Visit Faroe Islands: Sheep View", "publisher": "World Media Group (2017)", "url": "https://world-media-group.com/case-study/visit-faroe-islands-case-study-2017/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ywdqiyoQNgQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Sheep View 360 (Visit Faroe Islands, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sheepview360 in the Faroe Islands”, uploaded by Visit Faroe Islands", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywdqiyoQNgQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ywdqiyoQNgQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ywdqiyoQNgQ", "uploaded_at": "2016-07-12T07:49:19+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "spotify-wrapped", "title": "Spotify Wrapped", "brand": "Spotify", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Each listener's own data becomes a personal year-end recap made for sharing, so users supply the media by posting their results." }, { "slug": "bandwagon", "note": "Hundreds of millions of people posting their results at once fill social feeds, making taking part feel like something everyone is doing." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Personalised in-app data story and social campaign", "agency": "In-house (Spotify)", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The year-end ad that users make for you. Every December since 2016, when Spotify renamed its 2015 'Year in Music' as Wrapped, the service has turned each listener's own data, from top artists and songs to genres and minutes streamed, into a personal recap and a 'Your Top Songs' playlist made for sharing. The brand supplies the format; hundreds of millions of people supply the media, posting their results across social platforms. It is studied as the defining example of data as content: personalisation that flatters the user, gives them something to say about themselves, and quietly advertises the product. The scale keeps growing. Spotify says the 2019 edition was personalised for more than 200 million users, 2023 engaged a record 227 million monthly active users, and the 2025 campaign ended with more than 300 million engaged users and over 630 million social shares in 56 languages. The 2019 campaign won a One Show Gold Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Spotify's ten-year history of Wrapped", "url": "https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-12-04/10-years-spotify-wrapped/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "\"How It's Made: Wrapped\" on Spotify's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpwv5tiQGKk", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "We're Commemorating a Decade of Spotify Wrapped With Our Best and Boldest Wrapped Yet", "publisher": "Spotify Newsroom (2024)", "url": "https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-12-04/10-years-spotify-wrapped/" }, { "title": "Unwrapping Wrapped 2019: Spotify VP of Engineering Tyson Singer Explains", "publisher": "Spotify Newsroom (2020)", "url": "https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-02-18/unwrapping-wrapped-2019-spotify-vp-of-engineering-tyson-singer-explains/" }, { "title": "Spotify Reports Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings (Wrapped results)", "publisher": "Spotify Newsroom (2026)", "url": "https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-02-10/spotify-q4-2025-earnings/" }, { "title": "Spotify: #SpotifyWrapped (2020 Gold Pencil, PR / Brand Voice)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/37409/spotifywrapped/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hpwv5tiQGKk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Spotify Wrapped (Spotify, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “How It's Made: Wrapped”, uploaded by Spotify", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpwv5tiQGKk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hpwv5tiQGKk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "hpwv5tiQGKk", "uploaded_at": "2020-04-06T14:14:54+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "momondo-the-dna-journey", "title": "The DNA Journey", "brand": "momondo", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A travel search site argues against national prejudice, showing people who dislike certain nations that their own ancestry runs through them." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Participants' surprise as DNA results upend their views, including two who discover they are distant cousins, gives the film its emotional charge." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "&Co., Copenhagen", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jeppe Rønde" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Robert Cerkez" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Bacon, Copenhagen" }, { "role": "DNA testing partner", "name": "AncestryDNA" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A five-minute online film for the Danish travel search site momondo, made with AncestryDNA. Sixteen people from different countries are asked on camera about their nationality and the nations they dislike, then handed DNA results tracing their ancestry across many of those same places: a man who is no fan of Germans learns he is partly German, and two participants discover they are distant cousins. Released through social media in June 2016, it had passed 23 million Facebook views by 7 June, and won a Gold and two Silver PR Lions at Cannes in 2017; the awards entry claimed close to 400 million views and a 2% gain in global market share. It is studied both as purpose-led branding at scale and for the scrutiny that followed: Danish scientists questioned whether DNA can be pinned to modern nations, and momondo acknowledged that casting agencies had supplied participants, that ten had acting or extras experience and that the 'two weeks later' caption was a storytelling device.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on momondo's 'Let's Open Our World' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "To gange dansk guld i Cannes", "publisher": "Dansk Markedsføring (2017)", "url": "https://markedsforing.dk/artikler/nyheder/to-gange-dansk-guld-i-cannes/" }, { "title": "Cannes: Ranking The 2017 PR Gold Lion Winners", "publisher": "PRovoke Media (2017)", "url": "https://www.provokemedia.com/long-reads/article/cannes-ranking-the-2017-pr-gold-lion-winners" }, { "title": "momondo – The DNA Journey: how it was made", "publisher": "momondo (2016)", "url": "https://www.momondo.com/discover/momondo-the-dna-journey-how-it-was-made" }, { "title": "Experts claim viral Momondo DNA advert isn't all it's cracked up to be", "publisher": "The Copenhagen Post (2016)", "url": "https://cphpost.dk/2016-06-07/news/experts-claim-viral-momondo-dna-advert-isnt-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tyaEQEmt5ls/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The DNA Journey (momondo, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “momondo – The DNA Journey”, uploaded by momondo - Let's Open Our World", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tyaEQEmt5ls/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "tyaEQEmt5ls", "uploaded_at": "2016-06-02T06:09:07+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ing-the-next-rembrandt", "title": "The Next Rembrandt", "brand": "ING", "year": 2016, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "A long-time sponsor of Dutch art borrows the prestige of Rembrandt himself, using data from his known paintings to produce a new 3D-printed portrait." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Data-driven art project and online film", "agency": "J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Bas Korsten" }, { "role": "Technology partner", "name": "Microsoft" }, { "role": "Research partner", "name": "Delft University of Technology" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Unveiled in Amsterdam on 5 April 2016, The Next Rembrandt is a portrait the Dutch master never painted: a man in his thirties in a black hat and white collar, facing right, whose features were derived from analysis of Rembrandt's 346 known paintings and then 3D printed so the surface mimics his brushwork. J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam spent 18 months on it for ING, a long-time sponsor of Dutch art, working with Microsoft, Delft University of Technology and art historians from the Mauritshuis and the Rembrandt House. It is studied as the point at which data stopped being only a targeting tool and became the creative material itself, and as a sponsorship turned into a public argument about whether software can make art. At Cannes 2016 it took two Grand Prix, in Cyber and in Creative Data, the first Grand Prix the Creative Data jury had ever awarded.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on The Next Rembrandt YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuygOYZ1Ngo", "type": "official" }, { "label": "VML (formerly J. Walter Thompson) case page", "url": "https://www.vml.com/work/next-rembrandt", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "JWT's 'The Next Rembrandt' Wins Two Grand Prix at Cannes, in Cyber and Creative Data", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/jwts-next-rembrandt-wins-two-grand-prix-cannes-cyber-and-creative-data-172171/" }, { "title": "'New Rembrandt' to be unveiled in Amsterdam", "publisher": "The Guardian (2016)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/apr/05/new-rembrandt-to-be-unveiled-in-amsterdam" }, { "title": "A Convincing Rembrandt Painting Crafted With 3-D Printing", "publisher": "NPR (2016)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/04/06/473265273/a-new-rembrandt-from-the-frontiers-of-ai-and-not-the-artists-atelier" }, { "title": "The Verdict: Why 'The Next Rembrandt' sets new standards for creative data", "publisher": "The Drum (2016)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/verdict-why-next-rembrandt-sets-new-standards-creative-data" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IuygOYZ1Ngo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Next Rembrandt (ING, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Next Rembrandt”, uploaded by The Next Rembrandt", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuygOYZ1Ngo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IuygOYZ1Ngo/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "IuygOYZ1Ngo", "uploaded_at": "2016-04-05T09:01:51+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "edeka-heimkommen", "title": "#heimkommen (\"Coming Home\")", "brand": "Edeka", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "The film confronts the loneliness of an elderly father left alone each Christmas, a painful truth that gives the family reunion its emotional force." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A father announces his own death so his scattered children finally come home, then greets the mourners at a laid table in a final twist." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "Jung von Matt, Hamburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Alex Feil" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Jens Pfau" }, { "role": "Writers", "name": "Christian Moehler, Simon Urban" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Tempomedia Filmproduktion, Hamburg" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An old man, left alone at Christmas year after year, sends out notice of his own death so that his scattered children finally come home, then greets the mourners at a laid table: how else could he have brought them all together? The German supermarket chain released the film on YouTube on 28 November 2015, with a shorter cut for television to follow. It travelled far beyond Germany within days, drawing close to 10 million YouTube views by 1 December according to The Guardian and around 2.4 million shares by 10 December, which Horizont reported put it ahead of John Lewis and Sainsbury's that season. It is studied as the case that an emotional, story-led Christmas film need not come from a British retailer, and as a lesson in tackling an uncomfortable social truth, loneliness in old age, more bluntly than the category usually dares. Horizont later called it the blueprint for a wave of socially minded Christmas campaigns.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Edeka's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6-0kYhqoRo", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The One Show awards entry (credits)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/24717/home-for-christmas/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Forget John Lewis, this is the saddest Christmas ad you'll ever see", "publisher": "The Guardian (2015)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/01/forget-john-lewis-this-is-the-saddest-christmas-ad-you-will-ever-seee" }, { "title": "Edeka: #heimkommen wird wie „Supergeil“ ein YouTube-Hit", "publisher": "Die Welt (2015)", "url": "https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article149471535/Edeka-heimkommen-wird-wie-Supergeil-ein-YouTube-Hit.html" }, { "title": "Unruly-Ranking: Jung von Matt ist die erfolgreichste deutsche Social-Video-Agentur", "publisher": "Horizont (2015)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/agenturen/nachrichten/Unruly-Ranking-Jung-von-Matt-ist-die-erfolgreichste-deutsche-Social-Video-Agentur-2015-137863" }, { "title": "Mit diesem Weihnachtsfilm macht Edeka den \"Heimkommen\"-Spot vergessen", "publisher": "Horizont (2019)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/marketing/nachrichten/jung-von-mattalster-in-dieser-liebevollen-oma-macht-edeka-den-heimkommen-weihnachtsfilm-vergessen-179332" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/V6-0kYhqoRo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from #heimkommen (\"Coming Home\") (Edeka, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “EDEKA Weihnachtsclip - #heimkommen”, uploaded by EDEKA", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6-0kYhqoRo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/V6-0kYhqoRo/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "V6-0kYhqoRo", "uploaded_at": "2015-11-28T09:00:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dominos-emoji-ordering", "title": "Emoji Ordering", "brand": "Domino's", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Customers order by tweeting a single pizza-slice emoji at the brand, so the social post itself becomes the transaction." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The pitch is pure convenience: link an account to a saved order once, tweet one character, confirm, and dinner is on its way." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social ordering platform (Twitter/SMS)", "agency": "CP+B, Boulder", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Ralph Watson" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Tony Calcao" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Matt Talbot, Andrew Lincoln, Peter Knierim" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "On 20 May 2015 Domino's let American customers order dinner with a single character. Link a Twitter account to a saved 'Easy Order', tweet the pizza-slice emoji at @Dominos, confirm by direct message, and the pizza was on its way. CP+B built it as the newest piece of AnyWare, the chain's push to take orders through smart TVs, smartwatches, cars and now social feeds, and teased it with a run of cryptic tweets made of nothing but emoji. It is studied because the marketing was a working product: a commerce feature simple enough to explain in one line and odd enough to become news on its own. The 2015 Titanium jury gave it the Grand Prix, its president Mark Fitzloff arguing that the idea could shift a major advertiser's business model. CP+B reported more than 500 sign-ups on launch day and whole segments about it on late-night and breakfast television.", "watch": [ { "label": "Cannes Lions case film (third-party upload on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtdLsJsObrU", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Communication Arts Interactive Annual entry", "url": "https://www.commarts.com/project/23878/emoji-ordering", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Jordan Brand's Hat-Tip to Jeter and Domino's Emoji Ordering Win Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2015)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/jordan-brands-hat-tip-jeter-and-dominos-emoji-ordering-win-grand-prix-cannes-165614/" }, { "title": "Order Domino's® via Twitter & Emoji -- Revolutionary Ordering Innovations", "publisher": "Domino's Pizza investor relations (2015)", "url": "https://ir.dominos.com/news-releases/news-release-details/order-dominosr-twitter-emoji-revolutionary-ordering-innovations" }, { "title": "Emoji Ordering", "publisher": "Communication Arts", "url": "https://www.commarts.com/project/23878/emoji-ordering" }, { "title": "Case study: How Domino's and Crispin Porter & Bogusky transformed the pizza chain into a tech company", "publisher": "Campaign (2017)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/case-study-dominos-crispin-porter-bogusky-transformed-pizza-chain-tech-company/1422647" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NtdLsJsObrU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Emoji Ordering (Domino's, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “EMOJI ORDERING - DOMINO'S Cannes Lions 2015”, uploaded by Brand Buffet", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtdLsJsObrU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/NtdLsJsObrU/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "NtdLsJsObrU", "uploaded_at": "2015-06-27T14:31:11+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "shiseido-high-school-girl", "title": "High School Girl?", "brand": "Shiseido", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Running the film in reverse to strip away wigs, make-up and uniforms reveals that every schoolgirl is male, so the twist itself proves what the make-up can do." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "Shiseido in-house with Watts of Tokyo, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Masato Kosukegawa (Shiseido)" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Show Yanagisawa" }, { "role": "Director of photography", "name": "Jin Ohashi" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Watts of Tokyo" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The camera drifts around a classroom of Japanese schoolgirls until a line in one student’s book asks whether the viewer has noticed any boys in the room. The film then runs in reverse, peeling away wigs, make-up and uniforms to reveal that every student, and even the teacher, is male. Shiseido’s in-house creative team made it with Watts of Tokyo, its own hair and make-up artists did the transformations, and the cast held their poses through about seven hours of shooting. It was released only on YouTube in October 2015, aimed at younger buyers. It is studied as a product demonstration disguised as a plot twist: the proof of what the make-up can do is the story itself. Adweek reported eight million views within weeks. It won the Film Grand Prix at the 2015 Epica Awards and two Gold Lions at Cannes 2016, in Film and Film Craft, Shiseido’s first Cannes Gold for film since 1985.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Shiseido’s official YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n3Db6pMQ-8", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Shiseido Creative project page", "url": "https://www.shiseidocreative.com/en/high-school-girl", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes 2016: Film and Film Craft winners", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2016)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/cannes-2016-film-and-film-craft-winners/427286" }, { "title": "Shiseido's Gender-Shifting Makeup Ad Wins Grand Prix in Film at Epica Awards", "publisher": "Adweek (2015)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/shiseidos-gender-shifting-makeup-ad-wins-grand-prix-film-epica-awards-168216/" }, { "title": "Shiseido’s Web Movie, “High School Girl?” Won Two Gold Lions at “Cannes Lions.”", "publisher": "Shiseido (2016)", "url": "https://corp.shiseido.com/en/news/detail.html?n=00000000001964" }, { "title": "Shiseido’s Gender-Bending Commercial", "publisher": "Global Voices (2015)", "url": "https://globalvoices.org/2015/11/07/shiseidos-gender-bending-commercial/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5n3Db6pMQ-8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from High School Girl? (Shiseido, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “High School Girl?　メーク女子高生のヒミツ （The Secret of High School Girls）”, uploaded by 資生堂 Shiseido Co., Ltd.", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n3Db6pMQ-8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5n3Db6pMQ-8/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "5n3Db6pMQ-8", "uploaded_at": "2015-10-16T00:00:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "harvey-nichols-shoplifters", "title": "Shoplifters", "brand": "Harvey Nichols", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Real CCTV footage of shoplifters with crude cartoon heads shows them chased down and caught, before a cheeky pitch to get freebies legally through a rewards app." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "adam&eveDDB, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Ben Stilitz" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Colin Booth" }, { "role": "Executive creative directors", "name": "Ben Tollett, Richard Brim" }, { "role": "Directors", "name": "Layzell Bros" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Blinkink" } ], "tagline": "Love freebies? Get them legally.", "why_studied": "An online film made entirely from real CCTV footage of shoplifters at Harvey Nichols' Knightsbridge store. Each thief's face is covered with a crude cartoon head, added by the Layzell Bros at Blinkink, and the footage follows them as they steal, are chased down by security and end up in holding cells, before the line 'Love freebies? Get them legally' introduces the retailer's new Rewards app. Released in July 2015, it is studied for how far it sits from polished fashion advertising: the raw material was security tape, the idea a single comparison between stealing and signing up, and, to avoid glamorising crime, the thieves are always shown getting caught. At Cannes in 2016 it won the Film Grand Prix, with jury president Joe Alexander calling it a new way to use security camera footage to sell a rewards card; juror Ana Balarin later recalled the jury room breaking into applause when it played on the big screen. It also won a Gold Pencil at the One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Harvey Nichols' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfdiClhlLZk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Blinkink project page", "url": "https://www.blinkink.co.uk/projects/harvey-nichols", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Harvey Nichols and Under Armour Take Top Film Lions at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/harvey-nichols-and-under-armour-take-top-film-lions-cannes-172253/" }, { "title": "Harvey Nichols \"shoplifters\" by Adam & Eve/DDB", "publisher": "Campaign (2015)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/harvey-nichols-shoplifters-adam-eve-ddb/1355828" }, { "title": "How Harvey Nichols' Lo-Fi Masterpiece 'Shoplifters' Cut Through a Sea of Highly Crafted Ads", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/how-harvey-nichols-lo-fi-masterpiece-shoplifters-cut-through-a-sea-of-highly-crafted-ads/" }, { "title": "Harvey Nichols | Shoplifters", "publisher": "The One Club (2016)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/23998/shoplifters/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/LfdiClhlLZk/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Shoplifters (Harvey Nichols, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Love freebies? Get them legally. Rewards by Harvey Nichols”, uploaded by Harvey Nichols", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfdiClhlLZk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/LfdiClhlLZk/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "LfdiClhlLZk", "uploaded_at": "2015-07-13T11:15:06+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volvo-interception", "title": "The Greatest Interception Ever", "brand": "Volvo Cars", "brand_slug": "volvo", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Whenever another carmaker's commercial airs during the big game, viewers are prompted to tweet live, and every tweet gets an instant automatic reply." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers nominate someone who deserves a new car by tweeting a hashtag, with five cars given away." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Without buying airtime, the brand ambushes rivals' costly ad slots, turning their spending into a conversation about Volvo." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Real-time social campaign (Twitter)", "agency": "Grey, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Worldwide chief creative officer", "name": "Tor Myhren" }, { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Andreas Dahlqvist" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Rob Lenois" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Rob Perillo" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Click 3X, New York" }, { "role": "PR agency", "name": "Waggener Edstrom (WE Communications)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Volvo bought no airtime in the 2015 Super Bowl, so it borrowed its rivals’. Whenever another carmaker’s commercial aired during the game, viewers were invited to tweet #VolvoContest with the name of someone who deserved a new XC60; every tweet drew an automatic reply leading to a short nomination form, and five cars were given away. Devised by Grey New York, it is studied as a textbook ambush of the year’s costliest ad break, when 30 seconds cost $4.5 million: second-screen behaviour and hyper-targeted social activity turned competitors’ spending into a conversation about Volvo. The agency reported more than 55,000 tweets during the broadcast, 230 million earned media impressions and a 70.7 per cent year-on-year rise in February XC60 sales. Cannes gave it the 2015 Direct Lions Grand Prix, the jury praising it as smart, strategic, creative and real-time, and it won a One Show Gold Pencil in 2016.", "watch": [ { "label": "Grey case page with case film", "url": "https://www.grey.com/getting-mileage-from-other-car-commercials", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Case film on WE Communications' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNfSgMf78Q", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Volvo Collects 2 Grand Prix Honors At Cannes Via Grey NY and London", "publisher": "SHOOT (2015)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/volvo-collects-2-grand-prix-honors-cannes-grey-ny-and-london/" }, { "title": "Why Volvo Wants You Tweeting During Its Competitors' Super Bowl Ads", "publisher": "Adweek (2015)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/why-volvo-wants-you-tweeting-during-their-competitors-super-bowl-ads-162548/" }, { "title": "Volvo | Interception", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (2016)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/23147/interception/" }, { "title": "Grey New York Interception", "publisher": "Direct New Ideas (2015)", "url": "https://www.directnewideas.com/magazine/grey_new_york_interception/?id=1859" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mnNfSgMf78Q/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Greatest Interception Ever (Volvo Cars, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Volvo Interception”, uploaded by We. Communications", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNfSgMf78Q", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mnNfSgMf78Q/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mnNfSgMf78Q", "uploaded_at": "2015-10-02T16:54:06+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "geico-unskippable", "title": "Unskippable", "brand": "Geico", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "The sales message ends before the skip button appears, then the actors freeze at the table while the family dog devours the spaghetti, rewarding anyone who keeps watching." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "YouTube pre-roll", "agency": "The Martin Agency, Richmond", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Terri Timely" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Park Pictures" } ], "tagline": "You can't skip this Geico ad, because it's already over.", "why_studied": "A run of YouTube pre-roll ads that deliver the whole sales message in the five seconds before the skip button appears, then keep rolling. In 'Family', the best known, a mother delivers her line, a voiceover points out that you can't skip this Geico ad because it's already over, and the actors hold still at the dinner table beneath a huge logo while the family dog climbs up and eats its way through the spaghetti. Made by The Martin Agency and directed by Terri Timely, the campaign is studied because it was designed around the viewer's habit of skipping: the compulsory seconds carry the brand, and the optional ones become the entertainment. D&AD's archive records more than 10 million views in the first month. In 2015 the Cannes Film jury gave 'Family' the Grand Prix for non-television film, praising it for reinventing the least glamorous media buy there is, and Adweek named 'Unskippable' its best ad campaign of the year.", "watch": [ { "label": "'Family' (extended cut) on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydtyBSSN3Kk", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry, with the film", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/unskippable", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Geico Nabs a Film Grand Prix at Cannes -- With a Pre-Roll Ad", "publisher": "Ad Age (2015)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-lions/geico-s-pre-roll-leica-s-100-ad-film-grand-prix-john-lewis-monty-wins-top-prize-film-craft/299257/" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2015: Film & Film Craft Winners", "publisher": "shots (2015)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/87592-cannes-lions-2015-film-film-craft-winners" }, { "title": "How the Best Ad Campaign of 2015 Hilariously Hacked the Lowly Preroll Ad", "publisher": "Adweek (2015)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-best-ad-campaign-2015-hilariously-hacked-lowly-preroll-ad-168614/" }, { "title": "Unskippable", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2015)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/unskippable" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ydtyBSSN3Kk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Unskippable (Geico, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “GEICO Unskippable Family Extended Cut”, uploaded by Todd Nasca", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydtyBSSN3Kk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ydtyBSSN3Kk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ydtyBSSN3Kk", "uploaded_at": "2015-03-04T00:57:02+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ad-council-love-has-no-labels", "title": "Love Has No Labels", "brand": "Ad Council", "year": 2015, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "emmy-winners", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A public-service campaign makes implicit bias visible, revealing the people behind dancing skeletons as interracial, same-sex, elderly and disabled couples." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Staged on Valentine's Day, skeletons kissing, hugging and dancing step out as loving couples of every kind, making affection the argument against prejudice." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live event film (X-ray screen)", "agency": "R/GA (with Mindride)", "credits": [], "tagline": "Love has no labels.", "why_studied": "A technology demo that became the first PSA ever to win the commercial Emmy. On Valentine's Day 2015, a giant 'X-ray' screen in a public square showed skeletons kissing, hugging and dancing; as each couple stepped out — interracial, same-sex, elderly, disabled — the crowd's assumptions were exposed along with the bias the campaign targeted. The skeletons weren't X-rays at all but live motion-capture, rendered in real time. The film gathered tens of millions of views within weeks and won the 2016 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. It is studied for making an abstract subject (implicit bias) physically visible, for participatory staging where the live audience's reaction is the script, and as the modern benchmark for Ad Council work reaching entertainment-level scale.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ad Council's announcement of the Emmy win, with the film", "url": "https://www.adcouncil.org/learn-with-us/press-releases/love-has-no-labels-wins-emmy-award-for-outstanding-commercial-in-2016", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Love Has No Labels Wins Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial in 2016 (first PSA to win)", "publisher": "Ad Council", "url": "https://www.adcouncil.org/learn-with-us/press-releases/love-has-no-labels-wins-emmy-award-for-outstanding-commercial-in-2016" }, { "title": "The Making of Viral Sensation 'Love Has No Labels' (motion-capture technique)", "publisher": "VICE (2015)", "url": "https://www.vice.com/en/article/exclusive-the-making-of-viral-sensation-love-has-no-labels/" }, { "title": "The Ad Council and R/GA's 'Love Has No Labels' Wins the Emmy for Best Commercial", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ad-council-and-rgas-love-has-no-labels-wins-emmy-best-commercial-173437/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1X985cjUFms/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Love Has No Labels (Ad Council, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Love Has No Labels”, uploaded by MultiVu", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X985cjUFms", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1X985cjUFms/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1X985cjUFms", "uploaded_at": "2015-03-03T19:31:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ikea-bookbook", "title": "Experience the Power of a Bookbook", "brand": "IKEA Singapore", "brand_slug": "ikea", "year": 2014, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A deadpan imitation of Apple's reverent product films presents a printed furniture catalogue as a gadget called the bookbook." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Released just as Apple unveils a new iPhone, the parody borrows a bigger brand's cultural moment to get people talking about a catalogue." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The catalogue's plain virtues are shown off as tech features, from an eternal battery and no load times to tactile technology." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film (product-launch parody)", "agency": "BBH Asia Pacific, Singapore", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Scott McClelland" }, { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Maurice Wee, Tinus Strydom" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Carlos Canal" } ], "tagline": "Experience the power of a bookbook.", "why_studied": "A furniture catalogue, launched like a gadget. In September 2014, just as Apple was unveiling the iPhone 6, IKEA Singapore released a deadpan imitation of Apple's reverent product films starring its new printed catalogue, recast as the 'bookbook', a device with an eternal battery, no load times and tactile technology. Made by BBH Asia Pacific, it ran online, backed by outdoor, press and radio. It is studied as a lesson in borrowing a bigger brand's cultural moment, in parody as product demonstration, and in turning the least glamorous job in retail marketing, getting people excited about a catalogue landing in the mailbox, into a global talking point that Mashable was covering by 3 September. It was named top campaign at the Institute of Advertising Singapore's Hall of Fame awards for 2014, and also won a D&AD Wood Pencil and a One Show Merit.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on IKEA Singapore's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "BBH Singapore's case page, captured 2018 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "http://web.archive.org/web/20181111163703/http://www.bartleboglehegarty.com:80/singapore/work/ikea-bookbook/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "IKEA: BookBook (2015 Merit, Integrated Branding)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/21860/bookbook/" }, { "title": "BookBook (awards archive entry)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/bookbook" }, { "title": "BBH, Carat, DDB, Grey head list of Singapore Hall of Fame winners", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2014)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/bbh-carat-ddb-grey-head-list-of-singapore-hall-of-fame-winners/6sqd6wcoeq9injz837qu0rtf5c" }, { "title": "Ikea Lampoons Apple to Promote Its 'Bookbook'", "publisher": "Mashable (2014)", "url": "https://mashable.com/archive/ikea-lampoons-apple-catalog" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/MOXQo7nURs0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Experience the Power of a Bookbook (IKEA Singapore, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Experience the power of a bookbook™”, uploaded by IKEA Singapore", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/MOXQo7nURs0/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "MOXQo7nURs0", "uploaded_at": "2014-09-03T10:41:11+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "under-armour-i-will-what-i-want-gisele", "title": "I Will What I Want (Gisele Bündchen)", "brand": "Under Armour", "year": 2014, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A newly signed supermodel works a heavy bag in one raw take, her determination answering online doubts that she is a real athlete." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Real reactions to her signing, supportive and vicious, are projected around her, and a companion site streams fresh commentary live so every viewing changes." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film and real-time social web experience", "agency": "Droga5, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Gisele Bündchen" } ], "tagline": "Will beats noise.", "why_studied": "When Under Armour signed supermodel Gisele Bündchen, plenty of people online said she was no athlete, and Droga5 made those comments the ad. Released on 4 September 2014, the film shows Bündchen working a heavy bag in one raw, unedited take while real reactions to her signing, posted only days earlier and both supportive and vicious, are projected onto the walls around her. A companion site scraped fresh commentary about her and streamed it around the footage in real time with limited moderation, so the film changed with every viewing. It is studied as a template for turning the internet's noise into creative material, and as a pivotal step in Under Armour's push to win women. Reporting the Cannes result, Retail Dive cited 1.5 billion impressions, a 42% rise in visits to the brand's site and a 28% increase in sales. It won the Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2015.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Under Armour's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-V7cOestUs", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/i-will-what-i-want-gisele", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Under Armour ad wins top Cannes Lions Cyber award", "publisher": "Retail Dive (2015)", "url": "https://www.retaildive.com/news/under-armour-ad-wins-top-cannes-lions-cyber-award/401310/" }, { "title": "I Will What I Want – Gisele (awards archive entry)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/i-will-what-i-want-gisele" }, { "title": "Ad of the Day: Under Armour Presents Gisele Bündchen Like You've Never Seen Her", "publisher": "Adweek (2014)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ad-day-under-armour-presents-gisele-b-ndchen-youve-never-seen-her-159871/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/H-V7cOestUs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from I Will What I Want (Gisele Bündchen) (Under Armour, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Gisele Bündchen - I WILL WHAT I WANT”, uploaded by Under Armour", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-V7cOestUs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/H-V7cOestUs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "H-V7cOestUs", "uploaded_at": "2014-09-04T10:59:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "save-the-children-most-shocking-second-a-day", "title": "Most Shocking Second a Day", "brand": "Save the Children UK", "year": 2014, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Following a British girl from one birthday to the next, through air strikes and flight, makes a distant war feel close to the viewer's own family." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A children's charity relocates the crisis of Syria's war to London to make audiences care about children caught up in it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "Don't Panic, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Martin Stirling" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "UNIT9, London" } ], "tagline": "Just because it isn't happening here doesn't mean it isn't happening.", "why_studied": "A 90-second film assembled from one-second clips, borrowing the “second a day” video-diary format then popular online. It follows a British girl through a year that begins with a birthday party: news of unrest murmurs in the background, then come air strikes, flight and fear, and her next birthday is marked with a single candle amid the wreckage. Created by Don’t Panic for Save the Children UK and directed by Martin Stirling of UNIT9, it was released in March 2014, three years into Syria’s war, and ends on the line “Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.” It is studied for bringing a distant crisis home by relocating it to London and to a child who could be the viewer’s own, inside a format audiences already loved. UNIT9 reported 21 million YouTube views in five days; it became the first non-profit ad to top YouTube’s monthly ads leaderboard, and won a Gold Cyber Lion at Cannes in 2014.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Save the Children UK's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQ-IoHfimQ", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Don't Panic case page", "url": "https://www.dontpaniclondon.com/work/most-shocking-second-a-day/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "UK gets double gold in Cyber Lions", "publisher": "DecisionMarketing (2014)", "url": "https://www.decisionmarketing.co.uk/news/uk-gets-double-gold-in-cyber-lions" }, { "title": "YouTube’s Most Viewed Ad In March 2014 Came From A Nonprofit", "publisher": "Tubefilter (2014)", "url": "https://www.tubefilter.com/2014/04/09/youtube-ads-leaderboard-most-shocking-second-a-day-video/" }, { "title": "Save the Children: Most Shocking Second a Day", "publisher": "UNIT9 (2014)", "url": "https://archive.unit9.com/project/save-the-children-syrias-children" }, { "title": "Save the Children - Most Shocking Second a Day", "publisher": "Don't Panic London", "url": "https://www.dontpaniclondon.com/work/most-shocking-second-a-day/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/RBQ-IoHfimQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Most Shocking Second a Day (Save the Children UK, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Most Shocking Second a Day Video”, uploaded by SaveTheChildren", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQ-IoHfimQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/RBQ-IoHfimQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "honda-the-other-side", "title": "The Other Side", "brand": "Honda (Civic Type R)", "brand_slug": "honda", "year": 2014, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Holding down the R key flips the story between day and night, echoing the button that puts the real car into race mode." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Mirror-image storylines follow one father on a daytime school run and, in a matching night world, as an undercover officer in a police sting." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive online film", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy London", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Daniel Wolfe" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak)" }, { "role": "Interactive production", "name": "Stinkdigital" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "One film, two stories, one key to flip between them. Launched on YouTube on 30 October 2014, The Other Side follows a father on a daytime school run in a Honda Civic; hold down R on the keyboard and the same man appears in a matching night-time world, driving the new Civic Type R as an undercover officer in a police sting. Director Daniel Wolfe shot the two storylines as mirror images so that the switch is seamless, and the R key echoes the button that puts the real car into race mode. Wieden+Kennedy London built it to show the impulsive side of a brand whose buyers, D&AD notes, had an average age of 62. It is studied as a high point of interactive film craft: one keystroke carries the whole product truth. D&AD records 2.3 million visits to the campaign site; the agency reports average viewing of over three minutes and doubled traffic to the Civic website. It won a One Show Gold Pencil in 2015.", "watch": [ { "label": "Wieden+Kennedy London case page", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/the-other-side/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Trailer on Honda Cars Ireland's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHP1RZkQLI", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "New Civic Type R film brings to life Honda's 'Other Side'", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy London (2014)", "url": "https://wklondon.com/2014/10/new-civic-type-r-film-brings-to-life-hondas-other-side/" }, { "title": "Honda – The Other Side (case page)", "publisher": "Wieden+Kennedy London", "url": "https://wklondon.com/work/the-other-side/" }, { "title": "The Other Side (awards archive entry and results)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-other-side" }, { "title": "Honda: The Other Side (2015 Gold Pencil, Interactive Video)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/22221/the-other-side/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2cHP1RZkQLI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Other Side (Honda (Civic Type R), 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Honda Civic Type R - The Other Side - Trailer”, uploaded by Honda Cars Ireland", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cHP1RZkQLI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2cHP1RZkQLI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "2cHP1RZkQLI", "uploaded_at": "2014-10-30T13:24:25+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "always-like-a-girl", "title": "#LikeAGirl", "brand": "Always (Procter & Gamble)", "year": 2014, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix", "emmy-winners" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A brand with a stake in the subject sets out to rewrite an everyday insult, tackling the collapse in girls' confidence at puberty." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Asking adults and boys, then young girls, to run like a girl captures the gap between insult and reality, proving the point rather than asserting it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film and campaign", "agency": "Leo Burnett (Toronto, Chicago, London)", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Lauren Greenfield" }, { "role": "Creative lead", "name": "Judy John" } ], "tagline": "Rewrite the rules. #LikeAGirl", "why_studied": "A casting session as social experiment. Documentarian Lauren Greenfield asked adults and boys to \"run like a girl\" — they flailed and giggled — then asked young girls, who simply ran as fast as they could. The gap between the insult and the reality, captured on camera, made the argument no script could. Launched in June 2014 and aired in a 60-second version at the 2015 Super Bowl, it generated billions of impressions, won the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2015 plus a Cannes Grand Prix, and measurably shifted how its young audience understood the phrase. It is studied as the template of the purpose-driven social experiment film — research insight (confidence collapses at puberty), demonstrated rather than asserted, by a brand with a legitimate stake in the subject.", "watch": [ { "label": "SHOOT's Emmy report, with the film and credits", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/pgalways-likeagirl-wins-primetime-commercial-emmy-award/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "P&G/Always' \"#LikeAGirl\" Wins Primetime Commercial Emmy Award", "publisher": "SHOOTonline (2015)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/pgalways-likeagirl-wins-primetime-commercial-emmy-award/" }, { "title": "Leo Burnett, Always Redefine 'Like a Girl' (launch, June 2014)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/leo-burnett-always-redefine-like-a-girl/" }, { "title": "#LikeAGirl picks up an Emmy (Judy John, Leo Burnett Toronto)", "publisher": "Strategy (2015)", "url": "https://strategyonline.ca/2015/09/15/likeagirl-picks-up-an-emmy/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/joRjb5WOmbM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from #LikeAGirl (Always (Procter & Gamble), 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Always 'Like a Girl' Super Bowl Commercial: #LikeAGirl”, uploaded by Meaningful Impact", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joRjb5WOmbM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/joRjb5WOmbM/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "westjet-christmas-miracle", "title": "Christmas Miracle: Real-time Giving", "brand": "WestJet", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Passengers' delight as the gifts they asked a virtual Santa for come round on the baggage carousel turns a stressful travel season into a feel-good moment." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Hidden cameras follow passengers from telling a virtual Santa their wishes before boarding to finding the presents waiting when they land." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film of a live experience", "agency": "studio m, Toronto, with Mosaic and WestJet Experiential", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Bryan Reid" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Passengers waiting for Calgary-bound flights in Toronto and Hamilton scanned their boarding passes at a kiosk and found a live 'virtual Santa' asking what they wanted for Christmas. While they flew, around 150 WestJet staff volunteers bought and wrapped the gifts, and when the more than 250 passengers landed a few hours later their presents came round on the baggage carousel, from TVs to socks. Hidden cameras caught it all, and the film went up on WestJet's YouTube channel in December 2013; The Globe and Mail reported a million views in its first day. It is studied as the template for the brand-staged kindness film, in which the experience is real but the true medium is online video, and as an airline turning the busiest, most stressful season for air travel into its best story. In its award entries WestJet reported more than 35 million YouTube views and an 86% rise in sales against the same period a year earlier. It won in three categories at the Shorty Awards.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on WestJet's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIEIvi2MuEk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "CBC News report from launch week", "url": "https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-christmas-miracle-video-warms-hearts-on-social-media-1.2457338", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "WestJet 'Christmas miracle' video warms hearts on social media", "publisher": "CBC News (2013)", "url": "https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-christmas-miracle-video-warms-hearts-on-social-media-1.2457338" }, { "title": "WestJet online video a nice gift for airline's Christmas marketing", "publisher": "The Globe and Mail (2013)", "url": "https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/westjet-online-video-a-nice-gift-for-airlines-christmas-marketing/article15847601/" }, { "title": "WestJet Christmas Miracle: Real-Time Giving (Winner: Consumer Brand, Travel, Viral Campaign)", "publisher": "The Shorty Awards (2014)", "url": "https://shortyawards.com/6th/westjet-christmas-miracle-real-time-giving" }, { "title": "WestJet: Christmas Miracle: Real-time Giving (2014 Merit, Online Films & Video)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/21269/westjet-christmas-miracle-real-time-giving/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zIEIvi2MuEk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Christmas Miracle: Real-time Giving (WestJet, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “WestJet Christmas Miracle: Real-time Giving”, uploaded by WestJet", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIEIvi2MuEk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zIEIvi2MuEk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "zIEIvi2MuEk", "uploaded_at": "2013-12-09T02:26:57+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "visit-melbourne-remote-control-tourist", "title": "Melbourne Remote Control Tourist", "brand": "Tourism Victoria (Visit Melbourne)", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Online audiences direct four real tourists around the city through Facebook and Twitter, choosing everything from making pizza to tracking down secret gigs." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Helmet cameras stream the explorers live for five days, so viewers watch the city respond to their instructions as it happens." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live-streamed interactive website and social campaign", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Jason Zada" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Tool of North America" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Exit Films, Melbourne" } ], "tagline": "Go before you go", "why_studied": "For five days in October 2013, anyone online could steer real tourists around Melbourne. Four explorers in helmet cameras streamed live to RemoteControlTourist.com while Facebook and Twitter users told them where to go and what to do, from making pizza and trying on dresses to tracking down secret gigs. Built by Clemenger BBDO Melbourne for Tourism Victoria with Tool director Jason Zada and Exit Films, it turned the line “go before you go” into a live, crowd-directed travel show, and everything the tourists filmed and photographed was meant to live on as a crowd-built visual guide to the city. It is studied as an early, ambitious piece of real-time brand content in which the audience, not the agency, wrote the itinerary. Figures submitted to IAB Australia’s Creative Showcase claim users in 158 countries and 43 million earned social impressions in five days. It took four Bronze Cyber Lions at Cannes in 2014 and the Branded Content and Entertainment Grand Prix at Spikes Asia.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on Tool of North America's Vimeo", "url": "https://vimeo.com/342834857", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Tool of North America case page", "url": "https://toolofna.com/experience/work/tourism-vitoria-remote-control-tourist/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Experience Melbourne From Your Couch Through These Remote Control Tourists", "publisher": "Fast Company (2013)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/3019660/experience-melbourne-from-your-couch-through-these-remote-control-tourists" }, { "title": "Three Grand Prix in Cyber Lions but only Bronze for Australia", "publisher": "Mumbrella (2014)", "url": "https://mumbrella.com.au/three-grand-prix-cyber-lions-bronze-australia-233469" }, { "title": "Clemenger BBDO Melbourne takes home Branded Content and Entertainment Grand Prix at Spikes Asia", "publisher": "Mumbrella (2014)", "url": "https://mumbrella.com.au/clemenger-bbdo-melbourne-takes-home-branded-content-entertainment-grand-prix-spikes-asia-253841" }, { "title": "Oct-Nov 13 winner: The Melbourne Remote Control Tourist", "publisher": "IAB Australia Creative Showcase (2013)", "url": "https://www.iabaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Round-8.3-1.pdf" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/b-2LfH1r9I0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Melbourne Remote Control Tourist (Tourism Victoria (Visit Melbourne), 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Remote Control Tourist Case Study”, uploaded by Jackson Mah", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-2LfH1r9I0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/b-2LfH1r9I0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "b-2LfH1r9I0", "uploaded_at": "2023-05-22T05:18:00+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "google-search-reunion", "title": "Reunion", "brand": "Google Search", "brand_slug": "google", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A granddaughter turns her grandfather's memories of a friend lost at Partition into searches, tracks the friend down and reunites them on his birthday." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Setting the story in Partition, which still stirs strong feelings, gives the reunion of two elderly friends across the border its emotional force." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Search, flight details and weather features are shown working entirely inside the story, each search moving the reunion forward." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film (later shown in cinemas and on TV)", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather India, Mumbai", "credits": [ { "role": "National creative director", "name": "Abhijit Avasthi" }, { "role": "Group creative director", "name": "Sukesh Nayak" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Amit Sharma" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Chrome Pictures" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An old man in Delhi tells his granddaughter about the best friend he lost at Partition in 1947: kite-flying in Lahore, sweets pinched from the boy's family shop. She turns his memories into searches, tracks down the shop, reaches the friend's grandson and arranges for the elderly Pakistani to fly in and surprise her grandfather on his birthday. Made by Ogilvy & Mather India and directed by Amit Sharma, the film went up on YouTube first, then ran in cinemas and on Indian television with shorter cutdowns. Ogilvy chose Partition partly because it still stirs strong feelings, and the spot became a hit on both sides of the border, praised by a Pakistani journalist from the Aman ki Asha peace initiative. It is studied for demonstrating search, flight details and weather entirely inside a story. The agency reported more than 50 million views and a 38 per cent rise in awareness of new search features, and it won Silver and Bronze PR Lions at Cannes in 2014.", "watch": [ { "label": "Watch on YouTube (Google India)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "India, Pakistan agree: emotional Google ad a hit", "publisher": "Mint / Associated Press (2013)", "url": "https://www.livemint.com/Consumer/Rt53PgGhotRJ6zW81vOGGI/India-Pakistan-agree-emotional-Google-ad-a-hit.html" }, { "title": "Google India: Searching beyond borders", "publisher": "afaqs! (2013)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/digital/39230_google-india-searching-beyond-borders" }, { "title": "Damn the Onions: Ogilvy Raises the Bar with New 'Google Search: Reunion' Spot", "publisher": "Adweek AgencySpy (2013)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/ogilvy-raises-the-bar-with-new-google-search-reunion-spot/" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2014: India grabs 6 Lions in PR & Direct", "publisher": "Indian Television Dot Com (2014)", "url": "https://indiantelevision.com/mam/cannes-lions-2014-india-grabs-6-lions-in-pr-direct/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gHGDN9-oFJE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Reunion (Google Search, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Google Search: Reunion”, uploaded by Google India", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gHGDN9-oFJE/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gHGDN9-oFJE", "uploaded_at": "2013-11-13T09:28:12+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "honda-sound-of-honda-ayrton-senna-1989", "title": "Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989", "brand": "Honda (Internavi)", "brand_slug": "honda", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Recreating a racing legend's record lap from telemetry lets the brand borrow his aura for a navigation service built on driving data." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Speakers and lights along the circuit replay the lap as moving sound and light, turning raw telemetry into an emotional ghost of a legend." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Data-driven film, 3D web experience and app", "agency": "Dentsu, Tokyo", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In qualifying for the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna set the fastest lap yet seen at Suzuka, and his McLaren Honda MP4/5 recorded it as telemetry. In 2013 Honda brought that lap back using nothing but the data: it analysed throttle position, engine speed and vehicle speed, recreated the engine's sound with the real car, then placed networked speakers and LED lights along the 5,807-metre circuit and replayed the lap as moving sound and light. The film was released online alongside a WebGL 3D version of the lap and an iPhone app, all promoting Internavi, Honda's navigation service built on driving data. It is studied as a benchmark for making data emotional, turning an invisible product into a ghost of a racing legend. At Cannes 2014 it won the Titanium Grand Prix among 15 prizes; it also took a D&AD Black Pencil and the Entertainment Grand Prize at Japan's Media Arts Festival.", "watch": [ { "label": "Film and case on The One Club's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95PIlze_j_g", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The One Show awards entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/21471/sound-of-honda-ayrton-senna-1989/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989\" wins a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity", "publisher": "Honda Motor Co. (2014)", "url": "https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2014/4140623eng.html" }, { "title": "Honda releases \"3D-View\", interactive web content reproducing Ayrton Senna's fastest lap at Suzuka", "publisher": "Honda Motor Co. (2013)", "url": "https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2013/4130927eng.html" }, { "title": "\"Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989\" wins most awards at the Global D&AD Awards", "publisher": "Dentsu-ho", "url": "https://dentsu-ho.com/articles/1286" }, { "title": "\"Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989\" wins the Grand Prize for the Entertainment Division of the Japan Media Arts Festival", "publisher": "Honda Motor Co. (2013)", "url": "https://global.honda/en/newsroom/news/2013/4131205eng.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/95PIlze_j_g/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989 (Honda (Internavi), 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “One Show Winner: Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989 - DENTSU INC. / Tokyo”, uploaded by The One Club for Creativity", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95PIlze_j_g", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/95PIlze_j_g/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "95PIlze_j_g", "uploaded_at": "2014-08-14T14:09:34+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "carrie-telekinetic-coffee-shop-surprise", "title": "Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise", "brand": "Carrie (Sony Pictures / Screen Gems)", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Real coffee-shop customers recoil as a young woman appears to unleash telekinetic revenge, a staged public scare built to be shared." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "A New York coffee shop is secretly rigged with a false wall, remote-controlled furniture and spring-loaded books, turning an everyday space into a film set." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film (hidden-camera stunt)", "agency": "Thinkmodo, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Director and producer", "name": "Michael Krivicka" }, { "role": "Director and producer", "name": "James Percelay" }, { "role": "Associate producer", "name": "Sam Pezzullo" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A hidden-camera stunt promoting Sony’s 2013 remake of Carrie. A New York coffee shop was rigged with a false wall, remote-controlled tables and chairs and spring-loaded books and pictures, then filled with actors and a stuntman. When a clumsy coffee drinker crosses a young woman, she appears to take telekinetic revenge as tables slide, books fly and real patrons recoil. Posted to YouTube on 7 October, eleven days before the film opened, it drew close to a million views on its first day and about 13 million in two. Made by Thinkmodo, it is studied as the defining example of “prankvertising”, a staged public scare designed to be shared rather than broadcast, and for the physical craft hidden inside what looks like found footage. Unruly ranked it among the ten most-shared ads of 2013, and it won the 2014 Webby for branded unscripted online film.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on the CarrieNYC YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Webby Awards winner page", "url": "https://winners.webbyawards.com/2014/video-film/general-video-film/unscripted-branded/144962/telekinetic-coffee-shop-surprise", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise", "publisher": "The Webby Awards (2014)", "url": "https://winners.webbyawards.com/2014/video-film/general-video-film/unscripted-branded/144962/telekinetic-coffee-shop-surprise" }, { "title": "‘Carrie’-Inspired Coffee Shop Prank Goes Viral (Video)", "publisher": "The Hollywood Reporter (2013)", "url": "https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/carrie-inspired-coffee-shop-prank-644555/" }, { "title": "Advertising: Check out this super freaky telekinetic coffee stunt in NYC coffee shop", "publisher": "It's Nice That (2013)", "url": "https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/telekinetic-coffee-shop-surprise" }, { "title": "Here Are The 20 Most Shared Ads Of 2013", "publisher": "Tubefilter (2013)", "url": "https://www.tubefilter.com/2013/11/21/unruly-media-top-shared-ads-2013/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/VlOxlSOr3_M/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise (Carrie (Sony Pictures / Screen Gems), 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise”, uploaded by CarrieNYC", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/VlOxlSOr3_M/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "VlOxlSOr3_M", "uploaded_at": "2013-10-07T16:03:24+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "chipotle-the-scarecrow", "title": "The Scarecrow", "brand": "Chipotle Mexican Grill", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "In a dystopian city run by a fictional food giant, a scarecrow forced into factory work sets out to bring wholesome food back." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Film and game cast the brand on the side of wholesome food against corporate control, with players rewarded through Chipotle food offers." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A haunting cover of a song from Willy Wonka scores the film, giving the story its melancholy mood across film, game and song." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online animated film and mobile game", "agency": "CAA Marketing (Creative Artists Agency), Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Directors", "name": "Brandon Oldenburg and Limbert Fabian" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Moonbot Studios, Shreveport" }, { "role": "Music", "name": "“Pure Imagination”, performed by Fiona Apple" }, { "role": "PR agency", "name": "Edelman, New York" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An animated short and an iPhone and iPad game launched together in September 2013. In a dystopian city where the fictional Crow Foods controls all food, scarecrows have been driven off the farms to staff its factories; one of them sets out to bring wholesome food back, scored by Fiona Apple’s haunting cover of “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka. Made for Chipotle by CAA Marketing with Moonbot Studios, the Oscar-winning animators, it is studied as purpose-led branded entertainment built as one property across film, game and song, with the game rewarding players with Chipotle food offers. The follow-up to 2012’s “Back to the Start”, it won two Grand Prix at Cannes in 2014: in PR, entered with Edelman, and in Cyber, where juror Joe Alexander credited the two campaigns with reinventing fast-food advertising in the US. PRWeek reported 12.5 million YouTube views and more than 650,000 game downloads.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on the Vimeo channel of duotone audio group (the campaign's music supervisors)", "url": "https://vimeo.com/243005729", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The film on YouTube (third-party upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpp8Xpn7hEo", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pharrell, Volvo, And Chipotle Win Cyber Grand Prix At Cannes", "publisher": "Fast Company (2014)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/3032106/pharrell-volvo-and-chipotle-win-cyber-grand-prix-at-cannes" }, { "title": "CAA Scores Grand Prix and 2 Gold PR Lions for Chipotle's 'The Scarecrow'", "publisher": "Adweek (2014)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/caa-scores-grand-prix-and-2-gold-pr-lions-chipotles-scarecrow-158348/" }, { "title": "Moonbot Creates Chipotle’s 'Scarecrow'", "publisher": "Animation World Network (2013)", "url": "https://www.awn.com/news/moonbot-creates-chipotle-s-scarecrow" }, { "title": "Cannes done", "publisher": "PRWeek (2014)", "url": "https://www.prweek.com/article/1305969/cannes-done" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Cpp8Xpn7hEo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Scarecrow (Chipotle Mexican Grill, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Chipotle \"The Scarecrow\" Animation”, uploaded by Thomas Kolster", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpp8Xpn7hEo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Cpp8Xpn7hEo/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Cpp8Xpn7hEo", "uploaded_at": "2021-02-08T16:14:41+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dove-real-beauty-sketches", "title": "Real Beauty Sketches", "brand": "Dove (Unilever)", "brand_slug": "dove", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Women confronting the gap between their own harsh self-descriptions and a stranger's kinder view of them make the tagline land emotionally." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The experiment supplies its own evidence, as strangers' sketches are consistently more beautiful, backing research that few women consider themselves beautiful." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather, Brazil (São Paulo)", "credits": [ { "role": "Featuring", "name": "Gil Zamora, FBI-trained forensic artist" } ], "tagline": "You are more beautiful than you think.", "why_studied": "A social experiment as advertising: a forensic sketch artist draws women twice, sight unseen — once from their own self-description, once from a stranger's. The strangers' portraits are consistently more beautiful, and the women confront the gap. Built on Dove's research statistic that only 4% of women consider themselves beautiful, it was posted in April 2013 and became, per Guinness World Records, the most viewed online video advertisement ever at the time — 124.8 million views in 25 languages within seven months, with 3 billion media impressions in its first ten days. It won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes 2013. It is studied for emotion engineered from methodology (the experiment is the script) and as the scaled-up culmination of the Real Beauty platform that began with 'Evolution.'", "watch": [ { "label": "Adweek's Grand Prix report, with the film", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/doves-real-beauty-sketches-earns-ogilvy-brazil-titanium-grand-prix-150587/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dove's 'Real Beauty Sketches' Earns Ogilvy Brazil the Titanium Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2013)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/doves-real-beauty-sketches-earns-ogilvy-brazil-titanium-grand-prix-150587/" }, { "title": "Most viewed online video advertisement (124,875,719 views as of Nov 2, 2013)", "publisher": "Guinness World Records", "url": "https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-viewed-online-video-advertisement" }, { "title": "Unilever's Dove 'Beauty' Wins Cannes' Titanium Grand Prix (3bn impressions in 10 days)", "publisher": "MediaPost (2013)", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/203151/unilevers-dove-beauty-wins-cannes-titanium-gra.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pOq71eKI5Mg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Real Beauty Sketches (Dove (Unilever), 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Dove Real Beauty Sketches (extended) / Directed by John X. Carey”, uploaded by John X. Carey", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOq71eKI5Mg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pOq71eKI5Mg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "pOq71eKI5Mg", "uploaded_at": "2013-04-16T01:35:25+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volvo-trucks-epic-split", "title": "The Epic Split", "brand": "Volvo Trucks", "brand_slug": "volvo", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Two reversing trucks hold a steady line while a man does the splits between them in one unbroken shot, proving the steering's precision." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Jean-Claude Van Damme stakes his body on the trucks' steering, putting a recognisable face on a technical feature sold to fleet buyers." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Online film (Live Test series)", "agency": "Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Jean-Claude Van Damme" } ], "tagline": "This test was set up to demonstrate the precision of Volvo Dynamic Steering.", "why_studied": "A B2B truck feature — dynamic steering — demonstrated by Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits between two reversing trucks at golden hour, in one unbroken shot. Released in November 2013 as part of Forsman & Bodenfors' \"Live Test\" series, it became the most watched automotive ad ever on YouTube (73+ million views by mid-2014), was the world's most shared video the day after launch, and generated an estimated €126 million in earned media for a company that sells trucks to fleet buyers. It won both the Film and Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2014 and swept the One Show. It is studied for stunt-as-proof engineering — the spectacle is the spec sheet — and for showing that 'boring' industrial brands can own internet culture.", "watch": [ { "label": "Volvo Trucks' press release on the campaign and its results", "url": "https://news.cision.com/volvo-trucks/r/epic-triumph-for-volvo-trucks--campaign-at-cannes-lions,c9604614", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Epic triumph for Volvo Trucks' campaign at Cannes Lions (two Grand Prix; 73M+ views)", "publisher": "Volvo Trucks press release", "url": "https://news.cision.com/volvo-trucks/r/epic-triumph-for-volvo-trucks--campaign-at-cannes-lions,c9604614" }, { "title": "Best of Show: Forsman & Bodenfors' \"The Epic Split\" Sweeps The One Show", "publisher": "The One Club (2014)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/articles/-view/best-of-show/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/M7FIvfx5J10/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Epic Split (Volvo Trucks, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split feat. Van Damme”, uploaded by Volvo Trucks", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/M7FIvfx5J10/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "M7FIvfx5J10", "uploaded_at": "2013-11-14T07:00:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "oreo-dunk-in-the-dark", "title": "Dunk in the Dark", "brand": "Oreo (Mondelēz)", "year": 2013, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Within minutes of the stadium blackout during the big game, a pre-approved team posts a lone cookie in shadow, responding to the moment as it happens." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A quick, witty line turns the power cut into a reason to keep dunking, so the joke itself carries the product." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Real-time tweet during the Super Bowl blackout", "agency": "360i, New York", "credits": [], "tagline": "Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.", "why_studied": "The most famous tweet in marketing. When the Superdome lost power during Super Bowl XLVII on February 3, 2013, Oreo's pre-assembled war room — agency 360i, media shop and client in one room with standing approval — published a simple image within minutes: a lone Oreo in shadow, \"You can still dunk in the dark.\" Fifteen thousand retweets later it had out-earned ads costing $4 million, and 'real-time marketing' became an industry obsession overnight. It is studied both as a case of preparation disguised as spontaneity — Oreo had spent a year practising daily cultural response with its 'Daily Twist' centenary campaign — and as a cautionary origin story: the thousands of forced brand-newsjacking tweets it inspired prove how rare the genuine conditions for the move actually are.", "watch": [ { "label": "Digiday's definitive oral history, with the tweet", "url": "https://digiday.com/marketing/oral-history-oreo-tweet/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The definitive oral history of the Oreo 'You can still dunk in the dark' Super Bowl tweet", "publisher": "Digiday", "url": "https://digiday.com/marketing/oral-history-oreo-tweet/" }, { "title": "How Oreo Won the Super Bowl Blackout (war-room mechanics)", "publisher": "Digiday (2013)", "url": "https://digiday.com/marketing/how-oreo-won-the-super-bowl-blackout/" }, { "title": "How Oreo's rapid-response team lit up Twitter with a Super Bowl blackout ad", "publisher": "The Verge (2013)", "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2013/2/4/3949882/oreo-super-bowl-blackout-ad-is-a-winner" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "oreo-daily-twist", "title": "Daily Twist", "brand": "Oreo", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "For 100 days a newsroom-style team recasts the cookie in light of that day's news or cultural moment, from Pride week to a Mars landing." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Real-time social media campaign", "agency": "DraftFCB, New York, with 360i", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Jill Applebaum" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Megan Sheehan" }, { "role": "Social agency", "name": "360i" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "To mark Oreo’s 100th birthday, Kraft Foods and its agencies published one new image a day for 100 days from late June 2012, each recasting the cookie in light of that day’s news or cultural moment: a rainbow-filled Oreo for Pride week, a nod to the Mars Rover landing, posted across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and oreo.com. Made by DraftFCB and 360i in what a Cannes juror called a newsroom-like setting, it ended with creatives working in a glass office in Times Square, making the hundredth twist, a celebratory high five, from a topic fans had suggested and voted for. It is studied as the prototype of the brand newsroom, proving a century-old packaged-goods brand could react to culture daily and at speed. Cannes gave it one of two Cyber Grand Prix in 2013, jury president Bob Greenberg saying it made people fall in love with a cookie. Facebook gave it the top Blue Award at its 2013 Studio Awards, and 360i reported more than a million new fans.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ad Age report on the Cyber Grand Prix, with the Pride twist", "url": "https://adage.com/article/cat-creativity-and-technology/intel-toshiba-oreo-win-cyber-grands-prix/242731/", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Ads of the World campaign page", "url": "https://www.adsoftheworld.com/campaigns/daily-twist", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Intel/Toshiba and Oreo Win Cyber Grands Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2013)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/cat-creativity-and-technology/intel-toshiba-oreo-win-cyber-grands-prix/242731/" }, { "title": "For Oreo Campaign Finale, a Twist on Collaboration", "publisher": "The New York Times (2012)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/business/media/oreos-daily-twist-campaign-finale-enlists-consumers.html" }, { "title": "Oreo Crowdsources Final 'Daily Twist' Ad Live in Times Square", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/oreo-crowdsources-its-final-daily-twist-ad-live-times-square-144131/" }, { "title": "Oreo Daily Twist Campaign Wins The 2nd Annual Facebook Studio Blue Award", "publisher": "Marketing Land / MarTech (2013)", "url": "https://martech.org/oreo-daily-twist-campaign-wins-the-2nd-annual-facebook-studio-blue-award/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZDSc0V3AEnk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Daily Twist (Oreo, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Oreo Daily Twist Case Study”, uploaded by Chris Rawlinson", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDSc0V3AEnk" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ZDSc0V3AEnk", "uploaded_at": "2013-06-25T15:06:51+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "google-project-re-brief-hilltop", "title": "Project Re: Brief — 'Hilltop' Re-imagined for Coca-Cola", "brand": "Google (with Coca-Cola)", "brand_slug": "google", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers pick a vending machine abroad, add a text or video message and send a stranger a free Coke, and the recipient can reply with thanks." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "The art director of a classic 1971 campaign rebuilds it for digital, borrowing the much-loved song's promise and making it literal." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive display and mobile ad", "agency": "Johannes Leonardo, New York / Grow Interactive, Norfolk", "credits": [ { "role": "Original 'Hilltop' art director", "name": "Harvey Gabor" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Drew Ungvarsky, Jan Jacobs, Leo Premutico" }, { "role": "Project lead, Google", "name": "Aman Govil" }, { "role": "Documentary director", "name": "Doug Pray" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The Coca-Cola strand of Project Re: Brief, a Google experiment unveiled at SXSW in March 2012 in which the creators of four classic 1960s and 70s campaigns came out of retirement to rebuild their ideas as digital ads. Harvey Gabor, who art-directed Coca-Cola's 1971 'Hilltop', worked with Johannes Leonardo and Grow Interactive on a rich-media banner and mobile ad that made the old song's promise literal: viewers chose a specially fitted vending machine abroad, added a text or video message and sent a stranger a free Coke, and the recipient could send thanks back. Google described the project as a concept car, meant to show that online advertising could delight rather than merely inform, and filmed the process for a Doug Pray documentary that premiered at Cannes. It is studied as the moment the humble display unit was treated as a medium for big ideas. It won the first Mobile Lions Grand Prix at Cannes in 2012 and a One Show Gold Pencil for dynamic banners in 2013.", "watch": [ { "label": "Coca-Cola mobile ad demo on the Project Re: Brief YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z-GevoYB8", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Project Re: Brief documentary (Doug Pray)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvDoGt1tJy8", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Grow Interactive Takes Mobile Grand Prix for Google's Coke App", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/grow-interactive-takes-mobile-grand-prix-googles-coke-app-141219/" }, { "title": "Google Recruits Ad Legends To Update Classic Ad Campaigns", "publisher": "Fast Company (2012)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1680105/google-recruits-ad-legends-to-update-classic-ad-campaigns" }, { "title": "\"Hilltop\" Re-imagined for Coca-Cola, Project Re: Brief by Google", "publisher": "The One Club (2013)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/19811/hilltop-re-imagined-for-coca-cola-project-re-brief-by-google/" }, { "title": "Project Re: Brief, the documentary", "publisher": "Google blog (2012)", "url": "https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/ads/project-re-brief-documentary/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/45Z-GevoYB8/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Project Re: Brief — 'Hilltop' Re-imagined for Coca-Cola (Google (with Coca-Cola), 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Project Re: Brief | Coca-Cola | Mobile Ad Demo\"”, uploaded by Project ReBrief", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z-GevoYB8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/45Z-GevoYB8/maxres2.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "45Z-GevoYB8", "uploaded_at": "2012-03-09T15:13:26+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "saih-radi-aid-africa-for-norway", "title": "Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway", "brand": "SAIH (Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund)", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "It parodies charity singles by having Africans rally to save freezing Norwegians, exposing the clichés of fundraising appeals by turning them around." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A rousing charity-single song carries the satire, borrowing the format of famous fundraising records to make the critique catchy and shareable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online music video", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Composer", "name": "Wathiq Hoosain" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A spoof charity single in the style of USA for Africa and Band Aid, in which a choir of young South Africans sings about the plight of freezing Norwegians and urges Africans to send them their radiators. The Norwegian student aid fund SAIH made it to turn fundraising conventions inside out, so that viewers could see how reductive the familiar images of starving children, struggling women and gun-crazed men look when a whole country is reduced to its weather. Released on YouTube on 16 November 2012, it passed a million views within ten days and drew media coverage in many languages across Europe, the US and Africa. It is studied as satire aimed at the industry it belongs to, using the grammar of a charity appeal to critique charity appeals. SAIH followed it with the Rusty Radiator awards, which since 2013 have named the year's most stereotyped fundraising videos alongside Golden Radiators for the best.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Africa For Norway\" music video (SAIH Norway YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Radi-aid: The making of a viral video", "publisher": "The Guardian (2012)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/26/radiaid-norway-charity-single" }, { "title": "Message Behind African Heaters For Norway Spoof", "publisher": "NPR (2012)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2012/11/29/166162938/message-behind-african-heaters-for-norway-spoof" }, { "title": "Rusty Radiator Awards Spoof 'Save Africa' Charities", "publisher": "NPR (2013)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2013/12/19/255454320/rusty-radiator-award-spoofs-save-africa-charities" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/oJLqyuxm96k/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway (SAIH (Norwegian Students' and Academics' International Assistance Fund), 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Africa For Norway - New charity single out now!”, uploaded by SAIH Norway", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/oJLqyuxm96k/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "oJLqyuxm96k", "uploaded_at": "2012-11-16T10:58:49+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "thai-health-smoking-kid", "title": "Smoking Kid", "brand": "Thai Health Promotion Foundation", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Small children's note asking why smokers worry about them but not themselves turns the adults' own lectures into a guilty, personal warning." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A health foundation sidesteps scare tactics smokers ignore and points them straight to a quitline number." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film (hidden-camera social experiment)", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather, Bangkok", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Taewit Jariyanukulpan" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Prasert Vijitpawan" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Denchai Kheereerak" }, { "role": "Writer", "name": "Kris Garford Spindler" }, { "role": "Global chief creative officer", "name": "Tham Khai Meng" } ], "tagline": "You worry about me, but why not about yourself?", "why_studied": "A hidden-camera film in which small children, cigarettes in hand, walk up to adult smokers outside office buildings and ask for a light. Every smoker refuses and lectures them about cancer and dying young; the children then ask why the adults smoke and hand over a note reading “You worry about me, but why not about yourself?”, with the number of Thailand’s 1600 quitline. Made by Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok for the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and released on YouTube in June 2012, it is studied because it makes the smoker’s own words the warning, sidestepping scare tactics smokers had learned to ignore. Within days, The Drum was reporting a 40 per cent rise in quitline calls. The agency’s effectiveness paper claims a $5,000 budget, no paid media, more than five million views in ten days and a 62 per cent jump in completed calls in the launch month. It won a One Show Gold Pencil in 2013 and a Gold at the APAC Effies.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Ogilvy's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_YZ_PtMkw0", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Thai Health Promotion Foundation | Smoking Kid", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (2013)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/19191/smoking-kid/" }, { "title": "Gold Winner Case Study: Smoking Kid - A Personal Message to the Smokers - by Thai Health Promotion Foundation and Ogilvy & Mather Thailand", "publisher": "APAC Effie Awards (2014)", "url": "http://apaceffie.com/blog/apac-effie-blog/2014/10/16/gold-winner-case-study-smoking-kid---a-personal-message-to-the-smokers---by-thai-health-promotion-foundation-and-ogilvy-mather-thailand" }, { "title": "Thai 'Smoking Kids' anti-smoking ad goes viral", "publisher": "The Drum (2012)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/thai-smoking-kids-anti-smoking-ad-goes-viral" }, { "title": "Smoking Kid: A personal message to the smokers", "publisher": "4A's Jay Chiat Awards, via ANA Educational Foundation (2013)", "url": "https://aef.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/award-2013chiat-thpf-smoking-kid-case.pdf" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/g_YZ_PtMkw0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Smoking Kid (Thai Health Promotion Foundation, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Smoking Kid”, uploaded by Ogilvy", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_YZ_PtMkw0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/g_YZ_PtMkw0/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "g_YZ_PtMkw0", "uploaded_at": "2013-06-06T13:58:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "intel-toshiba-the-beauty-inside", "title": "The Beauty Inside", "brand": "Intel and Toshiba", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A romance about a man who wakes in a different body each day carries the brand truth that what is inside counts." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Fans audition through Facebook to play the lead, and others play him on his timeline between episodes, adding to his story." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social film (interactive web series)", "agency": "Pereira & O'Dell, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Drake Doremus" }, { "role": "Cast", "name": "Topher Grace, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Matthew Gray Gubler" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A romance whose leading man was partly played by the audience. Alex wakes up every morning in a different body, so anyone could play him: fans auditioned through Facebook to appear in the film as Alex, and others played him on his Facebook timeline between episodes, adding photos and videos to his story. Directed by Drake Doremus for Pereira & O'Dell and released on Facebook in weekly episodes from 16 August 2012, the series made the laptop on which Alex records his video diary part of the plot, and its premise, that what's inside is what counts, was a natural brand truth for Intel and Toshiba. The agency reports 26 Alexes cast from more than 4,000 auditions, 70 million video views and a 360% rise in sales during the series. It is studied as the high-water mark of branded social storytelling. It won three Grand Prix at Cannes 2013, in Film, Cyber, and Branded Content & Entertainment, and a Daytime Emmy.", "watch": [ { "label": "Trailer on Pereira O'Dell's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTmc6a0NViU", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-beauty-inside", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pereira O'Dell wins three Grand Prix awards at 2013 Cannes Lions", "publisher": "Pereira O'Dell", "url": "https://pereiraodell.com/news/pereira-odell-wins-three-grand-prix-awards-at-2013-cannes-lions" }, { "title": "Branded Content & Entertainment: Winners Announced", "publisher": "shots (2013)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/81404-branded-content-entertainment-winners-announced" }, { "title": "Toshiba and Intel Unveil 'The Beauty Inside' Global Social Film Project", "publisher": "Toshiba America press release (2012)", "url": "https://news.toshiba.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2012/Toshiba-and-Intel-Unveil-The-Beauty-Inside-Global-Social-Film-Project/default.aspx" }, { "title": "Director Drake Doremus Seeks \"The Beauty Inside\" for Toshiba and Intel", "publisher": "Pereira O'Dell", "url": "https://pereiraodell.com/news/director-drake-doremus-seeks-the-beauty-inside-for-toshiba-and-intel" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UTmc6a0NViU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Beauty Inside (Intel and Toshiba, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"The Beauty Inside\" - A Social Film Presented by Intel + Toshiba”, uploaded by Pereira O'Dell", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTmc6a0NViU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UTmc6a0NViU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "UTmc6a0NViU", "uploaded_at": "2012-10-05T23:26:20+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dollar-shave-club", "title": "Our Blades Are F***ing Great", "brand": "Dollar Shave Club", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A deadpan founder tours his warehouse delivering blunt one-liners, the most famous being his profane verdict on his own blades." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Shot by a friend in a warehouse for a few thousand dollars, the founder's straight-talking pitch presents the startup as unpretentious and down to earth." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "The video takes aim at the economics of the established razor industry, positioning the subscription as the sensible alternative to a century-old category leader." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Launch video (YouTube)", "agency": "In-house (written by founder Michael Dubin; co-directed with Lucia Aniello)", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer / Star", "name": "Michael Dubin" }, { "role": "Co-director", "name": "Lucia Aniello" } ], "tagline": "Our blades are f***ing great.", "why_studied": "The $4,500 video that built a billion-dollar company. On March 6, 2012, founder Michael Dubin — an improv-trained marketer — released a deadpan warehouse tour (\"Are the blades any good? No. Our blades are f***ing great.\") shot by a friend in one day. The site crashed within hours; 12,000 orders arrived in 48 hours; and four years later Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for a reported $1 billion. It is studied as the founding case of founder-as-performer direct-to-consumer marketing: the video simultaneously explained the subscription model, attacked razor-industry economics, and established a brand voice — proving a startup could beat a century-old category leader's media budget with one perfectly written minute.", "watch": [ { "label": "TechCrunch's launch-day story, with the video", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/06/dollar-shave-club/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How a $4,500 YouTube Video Turned Into a $1 Billion Company (Michael Dubin, first person)", "publisher": "Inc. (2017)", "url": "https://www.inc.com/magazine/201707/lindsay-blakely/how-i-did-it-michael-dubin-dollar-shave-club.html" }, { "title": "A Startup Ad Pivot: Behind the Dollar Shave Club Promo", "publisher": "Fast Company (2012)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/2680076/a-startup-ad-pivot-behind-the-dollar-shave-club-promo" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZUG9qYTJMsI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Our Blades Are F***ing Great (Dollar Shave Club, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “DollarShaveClub.com - Our Blades Are F***ing Great”, uploaded by Dollar Shave Club", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZUG9qYTJMsI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ZUG9qYTJMsI", "uploaded_at": "2012-03-06T14:50:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "metro-dumb-ways-to-die", "title": "Dumb Ways to Die", "brand": "Metro Trains Melbourne", "year": 2012, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A genuinely catchy pop song lists a string of dumb deaths, with train accidents saved as the dumbest, so the safety message sticks as an earworm." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Adorable animated beans dying in absurd ways, from selling both kidneys to poking a grizzly bear, smuggle a grim rail-safety lesson inside comedy." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Animated music video and integrated safety campaign", "agency": "McCann, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Song", "name": "Ollie McGill (music), sung by Emily Lubitz" } ], "tagline": "Be safe around trains.", "why_studied": "A rail-safety message delivered as an earworm about adorable beans dying horribly. Instead of blood-on-the-tracks shock tactics, McCann Melbourne wrote a genuinely catchy pop song cataloguing dumb deaths — selling both kidneys, poking a grizzly bear — with train accidents as the dumbest of all. Launched November 16, 2012, the song hit the iTunes top ten within 24 hours, the video amassed hundreds of millions of views, and 127 million people pledged to be safer around trains. At Cannes 2013 it won a record five Grand Prix and became the most awarded campaign in the festival's history. It is studied for charm as a delivery system for grim messages — entertainment first, lesson smuggled in — and as the most complete transmedia PSA ever built: song, video, game, and station posters all one idea.", "watch": [ { "label": "McCann Australia's case page, with the video", "url": "https://mccann.com.au/work/dumb-ways-to-die/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Dumb Ways to Die' Ends With Record 5 Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2013)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/dumb-ways-die-ends-record-5-grand-prix-adding-film-and-integrated-150586/" }, { "title": "McCann Melbourne's \"Dumb Ways To Die\" Is Most Awarded Ad Campaign In Cannes Festival's 60-Year History", "publisher": "McCann press release (PR Newswire, 2013)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mccann-erickson-melbournes-dumb-ways-to-die-is-most-awarded-ad-campaign-in-cannes-festivals-60-year-history-wins-a-record-5-grand-prix-lions-212743141.html" }, { "title": "Dumb Ways to Die (agency case: launch date, pledges, views)", "publisher": "McCann Australia", "url": "https://mccann.com.au/work/dumb-ways-to-die/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IJNR2EpS0jw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Dumb Ways to Die (Metro Trains Melbourne, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Dumb Ways to Die”, uploaded by Dumb Ways to Die", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IJNR2EpS0jw/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "IJNR2EpS0jw", "uploaded_at": "2012-11-15T07:23:41+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "visitsweden-curators-of-sweden", "title": "Curators of Sweden (@sweden)", "brand": "VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute", "year": 2011, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "The country's official account is handed to a different ordinary citizen each week, picturing the nation as a mosaic of everyday voices." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Leaving controversial tweets uncensored demonstrates the promised openness rather than claiming it, trading control for credibility." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Social media (Twitter) campaign", "agency": "Volontaire, Stockholm", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A country handed its official Twitter account to a different citizen every week. From 10 December 2011, VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute gave @sweden to one ordinary Swede at a time, free to tweet whatever they liked, so that the country would be pictured as a mosaic of many voices rather than one official one. The brand promise of openness was demonstrated rather than claimed, and it was tested almost at once, when curators posted things no tourism board would approve and the account was not censored. That is precisely why it is studied: as an experiment in how much control a brand will surrender to earn credibility. Despite a run of bad headlines it won one of two Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2012. The project ran for almost seven years; when it closed in 2018, 356 people had run the account and it had more than 146,000 followers.", "watch": [ { "label": "@sweden on Twitter, captured June 2012 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20120605085544/http://twitter.com/Sweden", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "CuratorsOfSweden.com, captured June 2012 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20120613003923/http://curatorsofsweden.com/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "@Sweden Twitter Campaign, Nike+ FuelBand Each Take a Cyber Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/sweden-twitter-campaign-nike-fuelband-each-take-cyber-grand-prix-141247/" }, { "title": "@Sweden's citizen-driven nation branding is a global success", "publisher": "The International Office (Swedish Institute / VisitSweden) via Cision (2012)", "url": "https://news.cision.com/the-international-office/r/sweden-s-citizen-driven-nation-branding-is-a-global-success,c9248950" }, { "title": "Grand Prix till Volontaire", "publisher": "Dagens Media (2012, Swedish)", "url": "https://www.dagensmedia.se/digitalt/tech/grand-prix-till-volontaire/" }, { "title": "Sweden says final goodbye to official country Twitter account", "publisher": "The Local Sweden (2018)", "url": "https://www.thelocal.se/20181001/sweden-says-final-goodbye-to-official-country-twitter-account" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "intel-the-museum-of-me", "title": "The Museum of Me", "brand": "Intel", "year": 2011, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Connecting a Facebook account turns the visitor's own friends, photos, posts and Likes into an exhibition of their life, an experience made to be shared." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Facebook-connected interactive film", "agency": "Projector, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Music", "name": "Takagi Masakatsu" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Connect your Facebook account and The Museum of Me built a gallery of your own life. A short, first-person film led the visitor through a quiet exhibition in which their friends, photos, posts and Likes hung on the walls like works of art. Made by Projector in Tokyo to promote Intel's Core i5 processor, it barely mentioned the chip; Intel's Asia-Pacific brand strategy director said the point was an experience people would want to share, not a product message. Even the score was social: the composer Takagi Masakatsu mixed in voices sent by his Twitter followers. It is studied as an early and unusually elegant use of the social graph as creative material, a forerunner of the personalised data stories brands now produce every year. The agency reported 790,000 shares to Facebook in the first two weeks. At Cannes in 2012 it won three Gold Lions, in Cyber, Film and Branded Content, and it also took a Grand Clio and a Webby.", "watch": [ { "label": "Intel's film of the experience (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfd54nYPhXk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-museum-of-me", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Intel’s Jayant Murty on the award-winning 'Museum of Me'", "publisher": "Campaign Asia-Pacific (2012)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/intels-jayant-murty-on-the-award-winning-museum-of-me/307714" }, { "title": "Ad of the Day: Intel", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ad-day-intel-142656/" }, { "title": "The Museum of Me (One Show entry)", "publisher": "The One Club (2012)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/18324/the-museum-of-me/" }, { "title": "The Museum of Me (Webby winner, Best Use of Social Media)", "publisher": "The Webby Awards (2012)", "url": "https://winners.webbyawards.com/2012/advertising-media-pr/media-campaigns/best-use-of-social-media/149748/the-museum-of-me" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qfd54nYPhXk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Museum of Me (Intel, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Museum of Me | Intel”, uploaded by Intel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfd54nYPhXk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qfd54nYPhXk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "qfd54nYPhXk", "uploaded_at": "2011-05-31T07:17:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tipp-ex-a-hunter-shoots-a-bear", "title": "A Hunter Shoots a Bear", "brand": "Tipp-Ex (BIC)", "year": 2010, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers type their own verb into the video's title and get one of dozens of filmed responses, writing the ending themselves." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The hunter grabs correction tape from the neighbouring banner and whites out a word in the video's title, using the product on the interface itself." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive YouTube video", "agency": "Buzzman, Paris", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A hunter faces a bear, refuses to pull the trigger, reaches out of the YouTube player into the banner beside it, grabs a Tipp-Ex Pocket Mouse correction tape and whites out the word 'shoots' in the video's own title, then invites viewers to type a verb of their own. Posted at the end of August 2010 for back-to-school, the campaign had 42 alternative scenes shot so that almost anything typed returned a filmed response. It is studied as the defining YouTube takeover: the product is demonstrated by using it on the interface itself, and the audience writes the ending. D&AD's archive records more than 46 million YouTube views, over a million Facebook shares, earned media worth €3.2 million and a 30% rise in European sales in September and October 2010. The work collected a string of Lions at Cannes in 2011 and was followed by sequels with the same hunter and bear.", "watch": [ { "label": "The original video on the tippexperience YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The One Show awards entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/13901/a-hunter-shoots-a-bear/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "A Hunter Shoots a Bear (awards archive entry and results)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/a-hunter-shoots-a-bear" }, { "title": "BIC / Tipp-Ex: A Hunter Shoots a Bear", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/13901/a-hunter-shoots-a-bear/" }, { "title": "New Tippex 'Hunter shoots a bear' campaign goes viral", "publisher": "Memeburn (2010)", "url": "https://memeburn.com/2010/09/new-tippex-hunter-shoots-a-bear-campaign-goes-viral/" }, { "title": "Tipp-Ex: Der kreative Kopf hinter der Erfolgskampagne im Interview", "publisher": "Horizont (2012)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/agenturen/nachrichten/-Tipp-Ex-Der-kreative-Kopf-hinter-der-Erfolgskampagne-im-Interview-107012" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/4ba1BqJ4S2M/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from A Hunter Shoots a Bear (Tipp-Ex (BIC), 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NSFW. A hunter shoots a bear!”, uploaded by tippexperience", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "4ba1BqJ4S2M", "uploaded_at": "2010-08-25T10:37:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sussex-safer-roads-embrace-life", "title": "Embrace Life", "brand": "Sussex Safer Roads Partnership", "year": 2010, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "The wife's and daughter's arms become the seat belt, a single image suggesting that the people who love you are why you buckle up." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Wordless and tender, it moves viewers through family love rather than gore, deliberately rejecting the shock tactics common in road-safety advertising." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "90-second online and cinema film", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Writer and Director", "name": "Daniel Cox" }, { "role": "Producer", "name": "Sarah Alexander" } ], "tagline": "Always wear your seat belt.", "why_studied": "A father sits in his living room pretending to drive while his wife and daughter watch. Suddenly a crash is coming; his family race to him, the daughter wrapping her arms around his waist and the wife around his chest, and together they become the seat belt that holds him in place. Shot in slow motion and without dialogue, the film was developed for the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership as a deliberate contrast to the harrowing shock tactics common in road-safety advertising; writer-director Daniel Cox made it wordless so that viewers of any age or language could follow it. Posted online in January 2010, it passed a million views in its first two weeks and has since been watched more than 20 million times. It is studied as proof that a tender, hopeful frame can carry a safety message as far as gore. It won a Bronze Lion at Cannes, a Gold World Medal at the New York Festivals and YouTube's first Ad of the Year award.", "watch": [ { "label": "Embrace Life (Sussex Safer Roads YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-8PBx7isoM", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Sussex Safer Roads Partnership's \"Embrace Life\"", "publisher": "SHOOT (2010)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/shoot_video2/sussex-safer-roads-partnerships-embrace-life/" }, { "title": "Finally, a 'Wear Your Seatbelt' PSA That Makes Us Cry", "publisher": "Adweek AgencySpy (2010)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/finally-a-wear-your-seatbelt-psa-that-makes-us-cry/" }, { "title": "'Embrace Life' ad scoops YouTube advertising award", "publisher": "Campaign (2010)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/embrace-life-ad-scoops-youtube-advertising-award/1042045" }, { "title": "Iconic road safety video now has more than 20 million online views", "publisher": "Road Safety Support (2020)", "url": "https://www.roadsafetysupport.co.uk/news/iconic-road-safety-video-attractedmore-20-million-online-views" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/h-8PBx7isoM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Embrace Life (Sussex Safer Roads Partnership, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Embrace Life - always wear your seat belt”, uploaded by SussexSaferRoads", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-8PBx7isoM" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "h-8PBx7isoM", "uploaded_at": "2010-01-29T17:07:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-happiness-machine", "title": "Happiness Machine", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2010, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Students' unscripted delight as a vending machine hands out extra bottles, flowers, pizza and a giant sandwich attaches pure joy to the brand." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "A rigged vending machine is slipped into a university cafeteria overnight and filmed by hidden cameras, turning an everyday spot into a surprise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online hidden-camera film", "agency": "Definition 6, Atlanta", "credits": [], "tagline": "Open Happiness", "why_studied": "A Coca-Cola vending machine was slipped into a student cafeteria at St. John's University in Queens overnight, watched by hidden cameras and rigged to give far more than a drink: extra bottles, flowers, balloon animals, a hot pizza and a sandwich six feet long. None of the reactions were scripted. Coca-Cola posted the film to its YouTube channel in January 2010 with almost no push, which the team told Mashable amounted to a single Facebook update and one tweet, and it passed two million views within months; a 30-second edit later ran during the American Idol season finale. It is studied as the template for the branded act of kindness: a small, filmable surprise that turns a slogan like 'Open Happiness' into something literal and lets the audience do the distribution. It won a Gold Clio for interactive work and Ad Age's Small Agency Campaign of the Year.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on Coca-Cola's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqT_dPApj9U", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Coca-Cola \"Happiness Machine\" Wins Top Honors at the 2010 CLIO Awards", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company press release (2010)", "url": "https://investors.coca-colacompany.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/28/coca-cola-happiness-machine-wins-top-honors-at-the-2010-clio-awards" }, { "title": "How Coca-Cola Created Its \"Happiness Machine\" [INTERVIEW]", "publisher": "Mashable (2010)", "url": "https://mashable.com/archive/coke-happiness-machine" }, { "title": "Definition 6 Launches Coca-Cola 'Happiness Machine' Video", "publisher": "Definition 6 via PR Newswire (2010)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/definition-6-launches-coca-cola-happiness-machine-video-81706642.html" }, { "title": "Definition 6 Wins Campaign of the Year at Ad Age Small Agency Awards for Coca-Cola Work", "publisher": "Definition 6 via PR Newswire (2010)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/definition-6-wins-campaign-of-the-year-at-ad-age-small-agency-awards-for-coca-cola-work-98829519.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lqT_dPApj9U/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Happiness Machine (Coca-Cola, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca-Cola Happiness Machine”, uploaded by Coca-Cola", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqT_dPApj9U", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lqT_dPApj9U/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lqT_dPApj9U", "uploaded_at": "2010-01-12T19:43:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "google-chrome-the-wilderness-downtown", "title": "The Wilderness Downtown", "brand": "Google Chrome (with Arcade Fire)", "brand_slug": "google", "year": 2010, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers supply the address of the home they grew up in and finish by writing a note to their younger self, so no two viewings match." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Mixing Street View imagery of the viewer's own childhood street into the film turns a music video into a personal, nostalgic return home." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Choreographed browser windows, maps and filmed footage show off what HTML5 can do in Chrome, making the browser itself the medium." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive HTML5 film", "agency": "Google Creative Lab, with director Chris Milk", "credits": [ { "role": "Writer / Director", "name": "Chris Milk" }, { "role": "Google Creative Lab technology lead", "name": "Aaron Koblin" }, { "role": "Production", "name": "B-Reel; @radical.media" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A music video that could only exist in a browser. Launched on 30 August 2010, The Wilderness Downtown asked viewers for the address of the home they grew up in, then choreographed a flurry of browser windows around Arcade Fire's 'We Used to Wait', mixing filmed footage with Google Maps and Street View imagery of the viewer's own childhood street, and ended by inviting them to write a note to their younger self. Created by writer-director Chris Milk with the band and Google Creative Lab, it was built to show what HTML5 could do in Chrome. It is studied as the moment personal data became the raw material of an emotional story rather than of targeting, and as a landmark of browser-as-medium craft in which no two viewings were the same. It won a Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2011, and MIT's Docubase also lists a Grand Clio.", "watch": [ { "label": "Project page on Experiments with Google", "url": "https://experiments.withgoogle.com/the-wilderness-downtown", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The original site, captured at launch (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100902034257/http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com:80/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Arcade Fire meets HTML5", "publisher": "Official Google Blog (2010)", "url": "https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/arcade-fire-meets-html5.html" }, { "title": "Google and Arcade Fire Team for HTML5 'Experience'", "publisher": "Wired (2010)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/2010/08/google-and-arcade-fire-team-for-html5-experience/" }, { "title": "Google, Wieden, R/GA Win Cyber Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2011)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/google-wieden-rga-each-pick-cyber-grand-prix-132807/" }, { "title": "The Wilderness Downtown", "publisher": "MIT Docubase", "url": "https://docubase.mit.edu/project/the-wilderness-downtown/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hO1Qj6m6kCM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Wilderness Downtown (Google Chrome (with Arcade Fire), 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Arcade Fire and Chris Milk HTML5 Film [Teaser]”, uploaded by Google Chrome", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO1Qj6m6kCM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/hO1Qj6m6kCM/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "hO1Qj6m6kCM", "uploaded_at": "2010-08-28T16:00:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "old-spice-the-man-your-man-could-smell-like", "title": "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", "brand": "Old Spice (Procter & Gamble)", "year": 2010, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "emmy-winners" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Speaking straight to women, a spokesman glides from bathroom to boat to beach to horseback in an absurd monologue that revives a dated brand." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "The agency then answers fans with nearly 200 personalised video replies from the spokesman in character, responding to the conversation as it unfolds." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "30-second commercial and response-video campaign", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Tom Kuntz" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Isaiah Mustafa" } ], "tagline": "Look at your man, now back to me... I'm on a horse.", "why_studied": "A single unbroken-looking take that rebuilt a dated brand in 30 seconds. Isaiah Mustafa addresses the camera — \"Hello, ladies\" — while the scene transforms around him from bathroom to boat to beach, ending on a horse, in a monologue aimed at women who actually buy body wash for men. Released on Old Spice's YouTube channel in February 2010 around the Super Bowl, it turned an old-man brand into the most talked-about property in advertising; W+K then answered fans with nearly 200 personalized video replies from Mustafa in character, an early landmark of real-time brand response. It is studied for its production craft (practical transitions, one performer carrying the spot), for targeting the purchaser rather than the user, and for fusing TV craft with internet-native distribution. It won the Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix in 2010 and the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial.", "watch": [ { "label": "Official upload on Old Spice's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Old Spice's Manly Body Wash TV Spot Takes Film Grand Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2010)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-2010/spice-s-man-man-smell-takes-film-grand-prix/144688/" }, { "title": "Old Spice: Smells Like a Commercial Emmy", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/old-spice-smells-commercial-emmy-103139/" }, { "title": "Wieden+Kennedy Wins Three Grand Prix Honors at Cannes (director credit)", "publisher": "SHOOTonline (2010)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/wiedenkennedy-wins-three-grand-prix-honors-film-integrated-and-cyber-cannes-lions-ad-fest/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/owGykVbfgUE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (Old Spice (Procter & Gamble), 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Old Spice | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”, uploaded by Old Spice", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/owGykVbfgUE/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "owGykVbfgUE", "uploaded_at": "2010-02-05T05:01:32+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "philips-carousel", "title": "Carousel", "brand": "Philips (Cinema 21:9)", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A frozen shootout explored in one continuous, looping tracking shot shows off cinematic proportions, so the craft itself demonstrates the widescreen television." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "On the microsite viewers move through the scene at will and trigger hotspots that reveal a behind-the-scenes version of the same shot." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive online film", "agency": "Tribal DDB, Amsterdam", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Adam Berg" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Stink Digital, London" }, { "role": "Director of photography", "name": "Fredrik Backar" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A cops-and-robbers shootout frozen in a single instant, explored in one continuous tracking shot that runs two minutes and 19 seconds and loops back to where it began. Directed by Adam Berg for Stink Digital and launched online in April 2009 to sell Philips' cinema-proportioned 21:9 television, Carousel lived on a microsite where viewers could move through the scene at will and trigger hotspots that swapped the finished image for a behind-the-scenes version of the same shot. It is studied as the moment web film matched television for production value and then added what TV could not: the craft itself became the product demonstration. The jury at Cannes 2009 gave it the Film Grand Prix unanimously, two years after Dove's 'Evolution', confirming that the top film prize could go to work made for the web; it also won a Silver Cyber Lion.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film on the Philips Carousel YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-uD0u7QD0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Stink Studios case page", "url": "https://www.stinkstudios.com/work/philips-carousel", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Film Grand Prix for Carousel", "publisher": "shots (2009)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/65305-film-grand-prix-for-carousel" }, { "title": "Cannes Archive: Film and Press Grand Prix Winners Since 2000", "publisher": "Adweek (2011)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/archive-grand-prix-winners-film-press-2000-132646/" }, { "title": "Adam Berg/Stink Digital for Philips (interactive loop, hotspots, credits)", "publisher": "Motionographer (2009)", "url": "https://motionographer.com/2009/04/16/adam-bergstink-digital-for-philips/" }, { "title": "Carousel (case page)", "publisher": "Stink Studios", "url": "https://www.stinkstudios.com/work/philips-carousel" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/1m-uD0u7QD0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Carousel (Philips (Cinema 21:9), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Philips Carousel for Cinema 21:9 TV”, uploaded by Philipscarousel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-uD0u7QD0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "1m-uD0u7QD0", "uploaded_at": "2009-06-26T16:27:31+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-livestrong-chalkbot", "title": "Chalkbot", "brand": "Nike (Livestrong)", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Anyone can send a message by text, Twitter or web for a robot to spray onto the race route, then receive a GPS-tagged photo of it." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Built for a cancer campaign, it lets a worldwide audience join the race's tradition of roadside messages to riders." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Real-time social campaign (Twitter, SMS and web)", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "Build and technology", "name": "Deeplocal, Pittsburgh" }, { "role": "Robotics", "name": "Standard Robot" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Fans at the Tour de France have long painted messages on the road for the riders. For Nike's Livestrong cancer campaign during the 2009 race, Wieden+Kennedy Portland let anyone in the world add one from a phone or keyboard. Messages sent by text, Twitter, web banners or the campaign site were queued for Chalkbot, a truck-towed printing rig built by Pittsburgh's Deeplocal and Standard Robot, which sprayed them onto the route in yellow, water-soluble paint. Each sender then received a photograph of their words on the tarmac, tagged with its GPS coordinates. It is studied as one of the first campaigns to turn social posts into physical objects and hand the proof back to the people who wrote them, a loop that made a global audience feel present at the roadside. Metro reported more than 36,000 messages over the race, thousands of them printed across 13 stages. It won the Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes in 2010.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film uploaded by Deeplocal's Nathan Martin (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khffa2GkvPE", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nike Chalkbot campaign wins cyber lions grand prix", "publisher": "The Guardian (2010)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jun/24/cannes-lions-cyber-nike-chalkbot" }, { "title": "'Chalkbot' tweets the streets of the Tour de France", "publisher": "The Christian Science Monitor (2009)", "url": "https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2009/0714/chalkbot-tweets-the-streets-of-the-tour-de-france" }, { "title": "Behind The Idea: Livestrong", "publisher": "Metro (2009)", "url": "https://metro.co.uk/2009/10/15/behind-the-idea-livestrong-488711/" }, { "title": "Robot chalks tweets on Tour de France route", "publisher": "CNN (2009)", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/14/tour.france.chalkbot/index.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Khffa2GkvPE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Chalkbot (Nike (Livestrong), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Livestrong Nike Chalkbot”, uploaded by Nathan Martin", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khffa2GkvPE" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Khffa2GkvPE", "uploaded_at": "2012-01-27T18:44:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "gwent-police-cow-texting-and-driving", "title": "COW (\"Only Stwpd Cowz Txt N Drive\")", "brand": "Gwent Police (with Tredegar Comprehensive School)", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Lingering shots of a girl's head hitting a window and a baby's blank stare are deliberately graphic, built to jolt young drivers." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A drama follows one teenage driver whose single text causes a crash that kills four people, letting the consequences unfold as a story." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Four-minute online extract from a 30-minute public information film", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Peter Watkins-Hughes" }, { "role": "Starring", "name": "Jenny Davies" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Cassie, a 17-year-old driver, sends a text at the wheel, drifts into oncoming traffic and causes a three-car crash on the outskirts of Tredegar that kills four people; the camera lingers on a girl's head slamming against a window and the blank stare of a baby in another car. Gwent Police and Tredegar Comprehensive School had set out to remake a joyriding film by local director Peter Watkins-Hughes, but the pupils insisted that texting while driving was the bigger danger and that the film had to be more shocking, violent and truthful. Made for about £10,000, its four-minute crash sequence went viral in 2009, passing four million YouTube views within weeks and reaching The New York Times as American states debated texting bans. It is studied as low-budget shock done with cinematic conviction, and as a flashpoint in the debate over gore in road-safety films. The clip was a trailer for a 30-minute drama due on BBC Wales, and by 2011 it had been seen more than seven million times.", "watch": [ { "label": "COW, full 30-minute film (Tred Films on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7Yh1crrOc", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "COW, 2009 online taster (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbFJWDqc0C4", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Scare Tactics and Texting", "publisher": "The New York Times Wheels blog (2009)", "url": "https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/scare-tactics-and-texting/" }, { "title": "Graphic film about dangers of texting is internet hit", "publisher": "WalesOnline (2009)", "url": "https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/graphic-film-dangers-texting-internet-2090384" }, { "title": "YouTube success for Gwent Police road crash film", "publisher": "Caerphilly Observer (2009)", "url": "https://caerphilly.observer/news/391/youtube-success-for-gwent-police-road-crash-film/" }, { "title": "Police clampdown on mobile phone-using drivers", "publisher": "BBC News (2011)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-15008775" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lM7Yh1crrOc/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from COW (\"Only Stwpd Cowz Txt N Drive\") (Gwent Police (with Tredegar Comprehensive School), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “COW - Full Film | Official BBC Drama [2009] HD | Successor from PSA Texting and Driving viral video”, uploaded by Tred Films", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM7Yh1crrOc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lM7Yh1crrOc/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lM7Yh1crrOc", "uploaded_at": "2024-08-04T10:35:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "ford-fiesta-movement", "title": "Fiesta Movement", "brand": "Ford", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A hundred social-media-savvy agents drive the car for six months, so it is introduced through their unscripted posts rather than the carmaker's own claims." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "The agents complete set missions and publish whatever happens on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and blogs, creating the campaign themselves with no traditional media buy." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Influencer and social media campaign", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Head of social media, Ford", "name": "Scott Monty" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Before the new Fiesta had even been unveiled in America, Ford handed 100 European-spec cars to 100 social-media-savvy 'agents' for six months, set them a series of missions, and let them post whatever happened, unscripted, to YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and their blogs. There was no traditional media buy. It is studied as one of the first large-scale influencer programmes by a major brand, and as a deliberate surrender of message control by a carmaker. Ford's social-media chief Scott Monty told Wired that 58% of consumers were aware of the Fiesta by the time of its official US unveiling, and Wired reported more than 6.5 million YouTube views and 50,000 requests for information, 97% from people who did not own a Ford. INSEAD's Andrew Stephen turned it into a teaching case that has repeatedly been a Case Centre best-seller and won a Case Centre award in 2013, which is why it still turns up in marketing classrooms.", "watch": [ { "label": "FiestaMovement.com, captured May 2009 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20090528152314/http://www.fiestamovement.com/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Fiesta Movement YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@FiestaMovement", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ford is Fiesta Movement's Big Winner", "publisher": "Wired (2009)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/2009/12/ford-is-fiesta-movements-big-winner/" }, { "title": "Ford Fiesta Movement: Can Social Media Sell Cars?", "publisher": "Mashable (2009)", "url": "https://mashable.com/archive/fiesta-movement-numbers" }, { "title": "Ford Fiesta Movement: Using Social Media and Viral Marketing to Launch Ford's Global Car in the United States (case)", "publisher": "INSEAD (2010)", "url": "https://publishing.insead.edu/case/ford-fiesta-movement-using-social-media-and-viral-marketing-launch-fords-global-car-united-states" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "evian-roller-babies", "title": "Roller Babies", "brand": "Evian (Danone)", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Special-effects babies pull off old-school roller-skating tricks to a remix of 'Rapper's Delight', an absurd spectacle that keeps the brand light and playful." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The film revives the babies the brand had last used over a decade earlier, recurring characters that embody its promise to live young." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online film", "agency": "BETC Euro RSCG, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Michael Gracey" }, { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Rémi Babinet, Vincent Vella" } ], "tagline": "Live young.", "why_studied": "Special-effects babies perform old-school roller-skating tricks to a remix of 'Rapper's Delight', bringing back the babies Evian had last used more than a decade earlier. The 60-second film broke online on 3 July 2009 through a YouTube deal across six countries before a wider TV and press campaign, and in November Guinness World Records named it the most viewed online ad of all time, at 45,166,109 views, according to Google's announcement. It is studied as an early proof that a big brand film could be launched online-first and paid to go viral, with YouTube homepage placements to start the fire, and as a debate about whether viral fame sells. On that question, e-marketing.fr, reporting the Effie result, cited Nielsen data showing Evian sales up 7% during the campaign in a falling bottled-water market and 102 million online views by early 2010. It won the Grand Prix at the French Effie Awards in 2010.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD Paris) collection on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccCDgXb3Gtk", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The One Show awards entry (credits)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/12476/rollerbabies/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The babies are back – on rollerskates – in Evian summer ad", "publisher": "The Guardian (2009)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jul/02/evian-rollerskating-babies-ad" }, { "title": "Guinness World Record for evian's Rollerbabies ad on YouTube", "publisher": "Official Google Australia Blog (2009)", "url": "https://australia.googleblog.com/2009/11/guinness-world-record-for-evians.html" }, { "title": "Les Roller Babies d'Evian, champions de l'efficacité publicitaire", "publisher": "e-marketing.fr (2010)", "url": "https://www.e-marketing.fr/Thematique/agences-1089/Breves/Les-Roller-Babies-Evian-champions-efficacite-publicitaire-181294.htm" }, { "title": "Roller Babies (Grand Prix 2010)", "publisher": "Effie France", "url": "https://www.effie.fr/prix/roller-babies/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ccCDgXb3Gtk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Roller Babies (Evian (Danone), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “[Evian] Roller babies, 2009”, uploaded by MAD Paris", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccCDgXb3Gtk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ccCDgXb3Gtk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ccCDgXb3Gtk", "uploaded_at": "2023-06-30T07:55:37+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-the-fun-theory", "title": "The Fun Theory (\"Piano Stairs\")", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Subway stairs in Stockholm are turned into working piano keys and filmed as commuters abandon the escalator, a playful real-world intervention." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Keeping its cars in the background, the brand argues that making good behaviour fun, from taking the stairs to using a bin, is how to change it." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Online video series and website", "agency": "DDB Stockholm", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Volkswagen Sweden turned the stairs at Stockholm's Odenplan subway station into working piano keys, filmed commuters abandoning the escalator, and put the result online. The 'Piano Stairs', a 'World's Deepest Bin' and a bottle-bank arcade game were the visible proof of a thesis: that the easiest way to change behaviour for the better is to make it fun. Volkswagen kept its own role low-key; the BlueMotion cars being promoted barely feature. Stanford Social Innovation Review reported that 66% more people than usual took the stairs during the one-day test, and that within a couple of months the films had drawn some 13 million YouTube views, 10 million for the piano alone. It is studied as a pioneer of experiment-as-content advertising, where a brand proves a value instead of listing product features, and as a template for behaviour-change work since. DDB Stockholm's campaign won the Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2010.", "watch": [ { "label": "\"Piano Stairs\" on the campaign's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw", "type": "official" }, { "label": "TheFunTheory.com, captured November 2009 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20091101230621/http://www.thefuntheory.com/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "What Works: Fun for a Change", "publisher": "Stanford Social Innovation Review (Spring 2010)", "url": "https://ssir.org/images/articles/2010SP_What_Works_Fun_for_a_change_Dalton.pdf" }, { "title": "Nike Chalkbot, VW 'Fun Theory' Win Cyber Grand Prix Lions", "publisher": "ClickZ (2010)", "url": "https://clickz.com/nike-chalkbot-vw-fun-theory-win-cyber-grand-prix-lions/55602/" }, { "title": "DDB Worldwide wins two Grand Prix at the 2010 International Advertising Festival in Cannes", "publisher": "DDB Worldwide via PR Newswire (2010)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ddb-worldwide-wins-two-grand-prix-and-ranks-as-the-second-most-awarded-network-at-the-2010-international-advertising-festival-in-cannes-97332639.html" }, { "title": "The Fun Theory (awards archive entry)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-fun-theory" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/2lXh2n0aPyw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Fun Theory (\"Piano Stairs\") (Volkswagen, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se”, uploaded by Rolighetsteorin", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "2lXh2n0aPyw", "uploaded_at": "2009-10-07T13:13:42+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "burger-king-whopper-sacrifice", "title": "Whopper Sacrifice", "brand": "Burger King", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2009, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "A Facebook app asks people to delete ten friends in exchange for a free Whopper coupon, building the offer from the platform's own mechanics." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each discarded friend is told they were sacrificed for a burger, a public joke about how thin online friendship has become." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Facebook application", "agency": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A Facebook app that put a price on friendship: delete ten friends and get a coupon for a free Whopper. Launched by Burger King and Crispin Porter + Bogusky in January 2009, it did what Facebook itself deliberately never did, telling each discarded friend that they had been sacrificed for a burger and turning a private click into a public joke. TechCrunch counted 233,906 friends removed by 82,771 people in under a week. Facebook then disabled the app because the unfriend notices broke its privacy expectations, and Burger King chose to end the promotion rather than remove the feature that made it funny. It is studied as one of the first campaigns built out of a social platform's own mechanics rather than simply placed on it, as a sharp read of how thin online 'friendship' had become, and as an early lesson in how a platform's rules can switch off an idea that works too well.", "watch": [ { "label": "WhopperSacrifice.com, captured January 2009 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20090110175450/http://www.whoppersacrifice.com:80/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "CNET's launch-week report on the app", "url": "https://www.cnet.com/culture/delete-10-facebook-friends-get-a-free-whopper/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Facebook Blows A Whopper Of An Opportunity", "publisher": "TechCrunch (2009)", "url": "https://techcrunch.com/2009/01/14/facebook-blows-a-whopper-of-an-opportunity/" }, { "title": "Burger King sacrifices Facebook app after dispute", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (2009)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story/2009-01-15/burger-king-sacrifices-facebook-app-after-dispute" }, { "title": "Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper", "publisher": "CNET (2009)", "url": "https://www.cnet.com/culture/delete-10-facebook-friends-get-a-free-whopper/" }, { "title": "The definitive oral history of Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice", "publisher": "Digiday (2017)", "url": "https://digiday.com/marketing/definitive-oral-history-burger-kings-whopper-sacrifice/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "fiat-eco-drive", "title": "eco:Drive", "brand": "Fiat", "year": 2008, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Instead of advertising fuel economy, the brand gives drivers a free tool that teaches them to use less fuel and cut emissions." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Each trip is scored out of 100 on acceleration, braking, gear changes and speed, with the CO2 emitted and money that could be saved worked out." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Downloadable driving-data app and online community", "agency": "AKQA, London", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Rather than advertise fuel economy, Fiat and AKQA built a tool that taught people to use less fuel. Drivers of cars fitted with Fiat's Blue&Me system could record their journeys onto an ordinary USB stick, then load the data into a free application on their computer that scored each trip out of 100 on acceleration, braking, gear changes and speed, worked out the CO2 emitted and the money that could be saved, and set tutorials and targets for the next drive. An online community, eco:Ville, let drivers compare progress. What began as a brief for a small loyalty scheme became one of the earliest serious examples of branded utility built on car data, and it is studied as advertising whose value lies entirely in the service. Fiat reported more than 50,000 downloads in the first eight months and said its users had saved over 1,500 tonnes of CO2. It won the Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes in 2009.", "watch": [ { "label": "Fiat's eco:Drive explainer film (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyUsIYYXhKU", "type": "official" }, { "label": "One Show Interactive entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/45130/ecodrive/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Behind the scenes: AKQA's Grand Prix winning Fiat campaign", "publisher": "Campaign (2009)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/behind-scenes-akqas-grand-prix-winning-fiat-campaign/915805" }, { "title": "“eco:Drive” system wins public plaudits and international prizes", "publisher": "Fiat press release via Stellantis Media (2009)", "url": "https://www.media.stellantis.com/em-en/fiat/press/eco-drive-system-wins-public-plaudits-and-international-prizes" }, { "title": "U.S. shows strength in digital marketing at Cannes awards", "publisher": "USA Today via ABC News (2009)", "url": "https://abcnews.com/Business/story?id=7920887&page=1" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/UyUsIYYXhKU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from eco:Drive (Fiat, 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Fiat eco:Drive - EN”, uploaded by Fiat", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyUsIYYXhKU" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "UyUsIYYXhKU", "uploaded_at": "2011-07-22T10:45:55+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "doritos-hotel-626", "title": "Hotel 626", "brand": "Doritos (Frito-Lay)", "year": 2008, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Visitors play through a first-person nightmare across 13 rooms, singing to a demon baby through their microphone and receiving a call on their own phone." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Secretly snapping visitors through their webcam and showing the picture back in a madman's lair deliberately unnerves them, turning their own devices into horror props." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive horror website", "agency": "Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco", "credits": [ { "role": "Production company", "name": "B-Reel" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "To bring two discontinued flavours back for Halloween 2008, Doritos and Goodby Silverstein & Partners built a haunted hotel that existed only online and only opened between 6pm and 6am. Produced with B-Reel, Hotel 626 trapped visitors in a first-person nightmare across 13 rooms, to be played alone in the dark with headphones: it made you sing a demon baby to sleep through your microphone, secretly took your picture with your webcam and showed it back to you later in a madman's lair, then rang your actual mobile phone to talk you out. It is studied as a landmark of immersive web craft that turned the visitor's own devices into horror props, and, critically, by consumer advocates as an example of intense digital marketing aimed at teenagers. More than four million people in 136 countries were reported to have visited, and the revived flavours sold out. At Cannes in 2009 it won a Gold Cyber Lion, and it took a One Show Gold Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film (YouTube re-upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WayLhiNc0bs", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "One Show entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/11150/hotel-626/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Doritos Adds Haunted Hotel to Virtual Universe", "publisher": "Adrants (2008)", "url": "https://adrants.com/doritos-adds-haunted-hotel-to-virtual-universe/" }, { "title": "Hotel 626 (One Show entry)", "publisher": "The One Club (2009)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/11150/hotel-626/" }, { "title": "U.S. shows strength in digital marketing at Cannes awards", "publisher": "USA Today via ABC News (2009)", "url": "https://abcnews.com/Business/story?id=7920887&page=1" }, { "title": "Case Study: Doritos 626", "publisher": "Center for Digital Democracy and Berkeley Media Studies Group (Digital Ads, 2011)", "url": "https://www.digitalads.org/resources/case-study-doritos-626/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/WayLhiNc0bs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Hotel 626 (Doritos (Frito-Lay), 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Hotel 626 Doritos - Case Study”, uploaded by HitzBanget", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WayLhiNc0bs" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "WayLhiNc0bs", "uploaded_at": "2010-10-15T11:34:55+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "the-great-schlep", "title": "The Great Schlep", "brand": "Jewish Council for Education & Research", "year": 2008, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Young Jewish voters are recruited to visit their grandparents in Florida and talk them round, with downloadable talking points and a Facebook sign-up." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Sarah Silverman fronts the video, urging young people to persuade their grandparents and to withhold visits if they refuse." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Online video, website and Facebook app", "agency": "Droga5, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Featuring", "name": "Sarah Silverman" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Wayne McClammy" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Oil Factory" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In 2008 some polls showed Barack Obama lagging with older Jewish voters, many of them in the swing state of Florida. Droga5's answer, for the Jewish Council for Education & Research, was a four-minute web video in which Sarah Silverman urged young Jews to go and talk their grandparents round, and to withhold visits if they refused. A website offered downloadable talking points and a Facebook app signed up 'schleppers' for the trip. Profane, affectionate and impossible to ignore, the film premiered on September 23 and had reportedly been viewed seven million times within a month. It is studied as a model of participation advertising: the video was only the recruiting poster, while the persuasion happened in family conversations that no media budget could buy. David Droga later cited 15 million views, 1.5 million talking-point downloads and 25,000 sign-ups. At Cannes in 2009 it won a Titanium Lion, in the year Obama's own campaign took the Titanium Grand Prix.", "watch": [ { "label": "The video, uploaded by production company Oil Factory (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Arw87O4lM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-great-schlep", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Message to Your Grandma: Vote Obama", "publisher": "The New York Times (2008)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/arts/television/07sara.html" }, { "title": "Bay Area native organizes Florida Schlep for Obama", "publisher": "J. The Jewish News of Northern California (2008)", "url": "https://jweekly.com/2008/10/24/bay-area-native-organizes-florida-schlep-for-obama/" }, { "title": "‘Great Schlep’ Proved Power of Participation", "publisher": "TVWeek (2008)", "url": "https://www.tvweek.com/in-depth/2008/11/great-schlep-proved-power-of-p/" }, { "title": "Barack Obama campaign claims two top prizes at Cannes Lion ad awards", "publisher": "The Guardian (2009)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/29/barack-obama-cannes-lions" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/u7Arw87O4lM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Great Schlep (Jewish Council for Education & Research, 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Sarah Silverman \"The Great Schlep\"”, uploaded by OilFactoryInc", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Arw87O4lM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/u7Arw87O4lM/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "u7Arw87O4lM", "uploaded_at": "2011-08-10T19:33:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "uniqlo-uniqlock", "title": "Uniqlock", "brand": "Uniqlo", "year": 2007, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Bloggers install the clock widget on their own sites, becoming the distribution network, with a world map of installations encouraging them to keep it going." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Original time-signal music and short dance routines showing the clothing mark the time, a wordless format that reads the same in any language." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Blog widget and website", "agency": "Projector, Tokyo", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A clock that doubled as a fashion show. Launched in June 2007, Uniqlock was a free widget that fused short dance routines, original time-signal music and a working clock, so that Uniqlo clothing was on show around the clock on other people's websites. Rather than buying media, Projector made bloggers the distribution network, and a world map on the site showing the spread of installations gave them a reason to keep it going; by October 2007 Uniqlo counted more than 33,000 blogs carrying it in 73 countries. It is studied as an early proof that branded utility can travel further than branded messaging, and as a model of wordless digital craft that reads the same in any language. At Cannes 2008 it won both the Cyber Grand Prix and the Titanium Grand Prix, and Uniqlo lists a D&AD Black Pencil and the One Show Interactive grand prize among its other awards.", "watch": [ { "label": "The original Uniqlock site, captured January 2008 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20080103103445/http://www.uniqlo.jp:80/uniqlock/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/uniqlock", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes: Cadbury, Xbox Take Film Kudos (Uniqlock wins Titanium and Cyber Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Adweek (2008)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/cannes-cadbury-xbox-take-film-kudos-96188/" }, { "title": "Uniqlo Japan wins Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2008)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/uniqlo-japan-wins-cyber-grand-prix-at-cannes/25xzsmcyivgvln1jty1x58cpx8" }, { "title": "UNIQLOCK press release (launch, blog installations, awards)", "publisher": "Fast Retailing / Uniqlo (2008, Japanese)", "url": "https://www.uniqlo.com/jp/ja/contents/corp/press-release/2008/05/052616_uniqlock.html" }, { "title": "UNIQLOCK (awards archive entry)", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/uniqlock" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "warner-bros-dark-knight-why-so-serious", "title": "Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight alternate reality game)", "brand": "Warner Bros. (The Dark Knight)", "year": 2007, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Fans must work together to dig out the film's secrets, with each email address submitted erasing one pixel from the first image of the villain." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Joker cards in comic shops, phones baked into cakes and real-world scavenger hunts carry the game off the screen into surprising physical places." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Alternate reality game (web, mobile and live events)", "agency": "42 Entertainment", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Fifteen months before The Dark Knight reached cinemas, Warner Bros. and 42 Entertainment started letting fans dig the film out for themselves. Joker cards left in comic shops pointed to a defaced campaign site for Harvey Dent, where every email address submitted erased one pixel from the first image of Heath Ledger's Joker. From there the game spread across fictional Gotham websites, phone numbers, text messages, live events and real-world scavenger hunts, including mobile phones baked into cakes, as players enlisted as the Joker's henchmen, Dent campaigners or copycat Batman vigilantes. It is studied as the high-water mark of the alternate reality game as a marketing form: even the first look at the villain was a prize the audience had to win together, so fans became the distribution. USA Today put participation at 10 million players in 75 countries. At Cannes in 2009 it took the Cyber Grand Prix, a year after 42 Entertainment won the same prize for Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign overview film (YouTube upload by Batman on Film)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7RTme41_I", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "42 Entertainment case page", "url": "https://42entertainment.com/work/whysoserious", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "U.S. shows strength in digital marketing at Cannes awards", "publisher": "USA Today via ABC News (2009)", "url": "https://abcnews.com/Business/story?id=7920887&page=1" }, { "title": "42 Entertainment Wins Prestigious Grand Prix Award at Cannes", "publisher": "ARGNet (2009)", "url": "https://www.argn.com/2009/06/42_entertainment_wins_prestigious_grand_prix_award_at_cannes/" }, { "title": "Why So Serious: How 'The Dark Knight' Alternate Reality Game Changed Fandom Forever", "publisher": "Thrillist (2018)", "url": "https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/dark-knight-arg-why-so-serious-alternate-reality-game" }, { "title": "Why So Serious? The Dark Knight Alternate Reality Game (One Show entry)", "publisher": "The One Club (2009)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/11241/why-so-seriousa-the-dark-knight-alternate-reality-game/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zT7RTme41_I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight alternate reality game) (Warner Bros. (The Dark Knight), 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Why So Serious?\" - The Viral Campaign/ARG for THE DARK KNIGHT (2007-2008)”, uploaded by BATMAN ON FILM", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7RTme41_I", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zT7RTme41_I/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "zT7RTme41_I", "uploaded_at": "2015-08-09T15:54:02+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "officemax-elf-yourself", "title": "Elf Yourself", "brand": "OfficeMax", "year": 2006, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Visitors upload a photo of a face and watch themselves, their boss or their grandmother dance as an elf, ready to email onward." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Seeing familiar faces bob about on dancing holiday elves makes a silly, personalised joke people want to pass on." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive website", "agency": "Toy New York and EVB (Evolution Bureau)", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Directors", "name": "Jason Zada, Ari Merkin" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Jason Zada" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Upload a photo of your face, and watch yourself, your boss or your grandmother dance as a holiday elf. OfficeMax launched ElfYourself.com for the 2006 holidays as one of a set of seasonal web sites, and it became one of the first truly mass branded viral experiences: in the five weeks from 1 December 2006 to 7 January 2007, MediaPost reported more than 36 million visits and more than 11 million elves created. The New York Times saw it as evidence that a cheap, smart piece of web production could lift an old-economy retailer. The idea is studied for its mechanics: personalisation that turns every user into the star, a result built to be emailed onward, and a brand that stays almost out of frame. The 2007 return drew over 193 million visits and won a One Show Merit.", "watch": [ { "label": "ElfYourself.com, captured December 2006 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20061214105321/http://www.elfyourself.com/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Case study film on EVB's YouTube archive", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SK1nYKYJo", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "OfficeMax Out-Elfs Itself: A Case Study In Viral Marketing", "publisher": "MediaPost (2008)", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/74695/officemax-out-elfs-itself-a-case-study-in-viral-m.html" }, { "title": "The Web Is Overrun With Elves", "publisher": "The New York Times, Bits (2007)", "url": "https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/the-web-is-overrun-with-elves/" }, { "title": "OfficeMax: Elf Yourself (2008 Interactive Merit)", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/7434/elf-yourself/" }, { "title": "So you want to be an internet sensation", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2013)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/so-you-want-to-be-an-internet-sensation-20131023-2w037.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/u-SK1nYKYJo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Elf Yourself (OfficeMax, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Elf Yourself Case Study”, uploaded by EVBArchive", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SK1nYKYJo" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "u-SK1nYKYJo", "uploaded_at": "2008-09-05T00:49:32+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ecko-still-free", "title": "Still Free (Air Force One)", "brand": "Ecko Unltd. (Marc Ecko Enterprises)", "year": 2006, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Grainy footage appears to show hooded figures spraying graffiti on the presidential plane, a deliberate hoax designed to be argued over and provoke official denials." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Viral online video (hoax)", "agency": "Droga5, New York", "credits": [], "tagline": "Still Free", "why_studied": "A grainy two-minute video that surfaced online in April 2006 appeared to show hooded figures climbing the fence at Andrews Air Force Base at night, slipping past guards and dogs, and spraying the words 'Still Free' on an engine cowling of Air Force One. It was a hoax: Marc Ecko's company had rented a 747 cargo jet at San Bernardino airport in California and painted one side to look like the presidential plane. It was the first job out of Droga5, David Droga's new New York agency, and was meant to restore the graffiti credibility of Ecko's increasingly mainstream clothing brand. It is studied as an early deliberate viral hoax, designed to be argued over rather than simply watched: the Air Force checked the real plane, and the Pentagon issued three denials. Droga5 says it reached 23 million unique views in two weeks with no paid media. It shared the Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes in 2006.", "watch": [ { "label": "The video on Ecko's YouTube channel (eckotv)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fotp-wAzdzo", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Droga5 case page", "url": "https://droga5.com/work/still-free/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Air Force One Graffiti Hoax", "publisher": "Wired / Associated Press (2006)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/2006/04/air-force-one-graffiti-hoax/" }, { "title": "Spoof Air Force One ad wins Cannes prize", "publisher": "The Guardian (2006)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/jun/22/advertising.internationalnews" }, { "title": "shots 20th: 2006 - Droga5: the new kids on the block", "publisher": "shots (2010)", "url": "https://shots.net/news/view/66366-shots-20th-2006-droga5-the-new-kids-on-the-block" }, { "title": "Ecko Unltd. | Still Free", "publisher": "Droga5 (agency case study)", "url": "https://droga5.com/work/still-free/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Fotp-wAzdzo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Still Free (Air Force One) (Ecko Unltd. (Marc Ecko Enterprises), 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Still Free - Marc Ecko Tags Air Force 1”, uploaded by eckotv", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fotp-wAzdzo" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "blendtec-will-it-blend", "title": "Will It Blend?", "brand": "Blendtec", "year": 2006, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The founder blends marbles, a rotisserie chicken and even an iPhone, torture tests that prove the blender's real power on camera." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Asking whether ever more absurd objects will blend turns product testing into a comic series, fronted by the founder in a lab coat." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "YouTube video series", "agency": "In-house (George Wright)", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Tom Dickson (founder and CEO)" } ], "tagline": "Will it blend? That is the question.", "why_studied": "Fifty dollars, a lab coat, and a CEO who already destroyed things for quality control. Marketing director George Wright found sawdust on the factory floor — founder Tom Dickson's two-by-two blender tests — and filmed him blending marbles, a rotisserie chicken, and eventually an iPhone. Launched on YouTube in October 2006, the series hit six million views in under a week and drove retail sales up 500–700%. It is studied as the founding case of YouTube-native marketing: authentic demonstration beats production value, the product's real capability is the entertainment, and a $50 budget can outperform a Super Bowl buy when the idea is honest. It won a Clio for viral marketing in 2008 and remains the first case study in nearly every content-marketing course.", "watch": [ { "label": "Inc.'s interview with Dickson and Wright, with the videos", "url": "https://www.inc.com/articles/2008/06/blendtec.html", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Confessions of a Viral Video Superstar ($50 start; 6M views in 5 days; 100M+ views)", "publisher": "Inc. (2008)", "url": "https://www.inc.com/articles/2008/06/blendtec.html" }, { "title": "Will It Blend? (sales up 700% in two years; 2008 Clio)", "publisher": "BYU Magazine", "url": "https://magazine.byu.edu/article/will-it-blend/" }, { "title": "Puree a rake for fun and profit (sales up 500% in 2007)", "publisher": "Fortune Small Business / CNN Money (2008)", "url": "https://money.cnn.com/2008/04/10/smbusiness/puree_rake.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008041512" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lAl28d6tbko/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Will It Blend? (Blendtec, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Will It Blend? - iPad”, uploaded by Blendtec's Will It Blend?", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/lAl28d6tbko/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "lAl28d6tbko", "uploaded_at": "2010-04-05T14:58:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dove-evolution", "title": "Evolution", "brand": "Dove (Unilever)", "brand_slug": "dove", "year": 2006, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Made to promote the brand's self-esteem fund, it turns on the beauty industry's own machinery for distorting how beauty is perceived." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Compressing make-up, lighting and Photoshop stretching into 75 seconds shows exactly how a model's image is manufactured, letting viewers see the distortion for themselves." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "75-second online film", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto", "credits": [ { "role": "Directors", "name": "Yael Staav, Tim Piper" }, { "role": "Writer / Art Director", "name": "Tim Piper" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officers", "name": "Janet Kestin, Nancy Vonk" } ], "tagline": "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.", "why_studied": "The film that made the ad industry take the internet seriously. Made from leftover budget to promote the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, \"Evolution\" compresses a model's transformation — lighting, make-up, then Photoshop stretching her neck and widening her eyes — into 75 time-lapse seconds, ending on the line \"No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.\" Posted online on October 6, 2006, it spread worldwide in days and reached audiences a comparable Super Bowl buy could not, at a fraction of the cost. It is studied as the proof case for earned media (distribution as a function of the idea, not the budget), as advertising critiquing its own machinery, and as the pivotal work of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. At Cannes 2007 it won both the Film Grand Prix and the Cyber Grand Prix — the first work ever to take both.", "watch": [ { "label": "Original upload by co-director Tim Piper (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Not Without Controversy, 'Evolution' Wins Film Grand Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2007)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-07/controversy-evolution-wins-film-grand-prix/118729/" }, { "title": "Case Study: Dove Evolution", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/dove-evolution-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2007 Cyber Grand Prix entry record (credits)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (archived)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20071116064205/www.canneslionslive.com/cyber/win_1_1_00362.htm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iYhCn0jf46U/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Evolution (Dove (Unilever), 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “dove evolution”, uploaded by Timothy David (Tim Piper, co-director)", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-ronaldinho-crossbar", "title": "Crossbar (\"Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold\")", "known_as": "Ronaldinho Crossbar", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2005, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Styled as a homemade product test, the clip shows the player lace up new boots and strike the crossbar four times without the ball touching the ground." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "A star doing something just about believable ties the boots to his skill, and the argument over whether it was real keeps people forwarding it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Viral online film", "agency": "Framfab Denmark, Copenhagen", "credits": [ { "role": "Director", "name": "Christian Lyngbye" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Lars Cortsen" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Rasmus Frandsen" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Ronaldinho laces up a pair of white-and-gold Nike Tiempo boots, juggles a ball towards the box and strikes the crossbar four times in a row without it touching the ground. Framfab's Copenhagen team modelled the clip on the homemade videos people were swapping by email, a plain, unpolished product test rather than a commercial, and released it online in autumn 2005. Email chains carried it first; then YouTube, a site only months old, made it the first video on the site to be watched a million times. It is studied as the prototype of the branded viral: found-footage style, a star doing something just about believable, and one argument, was it real?, that made people watch and forward it. Nike's then European communications head later told Danish press that digital fixes and a man behind the goal had helped, but by then the debate had done its job. At Cannes in 2006 it won a Gold Cyber Lion for viral marketing and a Silver Film Lion.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film (YouTube re-upload by Retro Football)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppUEOnPoBP0", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "One Show entry, Viral and Email category", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/4884/crossbar/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "YouTube's first decade shows sharing free content pays off", "publisher": "Associated Press via Phys.org (2015)", "url": "https://phys.org/news/2015-05-youtube-decade-free-content.html" }, { "title": "Framfab Denmark strikes gold twice in Cannes", "publisher": "Framfab / LBI press release (2006)", "url": "https://news.cision.com/lbi/r/framfab-denmark-strikes-gold-twice-in-cannes,c219658" }, { "title": "Framfab Denmark wins Film Silver Lion in Cannes", "publisher": "Framfab / LBI press release (2006)", "url": "https://news.cision.com/lbi/r/framfab-denmark-wins-film-silver-lion-in-cannes,c219962" }, { "title": "Le jour où Ronaldinho a été le premier à atteindre le million de vues sur YouTube", "publisher": "So Foot (2020, French)", "url": "https://www.sofoot.com/articles/le-jour-ou-ronaldinho-a-ete-premier-atteindre-million-de-vues-sur-youtube-histoire-vraie-article-issu-du-magazine" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ppUEOnPoBP0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Crossbar (\"Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold\") (Nike, 2005)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nike - Ronaldinho Touch Of Gold”, uploaded by Retro Football", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppUEOnPoBP0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ppUEOnPoBP0", "uploaded_at": "2010-03-31T07:33:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "halo-2-i-love-bees", "title": "I Love Bees", "brand": "Microsoft / Bungie (Halo 2)", "brand_slug": "xbox", "year": 2004, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Players decode GPS coordinates and times that send them to ringing pay phones, so only a collaborating crowd can piece the promotion together." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Answering the phones unlocks instalments of a radio-style drama about an alien army threatening Earth, scattered across websites and the physical world." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Alternate reality game", "agency": "42 Entertainment (4orty2wo Entertainment)", "credits": [ { "role": "Lead designer", "name": "Elan Lee" }, { "role": "Co-founder, 4orty2wo Entertainment", "name": "Sean Stewart" }, { "role": "Community lead", "name": "Jane McGonigal" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A game disguised as a honey company's website. In 2004 ilovebees.com, apparently the homepage of a small bee business, became the entry point to a viral promotion for Microsoft's Halo 2. Players decoded GPS coordinates and times that sent them to pay phones across the United States, and answering those phones when they rang unlocked new instalments of a radio-style drama set in the year 2552, with an alien army threatening Earth; occasionally a live actor was on the line. Built by 4orty2wo Entertainment (now 42 Entertainment), led by Elan Lee and Sean Stewart, it is studied as the template for the alternate reality game as marketing: a story scattered across websites and the physical world that only a collaborating crowd could piece together. Citing the designers, Wired reported more than a million unique visitors to the site by October 2004, and Henry Jenkins wrote of some half a million players. It won a Webby in 2005 and a Game Developers Choice Innovation Award.", "watch": [ { "label": "ilovebees.com, captured August 2004 (Wayback Machine)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20040816041205/http://ilovebees.com/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "42 Entertainment case page", "url": "https://42entertainment.com/work/ilovebees", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "I Love Bees Game a Surprise Hit", "publisher": "Wired (2004)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/2004/10/i-love-bees-game-a-surprise-hit/" }, { "title": "Chasing Bees, Without the Hive Mind (Henry Jenkins)", "publisher": "MIT Technology Review (2004)", "url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2004/12/03/231910/chasing-bees-without-the-hive-mind/" }, { "title": "9th Annual Webby Award winners (Games-Related)", "publisher": "The Webby Awards (archived 2010)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100124153336/http://www.webbyawards.com:80/webbys/current.php?season=9" }, { "title": "Game Developers Choice Awards 2005 winners (Innovation Award)", "publisher": "IGDA (archived 2005)", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20051211052702/http://www.igda.org/awards/pr_2005_0310.htm" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bk-subservient-chicken", "title": "Subservient Chicken", "brand": "Burger King", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2004, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Visitors type commands and a man in a chicken suit appears to obey them, turning the promise of having it your way into a game." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Barely branded and faintly unsettling, a costumed chicken doing whatever users ask is an absurd joke built to be forwarded." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive website", "agency": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky (with The Barbarian Group)", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Alex Bogusky" }, { "role": "Development", "name": "The Barbarian Group" } ], "tagline": "Get chicken just the way you like it.", "why_studied": "The weirdest literal brand idea ever to work: \"Have It Your Way\" became a man in a chicken suit who obeys typed commands. Launched in April 2004 from 300 pre-filmed clips assembled to feel live, subservientchicken.com drew a million hits in a day, 20 million in a week, and ultimately more than 450 million — numbers that made viral marketing a mainstream discipline overnight. It is studied as the first proof that an interactive website could be a brand's main media channel, for the mechanics of seeding (the agency sent it to a few friends; the internet did the rest), and for tone: barely branded, faintly unsettling, and precisely calibrated to be forwarded. Every 'weird internet thing' a fast-food brand has done since descends from this chicken.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case record with credits and stats (Communication Arts)", "url": "https://www.commarts.com/project/22573/subservient-chicken", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Subservient Chicken (project record: credits, 15M uniques, 450M hits)", "publisher": "Communication Arts", "url": "https://www.commarts.com/project/22573/subservient-chicken" }, { "title": "A Web Contagion (442M+ visits; the campaign's industry impact)", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (2005)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-aug-28-fi-viral28-story.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nec-ecotonoha", "title": "ecotonoha", "brand": "NEC", "year": 2003, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Visitors type a short message that sprouts as a new leaf on a virtual tree, building a shared, growing artwork one leaf a day." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "For every 100 messages the brand promises an extra real tree in a reforestation project, linking each click to planting." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive website", "agency": "NEC Media Products (in-house), Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Art director", "name": "Yugo Nakamura" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Fumitake Arano" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A website on which a single virtual tree grew one leaf at a time. From July to December 2003, visitors to NEC's ecotonoha clicked the tip of a branch and typed a short message, which sprouted as a new leaf; each person could add one a day, and for every 100 messages NEC promised an extra real tree in its reforestation project on Australia's Kangaroo Island. The name joins 'ecology' to kotonoha, an old Japanese word for words. Art-directed by the Flash designer Yugo Nakamura, it is studied as early proof that a corporate website could be generative, collective and beautiful rather than a brochure, and as a forerunner of the many click-to-give and participatory sites that followed. Around 60,000 messages arrived from around the world, adding 609 trees. In 2004 it won the Cannes Cyber Grand Prix for websites, ending Nike's four-year run of wins in that category, and Best of Show at the One Show Interactive.", "watch": [ { "label": "Screen recording of the live site (YouTube, third-party upload)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qHLtx5_hkQ", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "NEC breaks Nike's four-year hold on Cannes Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign (2004)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nec-breaks-nikes-four-year-hold-cannes-grand-prix/214718" }, { "title": "NEC's CO2 Reduction Project Wins Cannes Cyber Lions Grand Prix", "publisher": "Japan for Sustainability (2004)", "url": "https://www.japanfs.org/en/news/archives/news_id025752.html" }, { "title": "NEC ecotonoha project", "publisher": "The One Club / One Show (2004)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/2697/nec-ecotonoha-project/" }, { "title": "NEC、クリック100回ごとに1本植樹するユーザー参加型サイト", "publisher": "INTERNET Watch (2003, Japanese)", "url": "https://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/www/article/2003/0716/nec.htm" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/7qHLtx5_hkQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from ecotonoha (NEC, 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Ecotonoha Tree Bulding”, uploaded by designer23a", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qHLtx5_hkQ" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "7qHLtx5_hkQ", "uploaded_at": "2008-10-14T15:41:24+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bmw-films-the-hire", "title": "BMW Films: The Hire", "brand": "BMW", "year": 2001, "category": "made-for-the-internet", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Eight genuine short films by leading directors follow a mysterious Driver, putting entertainment first and distributing it by pull rather than interruption." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The cars are embedded in the action rather than pitched, so each drama shows what they can do on the road." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Series of eight internet short films", "agency": "Fallon, Minneapolis", "credits": [ { "role": "Starring", "name": "Clive Owen as The Driver" }, { "role": "Directors included", "name": "John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie, Tony Scott" } ], "tagline": "bmwfilms.com", "why_studied": "The campaign that invented branded entertainment as a discipline. In 2001 — before YouTube existed — BMW and Fallon hired A-list film directors to make eight genuine short films starring Clive Owen as a mysterious Driver, and released them only on the internet, betting that BMW's early-adopter customers would download them. They did, in the millions. The series won the first-ever Titanium Lion at Cannes (a category created partly because nobody knew what to call this) and was inducted into MoMA's permanent collection in 2003. It is studied as the founding text for every piece of branded content since: entertainment first, product embedded in the action, distribution by pull rather than interruption.", "watch": [ { "label": "BMW's 50th-anniversary history of The Hire (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0451233EN_US/bmw-na-50th-anniversary-%7C-50-stories-for-50-years-chapter-27:-%E2%80%9Cthe-hire:-bmw%E2%80%99s-revolutionary-brand-campaign%E2%80%9D?language=en_US", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Hire: BMW's Revolutionary Brand Campaign (BMW NA 50 Stories, Chapter 27)", "publisher": "BMW Group press (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0451233EN_US/bmw-na-50th-anniversary-%7C-50-stories-for-50-years-chapter-27:-%E2%80%9Cthe-hire:-bmw%E2%80%99s-revolutionary-brand-campaign%E2%80%9D?language=en_US" }, { "title": "THE HIRE Inducted Into MoMA Permanent Collection", "publisher": "BMW Group press (2003)", "url": "https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa/article/detail/T0018321EN_US/the-hire-inducted-into-moma-permanent-collection?language=en_US" }, { "title": "Fallon and Optimedia win debut Titanium Lion for BMW", "publisher": "Campaign (2003)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/fallon-optimedia-win-debut-titanium-lion-bmw/183583" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tKAr5nBlflY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from BMW Films: The Hire (BMW, 2001)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Hire 00 BMW Films Promo”, uploaded by BMW Films", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKAr5nBlflY", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tKAr5nBlflY/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "tKAr5nBlflY", "uploaded_at": "2025-09-13T03:39:13+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-recycle-me", "title": "Recycle Me", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2024, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Warped logos from genuinely crushed cans, set on a plain red field, still read instantly as Coke, turning the squashed can itself into the brand image." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Placed beside the Recycle Me line already printed on every can, the crumpled logos promote the habit of squashing cans before recycling them." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and outdoor campaign", "agency": "Ogilvy New York (WPP Open X)", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Woo Jae Yoon" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Pete Macinnis" } ], "tagline": "Recycle Me", "why_studied": "Coca-Cola let its agency do the one thing brand guidelines forbid: crush the logo. For Ogilvy New York's Recycle Me posters and press ads, real Coke cans were flattened by hand, by hydraulic presses and by vacuum suction, and the warped script from each was lifted onto a plain red field beside the \"Recycle Me\" line already printed on every can. No two executions use the same crumpled logo, yet every one still reads instantly as Coke. Launched in April 2024 in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico before rolling out further, it turned the habit of squashing a can before recycling into a brand image. It is studied as proof of how far a famous identity can be bent before it stops being recognisable. It won the 2024 Print & Publishing Grand Prix at Cannes, where jury president John Raúl Forero praised its return to the purity and simplicity of print; it was Coca-Cola's first Grand Prix in a decade.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ogilvy: Recycle Me — Coca-Cola", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/work/recycle-me", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: Recycle Me", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/recycle-me/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions 2024: Print & Publishing winners", "publisher": "Contagious (2024)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-print-publishing-winners-2024" }, { "title": "Coca-Cola Crushes Its Logo in New 'Recycle Me' Campaign From Open X", "publisher": "Adweek (2024)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/coca-cola-crushes-its-logo-in-new-recycle-me-campaign-from-open-x/" }, { "title": "‘When you have 138 years under your wing, your brand can go two ways’", "publisher": "Contagious (2024)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/coca-cola-recycle-me-interview-contagious" }, { "title": "At Cannes, Coca-Cola Crushes Cans - And Awards", "publisher": "MediaPost (2024)", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/397062/at-cannes-coca-cola-crushes-cans-and-awards.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/T9lnYmpl8Rs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Recycle Me (Coca-Cola, 2024)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca-Cola / Recycle Me”, uploaded by Contagious", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9lnYmpl8Rs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/T9lnYmpl8Rs/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "british-airways-a-british-original", "title": "A British Original", "brand": "British Airways", "brand_slug": "british-airways", "year": 2022, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Hundreds of witty answers to travel's dullest box-ticking question tick something truer than business or leisure, from feeding the social feed to unwanted seafood." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Ticked reasons such as still loving someone sell the human feelings behind a journey rather than the planes that make it." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Digital boards rewrite their copy to suit location, weather, time of day and the news, so each line feels written for that moment." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster, billboard and press campaign (500+ executions)", "agency": "Uncommon Creative Studio", "credits": [], "tagline": "A British Original.", "why_studied": "Launched in October 2022 as British Airways' first work with Uncommon Creative Studio, it took travel's dullest box-ticking question, “What is the purpose of your visit?”, and answered it more than 500 different ways. Each execution listed the standard Business and Leisure options, then ticked something truer: “To feed the social feed”, “I still love her”, “Because I have too much on my plate, none of it seafood”. Copy was written for its site and moment: digital boards shifted with location, weather, time of day and the news, a 16-sheet on the London Underground longed for warm gusts of wind not made by tube trains, and press ads played off each other across adjacent spaces. It is studied as proof that an airline can sell people rather than planes through sheer volume of sharp writing, white space and media planning. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes in 2023, Uncommon's first, despite controversy over the airline's carbon footprint.", "watch": [ { "label": "British Airways media centre: launch of A British Original", "url": "https://mediacentre.britishairways.com/news/24102022/british-airways-launches-its-new-brand-positioning-a-british-original", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: A British Original", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/a-british-original-2", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions: Outdoor winners 2023", "publisher": "Contagious (2023)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-outdoor-winners-2023-3256877f3c51429fa7ea69556b6de37f" }, { "title": "British Airways launches its new brand positioning: A British Original", "publisher": "British Airways Media Centre (2022)", "url": "https://mediacentre.britishairways.com/news/24102022/british-airways-launches-its-new-brand-positioning-a-british-original" }, { "title": "British Airways' 500 Unique Billboards Win Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2023)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencies/british-airways-500-unique-billboards-win-outdoor-grand-prix-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "British Airways and Uncommon win outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes despite controversy", "publisher": "More About Advertising (2023)", "url": "https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/news/british-airways-and-uncommon-win-outdoor-grand-prix-at-cannes-despite-controversy/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/azWdb611QFM/hq1.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film on A British Original (British Airways, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “British Airways - A British Original (Case Study) | Campaign”, uploaded by Campaign Unpacked", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azWdb611QFM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/azWdb611QFM/maxres1.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dove-courage-is-beautiful", "title": "Courage Is Beautiful", "brand": "Dove (Unilever)", "brand_slug": "dove", "year": 2020, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Close-up portraits of doctors and nurses, faces marked by long shifts in protective gear, ask viewers to feel the cost of their courage." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "The campaign honours frontline healthcare workers and launches a commitment to donate care products and money to them." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Turning its long-held real-beauty argument towards medical staff lets the brand speak in a crisis without straying from what it stands for." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and digital out-of-home (with film)", "agency": "Ogilvy UK and Ogilvy Canada", "credits": [], "tagline": "Courage is beautiful.", "why_studied": "Close-up portraits of doctors and nurses, faces marked and creased by long shifts inside masks and protective gear, above three words: \"Courage is beautiful.\" Made by Ogilvy in a matter of days in the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic, it turned Dove's long-running argument about real beauty towards frontline healthcare workers, and launched Unilever's commitment to donate care products and $5 million to them. The faces were real: the brand asked medical staff directly for permission to use their own photographs. Placed in print and on out-of-home sites, including outside hospitals so the workers themselves would see it, it rolled out to more than 15 countries with local staff in each. It is studied as a brand earning the right to speak in a crisis by staying exactly on its long-held message, and as proof that a print campaign can be almost entirely photography and nearly copy-free. It won both the Print & Publishing and the Industry Craft Grands Prix at Cannes in 2021.", "watch": [ { "label": "Dove | Courage is Beautiful (Dove US, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQOq0-ODBbc", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Courage is Beautiful in the D&AD awards archive", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/courage-is-beautiful", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Courage is Beautiful", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/courage-is-beautiful" }, { "title": "Courage is Beautiful - Dove", "publisher": "Ogilvy UK", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/uk/work/courage-beautiful-0" }, { "title": "Dove Scores Cannes Industry Craft Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/doves-pandemic-campaign-scores-cannes-industry-craft-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "Dove Presents Striking Photos of Healthcare Workers in COVID-19 Ad", "publisher": "Muse by Clios (2020)", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/advertising/dove-presents-striking-photos-of-healthcare-workers-in-covid-19-ad/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sQOq0-ODBbc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Courage Is Beautiful (Dove (Unilever), 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Dove | Courage is Beautiful”, uploaded by Dove US", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQOq0-ODBbc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sQOq0-ODBbc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bk-moldy-whopper", "title": "Moldy Whopper", "brand": "Burger King", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2020, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Time-lapse photographs of a Whopper rotting over 35 days prove the claim that it no longer contains artificial preservatives." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Deliberately making its flagship burger look disgusting, furred with mould, breaks fast-food convention to force people to stop and look." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "By trading appetite appeal for visible honesty, the brand asks to be trusted precisely because it shows its product at its worst." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Print and outdoor campaign (with film)", "agency": "INGO Stockholm, David Miami and Publicis", "credits": [], "tagline": "The beauty of no artificial preservatives.", "why_studied": "Fast-food advertising has always shown burgers at their most glistening; in 2020 Burger King showed its Whopper rotting. Time-lapse photography followed a burger for 35 days as it slumped and furred over with mould, and the print and outdoor executions simply labelled the stages, Day 28, Day 32, Day 35, to make one claim: the Whopper no longer contained artificial preservatives. Burger King's marketing chief had sat on the idea until the recipe had been fully reworked, so that the proof would be real. It is studied as a calculated act of brand courage, deliberately making the product look disgusting in order to make it look honest, and as a test of whether a brand can trade appetite appeal for trust. The agencies reported 8.4 billion impressions and a 14 per cent sales lift. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes in 2021 plus Gold Lions in Print & Publishing, after Gold Pencils at the 2020 One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "The work, presented by The One Show 2020 (The One Club, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9B9HGQsx0k", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Behind the work: Moldy Whopper (D&AD)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/annual-2020/behind-the-work/moldy-whopper", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pharma, Health & Wellness, Outdoor, Print & Publishing and Design Lions winners", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2021)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/day1-lions-winners" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Print & Publishing Winners 2021", "publisher": "Contagious (2021)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-print-publishing-winners-2021" }, { "title": "Moldy Whopper (2020 One Show, Print)", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/45203/moldy-whopper/" }, { "title": "Behind the work: Moldy Whopper", "publisher": "D&AD (2020)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/annual-2020/behind-the-work/moldy-whopper" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/f9B9HGQsx0k/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Moldy Whopper (Burger King, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “\"Moldy Whopper\" by INGO, DAVID Miami & Publicis Bucharest for Burger King | The One Show 2020”, uploaded by The One Club for Creativity", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9B9HGQsx0k", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/f9B9HGQsx0k/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heineken-shutter-ads", "title": "Shutter Ads", "brand": "Heineken", "brand_slug": "heineken", "year": 2020, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Instead of paying billboard owners, the brand rents the shutters of bars shut by Covid, so the ad budget goes straight to struggling bar owners." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Roll-down shutters, windows and facades of closed venues become poster sites, making the dark bars themselves both the medium and the message." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Out-of-home campaign (bar shutters and facades)", "agency": "Publicis Italy, Milan", "credits": [], "tagline": "See this ad today, enjoy this bar tomorrow.", "why_studied": "When Covid closures left bars dark, Heineken stopped buying conventional billboards and rented the bars instead. Publicis Italy turned the roll-down shutters, windows and facades of shut venues into paid poster sites carrying hopeful lines such as \"See this ad today, enjoy this bar tomorrow.\" Money that would have gone to billboard owners went straight to the bar owners. Launched in December 2020, with early coverage showing 15 bars in Barcelona, it ran in Argentina, Germany, Indonesia, Italy and Spain. It is studied as media planning that is itself the creative idea: the placement is the message, and the ad budget doubles as support for the trade partners the brand depends on. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2021. Heineken reports that more than 5,000 bars took part, about €7.5 million reached them directly, and every participating bar later reopened.", "watch": [ { "label": "Cannes Lions archive (Love the Work): Shutter Ads", "url": "https://www.lovethework.com/en/campaigns/shutter-ads-710332", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: Shutter Ads", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/shutter-ads", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Heineken, Burger King and Renault Win Cannes Lions Outdoor Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/heineken-burger-king-and-renault-win-cannes-lions-outdoor-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "Heineken® ‘Shutters’ wins OOH Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "The Drum (Heineken press release, 2021)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/profile/heineken-hr/article/heineken-r-shutters-wins-ooh-grand-prix-at-cannes" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Heineken \"Shutters\" campaign wins Outdoor Grand Prix", "publisher": "Reel 360 (2021)", "url": "https://reel360.com/article/cannes-lions-heineken-shutters-wins-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "Heineken Helps Out Closed Bars By Buying Their Shutter Space For Ads", "publisher": "DesignTAXI (2020)", "url": "https://designtaxi.com/news/412740/Heineken-Helps-Out-Closed-Bars-By-Buying-Their-Shutter-Space-For-Ads/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Lfu1GWIaVZA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Shutter Ads (Heineken, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Heineken - Shutter Ads (Case Study) | Campaign”, uploaded by Campaign Unpacked", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfu1GWIaVZA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Lfu1GWIaVZA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mcdonalds-follow-the-arches", "title": "Follow the Arches", "brand": "McDonald's (Canada)", "brand_slug": "mcdonalds", "year": 2018, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Tight crops of the golden arches bend left, right or into a U-turn, turning a fragment of the familiar logo into road signs for drivers." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A curve bent into a U-turn above the words just missed us adds a wink to otherwise practical directions." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Billboard campaign", "agency": "Cossette, Toronto", "credits": [], "tagline": "Just missed us.", "why_studied": "The golden arches, cropped so tightly they turn into road signs. Cossette noticed that the roadside signs pointing drivers to McDonald's restaurants were a jumble of inconsistent formats, and realised the directions were already inside the logo: zoom in on one curve of the M and it bends left, right, straight ahead or round in a U-turn. The resulting billboards used nothing but the brand's red and yellow, a fragment of the logo and a few words of road-sign copy, such as \"on your left\", \"on your right\" and \"just missed us\". It is studied as a lesson in distinctive brand assets, a logo so familiar that it still works when you show almost none of it, and in turning advertising into a genuinely useful service, a wayfinding system designed to be adapted to any market. Cannes jurors called it iconic and gave it the Outdoor Grand Prix in 2018, and it was also recognised by D&AD and the One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "Follow the Arches in the D&AD awards archive", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/follow-the-arches", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "McDonald's Ads Win Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix by Turning Golden Arches Into Arrows", "publisher": "Adweek (2018)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/mcdonalds-ads-win-cannes-outdoor-grand-prix-by-turning-golden-arches-into-arrows/" }, { "title": "Follow The Arches", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/follow-the-arches" }, { "title": "Follow The Arches (McDonald's Restaurants of Canada)", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/30669/follow-the-arches/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/u7qfXOqfrdg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film for Follow the Arches (McDonald's (Canada), 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “McDonald's - Next Exit - Follow the Arches (Cannes Lions 2018 Outdoor Grand Prix)”, uploaded by LLLLITL", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7qfXOqfrdg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/u7qfXOqfrdg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kfc-fck", "title": "FCK (\"We're Sorry\")", "brand": "KFC", "year": 2018, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "The famous bucket's letters rearranged into a near-swear word, above a contrite but funny explanation, defuse the chicken shortage with a joke." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "A humble, plain-spoken apology instead of a lawyered non-apology rebuilds trust by owning the failure openly." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "A single full-page newspaper ad answers a national news story about restaurants without chicken while it is still unfolding." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Full-page newspaper advertisement", "agency": "Mother, London", "credits": [], "tagline": "FCK. We're sorry.", "why_studied": "The best corporate apology ever printed. When a supply-chain failure left most UK KFCs without chicken in February 2018 — a national news story — the brand responded with a single full-page ad in The Sun and Metro: the famous bucket, letters rearranged to \"FCK,\" above a genuinely contrite, funny explanation. One print insertion generated over 700 press articles and a reported one billion earned impressions, converting a PR crisis into a brand triumph inside a weekend. It won three Gold Lions at Cannes and rewrote the crisis-management manual: the case taught in boardrooms is that speed, humility and wit beat the lawyered non-apology every time. It is also the modern proof of print's residual power — one page, photographed and shared, reached the world.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad at Creative Review", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/fck-by-mother/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "FCK by Mother", "publisher": "Creative Review", "url": "https://www.creativereview.co.uk/fck-by-mother/" }, { "title": "KFC uses cheeky print advert to apologise for chicken shortage", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2018)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/kfc-print-advert-to-apologise-for-chicken-shortage/" }, { "title": "KFC: A very fcking clever campaign (case study: reach and Cannes results)", "publisher": "Campaign Asia", "url": "https://aws2.campaignasia.com/article/kfc-a-very-fcking-clever-campaign/448479" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/V6cEM0RvT9Y/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from an Adweek video about FCK (\"We're Sorry\") (KFC, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “How KFC became FCK to Say Sorry in The U.K And Ireland.”, uploaded by ADWEEK", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6cEM0RvT9Y" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heinz-pass-the-heinz", "title": "Pass the Heinz", "brand": "Heinz", "year": 2017, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Close-ups of fries, a cheeseburger and a steak with no ketchup anywhere let the absent sauce do the selling as the viewer's appetite fills the gap." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Running Don Draper's fictional Mad Men pitch for real, co-credited to his fictional agency, borrows the show's cultural cachet for the brand." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and billboard campaign", "agency": "David Miami (credited with Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce)", "credits": [], "tagline": "Pass the Heinz.", "why_studied": "Half a century late, Heinz finally bought Don Draper's pitch. In a season-six episode of Mad Men, set in the 1960s, Draper showed Heinz executives close-ups of fries, a cheeseburger and a steak with no ketchup anywhere, under the line \"Pass the Heinz\"; the fictional client dismissed it as half an ad. In March 2017 David Miami persuaded the real Heinz to run it, re-shooting the images to match the show and co-crediting the fictional agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, in newspapers and on billboards in New York. It is studied for two reasons: as a demonstration of the power of absence, where the missing product does the selling because the viewer's appetite supplies it, and as a joyful collision of fiction and advertising history that turned a television prop into a real campaign and a wave of earned media. Heinz said it chose the work because it needed no paragraphs of copy, and it won multiple Gold Lions at Cannes that year.", "watch": [ { "label": "Heinz taps Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and DAVID (The Kraft Heinz Company)", "url": "https://news.kraftheinzcompany.com/press-releases-details/2017/Heinz-Taps-Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce-and-DAVID-to-Launch-New-Campaign/default.aspx", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "50 Years Later, Heinz Approves Don Draper's 'Pass the Heinz' Ads and Is Actually Running Them", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/50-years-later-heinz-approves-don-drapers-pass-the-heinz-ads-and-is-actually-running-them/" }, { "title": "David Miami, Heinz Bring Don Draper's 'Pass the Heinz' Pitch to Life", "publisher": "Adweek AgencySpy (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencyspy/david-miami-heinz-bring-don-draper-pitch-to-life/" }, { "title": "Heinz Taps Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and DAVID to Launch New Campaign", "publisher": "The Kraft Heinz Company (2017)", "url": "https://news.kraftheinzcompany.com/press-releases-details/2017/Heinz-Taps-Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce-and-DAVID-to-Launch-New-Campaign/default.aspx" }, { "title": "The Unlikely Journey of 3 Heinz Ketchup Ads From Mad Men to the Real World to Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/the-unlikely-journey-of-3-heinz-ketchup-ads-from-mad-men-to-the-real-world-to-cannes/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/SasU_nLXl2M/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a news report on Pass the Heinz (Heinz, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “New Heinz Ketchup Ads Inspired By 'Mad Men'”, uploaded by Wochit Business", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SasU_nLXl2M", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/SasU_nLXl2M/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "spotify-thanks-2016", "title": "Thanks 2016, It's Been Weird", "brand": "Spotify", "year": 2016, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Anonymised listening data is turned into wry billboard copy, such as teasing the listener who played 'Sorry' over and over on Valentine's Day." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Lines pegged to the year's moments, such as Britons streaming an end-of-the-world song on Brexit day, make the boards a knowing commentary on 2016." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Global data-driven outdoor campaign", "agency": "Spotify In-House (New York)", "credits": [], "tagline": "Dear person who played 'Sorry' 42 times on Valentine's Day — what did you do?", "why_studied": "The campaign that turned a database into a copywriter. Spotify's in-house team mined anonymized listening data for single human stories — \"Dear person who played 'Sorry' 42 times on Valentine's Day, what did you do?\"; the 3,749 Britons who streamed 'It's the End of the World as We Know It' on Brexit day — and ran them as hyper-local billboards across 14 markets starting November 2016. It is studied as the breakthrough for data-as-creative (not data-targeted, but data-written), the origin point of the annual Wrapped phenomenon that followed, and a landmark for in-house creative departments competing with agencies. It generated over a billion earned impressions and won at Cannes, D&AD and the Webbys.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign's review of the work, with the billboards", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/spotify-thanks-2016-its-weird-spotify/1417066", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Spotify \"Thanks 2016, it's been weird\" (14 markets; in-house; data examples)", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/spotify-thanks-2016-its-weird-spotify/1417066" }, { "title": "Spotify Launches National Campaign (largest-ever global campaign; Nov 28, 2016)", "publisher": "MediaPost", "url": "https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/289929/spotify-launches-national-campaign.html" }, { "title": "Thanks, 2016. It's been weird. (Webby winner record with credits)", "publisher": "The Webby Awards", "url": "https://winners.webbyawards.com/2017/advertising-media-pr/advertising-campaigns/integrated-campaign/22686/thanks-2016-its-been-weird" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/TPQYwiZaGik/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a video of Thanks 2016, It's Been Weird (Spotify, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Spotify - Thanks 2016, it's been weird”, uploaded by Loes Hendryckx", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPQYwiZaGik", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/TPQYwiZaGik/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bk-mcwhopper", "title": "McWhopper (an open letter to McDonald's)", "brand": "Burger King", "brand_slug": "burger-king", "year": 2015, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "A full-page open letter publicly invites McDonald's, the brand's oldest rival, to a ceasefire, so any response it makes helps the challenger." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "The proposed hybrid burger would raise money for the nonprofit Peace One Day, tying the challenge to Peace Day." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Full-page newspaper advertisement (open letter)", "agency": "Y&R New Zealand, Auckland", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Burger King's peace offering to its oldest enemy, made in public. On 26 August 2015, full-page ads in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune invited McDonald's to call a ceasefire in the burger wars for Peace Day, 21 September: for one day, one restaurant staffed by both companies would sell the McWhopper, a hybrid of the Big Mac and the Whopper, with proceeds going to the nonprofit Peace One Day. McDonald's did not take up the offer, but by then the idea belonged to the public. It is studied as a masterclass in using the gravitas of a newspaper page to start a conversation that then belongs to everyone else, and in putting a market leader in a position where every possible response helps the challenger. Y&R reported nearly 8.9 billion media impressions and a 40 per cent rise in awareness of Peace Day, and the campaign won two Grands Prix at Cannes in 2016, in Print & Publishing and in Media.", "watch": [ { "label": "Burger King to McDonald's: Let's Make a 'McWhopper' (The New York Times)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/business/media/burger-king-to-mcdonalds-lets-make-a-mcwhopper.html", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Burger King to McDonald's: Let's Make a 'McWhopper'", "publisher": "The New York Times (2015)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/business/media/burger-king-to-mcdonalds-lets-make-a-mcwhopper.html" }, { "title": "Y&R's 'McWhopper' for Burger King Gobbles Up Print & Publishing Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/yrs-mcwhopper-burger-king-gobbles-print-publishing-grand-prix-cannes-172111/" }, { "title": "At Cannes, 'McWhopper' takes another Grand Prix, this time for Media", "publisher": "Campaign US (2016)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.com/article/cannes-mcwhopper-takes-grand-prix-time-media/1399939" }, { "title": "Y&R Wins Grand Prix for McWhopper in Print & Publishing Category at Cannes", "publisher": "Y&R via PR Newswire (2016)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yr-wins-grand-prix-for-mcwhopper-in-print--publishing-category-at-cannes-300287398.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/RVqFnkDqEsA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film for McWhopper (an open letter to McDonald's) (Burger King, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Axis Gold 2016 - Burger King: McWhopper”, uploaded by Commercial Communications Council", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVqFnkDqEsA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/RVqFnkDqEsA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-shot-on-iphone", "title": "Shot on iPhone (\"World Gallery\")", "brand": "Apple", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 2015, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Billboards show nothing but photographs taken by ordinary users, so the camera's quality is proved by what it shot." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Customers' own pictures fill thousands of outdoor sites, making iPhone users the campaign's creative department." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Global outdoor campaign", "agency": "TBWA\\Media Arts Lab, Los Angeles", "credits": [], "tagline": "Shot on iPhone 6.", "why_studied": "The largest photography exhibition ever mounted — as an ad campaign. Apple selected images from 162 ordinary iPhone users and ran them, uncredited to any professional, across more than 10,000 outdoor sites in 73 cities and 25 countries: no copy beyond \"Shot on iPhone 6.\" The product claim (camera quality) is proven by the medium itself; the users become the creative department. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes in 2015 — jury president Juan Carlos Ortiz called it \"not just a great idea, it's a game changer\" — and, a decade on, the still-running platform took the 2025 Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix. It is studied as the definitive user-generated-content campaign and a masterclass in restraint: the best demonstration of a camera is simply what it shot.", "watch": [ { "label": "Adweek's report on the Grand Prix, with campaign imagery", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/apple-tbwa-take-outdoor-grand-prix-billboards-featuring-users-iphone-6-photos-165516/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Apple, TBWA Take Outdoor Grand Prix for Billboards Featuring Users' iPhone 6 Photos", "publisher": "Adweek (2015)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/apple-tbwa-take-outdoor-grand-prix-billboards-featuring-users-iphone-6-photos-165516/" }, { "title": "Apple's 'Shot on iPhone' Scores Cannes Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness (2025, at the platform's 10th anniversary)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/apples-shot-on-iphone-scores-cannes-grand-prix-for-creative-effectiveness/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DdmG2vaSIUc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film for Shot on iPhone (\"World Gallery\") (Apple, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Cannes Lions 2015 World Gallery Apple iPhone 6 TBWA Media Arts Lab”, uploaded by B & C Links Business and Consumers Links", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdmG2vaSIUc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DdmG2vaSIUc/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "anz-gaytms", "title": "GAYTMs", "brand": "ANZ", "year": 2014, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Ordinary street cash machines are dressed in rhinestones, studs and fur, turning the bank's own hardware into outdoor media people use and photograph." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Rainbow receipts and operator fees donated to a gay and lesbian charity tie the bank visibly to Mardi Gras and its community." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Outdoor installation (customised street ATMs)", "agency": "Whybin\\TBWA Group Melbourne", "credits": [], "tagline": "Cash out and proud.", "why_studied": "For the 2014 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, its principal partner ANZ turned ten of its cash machines on Sydney's busiest streets into GAYTMs, each hand-decorated in rhinestones, sequins, studs, leather, denim and fur. Screens greeted customers with “Hello gorgeous”, receipts came out rainbow-coloured reading “Cash out and proud”, and operator fees went to the gay and lesbian charity Twenty10. It is studied as the rare sponsorship that turned the bank's own hardware into the medium: the most mundane object in banking, already standing on the street, recast as a billboard people used, photographed and shared. Jury president Jose Sokoloff called it brave, important and “pure outdoor” as it took the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes in 2014. The agency's case reports more than 62 million media impressions and a first rainbow receipt roll that ran out in an hour instead of a week. It went on to win two D&AD Graphite Pencils and a One Show Silver Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: ANZ GAYTMs (case film and images)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/anz-gaytms", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The One Show archive: ANZ GAYTMs", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/22848/anz-gaytms/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "GAYTMs grabs Grand Prix for ‘pure outdoor’ at Cannes", "publisher": "Mumbrella (2014)", "url": "https://mumbrella.com.au/gaytms-grabs-grand-prix-pure-outdoor-cannes-233182" }, { "title": "Why and how an Australian bank turned ATMs into 'GAYTMs'", "publisher": "PR Week (2015)", "url": "https://www.prweek.com/article/1334047/why-australian-bank-turned-atms-gaytms" }, { "title": "ANZ | ANZ GAYTMs | The One Club", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (One Show 2015)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/22848/anz-gaytms/" }, { "title": "ANZ GAYTMs", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2015)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/anz-gaytms" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/86i47i3VOdA/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film on GAYTMs (ANZ, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “ANZ GAYTMS - ANZ Cannes LIons 2014 Winner”, uploaded by Brand Buffet", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86i47i3VOdA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/86i47i3VOdA/sd2.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "british-airways-magic-of-flying", "title": "Magic of Flying (#lookup)", "brand": "British Airways", "brand_slug": "british-airways", "year": 2013, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Live aircraft data triggers the screen only when a real British Airways plane is visibly passing overhead, naming its flight and origin." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A child on screen stands and points at the sky, making the everyday sight of a passing plane feel magical again." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Interactive digital billboards", "agency": "OgilvyOne, London", "credits": [], "tagline": "#lookup", "why_studied": "A billboard that looked up. From November 2013, digital screens at Piccadilly Circus and beside the M4 into Heathrow showed other brands' ads until a British Airways plane passed overhead. Then a child on screen stood up and pointed at the sky, while the board displayed the real flight's number and where it was arriving from, under the call to action #lookup. OgilvyOne London built it on live aircraft position data, a virtual tripwire in the sky and a cloud-height sensor, so it fired only when the plane could actually be seen; fare data let it add whether BA was the cheapest way to that destination. It is studied as the moment outdoor became responsive to the real world rather than merely digital, and for making an everyday sight feel magical again. The six-week campaign won the Grand Prix in Direct at Cannes in 2014 and D&AD Yellow Pencils, and its online film reached a million views within weeks.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film (Ogilvy, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26MAojVlPgc", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Case study: British Airways Magic of Flying (D&AD)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/ba-magic-of-flying-case-study-insights", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Case Study: British Airways Magic of Flying", "publisher": "D&AD (2014)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/ba-magic-of-flying-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "Ogilvy & Mather Soars into Cannes Lions 2014 with Grand Prix and Two Creative Effectiveness Wins", "publisher": "Ogilvy & Mather via PR Newswire (2014)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ogilvy--mather-soars-into-cannes-lions-2014-with-grand-prix-and-two-creative-effectiveness-wins-263353061.html" }, { "title": "Ogilvy: British Airways Magic of Flying", "publisher": "WPP", "url": "https://www.wpp.com/en/case-studies/ogilvy-uk-british-airways-magic-of-flying" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/26MAojVlPgc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Magic of Flying (#lookup) (British Airways, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “British Airways - Magic of Flying”, uploaded by Ogilvy", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26MAojVlPgc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/26MAojVlPgc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "anar-foundation-only-for-children", "title": "Only for Children", "brand": "ANAR Foundation", "year": 2013, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A lenticular poster lets a child, looking from lower down, see a helpline number and offer of help that the accompanying adult cannot see." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Adults see a child's face and a line about hidden abuse, while children see the same face bruised and bleeding, making the danger viscerally felt." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lenticular street poster", "agency": "Grey Spain, Madrid", "credits": [], "tagline": "Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it.", "why_studied": "A street poster with a second, hidden audience. Spain's ANAR Foundation runs the children's helpline 116 111, and its problem was reaching a child who might be standing next to the abuser. Grey Spain printed a lenticular poster whose picture changes with the viewer's height. An adult sees a child's face and the line \"Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it.\" A child under about ten, looking from lower down, sees the same face bruised and bleeding, the words \"If somebody hurts you, phone us and we'll help you,\" and the number. The offer of help can be read without the accompanying adult ever knowing it was made. It is studied as a sharp case of the medium doing the targeting: the printing technique itself decides who receives the call to action. Launched around the International Day Against Child Abuse in 2013, its case video drew almost four million YouTube views in two weeks, UPI reported.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: ANAR, Grey Madrid", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/anar/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Creative Bloq: The anti-abuse poster that only kids can see", "url": "https://www.creativebloq.com/posters/abuse-poster-only-kids-can-see-5132722", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Child Abuse PSA Designed To Be Seen By Children Only", "publisher": "Fast Company (2013)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1682912/the-child-abuse-psa-designed-to-be-seen-by-children-only/" }, { "title": "Spanish organization creates child abuse ad only visible to children", "publisher": "UPI (2013)", "url": "https://www.upi.com/blog/2013/05/07/Spanish-organization-creates-child-abuse-ad-only-visible-to-children/5311367953939/" }, { "title": "ANAR Foundation create a powerful High-Tech Lenticular Poster campaign", "publisher": "FESPA (2013)", "url": "https://www.fespa.com/en/news-media/anar-foundation-create-a-powerful-high-tech-lenticular-poster-campaign/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6zoCDyQSH0o/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film on Only for Children (ANAR Foundation, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Anar Foundation \"Only for Children\"”, uploaded by GREY SPAIN", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zoCDyQSH0o", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6zoCDyQSH0o/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ibm-people-for-smarter-cities", "title": "People for Smarter Cities", "brand": "IBM", "year": 2013, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Poster panels bend into a seat, a rain shelter and a ramp, doing small useful jobs for passers-by instead of just advertising." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Showing smarter-city thinking in action at pavement level makes an abstract corporate idea tangible rather than merely describing it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Outdoor campaign (functional posters)", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather France, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Daniel Diego Lincoln" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Lauren Elkins" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Andrew Mellen" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Posters that do a job. For IBM's People for Smarter Cities initiative, Ogilvy & Mather France bent ordinary poster panels into small pieces of street furniture: one peels away from the wall at the bottom to make a seat, one curves over at the top into a rain shelter, and one folds down over a flight of steps as a ramp for bikes and suitcases. Each uses simple, bold-coloured graphics to show its function and invites passers-by to join the conversation online. Launched in London and Paris, the trio made IBM's abstract smarter-cities message tangible at pavement level. It is studied as the template for useful outdoor, where the medium delivers the brand promise instead of describing it. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2013, with jury president Tony Granger calling it classic outdoor that could only live in that medium, and later collected D&AD pencils.", "watch": [ { "label": "Adweek: IBM's Outdoor Ads Actually Try to Be Useful (images, video, credits)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/ibms-outdoor-ads-actually-try-be-useful-and-make-cities-better-150091/", "type": "press" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: IBM Smarter Outdoor Bench", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/ibm-smarter-outdoor-bench", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ogilvy France Wins 2013 Outdoor Lions Grand Prix Award for IBM ‘People for Smarter Cities’ Campaign", "publisher": "Clear Channel Outdoor / Business Wire (2013)", "url": "https://investor.clearchannel.com/news/business-news/detail/235/ogilvy-france-wins-2013-outdoor-lions-grand-prix-award-for-ibm-people-for-smarter-cities-campaign" }, { "title": "Ads with a New Purpose by Ogilvy & Mather for IBM", "publisher": "Dezeen (2013)", "url": "https://www.dezeen.com/2013/06/12/ads-with-a-new-purpose-by-ogilvy-mather-for-ibm/" }, { "title": "The Best In Outdoor Creativity: IBM Wins Grand Prix At Cannes", "publisher": "Fast Company (2013)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1683238/the-best-in-outdoor-creativity-ibm-wins-grand-prix-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "IBM Smarter Outdoor Bench", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2014)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/ibm-smarter-outdoor-bench" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pN_uTH2kiDA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film for People for Smarter Cities (IBM, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “IBM Smarter Cities: Outdoor Utility”, uploaded by ogilvygrow GMU", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN_uTH2kiDA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pN_uTH2kiDA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "un-women-autocomplete-truth", "title": "The Autocomplete Truth", "brand": "UN Women", "year": 2013, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A search box placed over each woman's mouth works like a gag, so a single image shows prejudice silencing women." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Genuine autocomplete suggestions serve as evidence, showing what searches reveal about attitudes to women instead of simply asserting that sexism persists." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and online poster series", "agency": "Memac Ogilvy & Mather, Dubai", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Christopher Hunt" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Close-up portraits of women whose mouths are covered by a Google search box, filled with the search engine's own suggestions for phrases such as \"women shouldn't\", \"women need to\" and \"women cannot\". The completions were genuine, taken from searches on 9 March 2013. Memac Ogilvy & Mather Dubai's team said they were shocked by how negative the results were, and placed the text over each mouth as if to silence the woman behind it. It is studied as an early, brilliantly simple use of data as raw creative material: instead of asserting that sexism persists, it showed what the world's searches suggested people think. Released in October 2013, the ads were picked up widely and kept gathering momentum on social media into 2014, although critics pointed out that autocomplete results vary by user and country. At Cannes Lions 2014 it won the Middle East's first Titanium Lion, and Campaign Middle East counted three Gold Lions among its haul.", "watch": [ { "label": "UN Women ad series reveals widespread sexism (UN Women)", "url": "https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: The Autocomplete Truth", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-autocomplete-truth-2", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "UN Women ad series reveals widespread sexism", "publisher": "UN Women (2013)", "url": "https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads" }, { "title": "Powerful Ads Use Real Google Searches to Show the Scope of Sexism Worldwide", "publisher": "Adweek (2013)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/powerful-ads-use-real-google-searches-show-scope-sexism-worldwide-153235/" }, { "title": "Are Google Searches The Best Way To Highlight Discrimination Against Women?", "publisher": "Search Engine Land (2013)", "url": "https://searchengineland.com/are-google-searches-the-best-way-to-highlight-discrimination-against-women-174880" }, { "title": "Advertising Agency of the Year 2014: Memac Ogilvy Dubai", "publisher": "Campaign Middle East (2014)", "url": "https://campaignme.com/creative-agency-year-2014-memac-ogilvy-dubai/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IkNlGuW-0g8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Autocomplete Truth (UN Women, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “UN Women - The Autocomplete Truth”, uploaded by UN Women", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkNlGuW-0g8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IkNlGuW-0g8/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "utec-billboard-that-makes-water", "title": "The Billboard That Makes Water", "brand": "UTEC (University of Engineering and Technology)", "year": 2013, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Instead of claiming that engineering changes lives, the university builds a billboard that turns humid air into drinking water and lets people see it work." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Water from the board is piped to a tap for local families in a desert city where rain barely falls." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Billboard (water-generating)", "agency": "Mayo DraftFCB, Lima", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Juan Donalisio" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Alejandro Aponte" } ], "tagline": "A billboard that turns air into clean drinking water is ingenuity in action.", "why_studied": "A university recruitment ad that proves its claim by working. Lima sits in a coastal desert where rain barely falls yet humidity runs close to 98 per cent, so Peru's University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) and Mayo DraftFCB built a billboard beside the Panamericana highway, south of the city, that condenses moisture from the air, purifies it and pipes drinking water to a tap at its base for local families. The headline simply described what the board was doing and called it ingenuity in action, with the date of the admissions test underneath. It is studied as a defining case of the ad as product demonstration: instead of telling teenagers that engineering changes lives, the university built the evidence and let them see it. The BBC reported more than 9,000 litres produced, around 96 a day; the agency's creative director told the Guardian that applications rose 38 per cent. In 2013 it won a Gold Outdoor Lion at Cannes and a One Show Silver Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Adweek: Billboard Generates Drinking Water Out of Thin Air in Desert of Peru (with case film)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/billboard-generates-drinking-water-out-thin-air-desert-peru-147531/", "type": "press" }, { "label": "BBC News: Advert turns air into drinking water", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21899227", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Advert turns air into drinking water", "publisher": "BBC News (2013)", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21899227" }, { "title": "Making water from air: a collaboration between engineers and marketeers", "publisher": "The Guardian (2013)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/water-from-air-collaboration-engineers-marketeers" }, { "title": "Ogilvy France Wins 2013 Outdoor Lions Grand Prix Award for IBM ‘People for Smarter Cities’ Campaign (lists the Gold Lion winners)", "publisher": "Clear Channel Outdoor / Business Wire (2013)", "url": "https://investor.clearchannel.com/news/business-news/detail/235/ogilvy-france-wins-2013-outdoor-lions-grand-prix-award-for-ibm-people-for-smarter-cities-campaign" }, { "title": "UTEC University | Potable Water Generator", "publisher": "The One Club, One Show (2013)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/19158/potable-water-generator/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-coke-hands", "title": "Coke Hands", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2012, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "The brand's familiar white ribbon is redrawn as two arms meeting in the middle, so the mark itself becomes the picture and no logo is needed." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "One hand passing a bottle to another makes the drink a simple gesture of sharing, letting that feeling, rather than any claim, do the selling." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster (bus shelters and elevators)", "agency": "Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Jonathan Mak Long" }, { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Jonathan Mak Long" }, { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Eno Jin" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The poster is Coca-Cola's signature white ribbon, redrawn on a field of red as two arms meeting in the middle, one hand passing a bottle of Coke to the other. There is no logo: the ribbon everyone already knows does the branding, and the gesture of sharing does the selling. The poster went up in bus shelters and elevators across Shanghai in April 2012 as part of Open Happiness. It was drawn by Jonathan Mak Long, a Hong Kong design student whose Steve Jobs tribute had gone viral and caught the eye of Graham Fink, Ogilvy China's chief creative officer; Fink presented it as a show-stopping case of less is more in a market where clutter is the norm. It is studied as a masterclass in reductive design and in trusting the equity of a brand mark. At Cannes in 2012 it shared the Outdoor Grand Prix with Mercedes-Benz's Invisible Drive; Ad Age noted it was only the second Cannes Grand Prix won from mainland China.", "watch": [ { "label": "Ogilvy: Coke Hands (Coca-Cola)", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com/work/coke-hands", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Coke, Mercedes Each Win Outdoor Grand Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2012)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-2012/coke-mercedes-win-outdoor-grand-prix-cannes/235467/" }, { "title": "APAC agencies score 12 Gold Lions, Ogilvy Shanghai claims Outdoor Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign Asia-Pacific (2012)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/apac-agencies-score-12-gold-lions-ogilvy-shanghai-claims-outdoor-grand-prix/tfifns7pa7jmbr4lpppni8jtz3" }, { "title": "Coca-Cola unveils its Coke Hands outdoor ad campaign in Shanghai with Ogilvy & Mather Advertising", "publisher": "The Drum (2012)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/coca-cola-unveils-its-coke-hands-outdoor-ad-campaign-shanghai-ogilvy-mather" }, { "title": "Coke Hands", "publisher": "AWARD (Australian Writers' and Art Directors' Association), Gold 2012", "url": "https://awardonline.com/awards/2012-award-winners/gold-2012-posters-and-outdoor-street-furniture-including-superlites-citylights-and-metrolites-cokehands" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "patagonia-dont-buy-this-jacket", "title": "Don't Buy This Jacket", "brand": "Patagonia", "year": 2011, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Telling readers not to buy one of its best sellers on Black Friday makes the case against overconsumption, the company's own products included." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Confessing its own product's environmental cost signals values the company is willing to pay for, building credibility through candour." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "The copy quantifies the jacket's water use and carbon dioxide, giving readers concrete reasons to buy less." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Full-page newspaper advertisement (The New York Times)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Don't buy this jacket.", "why_studied": "On Black Friday 2011, the biggest shopping day in the American calendar, Patagonia bought a full page in The New York Times to tell readers not to buy its product. Beneath a photograph of the R2 fleece, one of its best sellers, six paragraphs of copy confessed the jacket's environmental cost: enough water to meet the daily needs of 45 people, and nearly 20 pounds of carbon dioxide to get it to the warehouse. It asked people to buy less of everything, Patagonia's own products included, as part of the company's Common Threads Initiative. It is studied as the defining example of demarketing and of a brand purpose that visibly costs something, using its own product as the case study for overconsumption. Patagonia's marketing chief told The Guardian that telling people to buy less had not hurt sales, if anything the reverse, and the ad set the radically candid tone the company has kept ever since.", "watch": [ { "label": "Don't Buy This Jacket, Black Friday and the New York Times (Patagonia)", "url": "https://www.patagonia.com/stories/dont-buy-this-jacket-black-friday-and-the-new-york-times/story-18615.html", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad of the Day: Patagonia", "publisher": "Adweek (2011)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ad-day-patagonia-136745/" }, { "title": "One Retailer's Unusual Message: 'Don't Buy So Much Stuff'", "publisher": "The Atlantic (2015)", "url": "https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/one-retailers-counterintuitive-message-dont-buy-so-much-stuff/394343/" }, { "title": "Talk point: transforming business models", "publisher": "The Guardian (2011)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/transformative-business-models-innovation" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "samsonite-heaven-and-hell", "title": "Heaven and Hell", "brand": "Samsonite", "year": 2011, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A heavenly flight above and a red-lit underworld below, where the suitcases are put through hell, picture baggage handling as torment to dramatise durability." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A single frieze, sculpted like a classical stone relief, tells two parallel stories of passengers in heaven and luggage in hell." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print advertisement", "agency": "JWT Shanghai", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Hattie Cheng" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Rojana Chuasakul" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Haoxi Lv" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Danny Li" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Marc Wang" }, { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Surachai Puthikulangkura (Illusion, Bangkok)" }, { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Supachai U-Rairat (Illusion, Bangkok)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "One long frieze, rendered like a classical stone relief, tells two stories at once. Above, first-class passengers enjoy a heavenly flight; below, in a red-lit underworld where the luggage is handled, Samsonite Cosmolite suitcases are put through hell. By the agency's account, JWT Shanghai tried oil painting and stained glass before settling on a Hellenistic sculptural style, which Bangkok studio Illusion built in five weeks of CGI. It is studied as lavish craft in the service of one plain product truth, durability, and as a landmark for Chinese advertising: in 2011 it won the Press Grand Prix at Cannes, China's first Cannes Grand Prix, plus Gold Lions in Outdoor. Within a year it had collected ten Grands Prix, 38 golds and three D&AD Yellow Pencils, and the Gunn Report ranked it the most-awarded print ad of all time, overtaking Volkswagen's 1999 \"Wedding\".", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: Samsonite \"Heaven and Hell\"", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/samsonite-12/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Illusion CGI Studio project page", "url": "https://www.illusion.co.th/heaven-and-hell", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "JWT Shanghai wins first ever Cannes Grand Prix for China", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2011)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/jwt-shanghai-wins-first-ever-cannes-grand-prix-for-china/gxivdbkaotic3db04xysgjo0pm" }, { "title": "JWT's Heaven and Hell trumps VW's Wedding as most awarded print in history", "publisher": "adobo magazine (2012)", "url": "https://www.adobomagazine.com/archived/jwts-heaven-and-hell-trumps-vws-wedding-as-most-awarded-print-in-history/" }, { "title": "Samsonite, 2011: Heaven And Hell", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/samsonite-2011-heaven-and-hell/" }, { "title": "Heaven and Hell", "publisher": "Illusion CGI Studio (production studio)", "url": "https://www.illusion.co.th/heaven-and-hell" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "benetton-unhate", "title": "Unhate", "brand": "United Colors of Benetton", "year": 2011, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Montages of world leaders kissing their adversaries, one pulled almost immediately, deliberately provoke outrage and debate to get the message noticed." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "The kisses announce a foundation and position the fashion brand as a voice for tolerance and reconciliation." }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Adversaries locked in tender embraces above one word turn reconciliation into a picture, carrying the brand's stance on tolerance through image alone." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Press and poster campaign", "agency": "Fabrica, with 72andSunny Amsterdam", "credits": [], "tagline": "Unhate", "why_studied": "World leaders kissing their adversaries: Barack Obama and Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, locked in tender embraces above one word, \"UNHATE\". Created by Fabrica, Benetton's communication research centre, with 72andSunny Amsterdam, and launched in November 2011 to announce the brand's Unhate Foundation, the montages were a deliberate provocation about reconciliation, pitched as ironic hope rather than endorsement. The most incendiary image, Pope Benedict XVI kissing a senior Egyptian imam, was pulled almost as soon as the campaign broke. Benetton reported more than 3,000 articles and 600 television reports in 60 countries. It is studied both as an example of a fashion brand making itself a voice on tolerance through pure image, and as a live debate about where provocation tips into exploitation. It won the Press Grand Prix at Cannes in 2012, the jury singling out the Obama-Chávez, Abbas-Netanyahu and Merkel-Sarkozy executions.", "watch": [ { "label": "UNHATE worldwide campaign launch release (Benetton Group)", "url": "https://www.benettongroup.com/en/media-press/press-releases-and-statements/unhate-worldwide-campaign/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "First accolade for UNHATE at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity", "publisher": "Benetton Group (2012)", "url": "https://www.benettongroup.com/en/media-press/press-releases-and-statements/first-accolade-for-unhate-at-the-cannes-lions-international-festival-of-creativity/" }, { "title": "Press Grand Prix Goes to Benetton's Kissing Ads From Fabrica, 72andSunny", "publisher": "Adweek (2012)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/press-grand-prix-goes-benettons-kissing-ads-fabrica-72andsunny-141244/" }, { "title": "Controversial Benetton Ad Nabs Press Grand Prix", "publisher": "Ad Age (2012)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-2012/controversial-benetton-ad-nabs-press-grand-prix/235505/" }, { "title": "UNHATE worldwide campaign", "publisher": "Benetton Group (2011)", "url": "https://www.benettongroup.com/en/media-press/press-releases-and-statements/unhate-worldwide-campaign/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IjNUi6mVCsg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a news report on Unhate (United Colors of Benetton, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Benetton's Controversial World Leaders Kissing Ads”, uploaded by b/60", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjNUi6mVCsg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/IjNUi6mVCsg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "diesel-be-stupid", "title": "Be Stupid", "brand": "Diesel", "year": 2010, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Photographs of reckless, cheeky stunts and blunt manifestos deliberately court controversy, enough for some posters to be banned." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Cheeky lines pitting smart against stupid, always siding with stupid, make the brand's attitude funny and endlessly repeatable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster and press campaign", "agency": "Anomaly, New York", "credits": [], "tagline": "Be stupid.", "why_studied": "A fashion brand that told its customers to stop being sensible. Anomaly's first work for Diesel, devised with the label's own creative team, paired photographs of people pulling reckless, cheeky or provocative stunts with blunt capitalised manifestos setting smart against stupid: \"Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls,\" \"Smart critiques, stupid creates.\" It ran in 2010 across press, posters, digital and viral channels, selling an attitude far more than jeans. It is studied twice over: as a lesson in tone of voice, one reversible formula able to spin out endless lines, and as a cautionary tale about context. It shared the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes in 2010, the first year that prize was split, with the jury president praising its appetite for risk and talkability. Days later Britain's Advertising Standards Authority, acting on 33 complaints, cleared the magazine versions but banned two images as posters, ruling billboards an untargeted medium that children would see.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Guardian: Award-winning Diesel campaign banned by ASA (with campaign image)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jun/30/diesel-asa-advertising", "type": "press" }, { "label": "The Guardian: Diesel and Argentinian beer ads share top prize at Cannes", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jun/23/diesel-beer-top-prize-cannes", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Anomaly's Be Stupid lands Outdoor Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign (2010)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/anomalys-stupid-lands-outdoor-grand-prix/1011675" }, { "title": "Award-winning Diesel campaign banned by ASA", "publisher": "The Guardian (2010)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jun/30/diesel-asa-advertising" }, { "title": "Frenchies Go Gaga for Stupid Ads", "publisher": "Fast Company (2010)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1662763/frenchies-go-gaga-stupid-ads/" }, { "title": "Diesel 'be stupid' by Anomaly", "publisher": "Campaign (2010)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/diesel-be-stupid-anomaly/977409" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "billboard-brasil-music-see-what-its-made-of", "title": "Music. See What It's Made Of.", "brand": "Billboard Brasil", "year": 2010, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Star portraits that break up close into tiny pictures of the artists who shaped them make the line about what music is made of literally visible." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Carefully researched influences, down to a wink such as Vanilla Ice inside Eminem, display the deep musical knowledge the magazine trades on." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertising campaign", "agency": "AlmapBBDO", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Marcos Medeiros" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Danilo Boer" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "André Kassu" }, { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Marcos Kotlhar" } ], "tagline": "Music. See what it's made of.", "why_studied": "From a distance the ads are portraits of Bono, Eminem, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears and Marilyn Manson. Up close, each face breaks into a mosaic of tiny single-colour pictures of the artists who shaped that star, with a wink hidden in the mix: Eminem is built from Ice-T, Run DMC and LL Cool J, but also Vanilla Ice. AlmapBBDO spent six months researching the influences and the images, and illustrator Marcos Kotlhar wrote software to place every tile. It is studied as a near-perfect fit of form and message for a magazine that trades on musical knowledge: the line \"Music. See what it's made of\" is proved by the picture itself. The campaign won the Press Grand Prix at Cannes in 2010, after the jury's first choice was disqualified for having been entered before, and went on to collect D&AD Yellow Pencils. AlmapBBDO was later named Cannes Lions' Agency of the Decade.", "watch": [ { "label": "BBDO's case film on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amimS4xo3Ww", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: Music. See What it's Made of.", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/music-see-what-its-made-of", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Press Lions Grand Prix winner disqualified", "publisher": "Campaign (2010)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/press-lions-grand-prix-winner-disqualified/4kegeb38by6k5x2p984k3rj3mc" }, { "title": "Amy Winehouse e cia por Billboard Brasil", "publisher": "Clube de Criação (2010)", "url": "https://clubedecriacao.com.br/ultimas/campanha-2108/" }, { "title": "Music. See What it's Made of.", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2011)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/music-see-what-its-made-of" }, { "title": "AlmapBBDO Wins Cannes Lions Agency of the Decade", "publisher": "Adweek (2020)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencies/almapbbdo-wins-cannes-lions-agency-of-the-decade/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/amimS4xo3Ww/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film on Music. See What It's Made Of. (Billboard Brasil, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “BILLBOARD - Music. See What it's Made of (Almap BBDO)”, uploaded by bbdoworldwide", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amimS4xo3Ww" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "the-zimbabwean-trillion-dollar-campaign", "title": "The Trillion Dollar Campaign", "brand": "The Zimbabwean (newspaper)", "year": 2009, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Ads printed on worthless trillion-dollar notes are themselves physical evidence of the economic collapse the newspaper reports." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Banknotes become flyers, posters, murals and billboards, an unconventional medium that is literally cheaper than paper." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Billboards, posters and flyers printed on banknotes", "agency": "TBWA\\Hunt\\Lascaris, Johannesburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Damon Stapleton" } ], "tagline": "It's cheaper to print this on money than on paper.", "why_studied": "Zimbabwe's hyperinflation had made its banknotes worth less than the paper they were printed on, so TBWA\\Hunt\\Lascaris printed the ads on the money. The client was The Zimbabwean, a newspaper published in exile and then hit with a 55 per cent luxury import duty that priced it out of reach at home. The Johannesburg agency turned worthless trillion-dollar notes into flyers, mailers, posters, murals and billboards, each carrying lines such as \"It's cheaper to print this on money than on paper.\" The medium was the message in the most literal sense: every billboard was itself physical evidence of the collapse the paper was reporting. It is studied as the textbook example of a material becoming the idea, and of turning the regime's own creation against it. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes in 2009 and, in 2010, Africa's first D&AD Black Pencil, and one of the banknote posters is now in the V&A's collection.", "watch": [ { "label": "A banknote poster in the V&A collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1274867/poster-tbwa/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The campaign in the D&AD awards archive", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/trillion-dollar-campaign", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Poster: It's cheaper to print this on money than on paper (museum record, E.1083-2011)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1274867/poster-tbwa/" }, { "title": "Trillion Dollar Campaign", "publisher": "D&AD", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/trillion-dollar-campaign" }, { "title": "TBWA\\Hunt\\Lascaris caps record success with Grand Prix", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2009)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/37213.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/VOiEUvbYjQY/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the case film for The Trillion Dollar Campaign (The Zimbabwean (newspaper), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Trillion Dollar Campaign”, uploaded by D&AD - Creative Advertising, Design and Digital", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOiEUvbYjQY" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "obama-hope-poster", "title": "Hope", "brand": "Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign (unofficial)", "year": 2008, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "A single uplifting word beneath a portrait gazing towards the horizon sells an ideal rather than any specific policy." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Supporters spread the image themselves through free downloads, screen prints and fly-posting, outrunning any paid media plan." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Screen-printed street poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Artist", "name": "Shepard Fairey" } ], "tagline": "Hope", "why_studied": "The defining image of the 2008 US election was not made by the campaign. Street artist Shepard Fairey illustrated Barack Obama from a news photograph in early 2008, face split into red and blue, eyes raised to the horizon, first captioned \"Progress\" and then \"Hope\". He sold some screen prints to pay for thousands more, pasted them on the street and offered a free download, and supporters did the rest. Because the image was partly spread by fly-posting, the campaign never officially adopted it, but Obama wrote to thank him, the campaign asked him for authorised versions, and the National Portrait Gallery says it sold 50,000 official posters. It is studied as a case of grassroots, open-source distribution outrunning a paid media plan, and of a graphic style becoming a political brand in its own right, endlessly parodied and imitated. Fairey's original collage entered the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in time for the inauguration.", "watch": [ { "label": "Fairey's original collage in the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian)", "url": "https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2008.52", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Now on View: Portrait of Barack Obama by Shepard Fairey", "publisher": "National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian (2009)", "url": "https://npg.si.edu/blog/now-on-view-portrait-barack-obama-shepard-fairey" }, { "title": "Shepard Fairey: The Artist Behind the Obama Portrait", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2009)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/shepard-fairey-the-artist-behind-the-obama-portrait-45936012/" }, { "title": "Spreading The Hope: Street Artist Shepard Fairey (Fresh Air)", "publisher": "NPR (2009)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/transcripts/99466584" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/zVCEYfiyq-g/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a National Portrait Gallery video about Hope (Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign (unofficial), 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Barack Obama by Shepard Fairey”, uploaded by National Portrait Gallery", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVCEYfiyq-g" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mcdonalds-sundial-billboard", "title": "Sundial", "brand": "McDonald's", "brand_slug": "mcdonalds", "year": 2006, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "The shadow of a metal M sweeps across a different breakfast item each hour, turning the logo into a clock that shows when breakfast ends." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Built near Wrigley Field with no screens or sensors, only geometry, the board turns a static street poster into a working sundial passers-by can check daily." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Billboard (working sundial)", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Vince Cook" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Gary Fox-Robertson" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A billboard that tells the time. To promote McDonald's breakfast, Leo Burnett Chicago turned a board at Clark and Addison, just west of Wrigley Field, into a working sundial. A metal M fixed along the top edge casts a shadow that sweeps across a row of breakfast items, falling on coffee at six and on a different item each hour after that; at noon the arches' own shadow sits dead centre. The agency brought in a Chicago electrical engineer, Christian Huff, who chose the site because the sun hit it at just the right angle through the morning. It is studied as a landmark of three-dimensional outdoor advertising: no screens or sensors, only geometry, turning a static poster into something passers-by could check every day while quietly reminding them when breakfast ends. It won the Grand Clio for billboards in 2007, and in 2014 it was inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame.", "watch": [ { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: Sundial", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/sundial", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The One Show archive: Sundial (with credits)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/5780/sundial/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Time For Breakfast", "publisher": "Adpulp (2006, summarising Crain's Chicago Business)", "url": "https://www.adpulp.com/time_for_breakf/" }, { "title": "Out-of-Home Runs", "publisher": "Adweek (Barbara Lippert, 2007)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/out-home-runs-89055/" }, { "title": "People are still debating this clever McDonald's sundial ad", "publisher": "Creative Bloq (2023)", "url": "https://www.creativebloq.com/news/mcdonalds-billboard-tells-the-time" }, { "title": "McDonald's: Sundial (Clio Awards 2014, Hall of Fame – Out of Home)", "publisher": "The Clio Awards", "url": "https://clios.com/winners-gallery/details/44093" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/jGwArN-cQxk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a video on Sundial (McDonald's, 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “McDonald's \"Sundial\" Billboard”, uploaded by TheLBGPC", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGwArN-cQxk" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lego-imagine-periscope", "title": "Imagine (Periscope)", "brand": "LEGO", "year": 2005, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A periscope built from LEGO pieces pokes up out of a flat blue LEGO sea, so two bricks and one word conjure a whole hidden submarine." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Leaving the reader to supply the submarine lets them experience the very imaginative benefit the bricks are selling." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print advertisement", "agency": "FCB Johannesburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Lance Vining" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Charles Foley" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Gerard Turnley" } ], "tagline": "Imagine", "why_studied": "Two bricks and one word. FCB Johannesburg's press ad for LEGO shows a periscope made of LEGO pieces poking up out of a flat blue LEGO \"sea\" under the single line \"Imagine\"; the reader supplies the submarine. It ran in South Africa at the end of 2005 and the following June won the Press Grand Prix at Cannes, South Africa’s first. The jury was split almost evenly between it and a JWT India campaign for Levi's until president David Droga used his deciding vote for LEGO, praising an old-school ad, simple and clean, brought to life by the brand's DNA. It is studied as a lesson in leaving work for the audience: the ad shows almost nothing and lets the reader complete the picture, demonstrating the very benefit it sells. As executive creative director Brett Morris put it, if two pieces can open up a world, imagine a whole set.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: Lego 'Imagine…' (Press Grand Prix spread)", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/lego-27/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Ad Age Creativity: Lego, Periscope", "url": "https://adage.com/creativity/work/lego-periscope/6510/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "FCB Johannesburg Wins Cannes Grand Prix in Press for Lego Periscope", "publisher": "Interpublic Group / Business Wire (2006)", "url": "https://investors.interpublic.com/news-releases/news-release-details/fcb-johannesburg-wins-cannes-grand-prix-press-lego-periscope" }, { "title": "FCB Jhb takes Press Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2006)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/10614.html" }, { "title": "Grand Prix til Lego-reklame", "publisher": "Kampanje (2006)", "url": "https://www.kampanje.com/archive/grand-prix-til-lego-reklame/741934" }, { "title": "FCB Johannesburg a castigat Grand Prix-ul la sectiunea Press din cadrul Festivalului Cannes Lions", "publisher": "money.ro (2006)", "url": "https://www.money.ro/stiri/fcb-johannesburg-a-castigat-grand-prix-ul-la-sectiunea-press-din-cadrul-festivalului-cannes-lions" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "economist-lightbulb", "title": "Lightbulb", "brand": "The Economist", "year": 2004, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A giant three-dimensional light bulb on a plain red poster stands for a bright idea, so one symbol and a logo do the work of a headline." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "A motion sensor lights a giant bulb whenever someone walks beneath it, casting each passer-by as the person with the bright idea." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive poster", "agency": "Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Paul Belford" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Nigel Roberts" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The Economist made its name in outdoor with witty copy; this poster dropped the words altogether. Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO fixed a giant three-dimensional light bulb to a plain red Economist poster in the UK and fitted it with a motion sensor, so the bulb lit up whenever someone walked underneath. Every passer-by became the person having the bright idea, while people watching from a distance saw the brand promise acted out. It is studied as a lesson in restraint and as early interactive outdoor, made before social media: one symbol, one logo and a sensor doing the work of a headline. It won a Gold Pencil for outdoor at the 2005 One Show, and in 2025 The Drum ranked it first among the world's best out-of-home ads ever, praising how much it says with almost nothing.", "watch": [ { "label": "The One Show archive: Light Bulb (Gold Pencil, 2005)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/1820/light-bulb/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Paul Belford: Economist advertising", "url": "https://paulbelford.com/project/economist-advertising/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "World’s Best OOH Ads Ever #1: Curiosity lights up The Economist", "publisher": "The Drum (2025)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/worlds-best-ooh-ads-ever-1-curiosity-lights-up-the-economist" }, { "title": "The Economist | Light Bulb", "publisher": "The One Club, One Show (2005)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/1820/light-bulb/" }, { "title": "Economist Advertising", "publisher": "Paul Belford Ltd", "url": "https://paulbelford.com/project/economist-advertising/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wdX1OiGcbzo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a video of Lightbulb (The Economist, 2004)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Economist Bulb billboard”, uploaded by Giuseppe Lira", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdX1OiGcbzo" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-polo-cops", "title": "Cops", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 2003, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A single photograph of police under fire all sheltering behind a little Polo is the entire ad, trusting readers to make the connection in a second." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "The cops' choice of the small car over their own patrol car as cover shows, rather than argues, that the Polo is tough." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Borrowing a cop-movie shoot-out cliché, the absurd choice of cover delivers the claim as a joke the reader gets in a second." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Press advertisement", "agency": "DDB London", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Feargal Ballance" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Dylan Harrison" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Nick Allsop" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Feargal Ballance" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Dylan Harrison" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Simon Veksner" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Paul Murphy" } ], "tagline": "Small but tough. Polo.", "why_studied": "A squad of American cops is pinned down in a street shoot-out, and every one of them has picked the same cover: not their own patrol car but a little Volkswagen Polo parked by the kerb. That single photograph, signed off \"Small but tough. Polo.\", is the entire ad. It is studied as a model of visual demonstration in print: the claim that a small car is strong is never argued, only shown, by borrowing a cop-movie cliché and trusting the reader to make the connection in a second. DDB London's ad then swept the 2004 awards season. It beat almost 10,000 entries from 71 countries to take the Press Grand Prix at Cannes, along with a Gold Lion in Outdoor; it won a Gold Pencil at the One Show; and the Gunn Report, which combines the results of the world's major creative award shows, ranked it the most-awarded print ad of the year.", "watch": [ { "label": "Art director Nick Allsop's portfolio page showing the ad", "url": "https://www.nickallsop.co.uk/vw-cops", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The One Club: Cops, 2004 One Show Gold Pencil", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/1078/cops/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "VW ad drives UK agency to Cannes prize", "publisher": "The Guardian (2004)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jun/24/advertising" }, { "title": "På verdenstoppen i reklamebransjen", "publisher": "Kampanje (2004)", "url": "https://www.kampanje.com/pa-verdenstoppen-i-reklamebransjen/857790" }, { "title": "Cannes 2004: Os GP's em Press&Outdoor", "publisher": "B9 (2004)", "url": "https://www.b9.com.br/cannes-2004-os/" }, { "title": "Volkswagen | Cops", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (One Show 2004)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/1078/cops/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "apple-ipod-silhouettes", "title": "iPod Silhouettes", "brand": "Apple", "brand_slug": "apple", "year": 2003, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Copy-free posters reduce dancers to black silhouettes on flat colour with only the white earphones picked out, letting art direction carry the entire argument." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Faceless dancing figures invite anyone to imagine themselves inside the outline, lost in their own music." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Outdoor and print campaign", "agency": "TBWA\\Chiat\\Day, Los Angeles", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Susan Alinsangan" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Tom Kraemer" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Matthew Welch" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Black silhouettes dancing against vivid flat colour, with only one detail picked out: a white iPod and its white earphone cord. Art director Susan Alinsangan conceived the campaign after a man wearing an iPod gyrated across the street in front of her car, and with copywriter Tom Kraemer she boiled that moment down to its graphic essentials for outdoor and print. Photographer Matthew Welch shot real dancers moving to music they brought themselves, before the figures were turned into silhouettes and the players redrawn. Stripped of copy, features and even faces, the posters made the product readable from across the street, and anyone could imagine themselves inside the outline. It is studied as a case of art direction carrying the entire argument, and of a brand turning an accessory into a badge: the white earbuds became a status symbol in their own right, worn even by people who never bought the player. The campaign won gold at the 2004 Art Directors Club awards.", "watch": [ { "label": "2003: Apple releases its silhouette campaign for iPod (The Drum)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/2003-apple-releases-its-silhouette-campaign-ipod", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Agency TBWA\\Chiat\\Day, Playa del Rey, Calif. (Creative All-Stars: the iPod silhouette shoot)", "publisher": "Adweek (2004)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/agency-tbwachiatday-playa-del-rey-72942/" }, { "title": "Advertising and Design Converge at ADC Awards", "publisher": "Adweek (2004)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/advertising-and-design-converge-adc-awards-72913/" }, { "title": "2003: Apple releases its silhouette campaign for iPod", "publisher": "The Drum (2016)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/2003-apple-releases-its-silhouette-campaign-ipod" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/_dSgBsCVpqo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a TV spot from the campaign behind iPod Silhouettes (Apple, 2003)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Apple iPod ad campaign from 2004 - 2008”, uploaded by Adam Oldfield", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dSgBsCVpqo" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "club-18-30-beach-bar-pool", "title": "Beach, Bar, Pool", "brand": "Club 18-30", "year": 2002, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Sex jokes, such as a beach-ball throw that looks like groping, slyly tell the truth about what really goes on during these holidays." }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Crowded holiday snaps hide visual double meanings, with bodies, drinks and props lining up into innuendo that rewards a second look." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Saucy visual innuendo deliberately provokes, enough to draw a complaint that the ads were pornographic." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine and poster campaign", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi London", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Antony Nelson" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Mike Sutherland" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "James Griffiths" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Trevor Ray Hart" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Three crowded, sun-drenched holiday scenes, on a beach, at a bar and around a pool, look like ordinary package-tour snapshots. Look again and the bodies, drinks and props line up into a string of sex jokes: a man finishing a beach-ball throw seems to be groping a woman, a beer bottle appears to sprout from a man's groin. Saatchi & Saatchi London's campaign is studied as a lesson in rewarding the second look, and in telling a brand truth slyly; creative chief David Droga said it simply showed what really goes on during these holidays. Cannes jurors gave it the 2002 Press Grand Prix, saying they wanted to show that advertising's appetite for provocation had survived September 11, and the poster versions took a Gold Lion. It also won a One Show Gold Pencil and D&AD Yellow Pencils for art direction and photography, while the UK advertising watchdog threw out a complaint that the ads were pornographic.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: the \"Beach\" ad", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/club-18-30-10/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive: Beach / Bar / Pool (2002)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/beach-bar-pool", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Sun, sea, sand ... and innuendo", "publisher": "The Guardian (2002)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/business/2002/jun/19/advertising.media" }, { "title": "Club 18-30 Gets Break Courtesy Of ASA", "publisher": "The Media Leader (2002)", "url": "https://uk.themedialeader.com/club-18-30-gets-break-courtesy-of-asa/" }, { "title": "Beach / Bar / Pool", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2002)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/beach-bar-pool" }, { "title": "Club 18-30 | Beach Bar Pool", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (One Show 2002)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/660/beach-bar-pool/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mini-lets-motor", "title": "Let's Motor (MINI USA launch)", "brand": "MINI USA (BMW Group)", "year": 2002, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Real cars mounted on top of SUVs and other street placements launch the brand without the usual television spend." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "A deliberately anti-SUV stance sets the tiny car against the big vehicles of American roads, giving it a culture of its own." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print, outdoor and ambient launch campaign", "agency": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami", "credits": [], "tagline": "Let's Motor.", "why_studied": "How do you launch a tiny British car in the land of the SUV without a television budget? When BMW brought the MINI back to America in 2002, after a 36-year absence, Crispin Porter + Bogusky skipped the usual network commercials and built the launch from magazines, billboards and the street, most famously by mounting real MINIs on top of SUVs. Long-copy boards and ads explained the British habit of \"motoring\" and opened with a deliberate anti-SUV stance, giving a small car a culture of its own. It is studied as a founding case of the low-budget, media-led brand launch, in which where and how an ad appeared carried as much of the idea as what it said. The brand ran just one TV spot in its first year; the agency said the car sold through the roof. The campaign won the Magazine Publishers of America's $100,000 Kelly Award grand prize and Best of Show at the 2003 One Show.", "watch": [ { "label": "MINI's 2003 One Show winners, including the Best of Show integrated campaign (The One Club)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-client/MINI/2003", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Special Report: Agency of the Year — Let's Motor", "publisher": "SHOOT (2003)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/special-report-agency-year-lets-motor/" }, { "title": "BMW dares to be different with non-traditional Mini ads", "publisher": "Autoweek (2003)", "url": "https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2100796/bmw-dares-be-different-non-traditional-mini-ads/" }, { "title": "Mini Cooper Scores Major Coup At The One Show", "publisher": "SHOOT (2003)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/mini-cooper-scores-major-coup-one-show/" }, { "title": "One Show 2003: MINI (Best of Show, Integrated Branding)", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-client/MINI/2003" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "oslo-piercing-studio-piercing", "title": "Piercing", "brand": "Oslo Piercing Studio", "year": 2001, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Fly-posted close-ups of body parts are pasted so that nails and fixtures already on the walls poke through exactly where a piercing would sit." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Fly-poster campaign", "agency": "Leo Burnett Oslo", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Erik Heisholt" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Erik Heisholt" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Marianne Heckmann" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A small Oslo piercing studio with almost no budget won the first Outdoor Grand Prix ever awarded at Cannes. Leo Burnett Oslo photographed close-ups of a chin, a tongue, an eyebrow, an ear and a belly button, then pasted the posters in public places so that nails, rings and other fixtures already on the walls poked through the paper exactly where a piercing would sit. No media space was bought; the street supplied the jewellery. It is studied as a model of ambient thinking, in which placement is the idea and the poster is unfinished until the wall completes it. In 2002, the first year Cannes gave Press and Outdoor separate Grand Prix, all six executions made the shortlist and the campaign took the top award, though Ad Age's Stefano Hatfield dismissed the win as a cheap stunt. It had already won gold at Eurobest and went on to a One Show Gold Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "The One Show archive: Piercing (Oslo Piercing Studio)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/513/piercing/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Kampanje: Grand Prix til Leo Burnett (with one of the posters)", "url": "https://www.kampanje.com/archive/grand-prix-til-leo-burnett/385738", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Grand Prix til Leo Burnett", "publisher": "Kampanje (2002)", "url": "https://www.kampanje.com/archive/grand-prix-til-leo-burnett/385738" }, { "title": "Hard kritikk av Leos Grand Prix", "publisher": "Kampanje (2002)", "url": "https://www.kampanje.com/archive/hard-kritikk-av-leos-grand-prix/266629" }, { "title": "'Piercings' ao natural nas paredes de Oslo", "publisher": "Diário de Notícias (2006)", "url": "https://www.dn.pt/arquivo/diario-de-noticias/%27piercings%27-ao-natural-nas-paredes-de-oslo.html" }, { "title": "Oslo Piercing Studio | Piercing | The One Club", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity (One Show 2003)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/513/piercing/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "conservatives-new-labour-new-danger", "title": "New Labour, New Danger (\"Demon Eyes\")", "brand": "The Conservative Party (UK)", "year": 1996, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "Demonic red eyes peering through a gap in curtains warn that the rival party hides a new danger behind its fresh image." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Attack advertising aims squarely at the opposition, later tearing a strip from its leader's photograph to reveal the same glowing eyes." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Portraying the opposition leader as satanic is provocative enough for the advertising watchdog to ask that the image not be used again." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster campaign", "agency": "M&C Saatchi, London", "credits": [], "tagline": "New Labour, New Danger", "why_studied": "Demonic red eyes peer through a gap in red curtains above the line \"New Labour, New Danger\". M&C Saatchi, which Maurice and Charles Saatchi had set up the year before, made the campaign for John Major's Conservatives in 1996, then pushed it further: a smiling Tony Blair with a strip torn from his photograph to reveal the same glowing eyes. It is studied as the high-water mark of British attack advertising, and as a lesson in the gap between industry acclaim and votes. An advertising trade magazine named it campaign of the year, crediting it with some £5 million of free publicity for a £125,000 outlay. The Advertising Standards Authority stopped short of upholding the complaints, but ruled that the Blair version showed him as satanic and dishonest without his permission and asked for it not to be used again. The following May the Conservatives lost more than half their seats in Labour's landslide. The V&A holds the curtain poster.", "watch": [ { "label": "The curtain poster in the V&A's collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O192881/new-labour-new-danger-poster-the-conservative-party/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "New Labour New Danger (museum record)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O192881/new-labour-new-danger-poster-the-conservative-party/" }, { "title": "UK body bans Tory 'demon eyes' ad", "publisher": "UPI (1996)", "url": "https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/08/28/UK-body-bans-Tory-demon-eyes-ad/2484841204800/" }, { "title": "Echoes of 'demon eyes' Blair error in new Labour attack ad", "publisher": "The Herald (2023)", "url": "https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23446400.echoes-demon-eyes-blair-error-new-labour-attack-ad/" }, { "title": "Why M&C Saatchi has revived an old Conservative election poster", "publisher": "The Drum (2022)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/why-mc-saatchi-has-revived-old-conservative-election-poster" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bivv-bob-designated-driver", "title": "Bob (\"It's Party Time When Bob Drives\")", "brand": "Belgian Road Safety Institute (BIVV-IBSR, now Vias institute)", "year": 1995, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Bob gives the designated driver a name and a face, a recurring character cast as the hero of the evening rather than the killjoy." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Anyone can volunteer to be Bob, and drivers who pass a breath test receive a Bob key ring, turning the message into a role people take on." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster and billboard campaign (with television, radio and cinema spots)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "C'est la fête quand Bob conduit sans alcool.", "why_studied": "Instead of frightening drivers, Belgium gave the sober driver a name. In December 1995 the Belgian Road Safety Institute and the brewers' responsible-drinking group Arnoldus introduced Bob: the friend, male or female, who stays off alcohol and drives everyone home, cast as the hero of the evening rather than the killjoy. The positive message ran on television, radio, cinema and roadside billboards alongside stepped-up police checks over the festive season, and drivers who blew a clean breath test were handed a Bob key ring. It is studied as the first campaign to personify the designated driver, turning a safety rule into a social role people could volunteer for. Within a year nine in ten Belgians had heard of Bob; by 2002, 30% said they had been Bob, up from 20% in 1996. The idea spread to the Netherlands and, with European Commission funding, across Europe as a model of good practice. The institute itself stresses that fewer police checks make the campaign less successful.", "watch": [ { "label": "25 years of Bob: a compilation of the campaigns (Vias institute YouTube channel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_QIJTqDSHE", "type": "official" }, { "label": "BOB campaign page (Vias institute)", "url": "https://www.vias.be/en/companies-and-government/campaigns/bob-campaign/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"Euro Bob\": European designated driver campaign against drinking and driving 2001-2002: final report", "publisher": "SWOV library / Belgian Road Safety Institute (2002)", "url": "https://swov.nl/nl/publicatie/euro-bob-european-designated-driver-campaign-against-drinking-and-driving-2001-2002" }, { "title": "Bob and his European friends", "publisher": "Belgian Road Safety Institute presentation to the European Alcohol and Health Forum (2008)", "url": "https://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/alcohol/Forum/docs/ev_20080220_co01_en.pdf" }, { "title": "BOB", "publisher": "Vias institute", "url": "https://www.vias.be/en/companies-and-government/campaigns/bob-campaign/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/R_QIJTqDSHE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bob (\"It's Party Time When Bob Drives\") (Belgian Road Safety Institute (BIVV-IBSR, now Vias institute), 1995)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “25 ans de BOB : une compilation des campagnes réalisées”, uploaded by Vias institute", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_QIJTqDSHE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/R_QIJTqDSHE/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "chick-fil-a-eat-mor-chikin", "title": "Eat Mor Chikin", "brand": "Chick-fil-A", "year": 1995, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Cows who cannot spell vandalise a billboard to save their own skins, lobbying people to eat a different animal." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The same self-aware renegade cows return for decades, becoming the chain's recognisable brand voice across every medium." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Three-dimensional billboard campaign", "agency": "The Richards Group, Dallas", "credits": [], "tagline": "Eat Mor Chikin", "why_studied": "Two renegade cows, one standing on the other's back with a paintbrush, vandalising a billboard in the name of self-preservation: \"EAT MOR CHIKIN\". The Richards Group introduced the idea in 1995 as a single three-dimensional outdoor execution, and the joke, livestock that cannot spell lobbying you to eat a different animal, worked so well that it became Chick-fil-A's whole brand voice, spreading to radio in 1996, television in 1997 and onto buildings, costumes and plush toys. It is studied as a rare campaign born on a billboard rather than adapted to one, and as a lesson in patience: the agency ran the same self-aware cows for more than twenty years. The Dallas Morning News reported that the campaign more than doubled Chick-fil-A's same-store sales as it grew from a regional chain into one of the largest restaurant brands in America, and it won Effie awards for effectiveness, including one for sustained success.", "watch": [ { "label": "Celebrating the Cows (Chick-fil-A)", "url": "https://www.chick-fil-a.com/stories/celebrating-the-cows", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Celebrating the Cows", "publisher": "Chick-fil-A", "url": "https://www.chick-fil-a.com/stories/celebrating-the-cows" }, { "title": "Chick-fil-A ends 22-year relationship with cow campaign ad creator, The Richards Group", "publisher": "The Dallas Morning News (2016)", "url": "https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2016/07/21/chick-fil-a-ends-22-year-relationship-with-cow-campaign-ad-creator-the-richards-group/" }, { "title": "Chick-fil-A Cows recognized for Sustained Success", "publisher": "QSR Web (2009)", "url": "https://www.qsrweb.com/news/chick-fil-a-cows-recognized-for-sustained-success/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/rgchsYcBVWI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a Chick-fil-A film about Eat Mor Chikin (Chick-fil-A, 1995)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Meet the Cows Behind the “Eat Mor Chikin” Campaign”, uploaded by Chick-fil-A", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgchsYcBVWI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/rgchsYcBVWI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "milk-mustache-what-a-surprise", "title": "The Milk Mustache (\"Milk. What a Surprise!\")", "brand": "National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board (MilkPEP)", "year": 1995, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Stars such as Lauren Bacall and Naomi Campbell, lit and posed like magazine covers, lend their celebrity to an everyday drink." }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A white film of milk on a famous upper lip becomes an endlessly repeatable visual shorthand showing that even stars drink milk." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Brisk copy on nutrition gives women who had drifted away from milk practical reasons to drink it again." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine and poster campaign", "agency": "Bozell Worldwide, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Annie Leibovitz" } ], "tagline": "Milk. What a surprise!", "why_studied": "Famous faces with a white film on the upper lip, lit and posed like magazine covers. Launched in early 1995 by America's new national milk processors' promotion board, through Bozell Worldwide, the first ads put stars such as Lauren Bacall and Naomi Campbell under the line \"Milk. What a surprise!\" with brisk copy on nutrition, aimed at women who had drifted away from milk. The ads ran in more than 90 magazines, which USDA economists describe as the largest print buy ever made by a beverage advertiser. The board later took on California's \"got milk?\" line, and the mustache ran for some two decades with a revolving cast of celebrities. It is studied for the power of one endlessly repeatable visual device, and as a cautionary tale about fame versus sales: it never reversed the long national slide in milk drinking, and in 2014 the board replaced it as its lead campaign. The National Portrait Gallery holds Annie Leibovitz's 1995 Pete Sampras ad.", "watch": [ { "label": "Annie Leibovitz's 1995 Pete Sampras ad (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian)", "url": "https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.2007.257", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "New milk effort to stress nutrition", "publisher": "Supermarket News (1995)", "url": "https://www.supermarketnews.com/independents-regional-grocers/new-milk-effort-to-stress-nutrition" }, { "title": "Advertising and What We Eat: The Case of Dairy Products", "publisher": "USDA Economic Research Service", "url": "https://www.ers.usda.gov/media/11543/advertising-and-what-we-eat.pdf?v=67955" }, { "title": "Dairy Industry Shelves 'Got Milk?' for New 'Milk Life' Campaign", "publisher": "Bloomberg (2014)", "url": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-24/dairy-industry-shelves-got-milk-for-new-milk-life-campaign" }, { "title": "Milk, What a Surprise! (Peter Sampras)", "publisher": "National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (S/NPG.2007.257)", "url": "https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.2007.257" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pirelli-power-is-nothing-without-control", "title": "Power Is Nothing Without Control (Carl Lewis)", "brand": "Pirelli", "year": 1994, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "sports", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "The fastest man in the world, crouched in the blocks in red stilettos, is a visual paradox showing that speed is wasted without control." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "An Olympic champion sprinter, cast against type in red stilettos, lends his famous speed to a tyre brand." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and poster campaign", "agency": "Young & Rubicam", "credits": [ { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Annie Leibovitz" } ], "tagline": "Power is nothing without control.", "why_studied": "The fastest man in the world, crouched in the starting blocks, wearing red stiletto heels. Annie Leibovitz photographed the Olympic champion Carl Lewis in Texas in 1994 for Young & Rubicam's Pirelli campaign, and the headline did the rest: \"Power is nothing without control.\" The image dramatises what a tyre is for without showing a tyre: all that speed is useless if you cannot put it safely on the road. The Washington Post reported it going up on billboards across Europe, with Pirelli explaining that even the best performer can be let down by the wrong equipment. It is studied as a model of the visual paradox, a picture that stops you because something is wrong and then resolves into the brand's argument, and of casting a celebrity against type rather than simply borrowing his fame. The line proved so durable that Pirelli still uses it three decades on, and the Pirelli Foundation calls the photograph an indelible image in the history of visual communication.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Carl Lewis ad in Pirelli's advertising history (Fondazione Pirelli)", "url": "https://www.fondazionepirelli.org/pirelli-150-story-of-passion-and-innovation/timeless-style/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"Power is nothing without control\" celebrates 25 years", "publisher": "Pirelli (2019)", "url": "https://www.pirelli.com/global/en-ww/life/innovation/industry/-power-is-nothing-without-control-celebrates-25-years-52060/" }, { "title": "New forms of communication and expression", "publisher": "Fondazione Pirelli", "url": "https://www.fondazionepirelli.org/pirelli-150-story-of-passion-and-innovation/timeless-style/" }, { "title": "You'd Run Too If You Saw Carl Lewis in Heels", "publisher": "The Washington Post (1994)", "url": "https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1994/04/15/youd-run-too-if-you-saw-carl-lewis-in-heels/337c7a1b-285f-4724-941e-fe3c83374253/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wonderbra-hello-boys", "title": "Hello Boys", "brand": "Wonderbra (Playtex)", "year": 1994, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Two cheeky words beside a model looking down at her own cleavage turn a bra poster into a knowing joke on a huge scale." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "The provocative image sparks lasting debate about empowerment versus objectification, generating far more free coverage than its media spend." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "48-sheet outdoor poster", "agency": "TBWA, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director / Copywriter", "name": "Nigel Rose" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Ellen von Unwerth" }, { "role": "Model", "name": "Eva Herzigová" } ], "tagline": "Hello Boys.", "why_studied": "The poster that proved outdoor could out-punch television on a fraction of the budget. Eva Herzigová looking down at her own Wonderbra-assisted cleavage, two words of copy — and a £150,000 media spend that generated an estimated £5 million in free press coverage, urban legends about distracted drivers, and two decades of debate about whether it was empowerment or objectification (Herzigová has defended it as the former). Shot by Ellen von Unwerth — a female photographer's gaze, unusual for the category — and written by TBWA's Nigel Rose, it was voted the UK's most iconic outdoor image in a 2011 industry poll, and the V&A holds the poster in its permanent collection. It is studied for scale, wit, earned media before the term existed, and the cultural argument it still provokes.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A's collection", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75499/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Hello boys. The one and only Wonderbra (museum record with credits)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75499/" }, { "title": "'Hello Boys': How Wonderbra caused global fever and won the bra wars", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2020)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/inside-story-wonderbra-hello-boys/" }, { "title": "How Eva's Wonderbra poster hit the world between the eyes (budget and earned media)", "publisher": "More About Advertising", "url": "https://www.moreaboutadvertising.com/2015/08/mike-everett-how-evas-wonderbra-poster-hit-the-world-between-the-eyes/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "benetton-newborn", "title": "New Born Baby (\"Giusy\")", "brand": "United Colors of Benetton", "year": 1991, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "A blood-smeared newborn with the cord uncut, carrying only the brand's logo, deliberately tests what advertising is allowed to show." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Presented as a celebration of life, the raw image of birth provokes strong feelings that attach to the brand." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Billboard and print photograph", "agency": "In-house", "credits": [ { "role": "Photographer / Creative Director", "name": "Oliviero Toscani" } ], "tagline": "United Colors of Benetton.", "why_studied": "The photograph that forced advertising to ask what it is allowed to show. Oliviero Toscani's image of Giusy — a newborn seconds old, blood-smeared, umbilical cord uncut — carried nothing but Benetton's logo. Intended, in Benetton's words, as \"an anthem to life,\" it drew 800 complaints to the UK's Advertising Standards Authority and was withdrawn in Britain, ordered down in Palermo, and censured by Italy's advertising jury — while simultaneously winning a Swiss poster prize, being requested by a Bologna maternity hospital for its delivery room, and entering the V&A's collection. It is studied as the central case of shock and sincerity in advertising: the campaign that detached a fashion brand's ads from its product entirely and made the billboard a site of public argument.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A's collection", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75940/new-born-baby-giusy-poster-toscani-oliviero/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "New Born Baby (Giusy) — museum record", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75940/new-born-baby-giusy-poster-toscani-oliviero/" }, { "title": "Benetton to end baby ad campaign in Britain (800 ASA complaints)", "publisher": "UPI (1991)", "url": "https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/09/04/Benetton-to-end-baby-ad-campaign-in-Britain/4005683956800/" }, { "title": "Benetton's most controversial adverts (the brand's own account of Giusy's reception)", "publisher": "The Guardian (2011)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2011/nov/17/benettons-most-controversial-adverts" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "camel-joe-camel", "title": "Joe Camel (\"Smooth Character\")", "brand": "Camel (R.J. Reynolds Tobacco)", "year": 1988, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A smirking cartoon camel in sunglasses fronts the brand, proving so recognisable that young children could match him to a cigarette." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine, billboard and promotional campaign", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Smooth character.", "why_studied": "A smirking cartoon camel in sunglasses. R.J. Reynolds brought \"Old Joe\" to American magazines and billboards in 1988 for Camel's 75th birthday, adapting a 1974 French campaign, to revive a brand then most popular with smokers over 65. He halted Camel's decline, though its overall market share barely moved. His real audience emerged in December 1991, when studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that teenagers recognised him far more readily than adults, that more than 91 per cent of six-year-olds could match him to a cigarette, and that Camel's share of the illegal under-18 market had leapt from 0.5 to almost 33 per cent. It is studied as the textbook case of a mascot that succeeded with exactly the audience it was forbidden to court. In July 1997, with the Federal Trade Commission pursuing the case, Reynolds retired Joe after nine years, as a proposed tobacco settlement would have banned cartoon characters from cigarette ads.", "watch": [ { "label": "Joe Camel ads in Stanford's tobacco-advertising archive (SRITA)", "url": "https://tobacco.stanford.edu/cigarettes/cartoons/joe-camel-cartoons/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "RJR Nabisco's Cartoon Camel Promotes Camel Cigarettes to Children", "publisher": "Journal of the American Medical Association (1991), via University of Alabama CSTS", "url": "https://csts.ua.edu/files/2018/08/1991-12-11-JAMA-RJR-Nabiscos-Cartoon-Camel-Promotes-Cigs-to-Children.pdf" }, { "title": "Furor Over Smoking Camel", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1991)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-12-11-fi-221-story.html" }, { "title": "RJR Agrees to Pull Joe Camel From Ads", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1997)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-jul-11-fi-11650-story.html" }, { "title": "Collection: Joe Camel Cartoons", "publisher": "Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA)", "url": "https://tobacco.stanford.edu/cigarettes/cartoons/joe-camel-cartoons/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "economist-management-trainee", "title": "\"I never read The Economist.\" Management trainee. Aged 42.", "known_as": "I Never Read The Economist", "brand": "The Economist", "year": 1988, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "The confession of a 42-year-old management trainee warns readers of the career cost of not reading the magazine." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Dry, teasing copy flatters the audience by knowing it well enough to poke fun at it." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "48-sheet outdoor poster", "agency": "Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "David Abbott" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Ron Brown" } ], "tagline": "\"I never read The Economist.\" Management trainee. Aged 42.", "why_studied": "Nine words that flatter the reader by threatening them. David Abbott noticed The Economist's masthead looked like a 48-sheet poster — white type on red — and launched a campaign that never showed the magazine, never listed a feature, and sold entirely on the reader's fear of being the one who doesn't read it. The launch line is a confession that functions as a warning: stay a management trainee at 42, or subscribe. It is studied as the purest demonstration of tone of voice as brand asset, of knowing an audience well enough to tease it, and of a visual identity (white-out-of-red) so strong the logo became optional. The poster is held in the Victoria and Albert Museum's permanent collection, and The Economist itself credited the campaign's memorable simplicity in its obituary of Abbott.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A's collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75423/i-never-read-the-economist-poster-brown-ron/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"I never read The Economist.\" Management trainee. Aged 42 (museum record)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum, collection E.2149-1997", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75423/i-never-read-the-economist-poster-brown-ron/" }, { "title": "Ad-mirable (on David Abbott and the campaign)", "publisher": "The Economist (2014)", "url": "https://www.economist.com/business/2014/05/22/ad-mirable" }, { "title": "David Abbott obituary", "publisher": "The Guardian (2014)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/22/david-abbott" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rolling-stone-perception-reality", "title": "Perception. Reality.", "brand": "Rolling Stone", "year": 1985, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "Paired images labelled perception and reality argue to media buyers that the readers they picture as broke hippies are young professionals with money." }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Side-by-side pictures, a psychedelic VW bus beside a sensible sedan, make the argument visually, with just one word over each." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Trade print campaign", "agency": "Fallon McElligott Rice, Minneapolis", "credits": [], "tagline": "Perception. Reality.", "why_studied": "The cleanest two-word argument in print advertising. To fix Rolling Stone's problem with media buyers — who pictured its readers as broke hippies — Fallon McElligott ran paired images: on the left, \"Perception\" (a psychedelic VW bus, a tie-dyed burnout); on the right, \"Reality\" (a sensible sedan, a young professional with a wallet). Launched in 1985 and aimed at perhaps a few thousand advertising decision-makers, it repositioned the magazine's audience without changing a word of the editorial product, and Ad Age ranked it No. 20 among the campaigns of the 20th century — remarkable for a B2B trade campaign. It is studied for the diptych as argument structure, and for precision targeting: the greatest ads don't always address the public at all.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 20: Rolling Stone, \"Perception. Reality.\", Fallon McElligott Rice, 1985)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century (gallery of the Ad Age ranking)", "publisher": "CNBC", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "araldite-teapots", "title": "It Also Sticks Handles to Teapots", "brand": "Araldite", "year": 1983, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "A real car glued to a billboard proves the adhesive's strength in public, far more vividly than any claim could." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "An understated line about also sticking handles to teapots, and later follow-ups, add a dry joke to the spectacle." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Billboard with a real car glued to it", "agency": "FCO Univas, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Rob Kitchen" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Ian Potter" } ], "tagline": "It also sticks handles to teapots.", "why_studied": "The ultimate product demonstration: a real yellow Ford Cortina glued to a billboard on London's Cromwell Road, with the understated line \"It also sticks handles to teapots.\" The 1983 poster won D&AD Gold, and the campaign kept paying off its own premise — a second car was stacked on top (\"The tension mounts\"), then both were removed leaving a torn hole (\"How did we pull it off?\"). It is studied as the benchmark for demonstration advertising and single-site media thinking: one poster location, engineered as a public event, generating fame far beyond its media cost. John Hegarty has cited it as \"the ultimate product demonstration, and the ultimate demonstration of value for money.\"", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster and campaign breakdown (copywriting archive)", "url": "https://nobodyreadsads.com/1983-Araldite-glue-billboard-It-also-sticks-handles-to-teapots", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Breakdown: Araldite's \"It also sticks handles to teapots\" (credits, D&AD awards, sequels)", "publisher": "Lewis Folkard (copywriting analysis)", "url": "https://lewisfolkard.co.uk/ad-breakdown-araldites-it-also-sticks-handles-to-teapots/" }, { "title": "Immortal High Five: Sir John Hegarty (on the Araldite poster)", "publisher": "Little Black Book", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/immortal-high-five-sir-john-hegarty" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "silk-cut", "title": "Silk Cut (the purple silk)", "brand": "Silk Cut (Gallaher)", "year": 1983, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Rippling purple silk with a single slash spells out the brand name as a wordless visual pun, with no logo, product or copy beyond the health warning." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster and print campaign", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Paul Arden" }, { "role": "Originator", "name": "Charles Saatchi (after Lucio Fontana)" } ], "tagline": "(No copy — a slash in purple silk, plus the government health warning.)", "why_studied": "Advertising stripped to a pure visual pun. Constrained by UK tobacco rules, Charles Saatchi carried a Lucio Fontana slashed-canvas painting into Paul Arden's office and said: \"Here is the next campaign for Silk Cut. Photograph it.\" The resulting posters — rippling purple silk with a single cut, no logo, no product, no words except the mandatory health warning — ran for nearly two decades, and the public decoded the brand instantly every time. It is studied as the extreme case of visual branding under regulatory constraint: when you cannot say anything, a colour and a gesture can own a market (Silk Cut became Britain's best-selling cigarette). The V&A holds the posters; the campaign ended in 2002 with a fat lady in split purple silk singing, as the final UK tobacco ad ban arrived.", "watch": [ { "label": "A Silk Cut poster in the V&A's collection", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O233543/silk-cut-poster-arden-paul/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Silk Cut poster (museum record: Saatchi & Saatchi, Paul Arden)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O233543/silk-cut-poster-arden-paul/" }, { "title": "Paul Arden obituary (the Fontana story, told first-hand)", "publisher": "The Independent (2008)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/paul-arden-saatchi-saatchi-creative-director-behind-many-of-the-firms-bestknown-advertising-campaigns-805775.html" }, { "title": "Silk Cut Modern (the campaign under advertising restrictions)", "publisher": "Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising", "url": "https://tobacco.stanford.edu/cigarettes/modern-strategies/silk-cut-modern/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "stella-artois-reassuringly-expensive", "title": "Reassuringly Expensive", "brand": "Stella Artois", "year": 1982, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Two words recast a premium price, usually a drawback, as reassuring proof of quality." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Press advertising campaign", "agency": "Lowe Howard-Spink", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Geoff Seymour" } ], "tagline": "Reassuringly expensive.", "why_studied": "Most brands hide a premium price; Stella Artois made it the selling point. In 1982 Frank Lowe's young agency, Lowe Howard-Spink, gave the strong lager two words that turned its biggest drawback into proof of quality: \"Reassuringly expensive.\" The phrase started life buried in the body copy of a Stella press ad by copywriter Geoff Seymour; Lowe fished it out and made it the end line. That print origin came nearly a decade before the cinematic TV films, which began only in 1991, and the line survived until InBev put it \"into hibernation\" in 2007. It is studied as a textbook case of reframing a weakness as a benefit, and for its staying power: by 1995 Stella was Britain's bestselling take-home beer. The press strand kept its edge, too. In 2000 a Stella print campaign from Lowe, by then Lowe Lintas, won the Press & Poster Grand Prix at Cannes, a result jury president Marcello Serpa said was never in question.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lürzer's Archive: 'Reassuringly expensive' press ad from the 2000 Cannes Grand Prix-winning campaign", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/stella-artois-33/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "A new image for Stella to put off the lager louts", "publisher": "The Independent (2007)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/a-new-image-for-stella-to-put-off-the-lager-louts-401514.html" }, { "title": "Hands Up Who's Heard Of GEOFFREY SEYMOUR?", "publisher": "Dave Dye, Stuff From The Loft (2019)", "url": "https://davedye.com/2019/07/17/hands-up-whos-heard-of-geoffrey-seymour/" }, { "title": "World's best ads ever #78: Stella Artois' iconic campaign peaks with 'Devil's Island'", "publisher": "The Drum (2022)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/world-s-best-ads-ever-78-stella-artois-iconic-campaign-peaks-with-devil-s-island" }, { "title": "Cannes: Press & Poster Grand Prix an Lowe Lintas", "publisher": "Horizont (2000)", "url": "https://www.horizont.at/agenturen/news/cannes-press--poster-grand-prix-an-lowe-lintas-27706" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "avenir-myriam-demain-jenleve-le-haut", "title": "Myriam (\"Le 2 septembre, j'enlève le haut\")", "brand": "Avenir (billboard contractor)", "year": 1981, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Posters that change exactly on the promised dates prove publicly that the billboard company keeps its posting promises." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A teaser in three instalments, with a model promising to undress and then doing so, builds suspense towards a payoff naming the advertiser." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "The striptease premise provokes feminist complaints, a court order and a televised debate, multiplying free coverage." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Billboard teaser campaign (three posters)", "agency": "CLM/BBDO, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Pierre Berville" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Jean-François Jonvelle" } ], "tagline": "Le 2 septembre, j'enlève le haut.", "why_studied": "France's most famous teaser, and an advertisement for advertising itself. On 31 August 1981, some 900 large posters in Paris and six other cities showed a young woman, Myriam, in a bikini on a beach, promising \"On 2 September, I take off the top.\" On the 2nd a new poster went up: she had, and now promised the bottom for the 4th. On the 4th she appeared from behind, under the payoff \"Avenir, the billboard company that keeps its promises.\" The client was the poster contractor Avenir, whose problem was that advertisers did not trust outdoor posting dates; the campaign proved guaranteed dates in the most public way imaginable. It provoked feminist complaints, a court order in Lille to cover the posters and a television debate with a government minister, and Avenir reaped some two million francs' worth of free editorial coverage within weeks. Les Echos notes it has been taught ever since as a textbook case in French communication courses.", "watch": [ { "label": "Antenne 2 news report and debate on the campaign, 4 September 1981 (INA)", "url": "https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/i22319660/la-campagne-publicitaire-demain-j-enleve-le-bas", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Myriam : quand la publicité tient ses promesses", "publisher": "Les Echos (2010)", "url": "https://www.lesechos.fr/2010/08/myriam-quand-la-publicite-tient-ses-promesses-442278" }, { "title": "La campagne publicitaire \"Demain j'enlève le bas\" (Antenne 2 Midi, 4 September 1981)", "publisher": "INA", "url": "https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/i22319660/la-campagne-publicitaire-demain-j-enleve-le-bas" }, { "title": "Une campagne de pub inédite : « Demain, j'enlève le haut » (Affaires sensibles)", "publisher": "France Inter (2021)", "url": "https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/affaires-sensibles/une-campagne-de-pub-inedite-demain-j-enleve-le-haut-2075401" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fQiBMJRrmik/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from the teaser film for Myriam (\"Le 2 septembre, j'enlève le haut\") (Avenir (billboard contractor), 1981)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Avenir afficheur : Teasing Myriam (France, 1981)”, uploaded by La Maison de la Pub", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQiBMJRrmik", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fQiBMJRrmik/sd3.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "absolut-perfection", "title": "Absolut Perfection", "brand": "Absolut Vodka", "year": 1980, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A halo over the bottle launches a long-running format of bottle-shaped visual puns that makes the pack itself the hero of every execution." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Claiming perfection in a single word praises the vodka in lofty terms that promise nothing specific." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Print campaign", "agency": "TBWA, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Geoff Hayes" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Graham Turner" } ], "tagline": "Absolut Perfection.", "why_studied": "One bottle, two words, twenty-five years. Geoff Hayes and Graham Turner's first ad put a halo over the Absolut bottle under the headline \"Absolut Perfection,\" establishing a format so elastic — bottle-shaped visual pun plus \"Absolut ___\" — that the campaign ran to roughly 1,500 executions over 25 years, one of the longest-running print campaigns in advertising history. It is studied as the definitive campaign system: a format strong enough to absorb cities, artists (Andy Warhol painted the bottle in 1985) and decades of culture while never changing its logic, and proof that making the pack itself the hero can build a global brand. Ad Age ranked it No. 7 among the top 100 campaigns of the 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Brand history and campaign timeline (The Absolut Company)", "url": "https://theabsolutcompany.com/our-brands/absolut-vodka/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Absolut Vodka brand history (\"1980: Absolut Perfection campaign launched... 1,500 ads over 25 years\")", "publisher": "The Absolut Company (brand archive)", "url": "https://theabsolutcompany.com/our-brands/absolut-vodka/" }, { "title": "Former TBWA\\C\\D Creative Hayes Dies (credits for the first ad)", "publisher": "Adweek", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/former-tbwacd-creative-hayes-dies-84797/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 7)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "parco-can-west-wear-east", "title": "Can West Wear East?", "brand": "Parco", "year": 1979, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Faye Dunaway, in an Issey Miyake robe, embraces two Japanese girls, lending her star presence to a store that sells a point of view rather than merchandise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster campaign", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Eiko Ishioka" } ], "tagline": "Can West Wear East?", "why_studied": "Faye Dunaway, in an Issey Miyake satin robe and headdress, spreads her arms around two small Japanese girls dressed in red, a band of red pigment masking their eyes; the only words are a question, \"Can West Wear East?\". The 1979 poster was made for Parco, a youth-oriented Japanese chain of specialty stores, by Eiko Ishioka, who had forced her way into a male-dominated profession at Shiseido and became Parco's chief art director in 1971. Her Parco work rarely showed anything the stores sold. It sold a way of life instead, through sensual, self-possessed women and images that questioned gender, race and national borders. It is studied as a landmark of lifestyle advertising, the idea that a retailer can sell a point of view rather than merchandise, and the ADC Hall of Fame credits Ishioka with revolutionising the Japanese poster. M+ in Hong Kong holds the poster, and Tokyo's Museum of Contemporary Art put her Parco campaigns at the centre of a 2020 retrospective.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the M+ collection (M+, Hong Kong)", "url": "https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/collection/objects/poster-can-west-wear-east-parco-2016736/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Eiko Ishioka retrospective, with the Parco posters (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)", "url": "https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en/exhibitions/eiko-ishioka/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Poster, 'Can West Wear East?', PARCO (1979)", "publisher": "M+ Museum, Hong Kong (collection record)", "url": "https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/collection/objects/poster-can-west-wear-east-parco-2016736/" }, { "title": "The Late Eiko Ishioka Was a Costume Designer, Art Director, and Provocateur", "publisher": "W Magazine (2012)", "url": "https://www.wmagazine.com/story/eiko-ishioka-late-costume-designer-and-art-director" }, { "title": "Eiko Ishioka – ADC Hall of Fame", "publisher": "The One Club for Creativity, Creative Hall of Fame", "url": "https://creativehalloffame.org/inductees/eiko-ishioka/" }, { "title": "Eiko Ishioka: Blood, Sweat, and Tears—A Life of Design", "publisher": "Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2020)", "url": "https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en/exhibitions/eiko-ishioka/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tory-labour-isnt-working", "title": "Labour Isn't Working", "brand": "The Conservative Party (UK)", "year": 1978, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "comparative", "note": "A direct attack on the governing party blames it for unemployment and declares Britain better off with the Conservatives." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "A long dole queue snaking towards an unemployment office makes joblessness the threat and a change of government the remedy." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Three words pun on the governing party's name and the state of the nation, landing the attack as a memorable joke." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Outdoor poster", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Andrew Rutherford" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Martyn Walsh" } ], "tagline": "Labour isn't working. Britain's better off with the Conservatives.", "why_studied": "The poster that brought modern advertising techniques to British politics. A dole queue snakes toward an Unemployment Office under three words that pun on the governing party's name and the nation's condition. The queue was about twenty Hendon Young Conservative volunteers photographed repeatedly and composited — a fake that became a scandal that became free media when Chancellor Denis Healey attacked it in Parliament (\"selling politics like soap-powder\"), guaranteeing front pages. Revived as \"Labour Still Isn't Working\" for the 1979 election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power — the party treasurer claimed it won the election — it was voted poster of the century by Campaign's jury in 1999 and is held by the V&A. It is studied as the founding case of attack advertising in UK politics and of controversy as a media multiplier.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A's collection", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76224/labour-still-isnt-working-poster-rutherford-andrew/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Labour Still Isn't Working (museum record with credits)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76224/labour-still-isnt-working-poster-rutherford-andrew/" }, { "title": "Tory advert rated poster of the century", "publisher": "The Guardian (1999)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/1999/oct/16/advertising.mondaymediasection" }, { "title": "'Epoch-making' poster was clever fake (the 20-volunteer composite; Healey's attack)", "publisher": "BBC News", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/1222326.stm" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "benson-and-hedges-surreal-posters", "title": "Surreal Gold Pack Posters", "brand": "Benson & Hedges (Gallaher)", "year": 1977, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Magritte-like visual riddles hide the gold pack inside baffling pictures with almost no words, so the harder each is to decode, the longer people look." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster and press campaign", "agency": "Collett Dickenson Pearce", "credits": [ { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Alan Waldie" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Brian Duffy" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Neil Godfrey" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Jimmy Wormser" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Tony Brignull" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Posters with no people, no slogan and almost no words, just a gold pack hidden inside a baffling picture. In 1977 Collett Dickenson Pearce abandoned its much-imitated Gold Box work for Gallaher's Benson & Hedges and, facing government rules that left little it could show or say about the product, art director Alan Waldie proposed Magritte-like visual riddles. Brian Duffy photographed the first, a pack beside a mousehole; later classics included Neil Godfrey and Jimmy Wormser's 'Pyramids', shot on location in Egypt. Waldie's logic was that the harder a poster was to decode, the longer people would stand and look at it. By the 1980s some executions showed no intact pack at all, leaving the government health warning as the only copy. It is studied as a landmark of British art direction and of creativity forced by regulation; the V&A, which holds printer's proofs from the campaign, says it stretched the boundaries of advertising photography, and the History of Advertising Trust keeps Waldie's archive.", "watch": [ { "label": "V&A: 'Pyramids' poster (printer's proof)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75989/pyramids-poster-godfrey-neil/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The Duffy Archive: 'Mousehole', the campaign's first image (1977)", "url": "https://www.duffyarchive.com/adverts/benson-hedges-mousehole/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pyramids (poster), Collett Dickenson Pearce for Benson & Hedges", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75989/pyramids-poster-godfrey-neil/" }, { "title": "Benson & Hedges - Mousehole - 1977", "publisher": "The Duffy Archive", "url": "https://www.duffyarchive.com/adverts/benson-hedges-mousehole/" }, { "title": "The Alan Waldie Archive comes to HAT", "publisher": "History of Advertising Trust", "url": "https://www.hatads.org.uk/news/22/The-Alan-Waldie-Archive-comes-to-HAT" }, { "title": "B&H, Part 2: The surreal years.", "publisher": "Dave Dye, Stuff From The Loft (2016)", "url": "https://davedye.com/2016/05/02/that-funny-looking-king-size-brand-pt-2-the-surreal-years/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "jesus-jeans-chi-mi-ama-mi-segua", "title": "Chi mi ama mi segua (\"He who loves me, follows me\")", "brand": "Jesus Jeans (Maglificio Calzificio Torinese)", "year": 1973, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Laying a Gospel line across a close-up of a model's behind in tiny shorts deliberately courts accusations of blasphemy." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrowing the words of the Gospels and the First Commandment hijacks religious authority to sell a young jeans label." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster and press campaign", "agency": "Agenzia Italia, Milan", "credits": [ { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Oliviero Toscani" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Emanuele Pirella" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Michael Goettsche" } ], "tagline": "Chi mi ama mi segua.", "why_studied": "A close-up of a model's behind in tiny denim shorts, with a line from the Gospels laid across it: \"Chi mi ama mi segua\", he who loves me, follows me. Its companion poster showed unbuttoned jeans under \"Non avrai altro jeans all'infuori di me\", a rewrite of the First Commandment. Made in 1973 for Jesus, a young Turin jeans label, the campaign was shot by Oliviero Toscani; the 1973 annual credits copywriter Emanuele Pirella and art director Michael Goettsche of Agenzia Italia, though Toscani long claimed the lines as his own. The Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano called it blasphemous, the vice squad seized posters, and Pier Paolo Pasolini replied in the Corriere della Sera, calling it the new spirit of the second industrial revolution. It is studied in Italy as a turning point in the country's advertising, the moment photography and provocation took over, and as the launch pad for Toscani's career long before Benetton.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster, with its story (Il Fotografo)", "url": "https://ilfotografo.it/il-fotografo/chi-mi-ama-mi-segua/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Chi mi ama, mi segua", "publisher": "Il Fotografo (2020)", "url": "https://ilfotografo.it/il-fotografo/chi-mi-ama-mi-segua/" }, { "title": "'Chi mi ama mi segua' compie 50 anni. Fu il colpo di genio di Oliviero Toscani", "publisher": "Il Fatto Quotidiano (2023)", "url": "https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2023/11/16/chi-mi-ama-mi-segua-compie-50-anni-fu-il-colpo-di-genio-di-oliviero-toscani-lo-difese-pure-pierpaolo-pasolini-che-gli-dedico-uno-dei-suoi-scritti-corsari/7355385/" }, { "title": "Jesus Jeans. Alcune precisazioni su una campagna che ha fatto storia", "publisher": "Spot and Web (2025)", "url": "https://www.spotandweb.it/news/877431/jesus-jeans-alcune-precisazioni-su-una-campagna-che-ha-fatto-storia.html" }, { "title": "Drapers Denim Report: The ads that rocked the industry", "publisher": "Drapers (2015)", "url": "https://www.drapersonline.com/insight/analysis/drapers-denim-report-the-ads-that-rocked-the-industry" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "singapore-stop-at-two", "title": "Stop at Two (\"Girl or Boy, Two Is Enough\")", "brand": "Singapore Family Planning and Population Board", "year": 1972, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Two sisters of different ages sharing an apple under one umbrella picture the ideal family as two children, spaced apart, whatever their sex." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster campaign (with bus panels, print, television and cinema)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Girl or boy, two is enough.", "why_studied": "Two little sisters, one visibly older than the other, share an apple under an umbrella. From 1972 Singapore's Family Planning and Population Board blanketed the island with the message \"Girl or boy, two is enough\" on posters, bus panels and magazine ads, on television and cinema screens, and even in songs. The details were deliberate: the iconic 1978 poster shows two girls to counter the preference for sons, with an age gap to encourage parents to space their children. It is studied as a rare case of advertising working hand in hand with hard policy, and as a cautionary tale. The posters ran alongside disincentives for larger families, from reduced tax relief to lower priority for housing and school places, and the drive worked so well that by 1987 the government reversed course with a new slogan: \"Have three or more, if you can afford it.\" That year the Los Angeles Times reported that the campaign had worked too well.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Early Days of Family Planning in Singapore, with the 1978 poster (BiblioAsia, National Library Board)", "url": "https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/vol-18-issue-3-oct-dec-2022-family-planning-singapore/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "How Singapore Became the Unlikely Poster Child for Good Government Design (AIGA Eye on Design)", "url": "https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/how-singapore-became-the-unlikely-poster-child-for-good-government-design/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Early Days of Family Planning in Singapore", "publisher": "BiblioAsia, National Library Board Singapore (2022)", "url": "https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/vol-18-issue-3-oct-dec-2022-family-planning-singapore/" }, { "title": "Creating the Right Environment: Poster Collection at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library", "publisher": "BiblioAsia, National Library Board Singapore (2007)", "url": "https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/vol-3-issue2-jul-2007-poster-collection-right-environment/" }, { "title": "'Stop at 2' Campaign Works Too Well; Singapore Urges New Baby Boom", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1987)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-21-mn-8983-story.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "hec-pregnant-man", "title": "Pregnant Man (\"Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?\")", "brand": "Health Education Council (UK)", "year": 1970, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A man resting his hand on a heavily pregnant belly reverses the roles, building empathy through one absurd picture rather than pages of argument." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "A heavily pregnant man is an image many find shocking, which is exactly what makes men stop and look." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A public health body uses role reversal to urge men to share responsibility for contraception." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster", "agency": "Cramer Saatchi, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Jeremy Sinclair" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Bill Atherton" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Alan Brooking" } ], "tagline": "Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?", "why_studied": "A man, hand resting on a heavily pregnant belly, and a question aimed squarely at his half of the population. The Health Education Council wanted men to share responsibility for contraception, and the young agency Cramer Saatchi answered with a role reversal: art director Bill Atherton asked \"why not have a pregnant man?\", Jeremy Sinclair wrote the line and Alan Brooking took the photograph. Many people found it shocking, even offensive, because contraception was rarely discussed in public and the image upends masculinity, but those shock tactics are exactly what made men look. It is studied as a masterclass in empathy by inversion, one absurd picture doing the work of a leaflet's worth of argument about free contraception and advice. The V&A calls it a famous example of the power of advertising that has entered British popular iconography; it is held by the V&A and the Science Museum Group, and Saatchi & Saatchi revived it in 2022 for the US abortion debate.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102634/would-you-be-more-careful-poster-brooking-alan/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The poster in the Science Museum Group collection", "url": "https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8606792/would-you-be-more-careful-if-it-was-you-that-got-pregnant", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant? (museum record)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102634/would-you-be-more-careful-poster-brooking-alan/" }, { "title": "'Would you be more careful if it was you that got pregnant?' (collection record)", "publisher": "Science Museum Group", "url": "https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8606792/would-you-be-more-careful-if-it-was-you-that-got-pregnant" }, { "title": "A conversation with the Saatchi creatives behind the original Pregnant Man ad", "publisher": "The Drum (2022)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/conversation-with-the-saatchi-creatives-behind-the-original-pregnant-man-ad" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "amul-girl-topicals", "title": "The Amul Girl Topicals (\"Utterly Butterly Delicious\")", "brand": "Amul (Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation)", "year": 1966, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Fresh hoardings pegged to whatever the country is talking about, from elections to cricket, let the brand comment on the news week after week." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A small girl in a polka-dot dress fronts every execution, a recurring character audiences have recognised for decades." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Each topical comment lands as a one-line pun before the familiar butter sign-off." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Topical hoardings, later press and social media", "agency": "daCunha Communications, Mumbai", "credits": [ { "role": "Creator", "name": "Sylvester daCunha" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Eustace Fernandes" } ], "tagline": "Utterly Butterly Delicious", "why_studied": "Since 1966 a small girl in a polka-dot dress has been commenting on the news from Amul's billboards. Adman Sylvester daCunha and his art director Eustace Fernandes created her as a mischievous answer to a rival butter brand's mascot girl, and the first topical hoarding, a horse-racing pun on \"Thoroughbread\", set the formula: a fresh execution pegged to whatever the country is talking about, from elections and scandals to cricket and cinema, a one-line pun, and the sign-off \"Utterly Butterly Delicious\". Output grew from about one ad a month in the 1960s to several a week, and Amul's own managing director says the topicals have never been submitted to the client for approval. It is studied as one of the longest continuously running advertising campaigns in the world and as proof that a brand can own the national conversation with a cartoon and a pun, moving from hoardings to print, TV and social media without changing its voice.", "watch": [ { "label": "The topicals archive (Amul)", "url": "https://amul.com/topicals", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Amul Girl turns 50: Meet the three men who keep her going", "publisher": "The Economic Times (2016)", "url": "https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/advertising/amul-girl-turns-50-meet-the-three-men-who-keep-her-going/articleshow/54872391.cms" }, { "title": "How Sylvester daCunha made the Amul Girl ad a chronicle of India (column by Amul's managing director)", "publisher": "The Indian Express (2023)", "url": "https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/sylvester-dacunha-amul-girl-ad-chronicle-of-india-8687296/" }, { "title": "Tributes for creator of India's iconic Amul girl ad", "publisher": "BBC News (2023)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-65981967" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JI1tCBXuWKs/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from an NDTV report on The Amul Girl Topicals (\"Utterly Butterly Delicious\") (Amul (Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation), 1966)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Amul's 'utterly butterly' girl: 50 years of news with humour”, uploaded by NDTV", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI1tCBXuWKs" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "avis-we-try-harder", "title": "We Try Harder (\"Avis is only No. 2\")", "brand": "Avis", "year": 1963, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Admitting it is only number two becomes the reason to choose the company, because it has to try harder." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "An honest confession that no company normally makes buys credibility for every service claim that follows." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Calling itself number two implicitly measures the company against the market leader, casting it as the hungrier challenger." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and television campaign", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York", "credits": [], "tagline": "Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So we try harder.", "why_studied": "The founding document of underdog positioning. In 1963, DDB opened an Avis campaign by admitting the one thing no company ever says — we're not the leader — and turned it into the reason to choose them: \"When you're only No. 2, you try harder. Or else.\" The confession bought credibility for every claim that followed (shorter lines, cleaner ashtrays, fuller tanks), and \"We Try Harder\" survived as the company's positioning for half a century. Ad Age ranked it No. 10 among the campaigns of the 20th century. It is studied in every strategy course as the canonical demonstration that a weakness, honestly owned, can be a stronger platform than a manufactured strength — the same honesty engine DDB had built for Volkswagen, applied to services.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 10: Avis, \"We try harder,\" DDB, 1963)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century (gallery of the Ad Age ranking)", "publisher": "CNBC", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tokyo-1964-olympics-sprinters-poster", "title": "The Start of the Sprinters' Dash (Tokyo 1964)", "brand": "Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games Organising Committee", "year": 1962, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Six sprinters exploding off the line against pure black capture the thrill of the Games in a single frozen instant." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "A technically ambitious photographic poster presents post-war Japan to the world as modern, dynamic and assured." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Official poster (colour photogravure)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Yusaku Kamekura" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Osamu Hayasaki" }, { "role": "Photo Director", "name": "Jo Murakoshi" } ], "tagline": "Tokyo 1964", "why_studied": "Six sprinters explode off the line against pure black, with the Olympic rings and \"TOKYO 1964\" in gold beneath. Yusaku Kamekura's second official poster for the Tokyo Games was one of the first Olympic posters built on a photograph rather than an illustration, and getting that photograph was an ordeal: on a cold February evening in the National Stadium, American servicemen from the Tachikawa air base and Japanese amateur athletes made around 80 false starts over three hours before Osamu Hayasaki caught the frame, with Jo Murakoshi directing the photography. Released in 1962 and printed in colour photogravure, it is studied as a landmark of photographic poster design and of post-war Japan presenting itself to the world as modern, dynamic and technically assured. Toyama's design museum calls it one of the most iconic posters of post-war Japan and the starting point for the spread of gravure-printed posters; it is held by the V&A and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O137699/the-start-of-the-sprinters-poster-kamekura-yusaku/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The official poster in the Olympic Museum collection (Lausanne)", "url": "https://olympic-museum-artefacts.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/150163/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Celebrating the legacy of Kamekura Yusaku's iconic Tokyo 1964 Olympics identity", "publisher": "It's Nice That (2021)", "url": "https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/kamekura-yusaku-tokyo-1964-olympics-identity-graphic-design-040821" }, { "title": "The Start of the Sprinters' Dash (museum record, E.341-2006)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O137699/the-start-of-the-sprinters-poster-kamekura-yusaku/" }, { "title": "Tokyo Olympics No. 2", "publisher": "JAPAN Design Resource Database (Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design)", "url": "https://designdesigndesign.jp/en/database/01_01/" }, { "title": "Tokyo 1964, official poster (collection record)", "publisher": "The Olympic Museum, Lausanne", "url": "https://olympic-museum-artefacts.zetcom.net/en/collection/item/150163/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "levys-you-dont-have-to-be-jewish", "title": "You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's", "brand": "Levy's (Henry S. Levy & Sons)", "year": 1961, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Ordinary New Yorkers found around the city, not polished models, bite into sandwiches to show that people of every background enjoy the bread." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A short, disarming headline plays gently on expectations about who eats Jewish rye." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Subway poster campaign", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Judy Protas" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "William Taubin" }, { "role": "Photographer", "name": "Howard Zieff" } ], "tagline": "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's.", "why_studied": "A Brooklyn bakery wanted New Yorkers of every background to buy its rye, so Doyle Dane Bernbach put them on the subway walls. Each poster shows one face, unmistakably not the bakery's usual customer, mid-bite into a sandwich under Judy Protas's line \"You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's real Jewish Rye.\" The campaign began in 1961 and ran through the 1970s; for the best-known 1967 posters, photographer Howard Zieff deliberately cast ordinary people he found around the city, including a railroad engineer, a restaurant worker and a boy from Harlem, rather than polished models. It is studied as a classic of DDB's \"new advertising\": a short, disarming headline, a plain photograph, no clutter, and copywriter and art director working as one. It is also an early, affectionate celebration of New York's diversity in mainstream advertising. The line has outlived the campaign by decades, and the posters are held by the V&A and the Library of Congress.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the V&A collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74516/you-dont-have-to-be-poster-zieff-howard/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "A poster from the series at the Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/89710293/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Judy Protas, Writer of Slogan for Levy's Real Jewish Rye, Dies at 91", "publisher": "The New York Times (2014)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/business/judy-protas-writer-of-slogan-for-levys-real-jewish-rye-dies-at-91.html" }, { "title": "From Ordinary Faces, Extraordinary Ads (on photographer Howard Zieff)", "publisher": "The New York Times (2002)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/21/arts/arts-in-america-from-ordinary-faces-extraordinary-ads.html" }, { "title": "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's real Jewish Rye (museum record)", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74516/you-dont-have-to-be-poster-zieff-howard/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "punt-e-mes-armando-testa", "title": "Punt e Mes", "brand": "Carpano (Punt e Mes)", "year": 1960, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A sphere hovering above a half-sphere turns the name, Piedmontese for a point and a half, into a shape, fusing word and image in one sign." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Offset poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Armando Testa" } ], "tagline": "Punt e Mes", "why_studied": "Punt e Mes is Piedmontese for 'a point and a half', named, legend says, after a Turin stockbroker's order for vermouth with half a measure of bitter added. In 1960 Armando Testa turned that name into a picture: a sphere hovering above a half-sphere, the brand set beneath in bold black capitals. The shape simply is the name. It is studied as a masterclass in fusing word and image, the kind of reduction Testa drew from geometric abstraction, and as proof that an advertising sign can outgrow its campaign: the Castello di Rivoli museum singles it out among his images whose fame outran even more successful campaigns. Apollo traces the idea to a Japanese Daruma doll Testa found in San Francisco. Carpano, by its own account, still uses the sphere-and-a-half as the Punt e Mes logo, and in 2015 a version four metres across was installed outside Turin's Porta Susa station in tribute to the man often called the father of modern Italian advertising.", "watch": [ { "label": "Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collection record", "url": "https://www.stedelijk.nl/nl/collectie/21333-armando-testa-punt-e-mes", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Apollo on Testa's Punt e Mes campaign", "url": "https://apollo-magazine.com/armando-testa-vermouth-italian-advertising-alcohol/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The intoxicating adverts of Armando Testa", "publisher": "Apollo (2024)", "url": "https://apollo-magazine.com/armando-testa-vermouth-italian-advertising-alcohol/" }, { "title": "Armando Testa", "publisher": "Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea (2001)", "url": "https://www.castellodirivoli.org/en/mostra/armando-testa/" }, { "title": "Torino, a Porta Susa arriva il Punt e Mes di Armando Testa", "publisher": "la Repubblica Torino (2015)", "url": "https://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2015/10/24/foto/torino_a_porta_susa_arriva_il_punt_e_mes_di_armando_testa-125796519/1/" }, { "title": "History - Punt e Mes", "publisher": "Punt e Mes (Carpano)", "url": "https://www.puntemes.it/en/storia" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "vw-think-small", "title": "Think Small", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 1959, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Calling the car small and even a lemon turns its apparent weaknesses into reasons to trust and buy it." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Self-deprecating honesty makes the brand believable at a time when other car ads only promised bigger and longer." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Wry, self-mocking copy and a tiny car adrift in white space make the reader smile while being persuaded." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Print campaign", "agency": "Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Julian Koenig" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Helmut Krone" } ], "tagline": "Think small.", "why_studied": "The ad that started advertising's creative revolution. At a time when American car ads promised bigger, longer, lower, DDB sold the Beetle by admitting what it was: small, odd, honest. A tiny car floats in a sea of white space above self-deprecating copy; the follow-up, \"Lemon,\" opens by calling the product a dud (one car was rejected for a blemished chrome strip) before revealing Volkswagen's inspectors as the reason you'll never see it. It is studied as the founding document of modern advertising: honesty as persuasion, art director and copywriter working as one team, and layout, wit and white space doing the convincing. Ad Age ranked it the No. 1 advertising campaign of the 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign retrospective with the ads (CNBC gallery of Ad Age's Top 100)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 1)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top 100 Advertising Campaigns (Bob Garfield's essay on \"Lemon\" and the creative revolution)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/news/top-100-advertising-campaigns-discovering-humanity-playing-excesses-advertising-edges-vernacular-enriches-lives/62925" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kpibIsyvHWw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a video about Think Small (Volkswagen, 1959)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1959 VW Beetle 'Think Small' Advert Explained”, uploaded by Chris Bartley", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpibIsyvHWw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kpibIsyvHWw/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rolls-royce-electric-clock", "title": "\"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock\"", "known_as": "At 60 Miles an Hour", "brand": "Rolls-Royce", "year": 1958, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "A measurable detail about the clock being the loudest noise, backed by long copy full of engineering facts, proves quality rather than boasting about luxury." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Print advertisement", "agency": "Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "David Ogilvy" } ], "tagline": "At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.", "why_studied": "The most famous headline in advertising — and Ogilvy didn't write it. After three weeks immersed in research on the car, he found the line in a technical editor's review in The Motor magazine, recognized it as the perfect expression of engineering as luxury, and set it over 600-plus words of pure fact (\"the engine note comes mainly from the fan belt\"). He drafted 26 headlines and had colleagues vote. Published in 1958, the ad is studied as the foundation of long-copy, research-driven advertising: specificity as persuasion, the quiet brag of a measurable detail, and the humility to recognize that the best line may already exist in the product's own story. Ogilvy called it the best headline he ever wrote — the joke being that his genius was in the finding, not the writing.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad with its full copy (Creativepool's 'ads that made history')", "url": "https://creativepool.com/magazine/inspiration/ads-that-made-history-at-60-miles-an-hour---.25839", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ads that made history: At 60 miles an hour...", "publisher": "Creativepool", "url": "https://creativepool.com/magazine/inspiration/ads-that-made-history-at-60-miles-an-hour---.25839" }, { "title": "David Ogilvy's Rolls-Royce Advert: 6 Lessons for Copywriters (headline sourced from The Motor)", "publisher": "Enchanting Marketing", "url": "https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/david-ogilvy-rolls-royce-advert/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/8nP9HlMLpfo/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a video about \"At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock\" (Rolls-Royce, 1958)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1959 Rolls-Royce advert written by David Ogilvy”, uploaded by AD Wonk", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nP9HlMLpfo", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/8nP9HlMLpfo/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "clairol-does-she-or-doesnt-she", "title": "Does She... or Doesn't She?", "brand": "Clairol", "year": 1957, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A teasing double entendre turns hair colouring from a guilty secret into a playful promise that nobody else will be able to tell." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Wholesome mothers and daughters appear in the ads, showing that respectable everyday women colour their hair too." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and television campaign", "agency": "Foote, Cone & Belding", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Shirley Polykoff" } ], "tagline": "Does she... or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure.", "why_studied": "A double entendre that destigmatized an entire product category. In 1957, dyed hair signaled artificiality — something 'nice women' didn't do. Shirley Polykoff's line turned the stigma into the promise: colour so natural that no one can tell, with wholesome mothers and daughters in the ads to settle which reading of the question was intended. Hair-colour use among American women rose from a small minority to a mainstream behaviour in the decade after the campaign broke, and Polykoff became one of the most celebrated copywriters of her era. Ranked No. 9 on Ad Age's campaigns of the century, it is studied for removing a social barrier rather than arguing a product benefit — and as a landmark of a woman writing to women in a voice the category had never used.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 9: Clairol, \"Does she... or doesn't she?\", FCB, 1957)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century (gallery of the Ad Age ranking)", "publisher": "CNBC", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GXkzl2I5CH8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Does She... or Doesn't She? (Clairol, 1957)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Vintage: 1957 Commercial for Clairol \"Does She or Doesn't She\"”, uploaded by Vintage Rose", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXkzl2I5CH8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GXkzl2I5CH8/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "osborne-toro-bull-billboards", "title": "El Toro de Osborne (The Osborne Bull)", "brand": "Osborne (Veterano brandy)", "year": 1956, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A giant black bull silhouette, with no words, stands in for the brand along the roads until it becomes a recognised emblem in its own right." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Roadside billboards (painted sheet-metal silhouettes)", "agency": "Azor Publicidad, Madrid", "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Manolo Prieto" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A giant black bull standing alone on a Spanish hilltop, with not a word written on it. In 1956 the sherry house Osborne asked the Madrid agency Azor to advertise its Veterano brandy along the nation's roads, and Azor's art director Manolo Prieto drew a bull in silhouette, which the client first rejected as better suited to a cattle ranch. The first board, made of wood, went up beside the Madrid–Burgos road in 1957. Road laws pushed the bulls further back, so they grew to around 14 metres, and in 1988 the brand lettering was painted out. When the government ordered their removal in 1994, a public outcry led Congress to defend them as cultural and artistic heritage, and in 1997 the Supreme Court let them stay. It is studied as the advertisement that outlived its message: a mark so simple, and so well placed, that it became landscape and then national emblem. In 2003 Spain's FAD design association named it the icon of the Spanish 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "The bulls and their history, from Osborne (brand site)", "url": "https://www.osborne.es/en/toro-de-osborne-en-el-mundo", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The man behind Spain's iconic bull", "publisher": "El País (2017)", "url": "https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2017/04/10/inenglish/1491822081_175266.html" }, { "title": "Spain's roadside bulls live to fight another day", "publisher": "The Independent (1994)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/spain-s-roadside-bulls-live-to-fight-another-day-1439879.html" }, { "title": "El Toro de Osborne", "publisher": "Fundación Manolo Prieto", "url": "https://www.fundacionmanoloprieto.org/obra-grafica/toro-de-osborne/" }, { "title": "Toro de Osborne", "publisher": "Osborne (brand history)", "url": "https://www.osborne.es/en/toro-de-osborne-en-el-mundo" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/k_j6ziMHblA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from an Osborne film about El Toro de Osborne (The Osborne Bull) (Osborne (Veterano brandy), 1956)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “El Toro de Osborne y sus orígenes”, uploaded by Osborne Oficial", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_j6ziMHblA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/k_j6ziMHblA/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "marlboro-man", "title": "The Marlboro Man", "brand": "Marlboro (Philip Morris)", "year": 1955, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "The cowboy, the most masculine image in American culture, lends his rugged myth to a filter cigarette once sold to women." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A recurring cowboy and his mythic Marlboro Country become the brand itself, with no argument about the product needed." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and television campaign", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Chicago", "credits": [], "tagline": "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country.", "why_studied": "The most consequential repositioning in advertising history — studied today as both masterwork and warning. In 1954, Marlboro was a tiny \"Mild as May\" women's cigarette; Leo Burnett relaunched it in 1955 around the most masculine image in American culture, the cowboy, making the new filter acceptable to men without ever arguing about filters. Sales exploded from 18 million cigarettes in 1954 to over 20 billion within three years, and by the early 1960s the imagery was distilled to the cowboy alone and his mythic home, \"Marlboro Country.\" Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 3 of the 20th century. It is taught as the definitive proof that advertising sells identity, not product attributes — and, given what the product was, as the sharpest ethics case the industry ever produced.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign history with original materials (Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising)", "url": "https://tobacco-img.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/06212334/marlboro_history.pdf", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Marlboro campaign history (agency documents: first cowboy ad, sales figures, Marlboro Country)", "publisher": "Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (archive)", "url": "https://tobacco-img.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/06212334/marlboro_history.pdf" }, { "title": "The Marlboro Man: The Making of an American Image", "publisher": "Florida Gulf Coast University (academic text)", "url": "https://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/tdugas/ids3301/acrobat/marlboroman.pdf" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 3)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hathaway-man", "title": "The Man in the Hathaway Shirt", "brand": "C.F. Hathaway", "year": 1951, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "A simple eyepatch gives an ordinary shirt ad story appeal, making readers wonder who the man is and what happened to his eye." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "The same patched man recurs for decades until the eyepatch alone identifies the brand without its name." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print campaign", "agency": "Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative", "name": "David Ogilvy" }, { "role": "Model", "name": "Baron George Wrangell" } ], "tagline": "The man in the Hathaway shirt.", "why_studied": "A 50-cent drugstore eyepatch that built an agency empire. On the way to a 1951 photo shoot for a small Maine shirtmaker with a $30,000 budget, David Ogilvy bought some eyepatches and asked the photographer to shoot a few frames \"to humour me.\" The patch gave an ordinary shirt ad what Ogilvy called \"story appeal\" — who is this man, and what happened to his eye? The first insertion in The New Yorker cost $3,176; within a week every Hathaway shirt in New York had sold. The campaign ran for decades, eventually dropping the brand name entirely because the eyepatch alone identified it. Ranked No. 22 on Ad Age's campaigns of the century, it is studied as the founding demonstration of intrigue as a selling device — and the ad that made Ogilvy famous.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign's History of Advertising entry on the eyepatch", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-no-110-hathaway-mans-eyepatch/1317084", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Advertising: One-Eyed Flattery (contemporaneous report)", "publisher": "TIME (1952)", "url": "https://time.com/archive/6797296/advertising-one-eyed-flattery/" }, { "title": "History of advertising No 110: The Hathaway man's eyepatch", "publisher": "Campaign", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-no-110-hathaway-mans-eyepatch/1317084" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 22)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "maidenform-i-dreamed", "title": "I Dreamed I Went Shopping in My Maidenform Bra", "brand": "Maidenform", "year": 1949, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "A woman dreaming she is out shopping in only her bra turns an unmentionable product into witty fantasy." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Showing underwear in a public setting is risqué enough to draw complaints, which only helps the idea catch fire." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertising campaign", "agency": "Norman, Craig & Kummel", "credits": [], "tagline": "I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform bra", "why_studied": "A woman stands in a shop, impeccably dressed except that above the waist she wears only her bra: \"I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform bra.\" Written by a woman copywriter at the agency now known as Norman, Craig & Kummel, the 1949 ad drew little enthusiasm at first, even from Maidenform's Ida Rosenthal, then caught fire despite complaints that it was risqué. The formula ran for 20 years, one of the longest-running campaigns in advertising, in more than 100 variations across over 15 national publications. Its Dreamers won elections, fought fires, served as ambassadors and posed as the Venus de Milo. It is studied for turning an unmentionable product into witty fantasy, and for its contested place in gender history: some critics read it as mocking women's ambitions, others as a proto-feminist wish. Ad Age ranked it No. 28 of the century, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History preserves the campaign in its Maidenform Collection.", "watch": [ { "label": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History: the 1949 'I dreamed I went shopping' ad", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/archival-item/sova-nmah-ac-0585-ref1368", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999), archived copy via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" }, { "title": "Maidenform Collection, NMAH.AC.0585", "publisher": "Archives Center, Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "url": "https://sova.si.edu/record/nmah.ac.0585" }, { "title": "They Made America: Primary Sources (Ida Rosenthal)", "publisher": "PBS / WGBH (excerpting Time, 1960)", "url": "http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/filmmore/ps_rosenthal.html" }, { "title": "The Id Goes Shopping in Its Maidenform Bra: Navigating Gender Spheres in the Postwar \"Dreams\" Campaign", "publisher": "Astrid Van den Bossche, Advertising & Society Review (Project MUSE) (2014)", "url": "https://muse.jhu.edu/article/548119" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "monsavon-au-lait", "title": "Monsavon au lait", "brand": "Monsavon", "year": 1949, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A cow whose udders empty straight into a giant bar of soap shows the milk ingredient in one picture, grasped in a second with barely a word." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "The cheerful pink-and-white cow turns the selling point into a sight gag, proof that a poster can be funny and still sell." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Raymond Savignac" } ], "tagline": "Monsavon au lait", "why_studied": "A cow, a bar of soap and the sight gag that made Raymond Savignac. Monsavon's selling point was the milk in its soap, so he took the shortest route between the two: a cheerful pink-and-white cow whose udders empty straight into a giant bar of the product. As he later explained, he simply thought of soap for the brand and a cow for the milk. Savignac, once Cassandre's assistant, was still unknown at 41; France's national museum database records that L'Oréal's chief spotted the design at a 1949 exhibition Savignac shared with Bernard Villemot. It is studied as a model of the single-idea visual joke, understood in a second with barely a word, and as proof that a poster could be funny and still sell. The Guardian's obituary called it a visual scandal. It launched his fame: Savignac liked to say he had been born at 41 from the Monsavon cow's udder, and he went on to design more than 600 advertising posters.", "watch": [ { "label": "Musée international de la parfumerie, Grasse (POP / Joconde record)", "url": "https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/08770010974", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Alliance Graphique Internationale: Monsavon with Milk", "url": "https://a-g-i.org/design/monsavon-with-milk", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Raymond Savignac", "publisher": "The Guardian (2002)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/nov/09/guardianobituaries2" }, { "title": "Monsavon au lait", "publisher": "Musée international de la parfumerie, Grasse (POP, Ministère de la Culture)", "url": "https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/08770010974" }, { "title": "Raymond Savignac", "publisher": "The Independent (2003)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/raymond-savignac-123340.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "de-beers-a-diamond-is-forever", "title": "A Diamond Is Forever", "brand": "De Beers", "year": 1947, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Four words fuse a diamond with eternal commitment, attaching the emotion of lasting love to the engagement ring." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "The vague ideal of forever promises nothing measurable about the stone, yet makes selling one on feel unthinkable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print campaign and slogan", "agency": "N.W. Ayer & Son, Philadelphia", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Frances Gerety" } ], "tagline": "A diamond is forever.", "why_studied": "Four words that invented a social custom. Copywriter Frances Gerety scribbled \"A Diamond Is Forever\" late one night in 1947, defended it against colleagues who objected to the grammar, and watched it run in every De Beers ad from 1948 onward. The line fused an arbitrary product with the idea of eternal commitment so completely that the diamond engagement ring — a marginal tradition when N.W. Ayer took the account in 1938 — became a near-universal Western norm, and a resale market that might undercut prices never formed, because you don't sell 'forever.' Ad Age named it the No. 1 advertising slogan of the 20th century. It is studied as the outer limit of what advertising can do: not shift share within a market, but manufacture the market's meaning itself.", "watch": [ { "label": "De Beers' official history of the slogan", "url": "https://adiamondisforever.com/about-diamonds/a-diamond-is-forever-slogan-history/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Diamonds Became Forever", "publisher": "The New York Times (2013)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/fashion/weddings/how-americans-learned-to-love-diamonds.html" }, { "title": "A Diamond Is Forever: The Slogan's History", "publisher": "De Beers (brand archive)", "url": "https://adiamondisforever.com/about-diamonds/a-diamond-is-forever-slogan-history/" }, { "title": "How an Ad Campaign Invented the Diamond Engagement Ring", "publisher": "The Atlantic (2015)", "url": "https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "smokey-bear", "title": "Smokey Bear (\"Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires\")", "brand": "U.S. Forest Service / Ad Council", "year": 1944, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A friendly bear personalises the national problem of forest fires, becoming so recognisable that his face alone carries the message." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A public service message makes preventing forest fires the personal responsibility of every individual who sees it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public service campaign (posters, radio, television)", "agency": "Foote, Cone & Belding", "credits": [ { "role": "First poster artist", "name": "Albert Staehle" }, { "role": "Partners", "name": "USDA Forest Service, National Association of State Foresters, Ad Council" } ], "tagline": "Only you can prevent forest fires.", "why_studied": "The longest-running public service advertising campaign in United States history — more than 80 years and counting. Created in 1944 by the U.S. Forest Service, the War Advertising Council (now the Ad Council) and agency Foote, Cone & Belding to protect wartime timber, Smokey Bear was painted first by Albert Staehle; the slogan \"Remember... Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires\" arrived in 1947 and was updated to \"wildfires\" in 2001 as fire ecology evolved. It is studied for the mechanics of durable behavior-change advertising: a mascot that personalizes a national problem, a slogan that assigns responsibility to the individual (\"only you\"), and a partnership model that has kept one idea coherent across every medium since World War II. Smokey became so recognizable that just his face and the word \"Remember\" carried the whole message — and he is protected by U.S. federal law.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign history and current PSAs (SmokeyBear.com)", "url": "https://smokeybear.com/smokeys-story/about-the-smokey-bear-campaign", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "About the Smokey Bear PSA Campaign", "publisher": "SmokeyBear.com (USDA Forest Service / Ad Council / NASF)", "url": "https://smokeybear.com/smokeys-story/about-the-smokey-bear-campaign" }, { "title": "Our History — 1944: Smokey Bear", "publisher": "The Ad Council", "url": "https://www.adcouncil.org/about-us/our-history" }, { "title": "Smokey Bear", "publisher": "Forest History Society", "url": "https://foresthistory.org/research-explore/us-forest-service-history/policy-and-law/fire-u-s-forest-service/smokey-bear/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/uH6FZyurr-w/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Smokey Bear (\"Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires\") (U.S. Forest Service / Ad Council, 1944)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “US Forest Service | Ad Council – Smokey Bear (1970s, USA) [4K Upscale]”, uploaded by HelloImAPizzaToo", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH6FZyurr-w", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/uH6FZyurr-w/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "owi-use-it-up-wear-it-out-make-it-do", "title": "Use It Up – Wear It Out – Make It Do!", "brand": "Office of War Information (US)", "year": 1943, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "An ordinary couple patching trousers and mending a lawnmower presents thrift as everyday domestic life rather than sacrifice." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "A simple three-step instruction gives a practical rule for conserving goods that were going to the troops." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Home-front poster (offset lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Use it up – wear it out – make it do!", "why_studied": "The American home front's thrift ethic in one domestic scene. Issued in 1943 as Office of War Information poster no. 39, it shows a woman in a yellow dress sewing a patch onto the seat of a man's trousers while he bends to repair a lawnmower, a sewing basket at her feet, under the words \"Use it up – wear it out – make it do!\" and the reminder \"Our labor and our goods are fighting\". As the National Archives explains, gasoline, rubber, sugar, butter and meat were scarce because they were going to the troops, so civilians were urged to conserve and salvage. The National Park Service notes that with twenty commodities rationed, Americans were asked to use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. It is studied as advertising that sells consuming less, making repair look patriotic and modelling the exact behaviour it wants; the National Archives named the rationing section of its Powers of Persuasion exhibition after the slogan.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the U.S. National Archives catalog", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513834", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Powers of Persuasion: Use it Up, Wear it Out", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/use_it_up/use_it_up.html" }, { "title": "The WWII Home Front", "publisher": "U.S. National Park Service", "url": "https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-wwii-home-front.htm" }, { "title": "\"Use It Up-Wear It Out-Make It Do\" (catalogue record, 44-PA-382)", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513834" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/%22Use_It_Up-Wear_It_Out-Make_It_Do%22_-_NARA_-_513834.jpg/960px-%22Use_It_Up-Wear_It_Out-Make_It_Do%22_-_NARA_-_513834.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1244, "alt": "1943 Office of War Information poster 'Use it up – wear it out – make it do!': a woman in a yellow dress sews a red patch onto the trousers of a man bent over a push lawnmower, with a sewing basket at her feet and the line 'Our labor and our goods are fighting'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "U.S. National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513834" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "westinghouse-we-can-do-it", "title": "We Can Do It!", "brand": "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company (War Production Co-ordinating Committee)", "year": 1943, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A worker rolling up her sleeve and flexing her arm turns 'we can do it' into a single image of strength." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Upbeat pride and determination were meant to lift factory morale, and later audiences reread the same emotion as female empowerment." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Factory morale poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "J. Howard Miller" } ], "tagline": "We can do it!", "why_studied": "One of the most famous images of the Second World War began as a staff notice. In 1942 Westinghouse's War Production Co-ordinating Committee hired the Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller to make a series of posters for its factories, and \"We Can Do It!\", a worker in a red polka-dot bandana flexing her arm, was scheduled to hang for two weeks in February 1943. It was a work-incentive message for women already on the payroll, not a recruitment appeal, and she had no name. The poster resurfaced decades later through the National Archives, and in 1982 a feminist press catalogue labelled a postcard of it \"Rosie\", fusing it with the \"Rosie the Riveter\" of a wartime song and of Norman Rockwell's separate, copyrighted 1943 magazine cover. Because Miller's design was in the public domain, it could be copied freely onto mugs and T-shirts. It is studied as a case of an ad's meaning being rewritten by later audiences, turning a corporate productivity poster into a global feminist icon.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the U.S. National Archives catalog", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/535413", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_538122", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"We can do it!,\" ca. 1942", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://www.archives.gov/research/still-pictures/highlights/we-can-do-it" }, { "title": "Was She Really Rosie?", "publisher": "JSTOR Daily (2023)", "url": "https://daily.jstor.org/was-she-really-rosie/" }, { "title": "The Riveting Story of an American Icon", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2017)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-rosie-riveter-got-famous-180967415/" }, { "title": "\"We Can Do It!\" (collection record)", "publisher": "National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_538122" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/We_can_do_it%5E_-_NARA_-_535413.jpg/960px-We_can_do_it%5E_-_NARA_-_535413.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1237, "alt": "J. Howard Miller's 'We Can Do It!' poster: a woman in a blue work shirt and red polka-dot bandana rolls up her sleeve and flexes her arm against a yellow background, under a speech balloon reading 'We Can Do It!'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "U.S. National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/535413" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "opa-when-you-ride-alone-you-ride-with-hitler", "title": "When You Ride Alone You Ride with Hitler!", "brand": "Office of Price Administration (US)", "year": 1943, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A ghostly outline of Hitler in the empty passenger seat turns driving alone into riding with the enemy." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "Equating a half-empty car with collaboration makes wasting scarce fuel and tyres feel like helping the enemy win." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public-information poster (offset lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Weimer Pursell" } ], "tagline": "When you ride alone you ride with Hitler!", "why_studied": "A government request to share car journeys, turned into a ghost story in a single frame. Weimer Pursell's 1943 design for the Office of Price Administration shows a well-dressed man driving his open-top car alone, except that the passenger seat holds a ghostly white outline of Adolf Hitler. The copy spells out the logic: \"When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! Join a car-sharing club today!\" The background was a genuine shortage. Japan's advance had cut the United States off from the rubber plantations of Southeast Asia, gasoline was rationed, and every half-empty car was using up tyres and fuel the military needed. The poster turns a private habit into unwitting collaboration with the enemy without showing the enemy doing anything at all. The National Archives features it in the rationing and conservation section of its Powers of Persuasion exhibition. It is studied as a vivid fear-and-guilt appeal applied to an everyday behaviour.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the U.S. National Archives catalog", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/516143", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum", "url": "https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/17472/when-you-ride-alone-you-ride-with-hitler", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Powers of Persuasion: Use it Up, Wear it Out", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/use_it_up/use_it_up.html" }, { "title": "When You Ride Alone You Ride with Hitler! (collection record)", "publisher": "Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum", "url": "https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/objects/17472/when-you-ride-alone-you-ride-with-hitler" }, { "title": "\"When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler!\" U.S. Government Propaganda Poster, 1943.", "publisher": "Energy History, Yale University", "url": "https://energyhistory.yale.edu/when-you-ride-alone-you-ride-with-hitler-u-s-government-propaganda-poster-1943/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/%22WHEN_YOU_RIDE_ALONE_YOU_RIDE_WITH_HITLER%22._%22JOIN_A_CAR-SHARING_CLUB_TODAY%22._-_NARA_-_516143.jpg/960px-%22WHEN_YOU_RIDE_ALONE_YOU_RIDE_WITH_HITLER%22._%22JOIN_A_CAR-SHARING_CLUB_TODAY%22._-_NARA_-_516143.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1199, "alt": "Weimer Pursell's 1943 poster: a man in a hat drives an orange convertible while a white outline of Hitler sits in the passenger seat, under 'When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler!' and above 'Join a Car-Sharing Club TODAY!' on a yellow ground", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "U.S. National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/516143" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "railway-executive-committee-is-your-journey-really-necessary", "title": "Is Your Journey Really Necessary?", "brand": "Railway Executive Committee (UK)", "year": 1942, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A direct question with 'really' picked out in colour makes travellers stop, examine their motives and feel a little guilty." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "A soldier loaded with equipment points at the would-be traveller, lending the request the moral authority of the men doing the fighting." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public-information poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Bert Thomas" } ], "tagline": "Is your journey really necessary?", "why_studied": "Britain's wartime railways were needed for troops and supplies, and coal and petrol were needed for the war effort, so the public had to be persuaded to travel less. The Railway Executive Committee, the body set up to run the railways in wartime, put the request as a question rather than a ban. In Bert Thomas's 1942 poster a soldier loaded with equipment, rifle in hand, stands at a ticket window and points straight at the would-be traveller under the words \"Is your journey really necessary?\", with \"really\" picked out in a different colour. The National Archives uses it to teach how wartime posters worked: a direct, personal question that stops the reader and invites a little guilt, with the issuing body named only in small type. It is studied as an example of persuasion through self-questioning, and as a demand-reduction message in which a service provider asks customers to use it less.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Imperial War Museums collection", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/26111", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The poster in the U.S. National Archives catalog", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/44266690", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Working with Second World War posters as sources", "publisher": "The National Archives (UK)", "url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/teaching-resources/second-world-war-posters/" }, { "title": "Is Your Journey Really Necessary? (collection record)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/26111" }, { "title": "Is Your Journey Really Necessary? (catalogue record, 44-PF-244)", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/44266690" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Is_Your_Journey_Really_Necessary%3F_-_DPLA_-_12d2c20cfa5029b073389c0ae8fccc72.jpg/960px-Is_Your_Journey_Really_Necessary%3F_-_DPLA_-_12d2c20cfa5029b073389c0ae8fccc72.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1168, "alt": "Bert Thomas's 1942 poster 'Is your journey really necessary?': a British soldier in khaki with webbing and a rifle stands at a railway ticket window, pointing at the viewer, with 'Railway Executive Committee' along the bottom", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "U.S. National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/44266690" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "seagram-loose-lips-might-sink-ships", "title": "Loose Lips Might Sink Ships", "brand": "Seagram (House of Seagram) for the national victory effort", "year": 1942, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "A ship rolling over into black smoke shows the deadly result of a careless word, warning the viewer to stay silent." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "A distiller puts its name to the government's careless-talk message, presenting the poster as its contribution to the national war effort." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Essargee" } ], "tagline": "Loose lips might sink ships", "why_studied": "\"Loose lips might sink ships\" belonged to the security-of-information campaign that the War Advertising Council, forerunner of today's Ad Council, ran from 1942 to 1945, urging Americans to keep quiet about anything that could help the enemy. This version was published by the distiller Seagram \"as part of its contribution to the national victory effort\" and signed by the artist Essargee: a ship rolls over and sinks into a swell of black smoke, the words tumbling down the page with it. The council encouraged advertisers to carry the theme and even tie it to their products, and says its research found that twice as many people exposed to the careless-talk messages knew what not to discuss as those not reached, though that is the organisation's own claim. It is studied as a slogan still remembered today, and as an early model of a brand lending its name and posters to a government message.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the U.S. National Archives catalog", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513543", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/archival-item/sova-nmah-ac-0433-ref14790", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Security of War Information - Loose Lips Sink Ships (1942-1945)", "publisher": "ANA Educational Foundation (Ad Council campaign history)", "url": "https://aef.com/classroom-resources/social-responsibility/ad-council-campaigns-made-difference/security-war-information-loose-lips-sink-ships/" }, { "title": "Loose Lips Might Sink Ships ... Seagram Distillers Corporation. (collection record)", "publisher": "National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/archival-item/sova-nmah-ac-0433-ref14790" }, { "title": "\"Loose lips might sink ships\" (catalogue record, 44-PA-82)", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513543" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/%22Loose_lips_might_sink_ships%22_-_NARA_-_513543.jpg/960px-%22Loose_lips_might_sink_ships%22_-_NARA_-_513543.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1250, "alt": "Seagram's 'Loose lips might sink ships' poster: a cargo ship rolls over and sinks into a blue sea beneath a plume of black smoke on a red ground, with the slogan in white and yellow lettering", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "U.S. National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513543" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "owi-someone-talked", "title": "Someone Talked!", "brand": "Office of War Information (US)", "year": 1942, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "A drowning sailor points at the viewer, making the deadly consequence of a careless remark personal and immediate." }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "With only two words, the accusing finger and dark water do the persuading and leave viewers to supply the story." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public-information poster (offset lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Frederick Siebel" } ], "tagline": "Someone talked!", "why_studied": "A drowning sailor, only his head and one huge outstretched forearm above black water, points straight out of the poster at whoever let the secret slip. The design is by Frederick Siebel, an Austrian-born artist who had settled in the United States in 1936; according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum it won a competition run by the paint company Devoe & Reynolds and judged by Eleanor Roosevelt, before the Office of War Information issued it in 1942 as its poster no. 18. Its two words leave the viewer to supply the story, and the foreshortened finger turns the familiar pointing gesture of recruitment posters into an accusation. The National Archives places it in the government's effort to convince civilians that small snippets about troop or ship movements could help enemy agents, a theme the Holocaust Memorial Museum traces back to Britain's careless-talk posters of 1940. It is studied as a stark fear appeal, and for how much a minimal headline leaves to the audience.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the U.S. National Archives catalog", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513672", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum", "url": "https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn520999", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Powers of Persuasion: He's Watching You", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/hes_watching_you/hes_watching_you.html" }, { "title": "US careless talk poster depicting a drowning sailor pointing at the viewer", "publisher": "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum", "url": "https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn520999" }, { "title": "SOMEONE TALKED (catalogue record, 44-PA-230)", "publisher": "U.S. National Archives", "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513672" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/SOMEONE_TALKED_-_NARA_-_513672.jpg/960px-SOMEONE_TALKED_-_NARA_-_513672.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1371, "alt": "Frederick Siebel's 1942 poster 'Someone talked!': a drowning young man, only his head and one oversized arm above dark water, points at the viewer between the words 'Someone' and 'Talked!' in pale lettering on black", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "U.S. National Archives, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/513672" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "ministry-of-health-coughs-and-sneezes-spread-diseases", "title": "Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases", "brand": "Ministry of Health (UK)", "year": 1941, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Cartoons of offenders sneezing over horrified bystanders use comic embarrassment rather than fear to change a habit." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Everyday settings such as a factory, a shop, an office and the Underground let ordinary people recognise themselves in the scene." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public-health poster campaign (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "H. M. Bateman" } ], "tagline": "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases", "why_studied": "In October 1941 the Ministry of Health opened an autumn campaign against colds and flu built on one rhyming line: \"Coughs and sneezes spread diseases\". The cartoonist H. M. Bateman drew four scenes, in a factory, a shop, an office and the Underground, each showing someone sneezing without a handkerchief while the people around them recoil, with the instruction \"Trap the germs by using your handkerchief\" and the patriotic payoff \"Help to keep the nation fighting fit\". About 80,000 posters went up on buses, trams, the Underground, stations and in chemists' shops. The government's Wartime Social Survey then measured the result: 66 per cent of the people it questioned remembered the slogan, and 54 per cent recognised Bateman's cartoons. It is studied as an early, evaluated public-health campaign that relied on embarrassment and humour rather than fear. The Australian War Memorial notes that the slogan first appeared in the United States around the 1918 flu pandemic and has been revived by health bodies since, including in 2009 and 2020.", "watch": [ { "label": "A Bateman poster from the campaign in the Imperial War Museums collection", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1504", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Section Two - Autumn Health Campaign (Wartime Social Survey report)", "publisher": "MOI Digital (Ministry of Information digital archive)", "url": "https://moidigital.ac.uk/reports/wartime-social-survey/artime-social-survey-rg-23-24/idm140133735988464/" }, { "title": "Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases [Train cartoon] (collection record)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1504" }, { "title": "Ministry of Health says: - coughs and sneezes spread diseases... (collection record, ARTV03701)", "publisher": "Australian War Memorial", "url": "https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C99175" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Coughs_and_Sneezes_Spread_Diseases_Art.IWMPST14158.jpg/960px-Coughs_and_Sneezes_Spread_Diseases_Art.IWMPST14158.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1464, "alt": "H. M. Bateman's Ministry of Health poster: in a London Underground carriage a man in a green coat sneezes violently as fellow passengers recoil in disgust, under 'Coughs and sneezes spread diseases' and above 'Trap the germs by using your handkerchief – Help to keep the Nation fighting fit'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Imperial War Museums (Art.IWM PST 14158), via Wikimedia Commons — public domain (Crown copyright expired)", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coughs_and_Sneezes_Spread_Diseases_Art.IWMPST14158.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "ats-join-the-ats-abram-games", "title": "Join the ATS (\"The Blonde Bombshell\")", "brand": "Auxiliary Territorial Service (War Office)", "year": 1941, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A glamorous stylised profile in the new cap sells service through aspiration and allure rather than duty, which is exactly what Parliament objected to." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Abram Games" } ], "tagline": "Join the ATS", "why_studied": "Abram Games, then a corporal in the Royal Engineers, set out in 1941 to fix the dowdy image of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the army. His answer was a stylised profile of a young woman in the new ATS cap, blonde hair and red lipstick against a dark ground, above three words: \"Join the ATS\". The model was Doreen Murphy, an ATS member. Nicknamed the \"Blonde Bombshell\", it worked: the National Army Museum says it encouraged women to enlist, and a press cutting shows them queuing beside it. Then the MP Thelma Cazalet-Keir objected in Parliament that recruits should be drawn by patriotism, not glamour; the poster was withdrawn, most of the 10,000 copies were destroyed and a plainer design featuring a serving private replaced it. It is studied as a lesson in the tension between effectiveness and propriety in public-sector advertising, and as an early classic by the designer who became Britain's only official war poster artist.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster at the National Army Museum, London", "url": "https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2013-07-2-17", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The poster in the Imperial War Museums collection (Art.IWM PST 2832)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/10227", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Join the ATS', 1941", "publisher": "National Army Museum", "url": "https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2013-07-2-17" }, { "title": "The war on glamour", "publisher": "National Army Museum", "url": "https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/war-glamour" }, { "title": "Join the ATS (collection record)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/10227" }, { "title": "Poster girl of ATS joins National Army Museum", "publisher": "The Guardian (2013)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/aug/23/poster-girl-ats-national-army-museum" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Join_the_Ats_Art.IWMPST2832.jpg/960px-Join_the_Ats_Art.IWMPST2832.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1445, "alt": "Abram Games's 1941 'Join the ATS' poster: a stylised profile of a young blonde woman with red lips wearing an ATS forage cap against a dark green and black background, above the words 'Join the' and a large red, white and blue 'ATS'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Imperial War Museums (Art.IWM PST 2832), via Wikimedia Commons — public domain (Crown copyright expired)", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Join_the_Ats_Art.IWMPST2832.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "moi-careless-talk-costs-lives-fougasse", "title": "Careless Talk Costs Lives", "brand": "Ministry of Information (UK)", "year": 1940, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Cartoon Nazi leaders eavesdropping on ordinary gossipers turn a security warning into a shared joke that persuades without preaching." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "Beneath the joke, the blunt claim that careless talk costs lives reminds readers what is at stake if they chatter." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster series (eight designs, colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Fougasse (Cyril Kenneth Bird)" } ], "tagline": "Careless talk costs lives", "why_studied": "When the Ministry of Information set out to stop wartime gossip, the Punch cartoonist Cyril Kenneth Bird, who signed himself Fougasse, convinced officials that a joke would work better than a warning. His eight posters, issued in February 1940, show ordinary Britons chatting while Hitler and Göring eavesdrop from improbable places; in one, two women gossip on a bus with two Nazi leaders sitting in the seat behind them. Each cartoon sits in a wide white margin inside a thin red border, above the same line: \"Careless talk costs lives\". The Victoria and Albert Museum records that Fougasse gave his services free and believed a shared joke could persuade without the resentment that preaching provokes. Poster House cites cabinet minutes from March 1940 recording 734,200 of his posters in circulation, the most popular pictorial designs, with a reprint of 435,200 already ordered, and the V&A notes they were even reproduced on textiles. It is studied as the classic demonstration that humour can carry a serious public-information message.", "watch": [ { "label": "A poster from the series at the Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O101350/careless-talk-costs-lives-poster-fougasse/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "\"You never know who's listening!\" in the Imperial War Museums collection", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/9810", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Careless Talk Costs Lives | Fougasse", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O101350/careless-talk-costs-lives-poster-fougasse/" }, { "title": "Careless talk costs lives | Fougasse", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1042171/careless-talk-costs-lives-poster-fougasse/" }, { "title": "Careless Talk Costs Lives", "publisher": "Poster House", "url": "https://posterhouse.emuseum.com/objects/6961/careless-talk-costs-lives" }, { "title": "You Never Know Who's Listening - Careless Talk Costs Lives (collection record)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/9810" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "ministry-of-agriculture-dig-for-victory", "title": "Dig for Victory", "brand": "Ministry of Agriculture (UK)", "year": 1939, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A photograph of a booted foot driving a spade into soil makes digging look like action rather than a chore." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Leaflets, broadcasts and demonstrations back the slogan with practical instruction, giving people a concrete way to grow their own food." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Children's faces and the line 'For their sake' tie a vegetable patch to protecting the next generation." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster and leaflet campaign", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Dig for victory", "why_studied": "Before the Second World War Britain imported around 55 million tons of food a year, and German U-boats went straight for the merchant ships carrying it. In October 1939 the Ministry of Agriculture launched a drive to turn gardens, parks and spare ground into vegetable plots, soon known by a three-word order: \"Dig for Victory\". Its most famous poster is a photograph of a booted foot pressing a spade into the soil, making digging look like action rather than a chore; this version adds a crowd of children's faces and the line \"For their sake – grow your own vegetables\". Posters were backed by millions of leaflets, broadcasts and demonstrations. The Imperial War Museums reports that by 1943 more than 1.4 million people had allotments, producing over a million tons of vegetables a year, and the government's Wartime Social Survey was asked to measure how well the campaign had worked. It is studied as a model behaviour-change campaign that paired a simple imperative with practical help.", "watch": [ { "label": "The booted-foot 'Dig for Victory' poster in the Imperial War Museums collection", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/27692", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The 'For their sake' poster at Hennepin County Library", "url": "https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/p17208coll3/id/1473", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dig For Victory (collection record)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/27692" }, { "title": "The Spade as Mighty as the Sword by Daniel Smith (review by John Carey)", "publisher": "The Sunday Times (2011)", "url": "https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/england/london-travel/the-spade-as-mighty-as-the-sword-by-daniel-smith-j5rh9jmgv9t" }, { "title": "An inquiry into the effects of the \"Dig for Victory\" campaign: Introduction (Wartime Social Survey report)", "publisher": "MOI Digital (Ministry of Information digital archive)", "url": "https://moidigital.ac.uk/reports/wartime-social-survey/wartime-social-survey-rg-23-26/idm140133745110224/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Dig_for_Victory_For_Their_Sake_--_Grow_Your_Own_Vegetables_-_DPLA_-_c40638b923ec6126a089af45a758ab8c.jpg/960px-Dig_for_Victory_For_Their_Sake_--_Grow_Your_Own_Vegetables_-_DPLA_-_c40638b923ec6126a089af45a758ab8c.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1452, "alt": "A Second World War 'Dig for Victory' poster printed for HM Stationery Office: a photograph of a booted foot pressing a spade into the earth in front of drawn children's faces, with the words 'For their sake – grow your own vegetables'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Hennepin County Library, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/p17208coll3/id/1473" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "moi-keep-calm-and-carry-on", "title": "Keep Calm and Carry On", "brand": "Ministry of Information (UK)", "year": 1939, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "The King's crown and plain capitals give the reassurance the calm authority of the state, with no picture and no enemy." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Its quiet promise of steadiness speaks to fear without naming it, which helped it find an audience six decades after it was printed." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Typographic poster (lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Keep calm and carry on", "why_studied": "One of Britain's best-known posters was barely seen in the war it was made for. In 1939 the Ministry of Information prepared three matching morale posters: white capitals and the King's crown on plain red. \"Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory\" and \"Freedom Is in Peril\" were displayed; \"Keep Calm and Carry On\" was held back for a national catastrophe that never came. Copies ran into the millions, but it was never officially put up and most are thought to have been pulped. In 2000 the bookseller Stuart Manley found a folded copy in a box of books bought at auction, framed it in Barter Books in Alnwick and, when customers kept asking, began selling reproductions. By 2009 the BBC reported about 1,000 orders a month and the design on mugs and T-shirts. The Imperial War Museums credits its expired Crown copyright with helping it spread. It is studied as a lesson in tone of voice, and in a message finding its audience six decades late.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Imperial War Museums collection (Art.IWM PST 14814)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/32283", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The poster at the National Army Museum, London", "url": "https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=2000-07-3-1", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Truth Behind Keep Calm and Carry On", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/second-world-war/home-front/truth-behind-keep-calm-and-carry-on" }, { "title": "The greatest motivational poster ever?", "publisher": "BBC News Magazine (2009)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7869458.stm" }, { "title": "How we made the Keep Calm and Carry On poster", "publisher": "The Guardian (2020)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/apr/20/how-we-made-keep-calm-and-carry-on-poster" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Keep_Calm_And_Carry_On_-_Original_poster_-_Barter_Books_-_17-Oct-2011.jpg/960px-Keep_Calm_And_Carry_On_-_Original_poster_-_Barter_Books_-_17-Oct-2011.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1395, "alt": "An original 1939 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster, framed at Barter Books in Alnwick: white capital letters and a white royal crown on a creased red sheet", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Original Ministry of Information poster at Barter Books, Alnwick, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain (Crown copyright expired)", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keep_Calm_And_Carry_On_-_Original_poster_-_Barter_Books_-_17-Oct-2011.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "swiss-tourism-all-roads-lead-to-switzerland", "title": "All Roads Lead to Switzerland", "brand": "Swiss National Tourist Office", "year": 1935, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A road sweeping away from the viewer and up hairpin bends towards snowy summits invites motorists to feel the pull of the journey." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Photomontage poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Herbert Matter" } ], "tagline": "All Roads Lead to Switzerland", "why_studied": "The Swiss National Tourist Office's first poster for motor touring, and a landmark in putting the camera to work for advertising. Herbert Matter, back from Paris where he had assisted Cassandre and Le Corbusier, spliced existing tourist photographs into what reads as one seamless view: a road surface sweeps away from the viewer and up a chain of hairpin bends towards snowy summits. The red headline runs across the pale wedge of road, which let the office reissue the image in several languages. It is studied because Matter's Swiss series was among the first travel posters built from purely photographic imagery, using cropping, montage and dramatic shifts of scale and perspective. MoMA says these posters \"revolutionized both the medium and the genre\"; its French-language copy came from the typographer Jan Tschichold's collection. In New York, the art director Alexey Brodovitch had two of Matter's travel posters on his studio wall, and Matter was soon shooting for Harper's Bazaar.", "watch": [ { "label": "MoMA collection record (French version, En Route Pour La Suisse)", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/6242", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Graphic Designs of Herbert Matter", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art (1991)", "url": "https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/340" }, { "title": "Herbert Matter. En Route Pour La Suisse. 1935-1936", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/6242" }, { "title": "100 Years of Switzerland Tourism, with 2016 Annual Report", "publisher": "Switzerland Tourism (2017)", "url": "https://www.stnet.ch/app/uploads/2021/09/122_16a_01_brosch_jb_2016_jubilaeum_RZ04_en_low.pdf" }, { "title": "The Daily Heller: Herbert Matter Matters", "publisher": "PRINT (2026)", "url": "https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/the-daily-heller-herbert-matter-matters/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "french-line-normandie", "title": "Normandie", "brand": "Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (French Line)", "year": 1935, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A low, head-on view makes the liner's black hull tower like a monument, selling awe at its size, power and calm instead of facts." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "A.M. Cassandre" } ], "tagline": "Normandie", "why_studied": "An ocean liner drawn like a monument. To launch the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique's Normandie, a floating showcase of French Art Deco and engineering and the largest liner yet built, A.M. Cassandre ignored the conventional three-quarter view of a ship at sea. He set the viewer low, dead ahead of the bow, so the black hull rises symmetrically up the sheet; a few tiny gulls are the only clue to scale, and the ship's name anchors the bottom like ballast. There are no tonnage figures and no catalogue of comforts, only size, power and calm. It is studied as the travel poster reduced to pure sensation. Within months the Museum of Modern Art gave Cassandre a solo exhibition, with Normandie among the posters, and its curator wrote that his work could \"make more incredible the incredible size of an ocean liner\". The V&A calls it arguably his most iconic work and the single best-known image of the ship.", "watch": [ { "label": "V&A collection record", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1405126/normandie-poster-cassandre/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Normandie", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1405126/normandie-poster-cassandre/" }, { "title": "Posters by Cassandre", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art (exhibition catalogue, 1936)", "url": "https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1805_300190172.pdf" }, { "title": "Une affiche qui a du tranchant", "publisher": "Actes Sémiotiques, Université de Limoges (2008)", "url": "https://www.unilim.fr/actes-semiotiques/1584" }, { "title": "Normandie", "publisher": "Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía", "url": "https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/normandie" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "guinness-toucan", "title": "The Guinness Toucan (\"Just think what Toucan do\")", "brand": "Guinness", "brand_slug": "guinness", "year": 1935, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A toucan balancing two pints becomes a lovable brand character, part of a menagerie that makes the stout feel friendly." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "A comic verse punning on the bird's name binds character, joke and product together so they cannot be pulled apart." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster", "agency": "S.H. Benson, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "John Gilroy" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Dorothy L. Sayers" } ], "tagline": "How grand to be a Toucan. Just think what Toucan do.", "why_studied": "The bird that made a stout lovable. At the agency S.H. Benson, illustrator John Gilroy, inspired by watching a performing sea lion at the circus, began drawing animals with pints of Guinness, the start of a \"My Goodness, My Guinness\" menagerie that ran for decades. The toucan was the first to reach a poster, in 1935: it began as a pelican balancing seven pints under a comic rhyme, until the detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, then a Benson copywriter, changed it to a toucan with two glasses and the verse \"If he can say as you can / Guinness is good for you / How grand to be a Toucan / Just think what Toucan do.\" It is studied as an early, perfect marriage of illustration and copy, in which pun, character and product cannot be pulled apart, and as the birth of a mascot: Campaign notes the toucan became almost as much a Guinness symbol as the harp. Gilroy drew the brand's ads for some thirty years.", "watch": [ { "label": "Gilroy's posters in the Guinness Storehouse galleries (Guinness)", "url": "https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/discover/guinness-galleries/gilroy-advertising", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Gilroy & Guinness Advertising", "publisher": "Guinness Storehouse", "url": "https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/discover/guinness-galleries/gilroy-advertising" }, { "title": "Campaign loves... Guinness", "publisher": "Campaign (2019)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/campaign-loves-guinness/1525531" }, { "title": "Splitting the G: Guinness Posters Before Social Media", "publisher": "Poster House (2025)", "url": "https://posterhouse.org/blog/splitting-the-g-guinness-posters-before-social-media/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FHlKMhAieTU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still from a 1955 Guinness TV spot continuing The Guinness Toucan (\"Just think what Toucan do\") (Guinness, 1935)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Guinness beer spot - Toucans (1955)”, uploaded by maxpower1928", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHlKMhAieTU" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dubonnet-dubo-dubon-dubonnet", "title": "Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet", "brand": "Dubonnet", "year": 1932, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Across three panels a little man drinks and pours again, filling with colour as the name builds, like a strip of film." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Wordplay grows the name from something beautiful to something good to the brand itself, delivered by a charming little drinker." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster triptych (lithograph)", "agency": "Alliance Graphique, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "A.M. Cassandre" } ], "tagline": "Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet", "why_studied": "A poster that behaves like a strip of film. Asked by the aperitif house Dubonnet for a poster, A.M. Cassandre delivered three: a little man in a boater at a café table raises his glass, drinks and pours again, filling with the drink's colour panel by panel, while the name builds alongside him, from DUBO (\"du beau\", something beautiful) to DUBON (\"du bon\", something good) to DUBONNET. Britannica notes the Dubonnet posters were among the first designed to be read from fast-moving vehicles and introduced the serial poster, a sequence seen in quick succession to deliver one idea. Printed in sizes up to wall-high painted canvases, it lasted: one painted wall survived in Paris into the early 1980s, and a MoMA curator compared the little drinker's charm to Mickey Mouse's. It is studied as the founding example of timing, motion and wordplay in a static medium, and its three-beat refrain passed into everyday French. MoMA gave Cassandre a retrospective in 1936 with Dubonnet at its centre.", "watch": [ { "label": "The three panels, from the Cassandre estate", "url": "https://www.cassandre-france.com/dubonnet-triptych-1932-cassandre", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dubo - Dubon - Dubonnet, 1932", "publisher": "Official estate of A.M. Cassandre", "url": "https://www.cassandre-france.com/dubonnet-triptych-1932-cassandre" }, { "title": "Dubo Dubon Dubonnet: poster by Cassandre", "publisher": "Encyclopaedia Britannica", "url": "https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dubo-Dubon-Dubonnet" }, { "title": "Posters by Cassandre (exhibition catalogue, 1936)", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art, New York", "url": "https://assets.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1805_300190172.pdf" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-sundblom-santa-claus", "title": "Santa Claus (Haddon Sundblom's Coca-Cola Santas)", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 1931, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Attaching the brand to Christmas through Santa Claus borrows the affection people already feel for a beloved cultural ritual." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A plump, rosy-cheeked, grandfatherly Santa radiates warmth and wholesomeness, linking the drink to the comfort of Christmas." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertisements (illustration series)", "agency": "D'Arcy Advertising Agency", "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Haddon Sundblom" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The Santa much of the world pictures, warm, plump, rosy-cheeked and grandfatherly, owes a great deal to a soft-drink campaign. In 1931 Archie Lee of the D'Arcy agency wanted a wholesome Santa for Coca-Cola's Christmas advertising who was both realistic and symbolic, and illustrator Haddon Sundblom painted him from Clement Clarke Moore's poem \"A Visit from St. Nicholas\", first using a retired salesman friend as his model and later himself. The paintings ran in The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, National Geographic and The New Yorker, and Coca-Cola's Santa advertising ran on Sundblom's paintings until 1964. It is studied as the textbook case of a brand attaching itself to a cultural ritual so thoroughly that its version became the default image. The company itself corrects the myth the campaign spawned: Santa already wore red before Sundblom, so Coca-Cola did not pick his colours. It simply gave him the face people still remember.", "watch": [ { "label": "Sundblom's Santas in the company's history pages (The Coca-Cola Company)", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/haddon-sundblom-and-the-coca-cola-santas", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Haddon Sundblom and the Coca-Cola Santa Claus Story", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/haddon-sundblom-and-the-coca-cola-santas" }, { "title": "Did Coca-Cola create Santa Claus?", "publisher": "Coca-Cola (US)", "url": "https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/about-us/faq/did-coca-cola-create-santa-claus" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-the-pause-that-refreshes", "title": "The Pause That Refreshes", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 1929, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "The drink is framed as a small daily ritual of restoration, offering relief just when everything else feels unaffordable." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Pitched as a break any worker can afford, the drink is presented as an everyday comfort for ordinary people." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print and outdoor campaign", "agency": "D'Arcy Co.", "credits": [], "tagline": "The pause that refreshes.", "why_studied": "Launched in 1929, months before the Depression, \"The pause that refreshes\" sold five cents of syrup and water as a daily ritual of restoration — a break any worker could afford precisely when everything else felt unaffordable. The line ran for decades across D'Arcy's illustrated Americana (and alongside Haddon Sundblom's Santa Claus paintings, which fixed the modern red-suited Santa in popular culture), making Coca-Cola less a drink than a national habit. Ad Age ranked it the No. 2 campaign of the 20th century, behind only Volkswagen. It is studied as the earliest full expression of occasion-based marketing: own a moment of the day, not a claim about the product, and the product becomes inevitable.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 2: Coca-Cola, \"The pause that refreshes,\" D'Arcy, 1929)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "History of Coca-Cola Advertising Slogans (1929: The Pause That Refreshes)", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/history-of-coca-cola-advertising-slogans" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/sim_life_1929-02-15_93_2415%2Fsim_life_1929-02-15_93_2415_jp2.zip%2Fsim_life_1929-02-15_93_2415_jp2%2Fsim_life_1929-02-15_93_2415_0043.jp2/130,200,2930,4050/1000,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1000, "height": 1383, "alt": "February 1929 Coca-Cola advertisement \"All think alike about the pause that refreshes\": women shoppers sharing Coca-Cola at a soda-fountain table, from Life, 15 February 1929", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Life, 15 Feb 1929, via Internet Archive — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_life_1929-02-15_93_2415/page/n43/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nord-express-cassandre", "title": "Nord Express", "brand": "Nord Express (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and partner railways)", "year": 1927, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A towering locomotive seen from track level, with lines racing to a vanishing point, sells the glamour and speed of the journey rather than its timetable." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "A. M. Cassandre" } ], "tagline": "Nord Express", "why_studied": "No passengers, no scenery, no destination: Cassandre's poster for the Nord Express, the international express linking London and Paris with Brussels, Berlin, Warsaw and Riga, shows only the locomotive. The viewer is placed at track level, looking up at a towering engine built from clean geometric planes, while straight lines race toward a distant vanishing point to make speed itself visible. The names of the partner railways are pushed out to a band around the frame, so nothing competes with the machine. It is studied as a defining image of Art Deco travel advertising, Cubist in its visual language and modern in its subject, selling the glamour of the journey rather than its timetable. MoMA, which gave Cassandre a solo exhibition in 1936 and announced him as probably the world's foremost poster designer, holds a copy given by the French National Railroads; the V&A and the Minneapolis Institute of Art hold others.", "watch": [ { "label": "MoMA collection record", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/105963", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "V&A collection record", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O89673/nord-express-poster-cassandre-adolphe-mouron/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nord Express | Cassandre, Adolphe Mouron | V&A Explore The Collections", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O89673/nord-express-poster-cassandre-adolphe-mouron/" }, { "title": "Nord Express, Adolphe Mouron Cassandre; Printer: Hatchard et Cie., Paris", "publisher": "Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia)", "url": "https://collections.artsmia.org/art/7158/nord-express-adolphe-mouron-cassandre" }, { "title": "A. M. Cassandre. Nord Express. 1927", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/105963" }, { "title": "Exhibition of Posters by Cassandre (press release)", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art (1936)", "url": "https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_333037.pdf" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "us-school-of-music-they-laughed", "title": "They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano", "brand": "U.S. School of Music", "year": 1926, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "The headline stages a guest jeered at the piano who then silences the room, with long copy paying off the reversal." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Readers are invited to feel the sting of humiliation and then the triumph of the underdog that the lessons promise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Mail-order press advertisement", "agency": "Ruthrauff & Ryan", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "John Caples" } ], "tagline": "They laughed when I sat down at the piano—but when I started to play!", "why_studied": "One of the most imitated headlines in advertising began as a mail-order ad for piano lessons by post. John Caples, a Naval Academy graduate barely a year into copywriting at Ruthrauff & Ryan, said almost nothing about the course itself. He told a story instead: a guest sits down at the piano to jeers, then silences the room after a few months of lessons by correspondence. The headline stages the humiliation and promises the reversal; the long copy pays it off. Ad Age, ranking it No. 45 of the century, called the promise dubious but said its triumph-of-the-underdog approach still informs direct response. The ad was an instant success and inspired scores of imitations, and the line kept surfacing in ads, comics, cartoons and greeting cards into the 1990s. Caples moved to BBDO in 1927, stayed 55 years and pioneered copy testing, writing Tested Advertising Methods in 1932. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History holds his papers.", "watch": [ { "label": "Business Insider: reproduction of the original ad", "url": "https://www.businessinsider.com/they-laughed-when-i-sat-down-at-the-piano-but-when-i-began-to-play-2013-12", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "John Caples, 90, Author in 1926 Of 'They Laughed When . . .' Ad", "publisher": "The New York Times (1990)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/11/obituaries/john-caples-90-author-in-1926-of-they-laughed-when-ad.html" }, { "title": "John Caples Papers (finding aid, NMAH.AC.0393)", "publisher": "Archives Center, Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "url": "https://sirismm.si.edu/EADpdfs/NMAH.AC.0393.pdf" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999), archived copy via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" }, { "title": "What You Can Learn From The Best Print Ad Ever", "publisher": "David Aaker, Prophet (2016)", "url": "https://prophet.com/2016/05/234-what-you-can-learn-from-the-best-print-ad-ever/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/screenland12unse%2Fscreenland12unse_jp2.zip%2Fscreenland12unse_jp2%2Fscreenland12unse_0369.jp2/full/1000,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1000, "height": 1411, "alt": "John Caples's 1926 U.S. School of Music advertisement \"They Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano But When I Started to Play!\": a drawing of a man at a piano before amused party guests, above long copy and a coupon, from Screenland, March 1926", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Screenland, March 1926 (Library of Congress copy), Media History Digital Library — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/screenland12unse/page/n368/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "listerine-often-a-bridesmaid", "title": "Often a Bridesmaid but Never a Bride", "brand": "Listerine", "year": 1925, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "A clinical-sounding condition, halitosis, is presented as a hidden social danger that can quietly ruin a woman's chances of marriage." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "The sad tale of Edna, nearing thirty and never a bride, dramatises the problem before the cure is offered." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertisement", "agency": "Lambert & Feasley", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Milton Feasley" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Gordon Seagrove" } ], "tagline": "Often a bridesmaid but never a bride", "why_studied": "The ad that turned bad breath into a medical condition. Listerine had been sold for decades as a surgical antiseptic and all-purpose germicide when Gerard Lambert's team seized on a clinical-sounding word, halitosis, and rebuilt the brand's advertising around the fear of it. The most famous execution, credited to copywriters Milton Feasley and Gordon Seagrove, told the \"pathetic\" case of Edna, nearing thirty and \"often a bridesmaid but never a bride,\" undone by a problem even her closest friends would not mention. It is studied as the archetype of the 1920s melodrama of social shame, which historian Roland Marchand credited with founding a whole school of advertising practice: sell the problem first, then the cure. The commercial effect was enormous. Lambert's yearly earnings climbed from about $115,000 in 1922 to more than $8 million by 1929, and the ad immortalized its headline as an everyday phrase. Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 48 of the 20th century.", "watch": [ { "label": "George Mason University, Exploring U.S. History: the 'Edna' ad", "url": "https://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/20thcentury/understandingadvertising/index.php.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "A Fresh Breath", "publisher": "Chemical Heritage Foundation (now Science History Institute), archived copy via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20160712170405/http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/online-resources/thanks-to-chemistry/listerine.aspx" }, { "title": "Exploring U.S. History: Understanding Advertising", "publisher": "Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University", "url": "https://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/20thcentury/understandingadvertising/index.php.html" }, { "title": "What Is Advertising?", "publisher": "William M. O'Barr, Advertising & Society Review (Project MUSE) (2005)", "url": "https://muse.jhu.edu/article/193867" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999), archived copy via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/photoplay2829movi%2Fphotoplay2829movi_jp2.zip%2Fphotoplay2829movi_jp2%2Fphotoplay2829movi_0097.jp2/full/1000,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1001, "height": 1415, "alt": "1925 Listerine advertisement \"Often a Bridesmaid but never a Bride\": a troubled young woman reads a wedding announcement beside the story of her halitosis, from Photoplay, July 1925", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Photoplay, July 1925 (Pacific Film Archive copy), Media History Digital Library — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/photoplay2829movi/page/n94/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "burma-shave", "title": "Burma-Shave Roadside Verses", "brand": "Burma-Shave", "year": 1925, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Small signs planted along highways, each carrying one line paced to a passing car, invent a medium out of the roadside." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Comic verses build to a punchline that always ends with the brand name, rewarding drivers for reading on." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Rhyming jingles become so familiar that families recite them and newspapers report each new one." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Serial roadside signs", "agency": "In-house (Allan Odell)", "credits": [ { "role": "Originator", "name": "Allan Odell" } ], "tagline": "Within this vale / of toil / and sin / your head grows bald / but not your chin — Burma-Shave", "why_studied": "America's first great media invention: sequential storytelling at driving speed. From 1925, Burma-Shave planted sets of small signs along highways, each carrying one line of a comic verse, paced to the speed of a passing car, always ending with the brand name. The format made a modest brushless shaving cream a national institution for four decades — families recited the jingles, newspapers reported new ones — and it anticipated by 80 years the logic of serialized, feed-based advertising: short beats, enforced rhythm, a payoff that rewards attention. Ad Age ranked it No. 23 among the campaigns of the 20th century. It is studied as proof that media innovation — inventing where a message lives — can matter more than any single execution.", "watch": [], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns (No. 23: Burma-Shave, roadside signs in verse, Allan Odell, 1925)", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" }, { "title": "Top Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century (gallery of the Ad Age ranking)", "publisher": "CNBC", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2011/07/07/Top-Ad-Campaigns-of-the-20th-Century.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mosselprom-nowhere-else", "title": "Mossel'prom Cooking Oil: Nowhere Else but Mossel'prom", "brand": "Mossel'prom", "year": 1923, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "The poster promises cooking oil three times cheaper than butter, a plain economic reason aimed at the working masses." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "A catchy rhymed refrain insisting it is sold nowhere else but Mossel'prom fixes the brand in memory." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Letterpress poster", "agency": "Reklam-Konstruktor (Advertising Constructor)", "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Aleksandr Rodchenko" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Vladimir Mayakovsky" } ], "tagline": "Nowhere else but Mossel'prom!", "why_studied": "What happens when the avant-garde lands an advertising account. During the Soviet New Economic Policy, when a measure of capitalism was briefly allowed, the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and the Constructivist Aleksandr Rodchenko set up a two-man agency in 1923, working under the name Reklam-Konstruktor, or \"advertising constructor\". For Mossel'prom, Moscow's state agency for agricultural products, Rodchenko supplied dynamic graphics and Mayakovsky the jingles. This cooking-oil poster hails the \"working masses\", promises oil three times cheaper than butter and signs off with the refrain that it is sold nowhere else but Mossel'prom. It is studied because it bent revolutionary design to plain salesmanship, and made it work: Rodchenko recalled that their posters, signs and wrappers covered all of Moscow, and Mayakovsky's Mossel'prom jingle is still known to Russians. MoMA acquired the printed poster and Rodchenko's cut-paper maquette with the Merrill C. Berman Collection, and showcased the agency's work in its 2020–21 exhibition Engineer, Agitator, Constructor.", "watch": [ { "label": "MoMA: maquette for the Mossel'prom cooking-oil poster (record links the printed poster)", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/217714", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Merrill C. Berman Collection: Mayakovsky across media (shows maquette and printed poster)", "url": "https://mcbcollection.com/vladimir-mayakovsky", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Aleksandr Rodchenko, Reklam-Konstruktor (Advertising Constructor) Agency. Maquette for poster for Mossel'prom cooking oil. 1923", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/217714" }, { "title": "Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented (audio)", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art (2020)", "url": "https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/311/3999" }, { "title": "Sterling Cooper Draper Rodchenko", "publisher": "PRINT (2012)", "url": "https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/sterling-cooper-draper-rodchenko/" }, { "title": "Vladimir Mayakovsky: Across Media", "publisher": "Merrill C. Berman Collection", "url": "https://mcbcollection.com/vladimir-mayakovsky" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "jordan-somewhere-west-of-laramie", "title": "Somewhere West of Laramie", "brand": "Jordan Motor Car Company", "year": 1923, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Breathless prose and a roadster racing a rider on horseback sell youth, speed and open country instead of engine or price." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertisement", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Edward S. (Ned) Jordan" }, { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Fred Cole (Fred Smith Cole)" } ], "tagline": "Somewhere West of Laramie", "why_studied": "In 1923 car advertising meant specifications and prices. Ned Jordan, a former newspaperman running his own small Cleveland car company, dropped both. His full-page ad for the Jordan Playboy in the Saturday Evening Post of June 23, 1923 paired a windswept Fred Cole drawing of a roadster racing a rider on horseback with a burst of breathless, slangy prose about a sun-browned Wyoming girl for whom “the Playboy was built.” Engine, price and features never appear. It is studied as the moment car advertising stopped selling machinery and started selling a feeling (youth, speed, open country), with a woman, not a man, cast as the car's ideal owner. The Henry Ford, which holds a tear sheet, calls it one of the most influential automobile campaigns, written when sales had flattened and later emulated by other carmakers; Ohio Magazine notes that Hupmobile, Buick and Duesenberg soon followed its lead. Ad Age ranked it No. 30 among the century's top 100 campaigns.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Henry Ford — collection record for the 1923 tear sheet", "url": "https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/240458", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Internet Archive — The Saturday Evening Post, 23 June 1923, p. 129", "url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-evening-post_1923-06-23_195_52/page/129/mode/1up", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Advertisement for Jordan Playboy, \"Somewhere West of Laramie,\" Jordan Motor Car Company, 1923", "publisher": "The Henry Ford (collection record)", "url": "https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/240458" }, { "title": "How One Advertisement by the Jordan Motor Car Co. Changed an Industry", "publisher": "Ohio Magazine (2018)", "url": "https://www.ohiomagazine.com/ohio-life/article/driving-inspiration" }, { "title": "Somewhere West of Laramie", "publisher": "The Magazine Antiques (2023)", "url": "https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/somewhere-west-of-laramie/" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/sim_saturday-evening-post_1923-06-23_195_52%2Fsim_saturday-evening-post_1923-06-23_195_52_jp2.zip%2Fsim_saturday-evening-post_1923-06-23_195_52_jp2%2Fsim_saturday-evening-post_1923-06-23_195_52_0130.jp2/340,460,3080,4110/1200,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1200, "height": 1602, "alt": "Full-page 1923 Jordan Playboy advertisement: an ink drawing of a rider on a galloping horse racing a low roadster across open country, above the headline “Somewhere West of Laramie,” a column of copy and the large JORDAN wordmark (black-and-white microfilm scan)", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "The Saturday Evening Post (23 June 1923, p. 129), via Internet Archive — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_saturday-evening-post_1923-06-23_195_52/page/129/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "daily-herald-soaring-to-success", "title": "Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early Bird", "brand": "Daily Herald", "year": 1919, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A flock of angular birds, half nature and half machine, wheels across bright yellow, picturing the paper as the early bird soaring to success." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "The caption declares the paper is soaring to success, a feel-good boast that says nothing specific about the newspaper itself." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": "S. H. Benson Ltd.", "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "E. McKnight Kauffer" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Francis Meynell" } ], "tagline": "Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early Bird", "why_studied": "Britain's landmark modernist poster began life as an orphan. E. McKnight Kauffer, a young American in London, made a woodcut of birds in flight in 1916, derived from a Japanese print and broken into Vorticist geometry, and in January 1917 offered a poster version through Colour magazine's showcase for unpublished commercial art. In 1919 Francis Meynell bought it to launch the Labour newspaper the Daily Herald on 31 March, and wrote the caption himself. A flock of angular birds, half nature and half machine, wheels across a field of bright yellow. It is studied as proof that abstract avant-garde art could work on a commercial hoarding: Kauffer called it the first and only Cubist poster in England, and the V&A calls it a masterpiece of progressive poster design. Winston Churchill, then at the War Office, reportedly asked to see Kauffer about designing an RAF flag. The V&A's rare complete copy came from the archive of S.H. Benson, the agency that ran the campaign.", "watch": [ { "label": "V&A collection record", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85159/soaring-to-success---poster-kauffer-edward-mcknight/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Cooper Hewitt object record", "url": "https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/2318805133/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Soaring to Success! - The Early Bird", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85159/soaring-to-success---poster-kauffer-edward-mcknight/" }, { "title": "Poster, Soaring to Success! Daily Herald-the Early Bird", "publisher": "Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum", "url": "https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/2318805133/" }, { "title": "E. McKnight Kauffer Archive", "publisher": "Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives)", "url": "https://sova.si.edu/record/chsdm.0001" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "steinway-instrument-of-the-immortals", "title": "The Instrument of the Immortals", "brand": "Steinway & Sons", "year": 1919, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Positioning the piano as the choice of the greatest musicians sells it on prestige and heritage rather than mechanics." }, { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "The brand is identified with nearly every great pianist and composer, letting the company it keeps do the endorsing." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertising campaign", "agency": "N.W. Ayer & Son", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Raymond Rubicam" } ], "tagline": "The Instrument of the Immortals", "why_studied": "Steinway found advertising distasteful and did little of it, until a young N.W. Ayer copywriter, Raymond Rubicam, was handed the account. His research turned up the brand's real story: nearly every great pianist and composer since Wagner had played a Steinway. Rubicam distilled that into one phrase, \"The Instrument of the Immortals,\" over an ad showing a Liszt-like figure at the keyboard. Steinway balked at the slogan but agreed to run the ad once; sales rose immediately, and the line became the theme of a campaign that ran for years in national magazines, later illustrated with paintings commissioned for the Steinway Collection. It is studied as a founding example of prestige positioning: selling a piano on the company it keeps rather than on its mechanics. Campaign credits it with a 70 percent rise in sales and calls it one of the most effective ads ever written. It made Rubicam's name; he co-founded Young & Rubicam in 1923. Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 71 of the century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History: 1921 'Instrument of the Immortals' tear sheet (N.W. Ayer records)", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/archival-item/sova-nmah-ac-0059-ref8637", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "History of advertising: No 159: Ray Rubicam's Steinway ads", "publisher": "Campaign (2016)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-no-159-ray-rubicams-steinway-ads/1380116" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999), archived copy via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" }, { "title": "Oh, the Stories — LaGuardia and Wagner Archives", "publisher": "Steinway & Sons (brand site)", "url": "https://www.steinway.com/news/features/laguardia-wagner-archive" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/housegarden39greeuoft%2Fhousegarden39greeuoft_jp2.zip%2Fhousegarden39greeuoft_jp2%2Fhousegarden39greeuoft_0810.jp2/full/1000,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1000, "height": 1393, "alt": "1921 Steinway advertisement \"The Instrument of the Immortals\": N.C. Wyeth's painting \"Beethoven and Nature\", Beethoven walking by a woodland stream, above long copy, from House & Garden, December 1921", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "House & Garden, Dec. 1921 (University of Toronto copy), via Internet Archive — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/housegarden39greeuoft/page/n809/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "odorono-within-the-curve-of-a-womans-arm", "title": "Within the Curve of a Woman's Arm", "brand": "Odorono", "year": 1919, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "fear", "note": "Lyrical copy warns that a woman could offend without ever knowing it, turning sweat into a hidden social danger the product removes." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertisement", "agency": "J. Walter Thompson", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "James Webb Young" } ], "tagline": "Within the curve of a woman's arm", "why_studied": "The ad that taught American women to worry about sweat. Odorono, an antiperspirant first sold by a Cincinnati schoolgirl, had stalled by 1919, and a J. Walter Thompson door-to-door survey showed why: every woman knew it, but two-thirds felt they had no need for it. Copywriter James Webb Young stopped selling a remedy and started selling a social danger. Beneath a picture of a couple about to embrace, his headline opened into lyrical long copy warning that a woman could offend without ever knowing it. Some 200 Ladies' Home Journal readers cancelled their subscriptions and women Young knew stopped speaking to him, but Odorono's sales rose 112 per cent to $417,000 the next year, according to JWT's archives, and reached $1 million by 1927. It is studied as the prototype of \"whisper copy\", the insinuating, anxiety-led style that rivals soon imitated, and as an early case of research redirecting creative strategy. Young was later inducted into the One Club's Creative Hall of Fame.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad in Vanity Fair, May 1919, p. 75 (Internet Archive)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_vanity-fair_1919-05_12_3/page/n78/mode/1up", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Smithsonian Magazine: Odorono ads from the J. Walter Thompson archives at Duke", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-advertisers-convinced-americans-they-smelled-bad-12552404/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Advertisers Convinced Americans They Smelled Bad", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2012)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-advertisers-convinced-americans-they-smelled-bad-12552404/" }, { "title": "Odor, Oh No! Advertising Deodorant and the New Science of Psychology, 1910 to 1925", "publisher": "Juliann Sivulka, Proceedings of the Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing (CHARM) (2007)", "url": "https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/pcharm/article/view/1586" }, { "title": "James Webb Young", "publisher": "The One Club Creative Hall of Fame", "url": "https://creativehalloffame.org/inductees/james-webb-young/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/sim_vanity-fair_1919-05_12_3%2Fsim_vanity-fair_1919-05_12_3_jp2.zip%2Fsim_vanity-fair_1919-05_12_3_jp2%2Fsim_vanity-fair_1919-05_12_3_0078.jp2/150,360,3080,4220/1000,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1000, "height": 1370, "alt": "The 1919 Odorono advertisement \"Within the Curve of a Woman's Arm\": an illustration of a couple about to embrace above the headline, the subhead \"A frank discussion of a subject too often avoided\" and three columns of copy, from Vanity Fair, May 1919", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Vanity Fair, May 1919, via Internet Archive — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_vanity-fair_1919-05_12_3/page/n78/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "canada-victory-loan-if-ye-break-faith", "title": "If Ye Break Faith – We Shall Not Sleep (Buy Victory Bonds)", "brand": "Victory Loan Dominion Publicity Committee, Canada", "year": 1918, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Quoting 'In Flanders Fields' borrows the emotional authority of a poem the audience already knew and still recites on Remembrance Day." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A lone soldier bowed over a grave among poppies makes buying bonds feel like keeping faith with the fallen." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "War-bond poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Frank Lucien Nicolet" } ], "tagline": "If ye break faith – we shall not sleep", "why_studied": "Canada's 1918 Victory Loan poster turned a war poem into a sales line. The army doctor John McCrae had written \"In Flanders Fields\" in 1915, ending with the dead warning the living that if they break faith, \"we shall not sleep\". Frank Lucien Nicolet's poster shows a lone Canadian soldier, helmet in hand and head bowed over a wooden grave cross in a field of red poppies, with McCrae's words above and a plain instruction below: \"Buy Victory Bonds\". By then McCrae himself had died while serving on the Western Front. It is studied as a vivid case of borrowed cultural capital, using a poem its audience already knew, and one Canadians still recite on Remembrance Day, to make a financial request feel like a debt owed to the fallen. The Canadian War Museum notes that Victory Bond publicity used tens of thousands of posters and drew on well-known poems, and that Canadians bought more than $2 billion of domestic war bonds. A French-language version was also issued.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Imperial War Museums collection (Art.IWM PST 12361)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20332", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "If Ye break Faith - We shall not Sleep (collection record, Art.IWM PST 12361)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/20332" }, { "title": "In the Galleries: Frank Nicolet Lucien poster pays homage to poem \"In Flanders Fields\"", "publisher": "Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin", "url": "https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2014/02/16/in-the-galleries-in-flanders-fields/" }, { "title": "Life at Home During the War – The War Economy", "publisher": "Canadian War Museum", "url": "https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/life-at-home-during-the-war/the-war-economy/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/I0016153.jpg/960px-I0016153.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 670, "alt": "Frank Lucien Nicolet's 1918 Canadian Victory Bonds poster: a soldier holding his helmet stands with head bowed in a field of red poppies beside a small wooden grave cross, under the words 'If ye break faith – we shall not sleep' and above a blue band reading 'Buy Victory Bonds'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Archives of Ontario, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:I0016153.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "credito-italiano-fate-tutti-il-vostro-dovere", "title": "Fate tutti il vostro dovere! (Fourth National War Loan)", "brand": "Credito Italiano – Italian National War Loan", "year": 1917, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "It borrows the pointing-finger device of Leete's Kitchener poster and redirects its familiar command from enlisting to lending savings." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A soldier springing from the trenches asks civilians to share his sacrifice, making a bank subscription feel like a patriotic duty." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "War-loan poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Achille Mauzan" } ], "tagline": "Fate tutti il vostro dovere!", "why_studied": "Italy's fourth National War Loan of 1917 borrowed Britain's most famous recruiting gesture and pointed it at savers. Achille Mauzan, a French-born poster artist, drew an infantryman in a steel helmet springing out of the trenches, rifle in one hand and a finger of the other aimed straight at the viewer, above the line \"Fate tutti il vostro dovere!\" (\"Everyone do your duty!\") and the name of the bank taking subscriptions, Credito Italiano. Italian heritage sources trace the device directly to Alfred Leete's Kitchener poster, but note the change of meaning: this soldier is not asking civilians to enlist, he is asking them to share the sacrifice with their savings. According to the Italian bishops' heritage portal BeWeB it was among the best-known posters in wartime Italy, reproduced by the bank in giant formats that covered city buildings and echoed in other artists' loan posters. It is studied as a clear case of a visual idea crossing borders and being repurposed from recruitment to finance.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/99613561/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster on Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France", "url": "https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10050786v", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Il Prestito Nazionale", "publisher": "BeWeB – Beni ecclesiastici in web (Italian Episcopal Conference)", "url": "https://beweb.chiesacattolica.it/percorsitematici/limmagine-nei-documenti-i-documenti-come-immagine/la-propaganda-al-tempo-della-prima-guerra-mondiale/il-prestito-nazionale/" }, { "title": "Fate tutti il vostro dovere!", "publisher": "Storia e Memoria di Bologna", "url": "https://www.storiaememoriadibologna.it/archivio/opere/fate-tutti-il-vostro-dovere" }, { "title": "Fate tutti il vostro dovere! Le sottoscrizioni al prestito si ricevono presso il Credito Italiano (catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/99613561/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/N%C2%B0_27_-_Fate_tutti_il_vostro_dovere!_Le_sottoscrizioni_al_prestito_si_ricevono_presso_il_Credito_Italiano._-_btv1b10050786v.jpg/960px-N%C2%B0_27_-_Fate_tutti_il_vostro_dovere!_Le_sottoscrizioni_al_prestito_si_ricevono_presso_il_Credito_Italiano._-_btv1b10050786v.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1510, "alt": "Achille Mauzan's 1917 poster 'Fate tutti il vostro dovere!': an Italian infantryman in a steel helmet, rifle in his right hand, points at the viewer as he climbs from a trench against yellow smoke and a battle scene, above the words 'Prestito – Credito Italiano'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10050786v" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "us-food-administration-food-will-win-the-war", "title": "Food Will Win the War", "brand": "U.S. Food Administration", "year": 1917, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "The Statue of Liberty and a rainbow over New York harbour lend the request the emotional weight of the immigrant's arrival in America." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Addressing newcomers in their own languages, it frames saving wheat as repaying the freedom they found, turning gratitude into a duty." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Home-front poster (colour lithograph), issued in several languages", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Charles Edward Chambers" } ], "tagline": "Food will win the war", "why_studied": "Herbert Hoover's new U.S. Food Administration needed Americans to save wheat for the Allies, and this 1917 poster aimed that request at one audience in particular: recent immigrants. Charles Edward Chambers paints new arrivals at a dock in New York harbour, the Statue of Liberty under a rainbow behind them, and the copy states the bargain plainly: you came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it; waste nothing. The Gilder Lehrman Institute notes that the poster was also produced in Yiddish, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian to reach immigrant communities. The Yiddish edition shown here was, in the Hood Museum of Art's reading, aimed at Jewish immigrants and tied patriotism to belonging, implying that newcomers owed something for their welcome. It is studied as an early example of in-language, community-targeted government advertising, and of a voluntary conservation appeal that worked through identity and gratitude rather than rules. The Library of Congress holds both English and Yiddish versions.", "watch": [ { "label": "The English-language poster at the Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2002720171/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The Yiddish-language poster at the Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2002720472/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "\"Food Will Win the War,\" 1917", "publisher": "Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History", "url": "https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/food-will-win-war-1917" }, { "title": "Food Will Win the War [Yiddish]", "publisher": "Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth", "url": "https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/objects/ps.987.6.689" }, { "title": "Food will win the war - You came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it - Wheat is needed for the allies - waste nothing / C. E. Chambers (Yiddish edition, catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2002720472/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Food_will_win_the_war_-_You_came_here_seeking_freedom,_now_you_must_help_to_preserve_it_-_Wheat_is_needed_for_the_allies_-_waste_nothing)_-_C._E._Chambers_LCCN2002720472.jpg/960px-Food_will_win_the_war_-_You_came_here_seeking_freedom,_now_you_must_help_to_preserve_it_-_Wheat_is_needed_for_the_allies_-_waste_nothing)_-_C._E._Chambers_LCCN2002720472.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1426, "alt": "Yiddish edition of Charles Edward Chambers's 1917 'Food Will Win the War' poster: immigrants with bundles crowd a dock in New York harbour, the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline beneath a rainbow behind them, above lines of Yiddish text and the U.S. Food Administration seal", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2002720472/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "us-navy-i-want-you-for-the-navy", "title": "I Want You for the Navy", "brand": "U.S. Navy", "year": 1917, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A flirtatious young woman in uniform turns the recruiting order into a personal invitation, selling Navy service to young men through desire." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "It borrows the already-famous 'I want you' line of Kitchener and Uncle Sam, letting a familiar slogan do half the work." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Howard Chandler Christy" } ], "tagline": "I want you for the Navy", "why_studied": "Howard Chandler Christy took the most imitated line in recruiting and changed who was saying it. In this 1917 Navy poster, \"I want you\" comes not from a stern Lord Kitchener or Uncle Sam but from a \"Christy Girl\", the coquettish young woman the illustrator had invented, here in a Navy uniform with her hands in her pockets and a direct, knowing gaze. The University of Michigan Museum of Art traces the borrowing from Alfred Leete's Kitchener and James Montgomery Flagg's Uncle Sam and points out that Christy's substitution gives the caption a double meaning, turning a command into an invitation. The small print adds a practical incentive: promotion for anyone enlisting. It is studied as an early, unapologetic use of sex appeal to sell military service to young men, and as a rival recruiter remixing a famous slogan instead of inventing one. Copies are held by the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Pritzker Military Museum & Library.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/92510150/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/390926", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "I Want You for the Navy – Promotion for anyone enlisting, apply any recruiting station or postmaster", "publisher": "University of Michigan Museum of Art", "url": "https://umma.umich.edu/objects/i-want-you-for-the-navy-promotion-for-anyone-enlisting-apply-any-recruiting-station-or-postmaster-1954-2-35-22/" }, { "title": "I Want You for the Navy", "publisher": "Pritzker Military Museum & Library", "url": "https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/museum/past-exhibits/american-icons-great-war/i-want-you-navy" }, { "title": "I want you for the Navy promotion for anyone enlisting, apply any recruiting station or postmaster / Howard Chandler Christy (catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/92510150/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/I_want_you_for_the_Navy_promotion_for_anyone_enlisting,_apply_any_recruiting_station_or_postmaster_-_-_Howard_Chandler_Christy._LCCN92510150.jpg/960px-I_want_you_for_the_Navy_promotion_for_anyone_enlisting,_apply_any_recruiting_station_or_postmaster_-_-_Howard_Chandler_Christy._LCCN92510150.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1497, "alt": "Howard Chandler Christy's 1917 poster 'I Want You for the Navy': a young woman in a navy blue uniform and cap stands with her hands in her pockets, beside red lettering 'I want you for the Navy' and blue text 'Promotion for any one enlisting, apply any recruiting station or postmaster'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/92510150/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "us-army-i-want-you-uncle-sam", "title": "I Want You for U.S. Army", "brand": "U.S. Army", "year": 1917, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Uncle Sam's stare and pointing finger borrow the weight of a national symbol to make enlisting feel like a personal summons." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "James Montgomery Flagg" } ], "tagline": "I want you for U.S. Army", "why_studied": "Uncle Sam's stare and outstretched finger first appeared on the cover of Leslie's Weekly in July 1916, above the question \"What Are You Doing for Preparedness?\" When the United States entered the First World War, James Montgomery Flagg turned it into an Army recruiting poster, adapting the accusing pose from Alfred Leete's 1914 Kitchener design and using his own reflection, aged up, for Uncle Sam's face. Some four million copies were printed during the war, and it was revived with small changes for the Second World War. It is studied for how completely it confronts the individual: the eyes and finger follow the viewer, the copy speaks to \"you\" alone, and a blank space under \"nearest recruiting station\" turns the poster into an instruction. The Library of Congress calls it probably the best-known American war recruiting poster and one of the most imitated, and it has been parodied endlessly ever since.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/96507165/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco", "url": "https://www.famsf.org/artworks/i-want-you-for-us-army", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "I want you for U.S. Army : nearest recruiting station (catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/96507165/" }, { "title": "I Want You for U.S. Army (collection record)", "publisher": "Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco", "url": "https://www.famsf.org/artworks/i-want-you-for-us-army" }, { "title": "Posters: World War I Posters — About this Collection", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-posters/about-this-collection/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/I_Want_You_for_U.S._Army_by_James_Montgomery_Flagg.jpg/960px-I_Want_You_for_U.S._Army_by_James_Montgomery_Flagg.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1290, "alt": "Original 1917 poster \"I Want You for U.S. Army\" by James Montgomery Flagg: Uncle Sam in a starred top hat points straight at the viewer", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division — no known restrictions", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/96507165/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "win-the-war-league-nice-in-the-surf", "title": "It Is Nice in the Surf, but What About the Men in the Trenches?", "known_as": "It Is Nice in the Surf", "brand": "Win the War League, Australia", "year": 1917, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A carefree swimmer is set against the unseen men in the trenches, so the viewer's own leisure becomes a source of guilt." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "D. H. Souter" } ], "tagline": "It is nice in the surf, but what about the men in the trenches?", "why_studied": "Australia relied entirely on volunteers for its First World War army, so its recruiting posters had to persuade and shame rather than order, and this one finds its audience at the beach. D. H. Souter shows a smiling young man swimming through the breakers under the words \"It is nice in the surf\", before the copy turns: \"but what about the men in the trenches? Go and help.\" The setting is the argument: the poster meets young men in their leisure time and makes the pleasure itself feel like evidence against them. It was issued by the Win the War League, whose badge sits in the corner; the Imperial War Museums records that the league was set up by the Women's State Recruiting Committee in Adelaide and asked members to sign a pledge. It is studied as a sharp piece of contextual targeting and a guilt appeal built on the contrast between two places. The Australian War Memorial, the Imperial War Museums and the Library of Congress hold copies.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster at the Australian War Memorial (ARTV00141)", "url": "https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV00141", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2004675097/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "It is nice in the surf, but what about the men in the trenches? (collection record, ARTV00141)", "publisher": "Australian War Memorial", "url": "https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV00141" }, { "title": "It is Nice in the Surf but What About the Men in the Trenches (collection record, Art.IWM PST 12232)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/25051" }, { "title": "It is nice in the surf but what about the men in the trenches. Go and help / D.H. Souter (catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2004675097/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://tile.loc.gov/image-services/iiif/service:pnp:cph:3g10000:3g12000:3g12100:3g12183v/136,56,548,834/full/0/default.jpg", "width": 548, "height": 834, "alt": "D. H. Souter's First World War recruiting poster: a smiling young man swims through white surf under the words 'It is nice in the surf', with the Win the War League badge at right and the lines 'But what about the men in the trenches – Go and help' below", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division, via tile.loc.gov — public domain", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2004675097/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-07T19:27:36.036964+00:00" }, { "slug": "mayors-committee-wake-up-america", "title": "Wake Up, America! Civilization Calls Every Man, Woman and Child!", "known_as": "Wake Up, America!", "brand": "Mayor's Committee on National Defense, New York", "year": 1917, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A sleeping Columbia stands for a dozing nation, so the single image carries the argument that America must wake up." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Stars and stripes, a liberty cap and a classical column borrow the prestige of nation, liberty and civilisation for the call to mobilise." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "James Montgomery Flagg" } ], "tagline": "Wake up, America!", "why_studied": "The United States declared war on 6 April 1917, and thirteen days later New York staged \"Wake Up, America\" Day with this poster by James Montgomery Flagg. Rather than a soldier or a pointing finger, Flagg painted Columbia, the female personification of the nation, asleep in a stars-and-stripes gown and a liberty cap while dark storm clouds gather behind her. The persuasion is a rebuke: the country is dozing, the headline is the alarm, and the call goes out to every man, woman and child, not only to men of fighting age. The Library of Congress's exhibition caption records that the actress Mary Arthur posed for Columbia and reads the fluted column she leans on as a nod to classical civilisation. It is studied as a model of allegory in advertising, compressing a national argument into one sleeping figure, and of a call to action addressed to an entire society. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco describe it as a general appeal to mobilise, equating liberty with civilisation.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/91726511/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco", "url": "https://www.famsf.org/artworks/wake-up-america-civilization-calls-every-man-woman-and-child", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Wake up America! Civilization calls every man, woman and child! / James Montgomery Flagg (catalogue record and exhibition caption)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/91726511/" }, { "title": "Wake Up, America! Civilization Calls Every Man, Woman and Child", "publisher": "Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco", "url": "https://www.famsf.org/artworks/wake-up-america-civilization-calls-every-man-woman-and-child" }, { "title": "Wake up America. Civilization calls every man, woman and child. Mayor's Committee.", "publisher": "Hoover Institution Library & Archives", "url": "https://digitalcollections.hoover.org/objects/37942/wake-up-america-civilization-calls-every-man-woman-and-chi" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Wake_up_America!_Civilization_calls_every_man,_woman_and_child!_-_James_Montgomery_Flagg._LCCN91726511.tif/960px-Wake_up_America!_Civilization_calls_every_man,_woman_and_child!_-_James_Montgomery_Flagg._LCCN91726511.tif.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1414, "alt": "James Montgomery Flagg's 1917 poster 'Wake Up, America!': Columbia, in a stars-and-stripes gown and star-spangled liberty cap, sleeps against a cushion beside a column as storm clouds gather; text below reads 'Civilization calls every man woman and child!'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/91726511/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-07T19:27:36.036964+00:00" }, { "slug": "france-defence-loan-on-les-aura", "title": "On les aura! (Second National Defence Loan)", "brand": "French Government – Emprunt de la Défense Nationale", "year": 1916, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "The soldier's pose echoes Rude's sculpture on the Arc de Triomphe and his cry quotes Pétain at Verdun, borrowing national glory for a bond sale." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A young soldier surging forward with his arm raised turns buying a government bond into a share in his heroic charge." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "War-loan poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Abel Faivre" } ], "tagline": "On les aura!", "why_studied": "France paid for much of the First World War by borrowing from its citizens, and this poster sold the second National Defence Loan, launched in October 1916. Abel Faivre drew a young infantryman, a poilu, surging forward with his rifle in one hand and the other arm flung skywards as he shouts back to comrades beyond the frame; the words are little more than his cry, \"On les aura!\" (\"We'll get them!\"), and the instruction to subscribe. The Imperial War Museums calls it the most famous French poster of the war, notes that the cry quoted General Pétain at Verdun, and reads the pose as an echo of François Rude's sculpture on the Arc de Triomphe, casting an ordinary soldier as Victory. It is studied for turning a government bond into one heroic gesture and a battle cry. The image was reused in France, copied in Italy and adapted in the United States in 1943; the Library of Congress calls it the most remembered French poster of the war.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/99613629/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster on Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France", "url": "https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9013991f", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "On les aura! [We'll get them!] (collection record)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/8912" }, { "title": "On les aura! 2e Emprunt de la Défense Nationale. Souscrivez (catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/99613629/" }, { "title": "« On les aura ! » : la Première Guerre mondiale à crédit", "publisher": "Archives nationales du monde du travail", "url": "https://archives-nationales-travail.culture.gouv.fr/Decouvrir/Dossiers-du-mois/On-les-aura-!-la-Premiere-Guerre-mondiale-a-credit" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/2e_Emprunt_de_la_D%C3%A9fense_nationale._Souscrivez_(1916)_On_les_aura_!_-_affiche_-_Abel_Faivre_-_btv1b9013991f.jpg/960px-2e_Emprunt_de_la_D%C3%A9fense_nationale._Souscrivez_(1916)_On_les_aura_!_-_affiche_-_Abel_Faivre_-_btv1b9013991f.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1263, "alt": "Abel Faivre's 1916 poster 'On les aura!': a French soldier in a helmet and greatcoat lunges forward with his rifle, his left arm raised high as he shouts over his shoulder, beside the words '2e Emprunt de la Défense Nationale – Souscrivez'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9013991f" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "prc-daddy-what-did-you-do-in-the-great-war", "title": "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?", "brand": "Parliamentary Recruiting Committee", "year": 1915, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A father's uneasy silence before his daughter's question turns enlistment into a matter of family shame and future regret." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "It stages an imagined scene from after the war, letting the viewer fill in the story of a father with no answer." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": "Johnson, Riddle & Co., London", "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Savile Lumley" } ], "tagline": "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?", "why_studied": "A British recruitment poster that sells enlistment by staging a moment from the future. After the war, a father sits in his armchair while his small daughter, a book open on her knee, asks him the title question and his son plays with toy soldiers on the carpet; the man's uneasy stare carries the whole argument. It was issued in 1915 as Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster no. 79, when the army still relied on volunteers. The Victoria and Albert Museum records that the idea came from the printer Arthur Gunn, who pictured himself as the father and joined up after Savile Lumley sketched the scene, and attributes the poster's fame to its tone of emotional blackmail. It is studied as a textbook guilt appeal that never shows the enemy or the front, only the shame of having no answer. The Australian War Memorial calls it arguably the most remembered British recruiting poster of the war and notes that soldiers pinned it up in their dugouts with their own answers added.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs collection", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2003663090/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The poster at the National Army Museum, London", "url": "https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1977-06-81-16", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? | Lumley", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74621/daddy-what-did-you-do-poster-lumley/" }, { "title": "Daddy, what did you do in the Great War? (collection record, ARTV00433)", "publisher": "Australian War Memorial", "url": "https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C96008" }, { "title": "Daddy, what did you do in the great war? / designed and printed by Johnson, Riddle & Co., Ltd., London, S.E. (catalogue record)", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2003663090/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/I0016396.jpg/960px-I0016396.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1423, "alt": "Savile Lumley's 1915 poster: a father in a brown suit sits in a green armchair with his daughter on his knee pointing at a book, while his son kneels on the carpet playing with toy soldiers and a toy cannon; caption 'Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?'", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Archives of Ontario, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:I0016396.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" }, { "slug": "cadillac-penalty-of-leadership", "title": "The Penalty of Leadership", "brand": "Cadillac", "year": 1915, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "An essay arguing that leaders are always attacked casts the brand as the standard others envy, without describing the car." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Lofty ideas about leadership and what deserves to live replace any specifics, persuading through noble sentiment alone." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Full-page magazine advertisement (The Saturday Evening Post)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Theodore F. MacManus" } ], "tagline": "The Penalty of Leadership", "why_studied": "A car advertisement that never mentions the car. In 1915 Cadillac had just put the first V-8 into a production automobile, and its copywriter Theodore MacManus answered the doubters not with specifications but with an essay. Set as an all-text page in The Saturday Evening Post of 2 January 1915, with no picture of the product, it argues that whoever leads in any field, from painting to music to industry, is attacked precisely because they lead, and closes: \"That which deserves to live — lives.\" It ran once. Cadillac then spent some thirty years answering requests for reprints, and a framed copy hung in Elvis Presley's office at Graceland. It is studied as an early masterpiece of image advertising: positioning a brand as the standard others envy instead of listing its features. Hemmings counts it among the most prominent car ads of its decade and a forerunner of the emotive automobile copy of the 1920s.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad as it ran on 2 January 1915 (The Saturday Evening Post)", "url": "https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2021/03/cadillac-and-the-ad-that-became-a-legend/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cadillac and the Ad that Became a Legend", "publisher": "The Saturday Evening Post (2021)", "url": "https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2021/03/cadillac-and-the-ad-that-became-a-legend/" }, { "title": "General Motors Illustrated Auto Advertising, 1900-1965", "publisher": "Hemmings (2018)", "url": "https://www.hemmings.com/stories/general-motors-illustrated-auto-advertising-1900-1965/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/The_Penalty_of_Leadership_LCCN2005693304.jpg/960px-The_Penalty_of_Leadership_LCCN2005693304.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1270, "alt": "The Cadillac advertisement \"The Penalty of Leadership\" as printed on page 47 of The Saturday Evening Post, 2 January 1915: an all-text essay in an ornamental border under the Cadillac crest", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division — no known restrictions", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2005693304/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "prc-women-of-britain-say-go", "title": "Women of Britain Say – ‘Go!’", "brand": "Parliamentary Recruiting Committee", "year": 1915, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Women and a small boy watching soldiers march away cast women as needing protection while enlisting them to push their own men into uniform." }, { "slug": "bandwagon", "note": "The headline speaks for all the women of Britain at once, implying a national consensus that the reluctant recruit is defying." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recruitment poster (colour lithograph)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "E. J. Kealey" } ], "tagline": "Women of Britain say – \"Go!\"", "why_studied": "Instead of addressing men, this 1915 recruitment poster recruits the people closest to them to do the persuading. E. J. Kealey paints women and a small boy at an open window, watching a column of soldiers march away across green hills, under the headline \"Women of Britain say – Go!\". The National Army Museum dates it to March 1915, when it was published as Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster no. 75 and Britain still depended on volunteers. The Imperial War Museums uses it to show how recruiters applied the techniques of commercial advertising, and its catalogue points to a double message: women are pictured as needing protection while also being asked to push their men into uniform. It is studied for its indirect targeting, speaking to the influencer rather than the person who has to act, and for turning private family pressure into a public recruiting tool. Copies are held by the Imperial War Museums, the National Army Museum and Auckland War Memorial Museum.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Imperial War Museums collection (Art.IWM PST 2763)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/14592", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The poster at Auckland War Memorial Museum", "url": "https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/collections/record/978663", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Women of Britain Say 'Go!' (collection record, Art.IWM PST 2763)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/14592" }, { "title": "First World War Recruitment Posters", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums (IWM Learning)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/first-world-war-recruitment-posters" }, { "title": "'Women of Britain Say - Go'", "publisher": "National Army Museum", "url": "https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1977-06-81-30" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Women_of_Britain_say_-_Go,_978663-001.jpg/960px-Women_of_Britain_say_-_Go,_978663-001.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1439, "alt": "E. J. Kealey's 1915 poster 'Women of Britain say – Go!': a woman in a yellow gown, an older woman in a dark shawl and a small boy stand at an open window watching a line of soldiers with rifles march past green hills", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/discover/collections/record/978663" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:47:13.306853+00:00" }, { "slug": "london-opinion-kitchener-wants-you", "title": "Lord Kitchener Wants You (\"Your Country Needs You\")", "known_as": "Your Country Needs You", "brand": "London Opinion / British Army recruitment", "year": 1914, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "politics-psas", "wartime-posters" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Calling on the country through its war chief harnesses patriotism and makes each passer-by personally answerable." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "The new Secretary of State for War, glaring straight out at the viewer, gives the appeal the authority of command." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine cover and recruitment poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "Alfred Leete" } ], "tagline": "Your country needs you.", "why_studied": "The pointing finger every recruitment ad since has borrowed. Alfred Leete drew Lord Kitchener, the new Secretary of State for War, glaring straight out of the cover of the weekly London Opinion on 5 September 1914 above the words \"Your Country Needs You\". Shortly afterwards the image was privately reprinted as a poster, \"Britons [Kitchener] wants you\", and its locked gaze and foreshortened hand made each passer-by personally answerable. It is studied as a lesson in compression: one face, one gesture, four words, at a time when official recruiting posters were often walls of type. Historians enjoy the twist that it was printed in modest numbers, seldom photographed on the streets and barely circulated beyond London, its fame growing after the war. Yet it was copied almost at once, from India to Canada to Germany and, most famously, in America's Uncle Sam. The Imperial War Museums calls it perhaps the most famous poster of the First World War.", "watch": [ { "label": "The poster in the Imperial War Museums collection (Art.IWM PST 2734)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/16577", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Kitchener: The most famous pointing finger", "publisher": "BBC News (2014)", "url": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28642846" }, { "title": "Britons. Join Your Country's Army! (collection record, Art.IWM PST 2734)", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/16577" }, { "title": "First World War Recruitment Posters", "publisher": "Imperial War Museums (IWM Learning)", "url": "https://www.iwm.org.uk/learning/resources/first-world-war-recruitment-posters" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Kitchener_London_Opinion_Cover_1914_by_Alfred_Leete.jpg/960px-Kitchener_London_Opinion_Cover_1914_by_Alfred_Leete.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1429, "alt": "London Opinion poster of 5 September 1914 by Alfred Leete: Lord Kitchener stares and points at the viewer above the words \"Your Country Needs You\"", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division — no known restrictions", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/93517736/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "woodbury-a-skin-you-love-to-touch", "title": "A Skin You Love to Touch", "brand": "Woodbury's Facial Soap", "year": 1911, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "An elegant woman admired by a man in evening dress sells the romance the soap might win, not the soap itself." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Magazine advertisement", "agency": "J. Walter Thompson", "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Helen Lansdowne Resor" } ], "tagline": "A skin you love to touch", "why_studied": "Until 1911, soap ads mostly showed soap. For Woodbury's Facial Soap, J. Walter Thompson copywriter Helen Lansdowne Resor showed what the soap might win you instead: an elegant young woman receiving the admiring attention of a man in evening dress, above the line \"A skin you love to touch.\" Selling soap through romance caused an uproar, and the campaign is widely regarded as the first to use sex appeal to sell a product. It is studied for that shift from the product to its user, and for its author: Lansdowne Resor, considered by some the first female copywriter, set up a women's editorial department at JWT and promoted women into creative roles. The results were hard to argue with. Sales reportedly rose 1,000 percent in eight years, and Woodbury kept the slogan for more than three decades. Ad Age ranked it No. 31 of the century's 100 greatest campaigns, and Duke's Hartman Center featured a Woodbury ad in its 2007 exhibit on sex appeal in advertising.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Saturday Evening Post: a 1915 Woodbury's ad from the campaign", "url": "https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2022/01/vintage-advertising-shock-value/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 100 Advertising Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999), archived copy via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20100219113420/http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html" }, { "title": "History of Advertising No 87: The first ad with sex appeal", "publisher": "Campaign (2014)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/history-advertising-no-87-first-ad-sex-appeal/1226933" }, { "title": "Vintage Advertising: Shock Value", "publisher": "The Saturday Evening Post (2022)", "url": "https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2022/01/vintage-advertising-shock-value/" }, { "title": "Sex Appeal at the Library", "publisher": "Duke Today, Duke University (2007)", "url": "https://today.duke.edu/2007/06/sex.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/theatre-magazine_1911-04_13_122%2Ftheatre-magazine_1911-04_13_122_jp2.zip%2Ftheatre-magazine_1911-04_13_122_jp2%2Ftheatre-magazine_1911-04_13_122_0039.jp2/1845,185,905,1810/,1600/0/default.jpg", "width": 800, "height": 1600, "alt": "1911 Woodbury's Facial Soap advertisement, \"A Skin you love to touch\", with Henry Hutt's drawing of a man pressing a woman's hand to his lips, from Theatre Magazine, April 1911", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Theatre Magazine, April 1911, via Internet Archive — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/theatre-magazine_1911-04_13_122/page/n38/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "thermogene-cappiello-fire-breathing-pierrot", "title": "Le Thermogène", "brand": "Thermogène", "year": 1909, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A Pierrot hugging a wad of the product while breathing a plume of fire dramatises its heat in one figure instead of describing it." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A fire-breathing Pierrot becomes so identified with the product that the maker adopts him as its logo." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Leonetto Cappiello" } ], "tagline": "Le Thermogène engendre la chaleur", "why_studied": "A green-clad Pierrot hugs a wad of Thermogène to his chest and breathes a plume of fire, his shadow looming across a dark ground beneath the brand name in tall yellow capitals. Thermogène was a capsicum-laced cotton wadding sold against coughs and rheumatism; Cappiello dramatised its heat instead of describing it, in one absurd, instantly legible figure. His poster publisher, Vercasson, had written to him in November 1907 demanding something with big impact on the wall and, at any cost, nothing banal. The poster is studied as an early case of an image becoming the brand: it reached a 19th edition by 1926, the maker adopted the fire-breathing Pierrot as its logo, still printed on packs after 2000, and the historian William H. Helfand judged it one of the best-known commercial posters of the 20th century. The Wellcome Collection, the Library of Congress and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs all hold copies.", "watch": [ { "label": "Wellcome Collection record", "url": "https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dhrxzt3k", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Library of Congress record", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2008680358/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "A fire-eater kindling fire in his lungs with the remedy Thermogène. Colour lithograph by Leonetto Cappiello, 1909.", "publisher": "Wellcome Collection", "url": "https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dhrxzt3k" }, { "title": "Thermogène (Le) - Catalogue Raisonné de Leonetto Cappiello", "publisher": "Catalogue raisonné de Leonetto Cappiello (cappiello.fr)", "url": "https://cappiello.fr/en/produit/thermogene-le-3/" }, { "title": "Cappiello (1875-1942)", "publisher": "Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris", "url": "https://madparis.fr/cappiello-leonetto-1875-1942" }, { "title": "Le Thermogène: Engendre la chaleur et guèrit: toux rhumatismes, points de côte, etc. / L. Cappiello.", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2008680358/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/L0027813/full/1280,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 1900, "alt": "Cappiello's Thermogène poster: a Pierrot in shiny green tights clutches a large pad of beige cotton wadding to his chest and breathes orange flames upward, his black shadow cast behind him on a dark brown ground, under the yellow headline 'Le Thermogène' and red and yellow lettering promising it fights coughs, rheumatism and side stitches.", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Wellcome Collection, via Wellcome Collection IIIF — public domain", "source_url": "https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dhrxzt3k" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hermann-scherrer-hohlwein-breechesmaker", "title": "Hermann Scherrer: Breechesmaker, Sporting-Tailor", "brand": "Hermann Scherrer (tailor, Munich)", "year": 1907, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A striding rider built from flat planes of colour makes his loud checked breeches the most eye-catching thing on the wall, putting the product at the centre." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Ludwig Hohlwein" } ], "tagline": "Hermann Scherrer. Breechesmaker. Sporting-Tailor.", "why_studied": "A young rider in cap and waistcoat strides toward us with saddle and crop, a bulldog at his heel, and the loudest thing on the wall is his checked breeches. Ludwig Hohlwein's poster for Hermann Scherrer, a Munich maker of breeches and sporting clothes, builds the figure from bold flat planes of colour, so the cloth itself becomes the pattern that stops the eye. The Munich City Museum credits the Scherrer posters with Hohlwein's first big successes and says nearly all Munich product advertising came to follow his style; a 1926 monograph adds that English-language versions carried the campaign abroad and that the saddle-carrying horseman was copied as far afield as a Spanish sardine advertisement. It is studied as a key early Sachplakat, the German object poster that put the product at the centre. Hohlwein's later propaganda for the Nazi regime complicates his legacy, but this commercial series is what established his reputation.", "watch": [ { "label": "Münchner Stadtmuseum collection record", "url": "https://sammlungonline.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de/liste/contrib-detail/hermann-scherrer-breechesmaker-sportingtailor-muenchen-neuhauserstr-32-originaltitel-10224025", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Library of Congress record", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/94507611/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ludwig Hohlwein, „Hermann Scherrer. / Breechesmaker Sporting=Tailor / München / Neuhauserstr. 32“ (Originaltitel), 1907", "publisher": "Münchner Stadtmuseum, Sammlung Reklamekunst", "url": "https://sammlungonline.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de/liste/contrib-detail/hermann-scherrer-breechesmaker-sportingtailor-muenchen-neuhauserstr-32-originaltitel-10224025" }, { "title": "Hermann Scherrer – Works – Poster House", "publisher": "Poster House, New York", "url": "https://posterhouse.emuseum.com/objects/4408/hermann-scherrer" }, { "title": "Ludwig Hohlwein", "publisher": "Phönix Illustrationsdruck und Verlag, ed. H. K. Frenzel (1926), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://archive.org/details/ludwighohlwein00unse" }, { "title": "Hermann Scherrer. Sporting and Ladies-Tailor. München", "publisher": "Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek", "url": "https://search.smb.museum/object/obj-2714406" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "priester-matches-object-poster", "title": "Priester", "brand": "Priester (match manufacturer)", "year": 1906, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Two matchsticks and the brand name, with everything else thrown out, form one stark image a passer-by can grasp in an instant on a crowded street." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Lucian Bernhard" } ], "tagline": "Priester", "why_studied": "Two matchsticks and one word. Entered in a Berlin poster competition sponsored by the Priester match company, Lucian Bernhard's design threw out everything except the product and the brand name. The judges were unimpressed and binned it; a late-arriving juror, the printer and sales manager Ernst Growald, pulled it from the wastebasket and it won. It is studied as the birth of the Sachplakat, or \"object poster\": the idea that in a crowded street a poster must be grasped in an instant, so the object and the name should do all the work. At a time when posters tended to be wordy and ornate, its starkness was the shock. Steven Heller calls it a watershed of modern graphic design, and the Cooper Hewitt credits it with launching the style Bernhard went on to pioneer, pairing a single image with a brand name and nothing else. Every minimalist product poster since is in its debt.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Priester poster (a 1915 printing) at the Deutsches Plakat Museum (Museum Folkwang)", "url": "https://www.museum-folkwang.de/de/sammlung/deutsches-plakat-museum", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "His Name is Lucian, But Everyone Knows Him as Bernhard", "publisher": "PRINT Magazine (Steven Heller, 2012)", "url": "https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/his-name-is-lucian-but-everyone-knows-him-as-bernhard/" }, { "title": "Seduced by an Object Poster", "publisher": "Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (2013)", "url": "https://www.cooperhewitt.org/2013/05/16/seduced-by-an-object-poster/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "chocolat-klaus-red-horse", "title": "Chocolat Klaus", "brand": "Chocolat Klaus", "year": 1903, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A green-clad rider on a scarlet horse, with no chocolate in sight, becomes so linked to the brand that shoppers ask for the red-horse chocolate." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": "P. Vercasson & Cie", "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Leonetto Cappiello" } ], "tagline": "Chocolat Klaus", "why_studied": "A green-clad rider on a scarlet horse, a black void and the brand name: nothing in Leonetto Cappiello's poster depicts chocolate, and that was the point. Working through the Paris printer and advertising agent Vercasson, Cappiello abandoned the detailed, painterly manner of Chéret and Mucha for a single bold, faintly absurd figure meant to catch a passer-by's eye from far away. Within weeks, his catalogue raisonné says, all of Paris knew the brand, and shoppers asked for \"the red-horse chocolate\" rather than for Klaus by name; Cappiello wrote in 1907 that the results were so conclusive that clients stopped resisting his formula. It is studied as the moment the poster stopped illustrating the product and started selling an association: Poster House credits it with introducing the mascot to advertising and notes that Cappiello is known as the father of modern advertising. Klaus kept the image on its chocolate bars until around 2000.", "watch": [ { "label": "Poster House collection record", "url": "https://collection.posterhouse.org/poster/chocolat-klaus/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "LACMA collection record", "url": "https://collections.lacma.org/object/59818", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Chocolat Klaus", "publisher": "Poster House", "url": "https://collection.posterhouse.org/poster/chocolat-klaus/" }, { "title": "Chocolat Klaus", "publisher": "Catalogue raisonné de Leonetto Cappiello", "url": "https://cappiello.fr/en/produit/chocolat-klaus-2/" }, { "title": "1900 - 1918: Vercasson period", "publisher": "Catalogue raisonné de Leonetto Cappiello", "url": "https://cappiello.fr/en/1900-1918-vercasson-period/" }, { "title": "Two Posters by Leonetto Cappiello: Cigarettes, Seduction, & an Elephant", "publisher": "Poster House (2024)", "url": "https://posterhouse.org/blog/two-posters-by-leonetto-cappiello-cigarettes-seduction-an-elephant/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/ppmsca/10000/10085v.jpg", "width": 749, "height": 1024, "alt": "Original 1903 poster \"Chocolat Klaus\" by Leonetto Cappiello: a woman in a long green dress riding a rearing red horse against a black background", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division — no known restrictions", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/2005693044/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "michelin-nunc-est-bibendum", "title": "Nunc est bibendum!", "brand": "Michelin", "year": 1898, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "A portly figure built from tyres becomes the brand's enduring character, kept, much slimmed down, for more than a century." }, { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "Raising a goblet of nails and broken glass over deflated rivals, the figure built from tyres pictures the claim that the tyre drinks up obstacles." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Illustrator", "name": "O'Galop (Marius Rossillon)" } ], "tagline": "Nunc est bibendum!", "why_studied": "The birth of a mascot still working more than a century later. The cartoonist O'Galop (Marius Rossillon) had a design rejected by a Munich brewery: a portly drinker toasting with Horace's line \"Nunc est bibendum\", now is the time to drink. According to company lore, André Michelin remembered his brother Édouard seeing a man in a stack of tyres at the 1894 Lyon exhibition, and had the drinker rebuilt out of tyres. The new figure looms over his deflated rivals and raises a goblet of nails and broken glass because, as the caption explains, the Michelin tyre \"drinks up obstacles\". It is studied as a lesson in turning a technical claim into a character: one absurd, memorable image carries the whole product promise. That summer a racing driver reportedly hailed André as \"Bibendum\", borrowing the poster's Latin, and the name stuck; by 1906 Clemenceau was borrowing the line, announcing that like the well-known tyre he drank up obstacles. Michelin has kept the character, much slimmed down, ever since.", "watch": [ { "label": "Fast Company: The Secret History Of The Michelin Man (shows the April 1898 poster)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/3036541/the-secret-history-of-the-michelin-man", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nunc est bibendum", "publisher": "Le Monde (1998)", "url": "https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1998/05/02/nunc-est-bibendum_3642210_1819218.html" }, { "title": "The Secret History Of The Michelin Man", "publisher": "Fast Company (2014)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/3036541/the-secret-history-of-the-michelin-man" }, { "title": "Bibendum", "publisher": "Cabinet magazine, issue 51", "url": "https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/51/editorial1.php" }, { "title": "The History of the Michelin Man", "publisher": "Michelin North America (company history)", "url": "https://michelinmedia.com/the-history-of-the-michelin-man/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "job-cigarette-papers-mucha", "title": "JOB", "brand": "JOB (Joseph Bardou cigarette papers)", "year": 1896, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "A woman with her head thrown back and a lit cigarette, smoke curling into her hair, sells the papers through sensual glamour." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "A mosaic-like Byzantine border lends a humble cigarette paper an air of dignity borrowed from fine art." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Alphonse Mucha" } ], "tagline": "JOB", "why_studied": "A cigarette-paper advert that fixed the look of Art Nouveau glamour. For JOB, the trademark of the Joseph Bardou company, Alphonse Mucha drew a woman with her head thrown back and a lit cigarette in her fingers, letting the smoke curl into an arabesque that tangles with her vast, swirling hair and the brand's monogram, which also tiles the background. A mosaic-like Byzantine border, as in his Gismonda poster, lends a humble consumer product an air of dignity. It is studied as the poster treated as a canvas rather than a throwaway, with figure, ornament and brand name fused into one decorative system, and as a quiet provocation: the Minneapolis Institute of Art points out that respectable women of the period did not smoke. The Mucha Foundation calls it one of his best-known advertising posters and the image that established the \"Mucha woman\"; it was reissued in many formats for foreign markets, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Mia both hold copies.", "watch": [ { "label": "Mucha Foundation: Poster for 'Job' cigarette paper", "url": "https://www.muchafoundation.org/en/gallery/browse-works/object/44/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris: collection record", "url": "https://collections.madparis.fr/document/collections/627abaac3edd9548006c701d", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Poster for 'Job' cigarette paper", "publisher": "Mucha Foundation", "url": "https://www.muchafoundation.org/en/gallery/browse-works/object/44/" }, { "title": "Job, Alphonse Mucha; Printer: F. Champenois, Paris", "publisher": "Minneapolis Institute of Art", "url": "https://collections.artsmia.org/art/7805/job-alphonse-mucha" }, { "title": "papier à cigarette", "publisher": "Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris", "url": "https://collections.madparis.fr/document/collections/627abaac3edd9548006c701d" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Alphonse_Mucha_-_Advertisment_for_Job_cigarettes%2C_1896.jpg/960px-Alphonse_Mucha_-_Advertisment_for_Job_cigarettes%2C_1896.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1379, "alt": "Alphonse Mucha's 1896 JOB poster: a woman with long, swirling hair tilts her head back as smoke from her cigarette curls around the giant JOB lettering, inside a purple mosaic-patterned border", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Bibliothèque nationale de France, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alphonse_Mucha_-_Advertisment_for_Job_cigarettes,_1896.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rowntrees-elect-cocoa-beggarstaffs", "title": "Rowntree's Elect Cocoa", "brand": "Rowntree's", "year": 1896, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "visual-metaphor", "note": "A portly figure over a teacup, reduced to flat silhouette beside the brand name, lets one stark image land even when glimpsed from a passing horse-bus." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "James Pryde (as the Beggarstaffs)" }, { "role": "Designer", "name": "William Nicholson (as the Beggarstaffs)" } ], "tagline": "Rowntree's Elect Cocoa", "why_studied": "Three words and almost nothing else. Working as the Beggarstaffs, the painters James Pryde and William Nicholson sold Rowntree's Elect Cocoa with a portly figure in a black hat and coat, a teacup before him and two companions drawn only in outline behind, set beside the brand name on an empty ground. Their method, collaging cut paper and stencilling flat colour, let silhouette do the work, on the principle that a poster had to land even when glimpsed from a passing horse-bus. The V&A records that their agent steered this speculative design to Rowntree's, and notes how little copy it carries. It is studied because, while Paris posters overflowed with Art Nouveau colour, the partnership stripped the form to essential shapes and anticipated modernism by a decade. Les Maîtres de l'Affiche reproduced it as a plate, yet the duo struggled for clients: their work proved too avant-garde for most advertisers of the day.", "watch": [ { "label": "V&A collection record", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74084/rowntrees-elect-cocoa-poster-pryde-james/", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The Met collection record (Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, pl. 168)", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/418560", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Rowntree's Elect Cocoa | Nicholson, William Newzam Prior (Sir) | Pryde, James | V&A Explore The Collections", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74084/rowntrees-elect-cocoa-poster-pryde-james/" }, { "title": "Beggarstaffs: William Nicholson & James Pryde", "publisher": "University of Cambridge (2019)", "url": "https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/beggarstaffs" }, { "title": "How the Beggarstaff brothers invented the modern poster", "publisher": "New Statesman (2019)", "url": "https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2019/05/how-the-beggarstaff-brothers-invented-the-modern-poster" }, { "title": "J. & W. Beggarstaff - Rowntree’s Elect Cocoa (Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, pl. 168)", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/418560" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Ma%C3%AEtres_de_l%27affiche_V_4_-_Pl_168_-_Beggarstaffs.jpg/1280px-Ma%C3%AEtres_de_l%27affiche_V_4_-_Pl_168_-_Beggarstaffs.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 1830, "alt": "Plate 168 of Les Maîtres de l'Affiche reproducing the Beggarstaffs' Rowntree's Elect Cocoa poster: a stout man in a black hat and black coat over a red-and-white checked waistcoat, a teacup in front of him, with two figures drawn in thin brown outline behind him and the words 'Rowntree's Elect Cocoa' in black at right, signed 'Beggarstaffs'.", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, vol. 4 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica), via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ma%C3%AEtres_de_l%27affiche_V_4_-_Pl_168_-_Beggarstaffs.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "divan-japonais-toulouse-lautrec", "title": "Divan Japonais", "brand": "Divan Japonais (café-concert, Paris)", "year": 1893, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "Prominently featuring the dancer Jane Avril and singer Yvette Guilbert implies you might see such stars there, though neither then performed at the venue." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec" } ], "tagline": "Divan Japonais, 75 rue des Martyrs", "why_studied": "Hired by Édouard Fournier to fill his newly redecorated Montmartre café-concert, Toulouse-Lautrec advertised the Divan Japonais by advertising its audience. The dancer Jane Avril, a sweep of flat black silhouette, sits in the foreground beside the critic Édouard Dujardin while the necks of the orchestra's viols jut up between them and the stage. Up there the singer Yvette Guilbert is cut off at the neck, recognisable only by her famous long black gloves. That abrupt crop, which MoMA links to Japanese prints and photography, trusts viewers to complete the star themselves. The poster is also studied for its celebrity logic: the Milwaukee Art Museum points out that neither woman performed at the Divan Japonais at the time, yet featuring them so prominently implied you might see them there. It was made at the height of the 1890s poster boom, when better colour printing and looser bill-posting laws filled Paris with lithographs, and is held by MoMA, the Met and Milwaukee.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Met collection record", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/334197", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "MoMA collection record", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/62041", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Divan Japonais. 1893", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/62041" }, { "title": "Divan Japonais", "publisher": "Milwaukee Art Museum", "url": "https://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=15898" }, { "title": "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Divan Japonais", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/334197" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Divan_Japonais_MET_DT224360.jpg/1280px-Divan_Japonais_MET_DT224360.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 1691, "alt": "Toulouse-Lautrec's Divan Japonais poster: Jane Avril in a black dress and large black feathered hat sits in profile in the foreground beside a top-hatted, yellow-bearded Édouard Dujardin; behind them the necks of string instruments rise from the orchestra pit, and on stage at upper left a performer in long black gloves is cropped at the neck, with 'Divan Japonais, 75 rue des Martyrs' lettered at top.", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Divan_Japonais_MET_DT224360.jpg" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "moulin-rouge-la-goulue", "title": "Moulin Rouge – La Goulue", "brand": "Moulin Rouge", "year": 1891, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "testimonial", "note": "The cancan star La Goulue, mid-kick at the centre of the floor, is the named attraction that sells the dance hall's season." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Lithographic poster", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec" } ], "tagline": "Moulin Rouge · La Goulue", "why_studied": "The poster that turned a dance hall's season launch into a street sensation. Commissioned by the Moulin Rouge's director, Zidler, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's first poster puts the cancan star La Goulue mid-kick at the centre of the floor, with her partner Valentin le Désossé cut off at the waist in grey shadow and the watching crowd flattened into silhouettes. Its most daring move is an absence: La Goulue's swirling petticoats are simply bare, unprinted paper. The sheet was so big it had to be printed in three pieces, and some 3,000 copies went up on Paris streets in December 1891. It is studied as a founding moment of the modern poster, in which cropping, flat colour and radical simplification sell a night out at a glance. It made Lautrec famous almost overnight and brought commissions from other performers and cabaret owners; copies are now held by MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Van Gogh Museum and the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi.", "watch": [ { "label": "MoMA collection record", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/188979", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Van Gogh Museum collection record", "url": "https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/prints/collection/p0914N1996", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Moulin Rouge, La Goulue. 1891", "publisher": "The Museum of Modern Art", "url": "https://www.moma.org/collection/works/188979" }, { "title": "Moulin Rouge, La Goulue, poster for the Dance Hall Le Moulin Rouge", "publisher": "Van Gogh Museum", "url": "https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/prints/collection/p0914N1996" }, { "title": "Moulin Rouge, La Goulue", "publisher": "Art Institute of Chicago", "url": "https://www.artic.edu/artworks/82287/moulin-rouge-la-goulue" }, { "title": "Moulin Rouge. La Goulue", "publisher": "Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi", "url": "https://www.musee-toulouse-lautrec.com/en/collections/masterpieces/Moulin-Rouge-poster/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Moulin_Rouge-_La_Goulue_MET_DT11780.jpg/960px-Moulin_Rouge-_La_Goulue_MET_DT11780.jpg", "width": 960, "height": 1544, "alt": "Original 1891 poster \"Moulin Rouge – La Goulue\" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: La Goulue dancing the cancan between a grey silhouette of Valentin le Désossé and a black crowd of onlookers", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art — public domain (CC0)", "source_url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/333990" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pears-soap-bubbles", "title": "Bubbles", "brand": "Pears' Soap (A. & F. Pears)", "year": 1888, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "A Royal Academician's painting of a boy gazing at a bubble, with a bar of soap added, lends fine-art prestige to an everyday product." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Chromolithographic poster and print advertisement", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Artist", "name": "John Everett Millais" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A Royal Academician's painting of his grandson, repurposed to sell soap. John Everett Millais called his picture of a small boy gazing up at a bubble \"A Child's World\"; Thomas J. Barratt, managing director of A. & F. Pears, bought the canvas together with its copyright, added a bar of Pears' soap in the corner and reissued it as \"Bubbles.\" It became perhaps the most famous example of the \"artistic\" advertising of the 1880s, reproduced for decades on postcards, showcards, presentation prints and billboard posters, and National Museums Liverpool calls it probably the first work of art ever used in advertising. It is studied for the line it crossed between art and commerce. Millais was reportedly furious at first, critics accused him of degrading his art, and the novelist Marie Corelli mocked him in print before withdrawing the jibe; Barratt, meanwhile, used Academy prestige to win middle-class customers. The V&A holds proofs of the lithograph, and the painting hangs in the Lady Lever Art Gallery.", "watch": [ { "label": "V&A: proof of the Pears' 'Bubbles' advertisement, colour lithograph", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O727113/bubbles-print-john-everett-millais/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Bubbles (print), John Everett Millais / A. & F. Pears Ltd.", "publisher": "Victoria and Albert Museum", "url": "https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O727113/bubbles-print-john-everett-millais/" }, { "title": "Bubbles", "publisher": "National Museums Liverpool (Lady Lever Art Gallery)", "url": "https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/bubbles" }, { "title": "John Everett Millais, Bubbles", "publisher": "Smarthistory (Dr. Rebecca Jeffrey Easby)", "url": "https://smarthistory.org/millais-bubbles/" }, { "title": "John Everett Millais's \"Bubbles\" and the Commercialization of Art", "publisher": "The Victorian Web", "url": "https://www.victorianweb.org/authors/corelli/kuehn6.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/V0038816/full/1000,/0/default.jpg", "width": 1000, "height": 1473, "alt": "Chromolithograph of Millais's \"Bubbles\": a curly-haired boy in a green velvet suit gazes up at a soap bubble; caption reads \"From the celebrated picture the property of Messrs. A. & F. Pears of London\" (Illustrated London News Christmas Number, 1887)", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Wellcome Collection — public domain", "source_url": "https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ffaxru5q" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kodak-you-press-the-button", "title": "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest", "brand": "Kodak (Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company)", "year": 1888, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "A short slogan reduces photography to a simple rational promise: you take the picture and the company handles everything else." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Ads show women and children using the camera to prove that no skill is needed." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Press advertising campaign", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "George Eastman" } ], "tagline": "You press the button, we do the rest.", "why_studied": "Eight words that sold a whole system. The first Kodak, launched in the summer of 1888, was a plain box camera with no focusing and no viewfinder, sold loaded with film for 100 pictures; when the roll was used up, the owner sent the entire camera back to Rochester, where the film was processed and the camera reloaded. George Eastman boiled that service down to a slogan he coined himself, \"You press the button, we do the rest,\" and ran ads showing women and children using the camera to prove that no skill was needed. It is studied as an early lesson in selling convenience rather than hardware; the Metropolitan Museum of Art argues that Eastman's real genius lay in his marketing. Snapshot photography became a national craze, \"kodaking\" entered everyday speech, and by 1898 one photography journal estimated that more than 1.5 million roll-film cameras were in amateur hands. Duke University's Hartman Center calls the line the product's first advertising slogan.", "watch": [ { "label": "The ad in Life, 17 October 1889 (Internet Archive)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_life_1889-10-17_14_355/page/n15/mode/1up", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Kodak and the Rise of Amateur Photography", "publisher": "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (Mia Fineman)", "url": "https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/kodak-and-the-rise-of-amateur-photography" }, { "title": "From the Camera Obscura to the Revolutionary Kodak", "publisher": "George Eastman Museum", "url": "https://www.eastman.org/camera-obscura-revolutionary-kodak" }, { "title": "EAA: Ellis Collection of Kodakiana Category Information", "publisher": "Duke University Libraries, Rubenstein Library (Hartman Center)", "url": "https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/eaa/kodak.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://iiif.archive.org/image/iiif/3/sim_life_1889-10-17_14_355%2Fsim_life_1889-10-17_14_355_jp2.zip%2Fsim_life_1889-10-17_14_355_jp2%2Fsim_life_1889-10-17_14_355_0015.jp2/1225,885,935,765/900,/0/default.jpg", "width": 900, "height": 736, "alt": "An 1889 Kodak advertisement headed \"The Kodak\": an engraving of a hand holding the box camera beside the line \"You press the button, we do the rest\", with the price, $25, loaded for 100 pictures, from Life, 17 October 1889", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Life, 17 Oct 1889, via Internet Archive — public domain", "source_url": "https://archive.org/details/sim_life_1889-10-17_14_355/page/n15/mode/1up" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ivory-soap-99-44-100-pure", "title": "99 44/100% Pure (“It Floats”)", "brand": "Ivory Soap (Procter & Gamble)", "year": 1882, "category": "print-outdoor", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "An oddly exact purity figure, derived from chemists' analyses, makes the soap's quality sound measured rather than boasted." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Print advertising campaign (press ads and posters)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Harley Procter" } ], "tagline": "99 44/100% Pure", "why_studied": "Ivory is the textbook case of a brand built on one oddly exact promise. In 1882 chemists' analyses found that just 56/100 of one per cent of Procter & Gamble's white soap was anything but pure soap; Harley Procter subtracted that from a hundred and the slogan “99 44/100% pure” was born, first advertised that year in The Independent, a weekly. Paired with “It floats” (the result of a factory batch accidentally whipped full of air), the claim ran for more than a century across magazines, newspapers and posters such as this 1898 Strobridge lithograph. It is studied because the fraction made purity sound measured rather than boasted, and because P&G kept the same positioning while everything around it changed; David Aaker opens the first chapter of Managing Brand Equity with the Ivory story, noting an “aggressive” 1882 ad budget of $11,000. P&G donated its Ivory advertising archive to the Smithsonian, and Ad Age ranked the campaign No. 16 of the century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Library of Congress — “You need only one soap — Ivory soap” poster (1898)", "url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/00650433/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History — Ivory Soap Advertising Collection", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/archival-collection/sova-nmah-ac-0791", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ivory Soap Advertising Collection", "publisher": "Smithsonian Institution — Archives Center, National Museum of American History", "url": "https://www.si.edu/object/archives/sova-nmah-ac-0791" }, { "title": "Sample text for Managing brand equity : capitalizing on the value of a brand name / David A. Aaker.", "publisher": "Library of Congress (publisher's sample of David A. Aaker, Managing Brand Equity, Free Press, 1991)", "url": "https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/simon031/91010380.html" }, { "title": "Ad Age Advertising Century: The Top 100 Campaigns", "publisher": "Ad Age (1999)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-100-campaigns/140918/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/You_need_only_one_soap%2C_Ivory_soap_-_Strobridge_%26_Co._Lith._-_Original.tiff/1280px-You_need_only_one_soap%2C_Ivory_soap_-_Strobridge_%26_Co._Lith._-_Original.tiff.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 1860, "alt": "1898 chromolithograph poster headed “You need only one soap — Ivory Soap”: a man in a red shirt stands in a stream outside a tent washing with a bar of Ivory floating beside him, above the words “Pure — First quality, Not expensive, Will wash anything, No chapping” and “It Floats”", "kind": "print-scan", "credit": "Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons — public domain", "source_url": "https://www.loc.gov/item/00650433/" }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "columbia-expedition-impossible", "title": "Expedition Impossible", "brand": "Columbia Sportswear", "year": 2025, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Turns a durability claim into an open dare: anyone who finds and photographs the edge of the Earth wins the company itself." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Teases flat-earthers with a deadpan challenge to prove their theory, backed by a real company set up as the prize." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Has the chief executive, the family firm's public face for decades, make the offer personally, lending the stunt his credibility." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Public challenge and PR stunt", "agency": "adam&eve\\TBWA, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "adam&eve\\TBWA, London" }, { "role": "On screen", "name": "Tim Boyle, Columbia Sportswear CEO" } ], "tagline": "It’s time to put your map where your mouth is.", "why_studied": "In late 2025 Columbia Sportswear's chief executive, Tim Boyle, issued a dare to flat-earthers: find the edge of the Earth, photograph it, and you win the company. He made the offer in an open letter in The New York Times, on the TV news and in films that walked viewers through everything up for grabs. The fine print was real. Columbia set up The Company, LLC, registered it in Oregon and put $100,000 of assets in it as the prize. Made by adam&eve\\TBWA London for the brand's Engineered for Whatever platform, it is studied as a product claim (gear tough enough for the ends of the Earth) turned into a public game, fronted by a chief executive who has been the family firm's public face for decades. Nobody found the edge. At Cannes in 2026 it won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix and a Titanium Lion among ten Lions, more than any other campaign. The case figures cite 80 million earned audience and 10 million organic views.", "watch": [ { "label": "Expedition Impossible film (Columbia Sportswear on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxJOAsTMC6w", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Case page (adam&eve\\TBWA)", "url": "https://adamandevetbwa.com/work/expedition-impossible/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "UK’s Adam & Eve\\TBWA wins Brand Experience and Activation Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign (2026)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/uks-adam-eve-tbwa-wins-brand-experience-activation-grand-prix/1962851" }, { "title": "Why Columbia went looking for an agency willing to go too far", "publisher": "The Drum (2026)", "url": "https://www.thedrum.com/news/columbia-sportswear-offered-to-give-away-the-company-and-cannes-gave-it-ten-lions" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2026 Grand Prix Winners in Brand Experience & Activation, Business Transformation, Commerce, Effectiveness, Strategy, Innovation, and Luxury", "publisher": "LBB (2026)", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/Cannes-Lions-2026-Grand-Prix-Winners-in-Brand-Experience-and-Activation-Business-Transformation-Commerce-Effectiveness-Strategy-Innovation-and-Luxury" }, { "title": "Columbia Sportswear Challenges Flat Earthers", "publisher": "Creative Salon (2025)", "url": "https://creative.salon/articles/work/columbia-expedition-impossible-adam-eve" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JxJOAsTMC6w/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Expedition Impossible (Columbia Sportswear, 2025)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Expedition Impossible | Columbia Sportswear”, uploaded by Columbia Sportswear", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxJOAsTMC6w", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/JxJOAsTMC6w/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "JxJOAsTMC6w", "uploaded_at": "2025-12-02T17:00:36+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "axa-three-words", "title": "Three Words", "brand": "AXA", "year": 2025, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Extends the emergency rehousing already promised after fires and floods to victims of domestic violence, so the product change itself carries the message." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action and campaign", "agency": "Publicis Conseil, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "PR", "name": "Publicis Consultants" } ], "tagline": "...and domestic violence.", "why_studied": "Three words added to an insurance contract gave people a way out of an abusive home. French home-insurance policies already paid for emergency rehousing when fire or flood made a home unlivable; in April 2025 AXA France extended that promise with the words \"and domestic violence\". A policyholder who calls the emergency line is driven, with any children, to a secure hotel and offered free legal, psychological and financial support. According to the award entry, the clause went into all of AXA's 2.5 million home contracts, retroactively; 1,292 people were helped in its first ten months and new contracts rose by about 9%. It is studied because the advertising announced a change to the product itself: the insurer pointed the rehousing system it already ran for disasters at a social problem, then told the whole country. At Cannes Lions 2025 it won the Direct, Creative Business Transformation and Titanium Grands Prix, and AXA was named Creative Brand of the Year.", "watch": [ { "label": "AXA France TV spot (30s, French)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRVZa9tw18Q", "type": "official" }, { "label": "How the emergency rehousing works (2 min, English subtitles)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4Cc37fqaYk", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Final Lion winners announced for Film, Dan Wieden Titanium, Glass: The Lion for Change, Sustainable Development Goals, Grand Prix for Good and Special Awards (Titanium Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2025)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/cannes-lions-announces-2025-final-winners" }, { "title": "Lion winners announced for Creative Business Transformation, Creative Effectiveness, Creative Strategy, Luxury, Brand Experience & Activation, Innovation, Creative Commerce", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2025)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lion-winners-announced-for-day-four-of-the-festival" }, { "title": "AXA: Three Words", "publisher": "The Clio Awards (2026)", "url": "https://clios.com/winners-gallery/details/221407" }, { "title": "AXA becomes Most Creative Brand of the Year at the Cannes Lions 2025", "publisher": "AXA (2025)", "url": "https://www.axa.com/en/press/press-releases/axa-becomes-most-creative-brand-of-the-year-at-the-cannes-lions-2025" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DRVZa9tw18Q/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Three Words (AXA, 2025)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “AXA France : Relogement d’urgence en cas de violences conjugales (30s)”, uploaded by AXA France", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRVZa9tw18Q", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DRVZa9tw18Q/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "DRVZa9tw18Q", "uploaded_at": "2025-03-30T18:19:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "doordash-all-the-ads", "title": "All the Ads", "brand": "DoorDash", "year": 2024, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "super-bowl", "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Proves a delivery app can bring almost anything to your door by promising one winner a prize from every commercial in the game." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Viewers must copy down an absurdly long promo code from the spot and submit it online to enter." }, { "slug": "real-time", "note": "The prize list grows live as each new ad airs, turning attention other advertisers paid for into DoorDash's own entertainment." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Super Bowl sweepstakes", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy, Portland", "credits": [ { "role": "In-house creative studio", "name": "Superette, San Francisco" }, { "role": "Media", "name": "Wavemaker US" } ], "tagline": "DoorDash will DoorDash stuff from all the ads to one winner.", "why_studied": "One Super Bowl ad that turned everybody else's into prizes. For Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024, DoorDash promised that one viewer would win something from every commercial in the game, from a BMW electric car and a trip anywhere in the world to 30 pounds of mayonnaise. To enter, people had to copy down an absurdly long promo code shown in DoorDash's own spot and submit it online, while the prize list grew as each new ad aired. A man from San Antonio, picked at random, received some 2,468 items worth up to about $480,000. It is studied because it borrowed the attention every other advertiser had paid roughly $7 million per 30 seconds to buy, and turned it into a live demonstration that a food-delivery app could bring almost anything to your door. It won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2024, where the jury praised it as a product demonstration on a scale it had never seen.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Super Bowl spot with the promo code (:30)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLM5o-9hYg", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Teaser", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZIkEK8v1b0", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Final Lion winners announced at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Titanium Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2024)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/final-lion-winners-announced-at-the-2024-cannes-lions-international-festival" }, { "title": "DoorDash's 'promo code' Super Bowl ad officially has a winner", "publisher": "NBC Chicago / Associated Press (2024)", "url": "https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/doordashs-wild-super-bowl-ad-has-a-winner-and-the-delivery-of-items-is-absolutely-massive/3356045/" }, { "title": "DoorDash draws winner for massive 'All the Ads' Super Bowl sweepstakes", "publisher": "Fox Business (2024)", "url": "https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/doordash-draws-winner-for-massive-all-the-ads-super-bowl-sweepstakes-includes-gift-from-each-commercial" }, { "title": "San Antonio man wins DoorDash 'All the Ads' Super Bowl sweepstakes", "publisher": "KSAT (2024)", "url": "https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2024/02/19/san-antonio-man-wins-doordash-all-the-ads-super-bowl-sweepstakes/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DTLM5o-9hYg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from All the Ads (DoorDash, 2024)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “DoorDash | DoorDash All the Ads - :30”, uploaded by DoorDash", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTLM5o-9hYg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/DTLM5o-9hYg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "DTLM5o-9hYg", "uploaded_at": "2024-02-12T03:03:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pop-tarts-first-edible-mascot", "title": "The First Edible Mascot", "brand": "Pop-Tarts (Kellanova)", "year": 2023, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Builds a bowl sponsorship around a giant grinning strawberry pastry character, which the winning team then eats on the field." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Leans into absurdity, with a pastry rising from a giant toaster to be devoured, a spectacle so strange the brand becomes the headline." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live stunt (college-football bowl sponsorship)", "agency": "Weber Shandwick", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Weber Shandwick" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A sponsorship that ate its own mascot. To push Pop-Tarts beyond breakfast and into snacking, the brand put its name on a college-football bowl game and gave it what it billed as the first edible mascot: a giant, grinning strawberry Pop-Tart called Strawberry. After Kansas State beat NC State 28–19 at the inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando in December 2023, a giant edible pastry emerged from an even bigger toaster for the winning team to devour on the field; even the trophy had slots holding real Pop-Tarts. The Cannes jury's verdict: 'Bizarre. Weird. Genius. Uncomfortable.' Weber Shandwick reports more than 4 billion impressions, 15 times the brand mentions of ten rival bowl games combined, and 21 million more Pop-Tarts sold in the eight weeks after the game than before. It won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix at Cannes 2024. It is studied as live sampling turned into a story: a modest bowl sponsorship that made the brand, not the game, the headline.", "watch": [ { "label": "Weber Shandwick case study", "url": "https://webershandwick.com/work/pop-tarts-edible-mascot", "type": "official" }, { "label": "NPR's report on the game and the mascot", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2023/12/29/1222182226/pop-tarts-bowl-game-edible-mascot", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lion winners announced on the penultimate day of Cannes Lions (Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2024)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lion-winners-announced-on-the-penultimate-day-of-cannes-lions" }, { "title": "Pop-Tarts Bowl features an edible sports mascot", "publisher": "NPR (2023)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2023/12/29/1222182226/pop-tarts-bowl-game-edible-mascot" }, { "title": "Pop-Tarts: The First Edible Mascot (case study)", "publisher": "Weber Shandwick (2024)", "url": "https://webershandwick.com/work/pop-tarts-edible-mascot" }, { "title": "The Weber Shandwick Collective celebrates firsts at 2024 Cannes Lions", "publisher": "Weber Shandwick (2024)", "url": "https://webershandwick.co.uk/news/the-weber-shandwick-collective-celebrates-firsts-at-2024-cannes-lions-international-festival-of-creativity" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6fBEJm6_XMQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The First Edible Mascot (Pop-Tarts (Kellanova), 2023)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Pop-Tarts - The First Edible Mascot”, uploaded by WeberShandwickGlobal", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fBEJm6_XMQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6fBEJm6_XMQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "6fBEJm6_XMQ", "uploaded_at": "2025-04-10T21:55:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "budweiser-bring-home-the-bud", "title": "Bring Home the Bud", "brand": "Budweiser", "brand_slug": "budweiser", "year": 2022, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "sports", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Answers a last-minute stadium beer ban within a day, promising the stranded stock to whichever country wins the tournament." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Turns the promise into a running saga, dropping crates in winning teams' cities overnight until the winners' crates are opened at parties in Buenos Aires." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Real-time stunt and giveaway", "agency": "Wieden+Kennedy New York, with W+K São Paulo and Africa Creative DDB", "credits": [ { "role": "Lead creative agency", "name": "Wieden+Kennedy New York" }, { "role": "Creative agency", "name": "Wieden+Kennedy São Paulo" }, { "role": "Creative agency", "name": "Africa Creative DDB, São Paulo" }, { "role": "PR", "name": "Allison+Partners" }, { "role": "Media", "name": "Copa90" } ], "tagline": "Winning Country gets the Buds. Who will get them?", "why_studied": "Two days before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, organisers banned beer sales at the stadiums, leaving official sponsor Budweiser with a warehouse of beer it could not sell. The brand tweeted, then deleted, “Well, this is awkward.” A day later it announced that the stock would go to whichever country won the tournament. Wieden+Kennedy New York, working with W+K São Paulo and Africa Creative DDB, turned that promise into a running game: as teams won, red #BringHomeTheBud crates were dropped overnight in their cities, backed by field boards, outdoor and social posts. When Argentina won, the crates were opened in Buenos Aires and Budweiser threw parties there and in Rosario and Córdoba. It is studied as a model of turning a sponsorship setback into a story fans wanted to join, at the speed of the news cycle. The agencies' One Show entry claims 255 billion impressions and one million beers handed out in Argentina. At Cannes in 2023 it won one of only three Titanium Lions.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign film (The Drum on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuiiP9T5byI", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Award entry and credits (The One Club)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/49196/bring-home-the-bud/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Dan Wieden Titanium: Cannes 2023 Decoded", "publisher": "Creative Salon (2023)", "url": "https://creative.salon/cannes-lions-curated/cannes-lions-2023-curated/dan-wieden-titanium-cannes-2023" }, { "title": "Budweiser to give beer it can’t sell at World Cup to eventual winners", "publisher": "The Guardian (2022)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/22/budweiser-to-give-beer-it-cannot-sell-at-world-cup-to-winners" }, { "title": "Bring Home The Bud", "publisher": "The One Club / One Show (2023)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/49196/bring-home-the-bud/" }, { "title": "Budweiser hosts unforgettable victory celebration for FIFA World Cup™ Champion Argentina", "publisher": "AB InBev (2022)", "url": "https://www.ab-inbev.com/news-media/brands/budweiser-hosts-unforgettable-victory-celebration-for-fifa-world-cup-champion-argentina" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/XuiiP9T5byI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bring Home the Bud (Budweiser, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Budweiser Bring home the Bud | Best Football Ads”, uploaded by The Drum", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuiiP9T5byI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/XuiiP9T5byI/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "XuiiP9T5byI", "uploaded_at": "2026-08-18T15:15:47+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "renault-plug-inn", "title": "Plug Inn", "brand": "Renault", "year": 2022, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "Answers drivers' worry about charging on long trips with a practical fix: a marketplace of private home chargers they can book." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Relies on owners listing their own chargers, setting an hourly price and accepting bookings, so drivers themselves build the network." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action (peer-to-peer charging app)", "agency": "Publicis Conseil", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Publicis Conseil, Paris" }, { "role": "App development partner", "name": "Publicis Sapient" } ], "tagline": "The Airbnb for plugs", "why_studied": "Renault wanted to reassure French electric-car buyers that they could charge on long trips, beyond the thin public network. Instead of an ad, Publicis Conseil and Renault built a marketplace. First run in 2022 and opened to drivers of any brand in spring 2023, the Plug Inn app let owners of home chargers list them, set an hourly price and accept bookings, with payment inside the app and Renault keeping a 30% commission, according to Les Echos. It is studied because a carmaker answered an infrastructure gap with a service and a revenue model; the 2023 Creative Strategy jury gave it the Grand Prix on exactly those grounds, and it also took Gold Lions in Creative Business Transformation and Mobile. Uptake was modest: Les Echos counted about 40,000 downloads, 7,900 drivers and 2,200 hosts by June 2023, while the agency cited 31,000 users. The idea did not last. Renault has since withdrawn the peer-to-peer app and moved the Plug Inn name to its own fast-charging stations.", "watch": [ { "label": "Plug Inn case page (Publicis Conseil)", "url": "https://www.publicisconseil.fr/en/renault-pluginn-work/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Renault Plug Inn film (Publicis Conseil, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI-FCxwtRH0", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions: Creative Strategy winners 2023", "publisher": "Contagious (2023)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-creative-strategy-winners-2023" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions #70 : Creative Strategy ; Grand Prix pour \"Plug Inn\" de Renaut (Publicis Conseil)", "publisher": "CB News (2023)", "url": "https://www.cbnews.fr/creation/cannes-lions-70-creative-strategy-grand-prix-plug-inn-renaut-publicis-conseil" }, { "title": "Renault lance son application de recharge entre particuliers", "publisher": "Les Echos (2023)", "url": "https://www.lesechos.fr/thema/articles/renault-lance-son-application-de-recharge-entre-particuliers-1956628" }, { "title": "Application Plug Inn – recharge électrique entre particuliers | Service disponible jusqu’au 1er août", "publisher": "Plug Inn / Renault Group (official site, 2026)", "url": "https://www.pluginn.app/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/rI-FCxwtRH0/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Plug Inn (Renault, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Renault PLUG INN - VF”, uploaded by Publicis Conseil", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI-FCxwtRH0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/rI-FCxwtRH0/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "rI-FCxwtRH0", "uploaded_at": "2022-05-12T13:09:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "adidas-runner-321", "title": "Runner 321", "brand": "adidas", "year": 2022, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Reserves bib 321, a nod to trisomy 21, for a neurodivergent athlete every year, turning a race number into a standing place at the start line." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Hands other races a toolkit to adopt the idea, so it spreads only as events, including rival-sponsored ones, sign up." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Race-bib initiative", "agency": "FCB Canada, Toronto", "credits": [ { "role": "Athlete", "name": "Chris Nikic" }, { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Nancy Crimi-Lamanna" }, { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Andrew MacPhee" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Leo Barbosa" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Cuanan Cronwright" }, { "role": "PR", "name": "Current" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A race number became a standing place at the start line. On World Down Syndrome Day, 21 March 2022, the Boston Marathon said bib 321, a reference to trisomy 21, the genetic marker of Down syndrome, would be worn that April by Chris Nikic, the first person with Down syndrome to finish an Ironman and adidas's first sponsored athlete with the condition, and would be held for a neurodivergent athlete every year after. Once he finished, Nikic handed the bib to the next Runner 321, and adidas offered other races a toolkit to join. It is studied because it was built to be adopted by others: it lived inside events adidas did not own and could only spread if races sponsored by its rivals signed up. According to the award entry, all six of the world's biggest marathons, four of them sponsored by Nike, New Balance or Asics, reserved a Runner 321 place for 2023, and 252 races committed. It won the Direct Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2023.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film (FCB Canada)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsc-HkvT4mM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Boston Marathon To Give Bib Number 321 To Neurodivergent Athlete Each Year (CBS Boston)", "url": "https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boston-marathon-bib-number-321-neurodivergent-athletes-chris-nikic-down-syndrome-runner/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Further winners announced on day three of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Direct Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2023)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/further-winners-announced-on-day-three-of-the-cannes-lions-international" }, { "title": "Boston Marathon To Give Bib Number 321 To Neurodivergent Athlete Each Year", "publisher": "CBS Boston (2022)", "url": "https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/boston-marathon-bib-number-321-neurodivergent-athletes-chris-nikic-down-syndrome-runner/" }, { "title": "Strategy Awards 2023 Winner: Adidas \"Runner 321\" (case summary)", "publisher": "Strategy (2023)", "url": "https://awards.strategyonline.ca/winners/winner/2023/?e=159922&n=Runner+321" }, { "title": "FCB and adidas Win Grand Prix at Cannes Lions Festival", "publisher": "FCB via GlobeNewswire (2023)", "url": "https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/06/21/2692480/0/en/FCB-and-adidas-Win-Grand-Prix-at-Cannes-Lions-Festival.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gsc-HkvT4mM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Runner 321 (adidas, 2022)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “adidas Runner 321”, uploaded by FCB Canada", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsc-HkvT4mM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gsc-HkvT4mM/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gsc-HkvT4mM", "uploaded_at": "2023-11-22T22:13:46+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "decathlon-the-breakaway", "title": "The Breakaway", "brand": "Decathlon", "year": 2021, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Applies a retailer's promise to make sport accessible to all inside a maximum-security prison, giving inmates bikes and a bridge back to society." }, { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Follows the prison team through a podcast documenting how riding changed them, building to a live race against judges, guards and the justice minister." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Experiential event (virtual sports team and live-streamed race)", "agency": "BBDO Belgium, Brussels", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative", "name": "Frederik Clarysse" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Tom Jacobs" }, { "role": "Partners", "name": "De Rode Antraciet vzw, Cellmade vzw, Oudenaarde prison" } ], "tagline": "The first eCycling team for prisoners.", "why_studied": "A prison cycling team that raced the outside world without leaving the prison. In spring 2021 Decathlon gave six inmates of the maximum-security prison in Oudenaarde, Belgium, bikes, indoor trainers and clothing so they could ride on Zwift, the online platform where some three million cyclists ride and race together. In the game they appeared as anonymous athletes rather than prisoners, joining rides with people outside; a podcast documented how it changed them, and a race streamed live on Facebook set them against a team of judges, lawyers, prison guards and Belgium's justice minister. It is studied because a retailer whose purpose is making sport accessible to all applied that promise in a setting most brands avoid, and used a lockdown-era gaming platform as a bridge back to society. According to the award entry, it reached more than 15 million people, and the minister decided to extend e-cycling to every Belgian prison. It won the Creative Strategy and PR Grands Prix at Cannes Lions 2022.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film (Decathlon Belgium)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tajVvQ2mM8g", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Launch film, March 2021 (Decathlon Belgium)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYSEp89qTFI", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lion Winners on Day Three of Festival (Creative Strategy Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2022)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lions-winners-day-three" }, { "title": "Lion Winners on Day Four of Festival (PR Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2022)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lions-winners-day-four" }, { "title": "Decathlon | Sports Retail | The Breakaway: the first eCycling team for prisoners", "publisher": "The Caples Awards (2022)", "url": "https://caples.org/2022-winners-results/?cat=PR&id=333" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Creative Strategy Winners 2022", "publisher": "Contagious (2022)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-viewscannes-lions-creative-strategy-winners-2022-4fedf95e88e448fcb6e7c62436689011" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tajVvQ2mM8g/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Breakaway (Decathlon, 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Breakaway - The first eCycling team for prisoners”, uploaded by Decathlon Belgium", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tajVvQ2mM8g", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/tajVvQ2mM8g/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "tajVvQ2mM8g", "uploaded_at": "2022-06-24T16:25:47+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "change-the-ref-the-lost-class", "title": "The Lost Class", "brand": "Change the Ref", "year": 2021, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Tricks gun-rights figures into rehearsing a commencement speech for a school that does not exist, turning their own words into the message." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Stages a graduation before thousands of empty chairs, one for each student killed by a gun who should have graduated that year." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Serves a gun-violence campaign founded by parents who lost their son in a school shooting, forcing the debate into worldwide attention." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live stunt (staged graduation) and films", "agency": "Leo Burnett Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Leo Burnett Chicago" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Bryan Buckley (Hungry Man)" }, { "role": "Founders, Change the Ref", "name": "Manuel Oliver, Patricia Oliver" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A graduation with no graduates. In June 2021, David Keene, a former president of the National Rifle Association, believed he was rehearsing a commencement speech for John Madison Academy, a high school in Las Vegas; gun-rights activist John Lott was duped the same way. In front of them stood 3,044 empty chairs, one for each student who should have graduated that year but had been killed by a gun. The school did not exist. It was created by Change the Ref — the organisation founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver after their son Joaquin was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting — with Leo Burnett Chicago, and the speeches became films that drew attention worldwide. The work won two D&AD Black Pencils and the ADC's Black Cube for best in show in 2022. It is studied as activism by ambush, turning opponents' own words into the message — and, because it depended on deceiving its speakers, as a live debate about where provocation ends.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lost Class 1/3 — Change the Ref's official film", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZZ1REoqsU", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (two Black Pencils)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-lost-class", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How an Ad Agency Created a Jaw-Dropping Fake Graduation to Protest Gun Violence", "publisher": "Adweek (2021)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencies/how-an-ad-agency-created-the-fake-graduation-that-put-a-powerful-spotlight-on-gun-violence/" }, { "title": "Leo Burnett's Haunting 'Lost Class' Honored at ADC Awards (Black Cube)", "publisher": "Adweek (2022)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/agencies/leo-burnetts-haunting-lost-class-honored-at-adc-awards/" }, { "title": "These Are the 2022 Winners of D&AD's Coveted Black Pencils", "publisher": "Adweek (2022)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/these-are-the-2022-winners-of-dads-coveted-black-pencils/" }, { "title": "The Lost Class (two Black Pencils; 3,044 empty chairs)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2022)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-lost-class" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/e-ZZ1REoqsU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Lost Class (Change the Ref, 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Lost Class 1/3”, uploaded by Change the Ref", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ZZ1REoqsU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/e-ZZ1REoqsU/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "e-ZZ1REoqsU", "uploaded_at": "2021-06-23T10:25:27+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "vice-unfiltered-history-tour", "title": "The Unfiltered History Tour", "brand": "VICE World News", "year": 2021, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Runs an unofficial tour inside the British Museum without its permission, using visitors' phones to annotate someone else's galleries." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Visitors point Instagram filters at the artefacts to watch, on their own phones, the moment each was taken from its homeland." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Advertises a news brand through its journalism, backing each contested object's story with expert interviews in a ten-part podcast." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Augmented-reality museum tour", "agency": "Dentsu Webchutney (Dentsu Creative India)", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "PG Aditya (Dentsu Webchutney)" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Ashwin Palkar" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Rooted Films" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An unofficial guided tour, running inside the British Museum without its permission. VICE World News and Dentsu Webchutney picked ten contested objects in the collection — among them the Benin Bronzes, the Parthenon Marbles, the Rosetta Stone and the Gweagal Shield — and built Instagram augmented-reality filters that recognise each artefact in the gallery and replay, on the visitor's phone, the moment it was taken from its homeland, backed by a ten-part podcast of interviews with ten experts. People outside London could take the tour virtually. Making phone filters identify objects behind glass in changing light took a field researcher more than 30 visits over eight months, all without the museum's knowledge; the project took 18 months and over 100 people. At Cannes 2022 it won three Grands Prix: Brand Experience & Activation, Radio & Audio, and Social & Influencer. It is studied as guerrilla institutional critique — cheap, ubiquitous technology used to annotate someone else's building — and as a news brand advertising itself through journalism.", "watch": [ { "label": "dentsu India case study", "url": "https://www.dentsu.com/in/en/our-work/case-study-dentsu-creative-the-unfiltered-history-tour", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-unfiltered-history-tour", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The True Stories of 10 of the Most Disputed Objects at the British Museum", "publisher": "VICE (2021)", "url": "https://www.vice.com/en/article/unfiltered-history-tour-ten-disputed-artefacts-british-museum/" }, { "title": "An App Gives You the Truth Behind 10 Looted Objects in the British Museum", "publisher": "Hyperallergic (2021)", "url": "https://hyperallergic.com/an-app-gives-you-the-truth-behind-10-looted-objects-in-the-british-museum/" }, { "title": "Lions winners day three (Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix; second Grand Prix of the week)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2022)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lions-winners-day-three" }, { "title": "Lions winners day four (third Grand Prix, Social & Influencer)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2022)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/lions-winners-day-four" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Sa6Km5a1hlY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Unfiltered History Tour (VICE World News, 2021)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Unfiltered History Tour - VICE World News case study”, uploaded by Dentsu Creative", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa6Km5a1hlY", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Sa6Km5a1hlY/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Sa6Km5a1hlY", "uploaded_at": "2023-02-28T10:06:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "spinneys-lbcf-the-bread-exam", "title": "The Bread Exam", "brand": "Spinneys / Lebanese Breast Cancer Foundation", "year": 2020, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Teaches breast self-examination to women held back by tradition, hiding the three movements inside a bread recipe so breasts are never shown." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Wraps the lesson in an ordinary recipe from a well-known baker, shared under an everyday question about baking bread." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Recipe video, packaging and PR", "agency": "McCann Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "McCann Paris" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Sébastien Boutebel, Cédric Astrella" }, { "role": "Partner agencies", "name": "FP7 McCann Dubai, McCann Health London, Weber Shandwick" }, { "role": "Baker", "name": "Um Ali" } ], "tagline": "Khabazte? (Have you baked bread?)", "why_studied": "Tradition kept many Lebanese women from talking openly about their bodies, which made teaching breast self-examination hard. For Pink October 2020, McCann Paris, the Lebanese Breast Cancer Foundation, AUBMC and Spinneys hid the lesson in a bread recipe. The well-known baker Um Ali, trained by a gynaecologist, kneads and presses dough using the three movements of a self-exam; breasts are never shown or named. Doctors, survivors and influencers first shared it as an ordinary recipe under the question Khabazte? ('Have you baked bread?'), before the media revealed its double meaning. The steps also appeared on Spinneys flour packs and bread wrappers, and influencers in Turkey, Germany and the UK later made their own versions. It is studied as a model of working with a cultural norm, not against it. Contagious reported a reach of 112 million; the award entry claims 86% of respondents said baking would remind them to self-check. It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes in 2021 and a One Show Gold Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Bread Exam case study (McCann Paris, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMKMzbOpiw", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-bread-exam", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions announces award winners on day two", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2021)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/cannes-lions-2021-winners-day-2" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions PR Winners 2021", "publisher": "Contagious (2021)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/pr-lions-cannes-2021-a058d660ee79492eb2395f685db8fb91" }, { "title": "The Bread Exam", "publisher": "The One Club / One Show (2022)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/44519/the-bread-exam/" }, { "title": "Et si faire du pain pouvait sauver une vie ?", "publisher": "L'ADN (2020)", "url": "https://business.ladn.eu/news-business/actualites-agences/campagne-sensibilisation-thebread-exam-cancer-sein-liban-mccann/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QyMKMzbOpiw/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Bread Exam (Spinneys / Lebanese Breast Cancer Foundation, 2020)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Bread Exam - Case Study”, uploaded by McCann Paris", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyMKMzbOpiw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/QyMKMzbOpiw/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "QyMKMzbOpiw", "uploaded_at": "2021-01-15T14:40:32+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "female-company-tampon-book", "title": "The Tampon Book", "brand": "The Female Company", "year": 2019, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Campaigns against taxing tampons at the standard rate, packaging the product as a feminist book that promotes a petition to parliament." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Exposes the absurdity of the tax rules by selling tampons inside a book at the lower rate books enjoy, so the product itself is the argument." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Packaging (tampons sold inside a book)", "agency": "Scholz & Friends, Berlin", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Matthias Spaetgens (Scholz & Friends)" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Directors", "name": "Oliver Handlos, Robert Krause" }, { "role": "Illustrators", "name": "Ana Curbelo, Alica Läuger" } ], "tagline": "A book against tax discrimination.", "why_studied": "A tax loophole turned into a manifesto. In 2019 Germany taxed tampons at the standard 19% VAT rate, while books — like caviar, truffles and oil paintings — enjoyed the reduced 7%. The Female Company, an online seller of organic tampons, and Scholz & Friends simply put the tampons inside a book: 45 illustrated pages of stories about menstruation, taboo and feminism, sold at the lower rate and promoting a petition to the Bundestag. According to the award entry, the first 1,000 copies sold out within a day and 6,000 more within a week, and copies went to influencers, journalists and politicians. That autumn the Bundestag voted to cut VAT on menstrual products to 7% from the new year — a change an existing petition had demanded and the book helped push. It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes 2019, Germany's first, and a D&AD White Pencil. It is studied as packaging used as protest: the product didn't carry the argument, it was the argument.", "watch": [ { "label": "Launch film on The Female Company's YouTube channel (German)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmf00rpko4I", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-tampon-book-a-book-against-tax-discrimination", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Direct winners: The Tampon Book (tax rates, book contents, sales and petition)", "publisher": "Eurobest (2019)", "url": "https://www2.eurobest.com/winners/2019/direct/" }, { "title": "The Tampon Book, Which Protests Taxes on Menstrual Products, Wins PR Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2019)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/the-tampon-book-which-protests-taxes-on-menstrual-products-wins-pr-grand-prix-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "Nach Buch-Aktion von Scholz & Friends: Bundestag senkt die Tamponsteuer", "publisher": "Horizont (2019)", "url": "https://www.horizont.net/agenturen/nachrichten/nach-buch-aktion-von-scholz--friends-bundestag-senkt-die-tamponsteuer-178446" }, { "title": "The Tampon Book: A Book Against Tax Discrimination (White Pencil)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2020)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-tampon-book-a-book-against-tax-discrimination" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/nmf00rpko4I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Tampon Book (The Female Company, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “THE TAMPON BOOK – Das Buch, das Steuern spart.”, uploaded by The Female Company", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmf00rpko4I", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/nmf00rpko4I/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "nmf00rpko4I", "uploaded_at": "2019-04-16T15:26:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ikea-thisables", "title": "ThisAbles", "brand": "IKEA Israel", "brand_slug": "ikea", "year": 2019, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Designs free add-ons that adapt existing furniture for disabled people, making inclusion a product change rather than a slogan." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Anyone can download the files and 3D-print the parts at home, or suggest new add-ons through a form." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Product line (3D-printable add-ons)", "agency": "McCann Tel Aviv", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "McCann Tel Aviv" }, { "role": "Partner non-profits", "name": "Milbat; Access Israel" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Accessibility shipped as a download. Furniture adapted for disabled people typically costs around twice as much as standard pieces, so IKEA Israel, working with the non-profits Milbat and Access Israel and McCann Tel Aviv, designed 13 add-ons that fit existing IKEA products — an oversized lamp switch, legs that raise a couch, and more — and released them free of charge: available in store, or as files anyone could download and 3D-print, with installation videos and a form for suggesting new ones. The idea began with a McCann Tel Aviv copywriter who has cerebral palsy and wanted to make his own sofa taller and easier to get out of. It won the Health & Wellness Grand Prix at Cannes 2019 and a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied as inclusive design delivered as a business action: instead of an ad saying everyone is welcome, a product change that made it true, built on the company's own catalogue.", "watch": [ { "label": "IKEA Israel's film about the project", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0PA_VpLlDw", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (Black Pencil)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/ikea-thisables", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ikea's 3D-printed add-ons make its furniture more accessible for people with disabilities", "publisher": "The Verge (2019)", "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/12/18261893/ikea-thisables-3d-printed-add-ons-people-with-disabilities" }, { "title": "McCann, Tel Aviv Wins Cannes Lions Health & Wellness Grand Prix For Ikea's \"ThisAbles\"", "publisher": "SHOOT (2019)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/mccann-tel-aviv-wins-cannes-lions-health-wellness-grand-prix-ikeas-thisables/" }, { "title": "Case Study: ThisAbles (Black Pencil)", "publisher": "D&AD (2019)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/thisables-case-study-insights" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/a0PA_VpLlDw/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from ThisAbles (IKEA Israel, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “IKEA ThisAbles- The Project”, uploaded by IKEA ISRAEL - איקאה ישראל", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0PA_VpLlDw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/a0PA_VpLlDw/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "a0PA_VpLlDw", "uploaded_at": "2019-03-13T08:50:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mastercard-true-name", "title": "True Name", "brand": "Mastercard", "year": 2019, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Lets transgender and non-binary cardholders show their chosen name on cards, fixing a source of harassment inside the payment system rather than just talking about inclusion." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action (card feature) with launch installation", "agency": "McCann New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "McCann New York" }, { "role": "Associate Creative Directors", "name": "Lucas Crigler, Hope Nardini" }, { "role": "Chief Marketing Officer, Mastercard", "name": "Raja Rajamannar" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A product change that did the work of a campaign. For many transgender and non-binary people, a payment card printed with a name they no longer use can out them every time they pay; Mastercard's research found nearly a third of people whose ID didn't match how they presented had been harassed, refused service or attacked. In June 2019, during WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, Mastercard announced True Name, letting cardholders show their chosen name on credit, debit and prepaid cards without a legal name change, unveiled with rainbow 'Acceptance Street' signs in New York's West Village. Because banks issue the cards, Mastercard launched the feature as a call for the whole industry to change; by 2022 more than a dozen issuers worldwide offered it. It won the Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix at Cannes 2021 and a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied as purpose built into infrastructure: a fix inside the payment system rather than a message about inclusion.", "watch": [ { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (Black Pencil)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/true-name", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Carat case study", "url": "https://www.dentsu.com/us/en/our-work/case-study-carat-mastercard-2", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Mastercard launches True Name card to make paying with credit cards easier for trans and non-binary communities", "publisher": "CNBC (2019)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/mastercard-launches-true-name-card-to-help-lgbt-community.html" }, { "title": "True Name (Black Pencil)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2021)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/true-name" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions announces day four award winners (Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Cannes Lions (2021)", "url": "https://www.canneslions.com/news/cannes-lions-2021-winners-day-4" }, { "title": "Mastercard Helps To End 'Deadnaming' With True Name Feature", "publisher": "Campaign Canada (2022)", "url": "https://www.campaigncanada.ca/article/1854792/mastercard-helps-end-deadnaming-true-name-feature" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/BJzxfwDyyas/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from True Name (Mastercard, 2019)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “True Name”, uploaded by Mastercard News", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJzxfwDyyas", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/BJzxfwDyyas/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "BJzxfwDyyas", "uploaded_at": "2019-06-17T14:09:44+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "dominos-paving-for-pizza", "title": "Paving for Pizza", "brand": "Domino's", "year": 2018, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Gives towns grants to fill potholes, casting bad roads as a threat to carryout pizza and doing a public job in the process." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Invites customers to nominate their own town online, and the flood of nominations pushes the programme out to every state." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Stencils the brand onto repaired asphalt, so each patched street becomes a local billboard and a local news story." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Business action and campaign", "agency": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Boulder", "credits": [], "tagline": "Bad roads shouldn't happen to good pizza.", "why_studied": "A pizza chain that went into road repair. Casting potholes as a threat to carryout pizza, Domino's launched Paving for Pizza in June 2018, giving grants to towns to fill their potholes; the repaired asphalt carried Domino's stencils, and customers could nominate their own town online. According to Adweek, the agency CP+B started with a budget of $100,000, enough for about 20 towns. Then the nominations arrived: more than 137,000 from 15,275 zip codes by late August, and Domino's widened the programme to pave a community in every state. It is studied as product-as-media and as a business action with an edge. Each patched street became a local billboard and a local news story, while the stunt also invited an uncomfortable question, voiced widely on social media at launch, about why a restaurant company was fixing public roads. It won a Gold Lion in Outdoor at Cannes in 2019.", "watch": [ { "label": "Campaign of the Week video (Contagious)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEb3UKRS6ys", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Campaign of the Week: Domino's Pizza, Paving For Pizza (Contagious)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-viewscampaign-of-the-week-dominos-pizza-paving-for-pizza-49ce336ead0c4f3d86fc0e2252361fa2", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Domino’s extends pothole-filling grants to all 50 states", "publisher": "Nation's Restaurant News (2018)", "url": "https://www.nrn.com/quick-service/domino-s-extends-pothole-filling-grants-to-all-50-states" }, { "title": "As Domino's Expands Its Pothole Paving to All 50 States, Here's How to Bring It to Your Town", "publisher": "Adweek (2018)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/as-dominos-expands-its-pothole-paving-to-all-50-states-heres-how-to-bring-it-to-your-town/" }, { "title": "Domino's is taking on America's infrastructure one pothole at a time", "publisher": "CNBC (2018)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/13/dominos-is-taking-on-americas-infrastructure-one-pothole-at-a-time.html" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Outdoor winners 2019", "publisher": "Contagious (2019)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-outdoor-winners-2019" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xEb3UKRS6ys/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Paving for Pizza (Domino's, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Campaign of the Week / Domino's Pizza, Paving For Pizza”, uploaded by Contagious", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEb3UKRS6ys", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xEb3UKRS6ys/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "xEb3UKRS6ys", "uploaded_at": "2018-06-27T13:20:41+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lacoste-save-our-species", "title": "Save Our Species", "brand": "Lacoste", "year": 2018, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Swaps the famous crocodile for endangered animals on limited-edition polos, with profits going to conservation work." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Matches the number of shirts made for each species to the estimated animals left in the wild, so the print run states the fact." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Limited-edition product", "agency": "BETC, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Antoine Choque" }, { "role": "Global account director", "name": "Fanny Buisseret" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "For the first time in its 85 years, the Lacoste crocodile left the shirt. At Lacoste's Paris Fashion Week show in February 2018, the brand and the IUCN's Save Our Species programme released ten limited-edition polos, each embroidered in the crocodile's style with a critically endangered animal instead. The print run was the message: the number of shirts per species matched the estimated number of animals left in the wild, from 30 for the vaquita porpoise to 450 for the Anegada rock iguana, 1,775 in all. Profits went to IUCN conservation work. The shirts sold out within 24 hours, and the agency says donations to the programme quadrupled during the operation. It is studied as a lesson in spending brand equity: a company known for one logo made that logo's absence the news, and turned limited-edition scarcity, usually a sales tactic, into a literal count of survivors. It won ten Cannes Lions in 2018, including two Golds, and an ADC Gold Cube in 2019.", "watch": [ { "label": "Launch film (BETC Paris)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLbW68bDV4g", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Lacoste x IUCN SOS (IUCN Save Our Species)", "url": "https://www.iucnsos.org/initiative/lacoste-x-iucn-sos/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Story of 'Save Our Species,' Lacoste's Gold-Winning Conservation Campaign", "publisher": "Muse by Clios (2018)", "url": "https://musebyclios.com/fashion-and-beauty/the-story-of-save-our-species-lacostes-gold-winning-conservation-campaign/" }, { "title": "Lacoste x IUCN SOS", "publisher": "IUCN Save Our Species", "url": "https://www.iucnsos.org/initiative/lacoste-x-iucn-sos/" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2018 : le palmarès des agences françaises", "publisher": "LLLLITL (2018)", "url": "https://www.llllitl.fr/2018/06/cannes-lions-palmares-francais/" }, { "title": "Lacoste | Save our Species", "publisher": "The One Club, ADC Awards (2019)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/adcawards/-award/32273/save-our-species/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iLbW68bDV4g/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Save Our Species (Lacoste, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “LACOSTE - SAVE OUR SPECIES”, uploaded by BETC Paris", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLbW68bDV4g", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/iLbW68bDV4g/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "iLbW68bDV4g", "uploaded_at": "2018-02-28T13:08:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bvg-adidas-ticket-shoe", "title": "The Ticket Shoe", "brand": "BVG x adidas Originals", "year": 2018, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the street credibility of a limited adidas Originals trainer to make the city's transport operator, and its annual ticket, feel collectible to young Berliners." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Product collaboration", "agency": "Jung von Matt/Saga, Hamburg", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A pair of trainers that doubled as a season ticket. For its 90th anniversary, Berlin's transport operator BVG and adidas Originals released 500 pairs of the EQT Support 93/Berlin, printed with the camouflage-like pattern of the city's train seats and with an annual ticket stitched into the tongue, valid on BVG U-Bahn trains, trams, buses and ferries until the end of 2018. They cost 180 euros, against more than 700 euros for a regular annual pass. Hundreds camped in sub-zero temperatures outside the two Berlin stores, some from the Saturday before the Tuesday release, and resale listings of up to 1,150 euros appeared within minutes of the shops opening. It is studied as a transit brand borrowing credibility from street culture: the brief, the award citation says, was to change how young Berliners saw BVG, and rather than argue the point it turned the ticket into a collectible worth queuing for. It won the 2018 ADC Europe Grand Prix and a Gold Lion in Direct at Cannes 2018.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film (via W&V)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfryLJijNiE", "type": "press" }, { "label": "BVG x adidas – The ticket-shoe (D&AD Awards archive)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/bvg-x-adidas-the-ticket-shoe", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Public transport is cool': new Adidas trainers double as Berlin transit passes", "publisher": "The Guardian (2018)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jan/16/adidas-eqt-trainers-transport-tickets-berlin" }, { "title": "Shoe-Bahn: Berliners queue for sneaker with sewn-in annual transit ticket", "publisher": "The Local Germany (2018)", "url": "https://www.thelocal.de/20180116/hundreds-of-berliners-line-up-for-shoe-with-annual-transit-ticket-sewn-into-it" }, { "title": "Jung von Matt Germany wins 2018 ADCE Awards Grand Prix for “BVG x Adidas – The ticket shoe”", "publisher": "Art Directors Club of Europe (2018)", "url": "https://adceurope.org/jung-von-matt-germany-wins-2018-adce-awards-grand-prix-for-bvg-x-adidas-the-ticket-shoe/" }, { "title": "BVG-Sneaker von adidas erhält goldenen Löwen", "publisher": "Busnetz (2018)", "url": "https://www.busnetz.de/bvg-sneaker-von-adidas-erhaelt-goldenen-loewen/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kfryLJijNiE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Ticket Shoe (BVG x adidas Originals, 2018)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Casefilm: BVG X ADIDAS DER TICKET SCHUH”, uploaded by W&V", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfryLJijNiE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/kfryLJijNiE/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "kfryLJijNiE", "uploaded_at": "2018-04-19T20:25:37+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "carrefour-black-supermarket", "title": "Black Supermarket (Le Marché Interdit)", "brand": "Carrefour", "year": 2017, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Backs farmers' seed varieties missing from the official catalogue with supply contracts and a petition to change the rules." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Asks shoppers to buy the produce and sign a petition, so every basket doubles as a vote to change the rules." }, { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Frames legal vegetables as forbidden goods, leaving out that only the seeds are restricted, to make a dry regulatory dispute feel like an outlaw story." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "In-store activation and petition", "agency": "Marcel, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative chairman", "name": "Anne de Maupeou" }, { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Dimitri Guerassimov" }, { "role": "Chief creative officer", "name": "Fabien Teichner" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Gaëtan du Peloux" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Youri Guerassimov" }, { "role": "Director (Iconoclast)", "name": "Edouard Le Scouarnec" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A supermarket chain that staged its own black market. In September 2017 Carrefour opened 'forbidden markets' in French stores, selling fruit and vegetables grown from farmers' seed varieties that are missing from the official catalogue and so cannot be marketed as seed. The growers were given five-year supply contracts, and shoppers were asked to buy the produce and sign a Change.org petition to change the rules. Strictly, the vegetables themselves were legal to sell (French press were quick to note that only the seeds were restricted), but the outlaw framing turned a dry regulatory dispute into a story. According to the award entry, the petition passed 85,000 signatures, and in April 2018 the European Parliament adopted an organic regulation that the brand says reopened the market for such seeds. It took four Gold, seven Silver and three Bronze Lions at Cannes 2018, the Eurobest Brand Experience Grand Prix, and the Cannes Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix in 2019.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film (Marcel)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTyjW3ksT7A", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Eurobest 2018 Grand Prix entry with case film", "url": "https://www2.eurobest.com/winners/2018/brand_experience/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions 2019: “Black Supermarket” by MARCEL Paris for Carrefour Bags Grand Prix Title for Creative Effectiveness", "publisher": "adobo Magazine (2019)", "url": "https://www.adobomagazine.com/global-news/cannes-lions-2019-black-supermarket-by-marcel-paris-for-carrefour-bags-grand-prix-title-for-creative-effectiveness/" }, { "title": "2018 Brand Experience & Activation: Black Supermarket (Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Eurobest (2018)", "url": "https://www2.eurobest.com/winners/2018/brand_experience/" }, { "title": "Black Supermarket", "publisher": "Cannes Lions / Love The Work (2018)", "url": "https://www.lovethework.com/en/campaigns/419507" }, { "title": "Légumes \"interdits\" vendus par Carrefour, les enjeux derrière le coup marketing", "publisher": "L'Express (2017)", "url": "https://www.lexpress.fr/societe/legumes-interdits-vendus-par-carrefour-les-enjeux-derriere-le-coup-marketing_1945242.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/OTyjW3ksT7A/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Black Supermarket (Le Marché Interdit) (Carrefour, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “CARREFOUR BLACK SUPERMARKET CASE”, uploaded by Marcel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTyjW3ksT7A", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/OTyjW3ksT7A/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "OTyjW3ksT7A", "uploaded_at": "2018-10-02T17:46:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "palau-pledge", "title": "The Palau Pledge", "brand": "Palau Legacy Project (Republic of Palau)", "year": 2017, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Protects a pristine environment at risk from mass tourism by rewriting the arrival process, so the message is written into law." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Every visitor must sign a pledge stamped into their passport and addressed to Palau's children, so the audience completes the ad." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Immigration policy (passport-stamp pledge) and in-flight film", "agency": "Host/Havas, Sydney", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Seamus Higgins (Host/Havas)" }, { "role": "Director, in-flight film 'The Giant'", "name": "Evan Viera" } ], "tagline": "I vow to tread lightly, act kindly and explore mindfully.", "why_studied": "An ad that every visitor has to sign. In a country where tourists outnumber citizens eight to one, putting its pristine environment at risk, the Pacific nation of Palau changed its arrival process at the end of 2017: every incoming visitor must sign a pledge stamped into their passport, addressed to the children of Palau, promising as their guest to 'tread lightly, act kindly and explore mindfully'. All inbound flights were required to screen an animated film, 'The Giant', explaining why. National Geographic called it the first country to require an eco-pledge on arrival. Some 97,000 visitors had signed by the time of D&AD's case study, and Hawaii and New Zealand have since introduced pledges of their own. At Cannes 2018 it won three Grands Prix — Titanium, Direct and Sustainable Development Goals — and it took a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied as communication written into law: the message delivered at the one moment no visitor can skip.", "watch": [ { "label": "Palau Pledge official site", "url": "https://palaupledge.com/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (Black Pencil)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/palau-pledge", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes Lions Will Donate $370,000 Toward the Palau Pledge, Which Won 3 Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2019)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/cannes-lions-will-donate-370000-toward-the-palau-pledge-which-won-3-grand-prix/" }, { "title": "Case Study: Palau Pledge", "publisher": "D&AD (2018)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/palau-pledge-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "Palau Becomes First Country to Require 'Eco-Pledge' Upon Arrival", "publisher": "National Geographic (2017)", "url": "https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/passport-stamp-ecotourism-pledge" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/el_RIGedlfQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Palau Pledge (Palau Legacy Project (Republic of Palau), 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Giant – Compulsory Inflight Movie Palau Pledge, 2017”, uploaded by Havas Media Russia", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el_RIGedlfQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/el_RIGedlfQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "el_RIGedlfQ", "uploaded_at": "2018-07-11T09:34:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "ladbible-trash-isles", "title": "Trash Isles", "brand": "LADbible & Plastic Oceans Foundation", "year": 2017, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Asks the United Nations to recognise an ocean plastic patch as a nation, arguing that recognition would oblige other countries to help clean it up." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Invites the public to become citizens by signing a petition, turning concern about plastic into a growing population." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Gives a garbage patch the comic trappings of statehood, from passports and stamps to banknotes in a currency called the debris." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "PR stunt and campaign", "agency": "AMV BBDO, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative", "name": "Michael Hughes" }, { "role": "Creative", "name": "Dalatando Almeida" }, { "role": "Identity design", "name": "Mario Kerkstra" }, { "role": "Presenter, launch film", "name": "Ross Kemp" } ], "tagline": "The world's first country made of trash.", "why_studied": "A garbage patch that applied to become a country. In September 2017 the publisher LADbible and the Plastic Oceans Foundation launched a campaign asking the United Nations to recognise a France-sized mass of plastic in the North Pacific as a nation, the Trash Isles. The hook was legal as much as comic: the campaign argued that a recognised state would be covered by UN environmental commitments, obliging other countries to help clean it up. The patch got a flag, passports, stamps and banknotes in a currency called the debris; Al Gore became its first citizen, and the public signed up through a Change.org petition. D&AD's case study counts about 220,000 citizens and 50 million video views. A UN spokesperson put the chances of recognition at 'fairly nil', which was never the point. It is studied for making a remote, invisible problem feel administrable by giving it the paperwork of a nation. It won both the Design and the PR Grand Prix at Cannes in 2018.", "watch": [ { "label": "Launch film with Ross Kemp (LADbible)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzXSsnFNAj0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Trash Isles case study (LADbible Group)", "url": "https://www.ladbiblegroup.com/casestudy/trash-isles/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Giant Piles of Garbage Win Big at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2018)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/giant-piles-of-garbage-win-big-at-cannes/" }, { "title": "Case Study: Trash Isles", "publisher": "D&AD (2019)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/trash-isles-case-study-insights" }, { "title": "The \"Trash Isles\": campaigners ask U.N. to make ocean waste its own country", "publisher": "Thomson Reuters Foundation (2017)", "url": "https://news.trust.org/item/20170908115043-m610y" }, { "title": "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Now Has Its Own Visual Identity", "publisher": "Fast Company (2017)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/90144850/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-now-has-its-own-brand/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FzXSsnFNAj0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Trash Isles (LADbible & Plastic Oceans Foundation, 2017)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Trash Isles: LADbible Claims The World’s First Country Made Of Trash With Ross Kemp”, uploaded by LADbible Stories", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzXSsnFNAj0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FzXSsnFNAj0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "FzXSsnFNAj0", "uploaded_at": "2017-09-06T11:58:18+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "fearless-girl", "title": "Fearless Girl", "brand": "State Street Global Advisors", "year": 2017, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Installs a bronze girl overnight, staring down Wall Street's Charging Bull with no media buy, so a single object becomes the campaign." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Promotes a gender-diversity index fund by turning women in leadership into a public symbol, timed for International Women's Day." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Bronze statue installation", "agency": "McCann, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Sculptor", "name": "Kristen Visbal" }, { "role": "Creative concept", "name": "Lizzie Wilson, Tali Gumbiner (McCann New York)" } ], "tagline": "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.", "why_studied": "A piece of advertising with no media buy that became a permanent landmark. Installed in the night before International Women's Day 2017, Kristen Visbal's bronze girl stared down Wall Street's Charging Bull to promote State Street's gender-diversity index fund — and within hours was a global photograph, a protest site, and a tourism destination the city chose to keep. It won four Grand Prix at Cannes (Titanium, PR, Outdoor and Glass), among the most awarded campaigns in the festival's history. It is studied for symbol-making as media strategy — one object generating billions of impressions — and for its complications, which are part of the curriculum: the sculptor-brand rights dispute and State Street's own subsequent gender-pay settlement sharpened every later debate about purpose marketing's sincerity.", "watch": [ { "label": "Adweek's report on the record Cannes run, with the work", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/fearless-girls-dominating-run-at-cannes-ends-with-4-grand-prix-and-18-total-lions/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Fearless Girl's Dominating Run at Cannes Ends With 4 Grand Prix and 18 Total Lions", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/fearless-girls-dominating-run-at-cannes-ends-with-4-grand-prix-and-18-total-lions/" }, { "title": "McCann Honored with Grand Prix Lions at Cannes (installation date and SHE fund purpose)", "publisher": "McCann press release (PR Newswire, 2017)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mccann-honored-with-three-grand-prix-lions-at-cannes-lions-festival-300476796.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tac-meet-graham", "title": "Meet Graham", "brand": "Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria", "year": 2016, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "Turns an abstract truth, how little force the human body can absorb, into a physical figure people can walk around and study." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Confronts viewers with an uncomfortably lifelike body with no neck, no protruding nose or ears and airbag-like sacs between the ribs." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Grounds the design in briefings from a trauma surgeon and a crash investigator, giving the road-safety message expert authority." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Interactive sculpture", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Sculptor", "name": "Patricia Piccinini" }, { "role": "Trauma surgeon (Royal Melbourne Hospital)", "name": "Christian Kenfield" }, { "role": "Crash investigator (Monash University Accident Research Centre)", "name": "David Logan" } ], "tagline": "The only person designed to survive on our roads.", "why_studied": "A road-safety message you can walk around. Rather than make another crash ad, Victoria's Transport Accident Commission had a trauma surgeon and a crash investigator brief the Melbourne artist Patricia Piccinini on how a human body might look had it evolved to withstand collisions. The answer was Graham, a lifelike sculpture with no neck, airbag-like sacs between his ribs, a face without a protruding nose or ears, double-jointed knees and spring-like feet. Unveiled at the State Library of Victoria in July 2016 before going on a roadshow, he came with augmented reality that let visitors look beneath his skin and a school curriculum built around him. Within a fortnight the TAC said he had been seen by tens of millions of people worldwide. At Cannes 2017 Graham won 29 Lions, including the Health & Wellness and Cyber Grands Prix, plus a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied for making an abstract truth — how little force the human body can absorb — physically, uncomfortably visible.", "watch": [ { "label": "Meet Graham — official interactive site", "url": "https://www.meetgraham.com.au/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (Black Pencil)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/meet-graham", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Introducing Graham: the only person designed to survive on our roads", "publisher": "Transport Accident Commission (2016)", "url": "https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/about-the-tac/media-room/news-and-events/2016/introducing-graham" }, { "title": "TAC lifts the lid on the science behind global road safety phenomenon", "publisher": "Transport Accident Commission (2016)", "url": "https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/about-the-tac/media-room/news-and-events/2016/tac-lifts-the-lid-on-the-science-behind-global-road-safety-phenomenon" }, { "title": "Australian Campaigns of the Decade: TAC 'Meet Graham' (29 Lions, two Grands Prix)", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2019)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/australian-campaigns-of-the-decade%e2%80%88tac-meet-graham-2016-via-clemenger-bbdo-melbourne/" }, { "title": "Meet Graham (Black Pencil)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2017)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/meet-graham" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wHmqn2tZkto/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Meet Graham (Transport Accident Commission (TAC), Victoria, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Meet Graham, TAC's interactive sculpture by artist Patricia Piccinini”, uploaded by Transport Accident Commission Victoria", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHmqn2tZkto", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wHmqn2tZkto/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "wHmqn2tZkto", "uploaded_at": "2016-07-20T23:39:10+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lockheed-martin-field-trip-to-mars", "title": "The Field Trip to Mars", "brand": "Lockheed Martin", "year": 2016, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Swaps the bus windows for screens showing a Martian landscape that turns whenever the real bus turns, so the whole class shares the ride." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Serves the company's STEM-education push, giving schoolchildren an unforgettable trip to Mars rather than a sales message." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded vehicle", "agency": "McCann, New York", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "McCann New York" }, { "role": "Production and technology", "name": "Framestore" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A school bus that drove to Mars. In 2016 a group of Washington, D.C. schoolchildren boarded what they took to be an ordinary bus to a science festival. Once it moved, the windows, rebuilt with switchable glass and transparent 4K screens, replaced the city outside with a rendered Martian landscape that followed the bus's real movements: when it turned, Mars turned too. McCann New York and Framestore built it for Lockheed Martin's STEM-education push. It is studied as virtual reality without the headset: the bus itself became the viewer, and a whole class shared the ride. According to the award entry, more than 2,500 festival visitors took the trip. It was the most-awarded campaign at Cannes 2016, with 19 Lions across 11 categories, and won two D&AD Yellow Pencils. The bus then toured the country, and in 2018 Lockheed Martin donated it to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, saying it had reached over 100,000 students, parents and educators.", "watch": [ { "label": "Lockheed Martin Surprises Kids with Mars Trip (MultiVu on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s4BvcSSxks", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: the Mars Experience bus", "url": "https://airandspace.si.edu/newsroom/press-releases/new-mars-experience-national-air-and-space-museums-udvar-hazy-center", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Inside 'The Field Trip to Mars,' the Single Most Awarded Campaign at Cannes 2016", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/inside-field-trip-mars-single-most-awarded-campaign-cannes-2016-172531/" }, { "title": "Agency of the Year: Creativity, Strategy, Production Sing In Harmony at McCann NY", "publisher": "SHOOT (2016)", "url": "https://www.shootonline.com/article/agency-year-creativity-strategy-production-sing-harmony-mccann-ny/" }, { "title": "New “Mars Experience” at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center", "publisher": "Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (2018)", "url": "https://airandspace.si.edu/newsroom/press-releases/new-mars-experience-national-air-and-space-museums-udvar-hazy-center" }, { "title": "The Field Trip to Mars", "publisher": "D&AD (2017)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-field-trip-to-mars" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/7s4BvcSSxks/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Field Trip to Mars (Lockheed Martin, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Lockheed Martin Surprises Kids with Mars Trip”, uploaded by MultiVu", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s4BvcSSxks", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/7s4BvcSSxks/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "7s4BvcSSxks", "uploaded_at": "2016-04-15T17:24:13+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "swedish-tourist-association-swedish-number", "title": "The Swedish Number", "brand": "Swedish Tourist Association (Svenska Turistföreningen)", "year": 2016, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Lets anyone abroad dial a single number and talk freely with a random Swede, while thousands of citizens sign up to answer." }, { "slug": "plain-folks", "note": "Puts ordinary volunteers, with no training or script, on the line as the country's ambassadors instead of polished tourism claims." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Proves the country's openness and curiosity by handing strangers a direct line to the evidence and accepting whoever answers." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Live phone line", "agency": "INGO, Stockholm", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Björn Ståhl (INGO)" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Gustav Westman" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Magnus Ivansson" } ], "tagline": "The first country in the world with its own phone number.", "why_studied": "A country that picked up the phone. To mark 250 years since Sweden's 1766 law abolishing censorship, the Swedish Tourist Association gave the nation its own phone number: anyone abroad could dial +46 771 793 336 and be put through, at random, to one of tens of thousands of ordinary Swedes who had registered as volunteer ambassadors — no training, no script, free to talk about anything. Over the 79 days the line was open it connected 188,625 calls from 186 countries to 32,069 Swedes, according to the award entry, with nothing spent on bought media. It won the Direct Grand Prix at Cannes 2016 and a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied as destination marketing that swapped claims for access: rather than telling the world Sweden is open and curious, it handed strangers a direct line to the evidence — and accepted the risk of whoever answered.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Swedish Number — official campaign site, with final call statistics", "url": "https://theswedishnumber.com/", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (Black Pencil)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-swedish-number", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Sweden's Brilliant 'Call a Swede' Tourism Campaign Wins Direct Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/swedens-brilliant-call-swede-tourism-campaign-wins-direct-grand-prix-cannes-172106/" }, { "title": "Direct winners: The Swedish Number (calls, countries, ambassadors, zero bought media)", "publisher": "Eurobest (2016)", "url": "https://www2.eurobest.com/winners/2016/direct/" }, { "title": "The Swedish Number — 1766 anniversary and the 79 days the line was open", "publisher": "Svenska Turistföreningen (official campaign site)", "url": "https://theswedishnumber.com/" }, { "title": "The Swedish Number (Black Pencil, Direct)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2017)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/the-swedish-number" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mtb3f_NAmK0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Swedish Number (Swedish Tourist Association (Svenska Turistföreningen), 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Swedish Number | +46 771 793 336”, uploaded by Svenska Turistföreningen", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtb3f_NAmK0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mtb3f_NAmK0/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mtb3f_NAmK0", "uploaded_at": "2016-04-06T05:26:56+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nike-unlimited-stadium", "title": "Unlimited Stadium", "brand": "Nike", "brand_slug": "nike", "year": 2016, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "sports", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Runners log a lap, then race a life-size avatar of themselves on the LED walls, competing against their own pace." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Installation", "agency": "BBH, Singapore", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "BBH Singapore" }, { "role": "Event build", "name": "Jack Morton Worldwide" }, { "role": "Creative technology and production", "name": "Party (New York), Birdman (Tokyo)" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A running track where the opponent was your own last lap. For the 17 days of the 2016 Olympics, Nike built a temporary stadium in central Manila laid out in the shape of the sole print of its new LunarEpic shoe. The 200-metre track was lined with LED screens: after a first lap logged by an RFID tag, a full-size avatar of the runner appeared on the wall and ran at that pace, so up to 30 people at a time were racing themselves. BBH Singapore took it from strategy to the building's architecture. It is studied as a product launch turned into a training tool: the shoe's promise became a place people returned to, day after day, to beat their own time. The agency says it ran at full capacity and the shoe sold out. At Cannes 2017 it won 15 Lions, four of them gold, and was shortlisted for Titanium; it also took a Grand Clio at the Clio Sports awards and eight D&AD pencils.", "watch": [ { "label": "Unlimited Stadium film (Jack Morton Worldwide on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvU5lzQ1M5U", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/nike-unlimited-stadium", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Keep on running: BBH Singapore's 'Unlimited Stadium' for Nike is the most awarded campaign from Asia at Cannes Lions 2017", "publisher": "adobo magazine (2017)", "url": "https://www.adobomagazine.com/global-news/keep-on-running-bbh-singapores-unlimited-stadium-for-nike-is-the-most-awarded-campaign-from-asia-at-cannes-lions-2017/" }, { "title": "How Nike Made 'Unlimited Stadium,' the World's Coolest Running Track", "publisher": "Adweek (2017)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/creativity/how-nike-made-unlimited-stadium-the-worlds-coolest-running-track/" }, { "title": "LOOK BBH and Nike create a shoe shaped running track in Asia", "publisher": "Marketing-Interactive (2016)", "url": "https://www.marketing-interactive.com/look-bbh-nike-create-shoe-shaped-running-track" }, { "title": "Nike Unlimited Stadium (Grand, Clio Sports 2017)", "publisher": "The Clios (2017)", "url": "https://clios.com/winners-gallery/details/52366" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wvU5lzQ1M5U/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Unlimited Stadium (Nike, 2016)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Nike Unlimited Stadium: An Amazing LED Running Track Experience You Will Need to See to Believe”, uploaded by Jack Morton Worldwide", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvU5lzQ1M5U", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wvU5lzQ1M5U/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "wvU5lzQ1M5U", "uploaded_at": "2017-05-30T16:35:48+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "db-export-brewtroleum", "title": "Brewtroleum", "brand": "DB Export", "year": 2015, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Offers drinkers a tongue-in-cheek noble excuse, drink more beer and help save the world, with a working fuel behind the joke." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Turns leftover brewing yeast into a biofuel sold at service stations, claiming lower carbon emissions than regular petrol." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Uses petrol pumps as ambient media, with the beer's own fuel on sale at stations and a flagship forecourt." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action and campaign", "agency": "Colenso BBDO, Auckland", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Colenso BBDO, Auckland" }, { "role": "Fuel partner", "name": "Gull New Zealand" }, { "role": "Supporting agencies", "name": "Proximity, SparkPHD, Union Digital" } ], "tagline": "Drink DB Export. Save the entire world.", "why_studied": "A beer that came with its own petrol. With New Zealand beer consumption at its lowest since the Second World War, DB Export and Colenso BBDO gave drinkers a noble-sounding excuse: the yeast left over from brewing was turned into a biofuel and sold with fuel partner Gull as Brewtroleum. According to the award entry, 300,000 litres went on sale at 62 service stations plus a flagship Brewtroleum station, with the brand claiming 8% lower carbon emissions than regular petrol. The pitch was a joke with a working product behind it: drink more beer, help save the world. It is studied as a business action that turned a waste stream into the campaign itself and made petrol pumps into ambient media. DB's marketing director said it made Export the fastest-growing beer brand of 2015. It won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes 2016, after narrowly missing the Promo & Activation Grand Prix, plus New Zealand's Grand Effie, a Grand APAC Effie, two D&AD Yellow Pencils and a White Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Brewtroleum case film (AD STARS on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n5IEzxcew4", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/brewtroleum", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Drink Beer, Save the World! DB's 'Brewtroleum' Takes Home Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/drink-beer-save-world-dbs-brewtroleum-takes-home-cannes-outdoor-grand-prix-172132/" }, { "title": "Effies 2016: Colenso BBDO and DB Breweries’ chemistry steals the spotlight", "publisher": "StopPress (2016)", "url": "https://stoppress.co.nz/news/effies-2016-colenso-bbdo-and-db-breweries-chemistry-steals-spotlight/" }, { "title": "Brewtroleum", "publisher": "D&AD (2016)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/brewtroleum" }, { "title": "2017 Winners - Grand", "publisher": "APAC Effie Awards (2017)", "url": "https://www.apaceffie.com/winners/2017-winners/grand" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/9n5IEzxcew4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Brewtroleum (DB Export, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “[AD STARS 2016 Grand Prix] DB Export Brewtroleum”, uploaded by MAD STARS(부산국제마케팅광고제)", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n5IEzxcew4", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/9n5IEzxcew4/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "9n5IEzxcew4", "uploaded_at": "2016-07-11T09:34:37+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "no-somos-delito-holograms-for-freedom", "title": "Holograms for Freedom", "brand": "No Somos Delito", "year": 2015, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Protests a law allowing heavy fines for unauthorised demonstrations by staging a march no one can be fined for." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "People worldwide submit their faces, slogans and voices through a website, becoming the holograms that march outside parliament." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Projects the protest outside the Congress of Deputies at night under a film-shoot permit, turning the restriction itself into the message." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Holographic protest (projection)", "agency": "DDB Spain, Madrid", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "José María Roca de Viñals (DDB Spain)" }, { "role": "Executive Creative Directors", "name": "Guillermo Santaisabel, Javier Urbaneja" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The first protest made of holograms. In 2015 Spain passed a public-security law — critics called it the 'gag law' — that allowed heavy fines for unauthorised demonstrations, including in front of parliament. No Somos Delito ('We Are Not a Crime'), a platform of more than a hundred organisations, worked with DDB Spain to hold a protest no one could be fined for: one night in April, the faces, slogans and voices of some 2,000 people from around the world, gathered through a website, were projected as a holographic march outside the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. Legally it was the screening of a pre-filmed protest, made possible by a film-shoot permit. The award entry reports 17,857 participants, a petition against the law signed by more than 330,000 people and a debate in the Spanish Congress. It won Gold Lions at Cannes 2015. It is studied as protest design that turned the restriction itself into the message.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on DDB España's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp-VU4tkzSY", "type": "official" }, { "label": "MIT Docubase project page", "url": "https://docubase.mit.edu/project/holograms-for-freedom", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Hologramas contra la \"ley mordaza\"", "publisher": "El País (2015)", "url": "https://elpais.com/ccaa/2015/04/10/madrid/1428698276_149818.html" }, { "title": "Spain's hologram protests (interview with No Somos Delito)", "publisher": "openDemocracy (2015)", "url": "https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/spains-hologram-protests-3/" }, { "title": "Holograms for Freedom (Gold Pencil; participation and petition results)", "publisher": "The One Club / One Show (2016)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/23440/holograms-for-freedom/" }, { "title": "La mejor publicidad de España en 2015 (Cannes Lions won by Spanish agencies)", "publisher": "Reason Why (2015)", "url": "https://www.reasonwhy.es/actualidad/sector/la-mejor-publicidad-de-espana-en-2015-2015-06-27" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Vp-VU4tkzSY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Holograms for Freedom (No Somos Delito, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “No Somos Delito -Holograms for Freedom- Case”, uploaded by DDB España", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp-VU4tkzSY", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/Vp-VU4tkzSY/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "Vp-VU4tkzSY", "uploaded_at": "2015-05-26T13:14:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volvo-lifepaint", "title": "LifePaint", "brand": "Volvo Car UK", "brand_slug": "volvo", "year": 2015, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Launches a spray that turns whatever cyclists coat into a reflector after dark, a car maker looking after people outside its cars." }, { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Proves a safety brand's positioning with a useful object rather than a claim, reinforcing its reputation for protecting people." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Product launch (reflective safety spray)", "agency": "Grey London", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Nils Leonard (Grey London)" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Hollie Newton" }, { "role": "Product partner", "name": "Albedo100" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A car maker that built something for the people outside its cars. In spring 2015 Volvo Car UK and Grey London launched LifePaint, a spray developed with the Swedish start-up Albedo100 that is invisible by day but shines back in car headlights after dark, turning whatever a cyclist coats with it into a reflector. The first 2,000 cans were given away free through six London bike shops as a trial. Volvo's IPA effectiveness paper later counted more than 75,000 cans sold — revenue that covered the investment — and estimated that LifePaint customers went on to buy over 1,000 Volvos worldwide. At Cannes 2015 it took two Grands Prix, in Promo & Activation and in Design. It is studied as 'make a product, not an ad': a safety brand proving its positioning with a useful object. It is also a caution: in 2017 the UK's Advertising Standards Authority ruled a later LifePaint video misleading for exaggerating how the spray performed.", "watch": [ { "label": "WPP case study: Grey London and Volvo LifePaint", "url": "https://www.wpp.com/en/case-studies/grey-volvo-lifepaint", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/lifepaint", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Volvo Car UK Launches Life Paint Initiative to Improve Cyclist Safety", "publisher": "Volvo Car UK press release via Cision (2015)", "url": "https://news.cision.com/volvo-car-uk/r/volvo-car-uk-launches-life-paint-initiative-to-improve-cyclist-safety,c4196825" }, { "title": "Grey's LifePaint Wins Another Grand Prix (Design, after Promo & Activation)", "publisher": "Adweek (2015)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/greys-lifepaint-wins-another-grand-prix-proud-whopper-keeps-racking-lions-165550/" }, { "title": "Volvo Cars: \"Or by\" — how two little words made Volvo's safety matter again (LifePaint sales and car purchases)", "publisher": "IPA Effectiveness Awards (2016)", "url": "https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/case-studies/volvo-cars-or-by-how-two-little-words-made-volvo-s-safety-matter-again" }, { "title": "ASA Ruling on Volvo Car UK Ltd (complaint upheld)", "publisher": "Advertising Standards Authority (2017)", "url": "https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/volvo-car-uk-ltd-a16-366734.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/R468_XdvS1k/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from LifePaint (Volvo Car UK, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “IPA Effectiveness Awards 2016 Shortlist: Volvo LifePaint”, uploaded by Institute of Practitioners in Advertising", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R468_XdvS1k", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/R468_XdvS1k/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "R468_XdvS1k", "uploaded_at": "2016-09-06T08:51:18+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "samsung-safety-truck", "title": "The Safety Truck", "brand": "Samsung", "year": 2015, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cars", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Tackles dangerous overtaking on two-lane roads by letting drivers stuck behind a lorry see the road ahead before they pass." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Shows what the brand's outdoor screens are for by mounting them on a truck's back as a live view through it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Product prototype (truck-mounted video wall)", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Buenos Aires", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Leo Burnett Argentina" }, { "role": "President, Leo Burnett Argentina", "name": "Fernando Bellotti" }, { "role": "Truck partner (2016 prototype)", "name": "Volvo Trucks Argentina" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A truck you can see through. Argentina has one of the world's worst road-accident records, and most crashes happen on two-lane roads, particularly when drivers try to overtake. Leo Burnett Argentina and Samsung fitted a lorry with a wireless camera on its front and a video wall of four outdoor screens on its back, so drivers stuck behind it could see the road ahead and judge whether it was safe to pass. Samsung built a prototype and tested it with a local business client, then in 2016 unveiled a new Safety Truck with partners including Volvo Trucks Argentina. At Cannes 2015 the idea won a Titanium Lion and three Gold Lions, along with the first Cyber Lion ever awarded to Argentina. It is studied as product-as-advertising — an electronics brand showing what its screens are for by solving a public problem — and as a lesson in caution: by June 2015, Samsung's own newsroom said the original prototype was no longer operational.", "watch": [ { "label": "Samsung Argentina's film (English version)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GNGfse9ZK8", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Samsung Newsroom: how the Safety Truck works", "url": "https://news.samsung.com/global/the-safety-truck-could-revolutionize-road-safety", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The Safety Truck Could Revolutionize Road Safety", "publisher": "Samsung Global Newsroom (2015)", "url": "https://news.samsung.com/global/the-safety-truck-could-revolutionize-road-safety" }, { "title": "Samsung Presents First 'Samsung Safety Truck' Prototype", "publisher": "Samsung Global Newsroom (2016)", "url": "https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-presents-first-samsung-safety-truck-prototype" }, { "title": "The Safety-Truck by Leo Burnett Buenos Aires made history in Cannes 2015", "publisher": "PRODU (2015)", "url": "https://www.produ.com/mercadeo/noticias/the-safety-truck-by-leo-burnett-buenos-aires-made-history-in-cannes-2015/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6GNGfse9ZK8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Safety Truck (Samsung, 2015)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Samsung Argentina - Samsung Safety Truck (English Version)”, uploaded by Samsung Argentina", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GNGfse9ZK8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/6GNGfse9ZK8/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "6GNGfse9ZK8", "uploaded_at": "2015-06-17T18:15:17+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rei-optoutside", "title": "#OptOutside", "brand": "REI", "year": 2015, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Proves a co-op's values by closing every store on the year's biggest shopping day, a visible cost that makes the claim believable." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Invites people to head outdoors instead of shopping, and the hashtag is taken up by other organisations and millions of people." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Ties the brand to time spent outdoors rather than consumption, paying its staff to go outside on Black Friday." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Business action and integrated campaign", "agency": "Venables Bell & Partners, San Francisco", "credits": [], "tagline": "On Black Friday, we're closing. Opt outside.", "why_studied": "The anti-promotion: on Black Friday 2015, the biggest shopping day of the year, outdoor retailer REI closed all 143 stores, paid its 12,000 employees to go outside, and blacked out its own e-commerce homepage with an invitation to join. The business action was the advertising — a co-op proving its values by refusing revenue — and the hashtag became a movement adopted by other organizations and millions of people, with membership growth to show for it. It won both the Titanium and Promo & Activation Grand Prix at Cannes 2016. It is studied as the canonical case of 'brand behavior beats brand claims': the most persuasive thing a company can say is something it actually does, especially when it visibly costs something.", "watch": [ { "label": "REI's original announcement", "url": "https://www.rei.com/newsroom/article/rei-closing-its-doors-on-black-friday-invites-nation-to-optoutside", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "REI Closing its Doors on Black Friday — Invites Nation to OptOutside", "publisher": "REI Newsroom (2015)", "url": "https://www.rei.com/newsroom/article/rei-closing-its-doors-on-black-friday-invites-nation-to-optoutside" }, { "title": "REI's Anti-Black Friday Campaign #OptOutside Wins the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Adweek (2016)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/reis-anti-black-friday-campaign-optoutside-wins-titanium-grand-prix-cannes-172256/" }, { "title": "#OptOutside (agency case: +50% new members)", "publisher": "Venables Bell & Partners", "url": "https://www.venablesbell.com/work/rei-optoutside" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-eyes-on-the-road", "title": "Eyes on the Road", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 2014, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cars", "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Sends a text to every phone in the cinema, so the audience commits the mistake themselves with their own devices." }, { "slug": "fear", "note": "As viewers look down, the on-screen car crashes, followed by the claim that phone use is the leading cause of death at the wheel." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Jolts a relaxed cinema audience with a sudden crash during what looks like an ordinary pre-show ad." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live stunt", "agency": "OgilvyOne, Beijing", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "OgilvyOne Beijing" } ], "tagline": "A reminder to keep your eyes on the road.", "why_studied": "A text message that crashed the car. Moviegoers at Hong Kong's MCL cinema watched what looked like a pre-show ad: a point-of-view film of someone driving down a quiet road. Partway through, a location-based broadcaster sent a text to every phone in the room. As people looked down to read it, the car on screen swerved off the road and crashed, followed by the on-screen claim that mobile use is now the leading cause of death behind the wheel. It is studied because it makes the audience commit the mistake themselves, with their own phones as the medium, instead of lecturing them about it. By the time CTV News covered it in June 2014 the film had passed 11 million YouTube views; Mashable noted it could not confirm whether the audience knew in advance. It won the Grand Prix at Spikes Asia, four golds at the 2014 Effie China awards and the experiential prize in the One Show's Automobile Advertising of the Year awards.", "watch": [ { "label": "Eyes on the Road film (The One Club on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj8dQKqfJB4", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/eyes-on-the-road", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Volkswagen's 'Eyes on the Road' Wins 4 Golds at Effie China Awards", "publisher": "LBB Online (2014)", "url": "https://lbbonline.com/news/volkswagens-eyes-on-the-road-wins-4-golds-at-effie-china-awards" }, { "title": "Volkswagen ad shocks moviegoers with virtual car accident", "publisher": "CTV News (2014)", "url": "https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/volkswagen-ad-shocks-moviegoers-with-virtual-car-accident-1.1863455" }, { "title": "2nd annual Automobile Advertising of the Year Awards revealed", "publisher": "Autoblog (2015)", "url": "https://www.autoblog.com/2015/01/13/automobile-advertising-of-the-year-detroit-2015/" }, { "title": "Volkswagen Shocks Moviegoers With Interactive Texting and Driving PSA", "publisher": "Mashable (2014)", "url": "https://mashable.com/archive/volkswagen-psa-texting-and-driving" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wj8dQKqfJB4/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Eyes on the Road (Volkswagen, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Eyes on the Road - Winner 2015 One Show Automobile Advertising of the Year”, uploaded by The One Club for Creativity", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj8dQKqfJB4", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/wj8dQKqfJB4/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "wj8dQKqfJB4", "uploaded_at": "2014-12-17T16:45:38+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "intermarche-inglorious-fruits-and-vegetables", "title": "Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables", "brand": "Intermarché", "year": 2014, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Tackles food waste by buying the misshapen produce growers usually throw away and selling it in stores." }, { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Turns the produce's weakness into a selling point, giving rejects their own proud branding and a price about 30% lower." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Serves soup and juice made from the ugly produce in store, so shoppers can taste that it is just as good." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action and campaign", "agency": "Marcel, Paris", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Marcel, Paris" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Julien Benmoussa" }, { "role": "Art Director", "name": "Gaëtan du Peloux" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A supermarket that put the rejects on the shelf. For the European year against food waste, Intermarché, France's third-largest grocer, bought the misshapen produce its growers usually threw away, gave it its own displays, price labels and even its own name on the till receipt, and sold it about 30% cheaper — with 'ugly' carrot soup and orange juice to taste in store. The March 2014 pilot in a single store in Provins, backed by roughly €3,000 of local media, sold its whole 1,200 kg stock in two days, and Marcel says store traffic rose 24%. That autumn the chain ran the operation across its 1,800 stores, and rivals Auchan and Monoprix launched their own versions. It won a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied as purpose that changed the product rather than the tone of voice — a retailer tackling a problem it helped create, honestly enough to avoid the charge of greenwashing, and selling more as a result.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on Marcel's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2nSECWq_PE", "type": "official" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry (Black Pencil)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/inglorious-fruits-and-vegetables", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "In Europe, Ugly Sells In The Produce Aisle", "publisher": "NPR (2014)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/09/369613561/in-europe-ugly-sells-in-the-produce-aisle" }, { "title": "Grand Prix pub 2014: Marcel pour \"Les légumes moches et méchants\" d'Intermarché", "publisher": "Stratégies (2014)", "url": "https://www.strategies.fr/actualites/marques/236893W/grand-prix-pub-2014-marcel-pour-les-legumes-moches-et-mechants-d-intermarche.html" }, { "title": "Case study: Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables", "publisher": "D&AD (2019)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/insights/awards/case-study-inglorious-fruits-social-good" }, { "title": "Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables (Black Pencil)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2016)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/inglorious-fruits-and-vegetables" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/p2nSECWq_PE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables (Intermarché, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Intermarché - \"Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables\"”, uploaded by Marcel", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2nSECWq_PE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/p2nSECWq_PE/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "p2nSECWq_PE", "uploaded_at": "2014-06-12T11:03:56+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "exit-deutschland-nazis-against-nazis", "title": "Nazis Against Nazis (\"Rechts gegen Rechts\")", "brand": "EXIT-Deutschland", "year": 2014, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Dresses a neo-Nazi march route as a sponsored charity walk, with start and finish lines and banners, on a tiny budget." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Cheers the marchers on with mock charity-walk slogans, so the far right unwittingly raises money against itself." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Every metre walked raises money for a programme helping people leave the far right, turning opponents' momentum against them." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live stunt (involuntary charity walk)", "agency": "Grabarz & Partner and GGH Lowe, Hamburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief Creative Officer (Grabarz & Partner)", "name": "Ralf Heuel" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer (GGH Lowe)", "name": "Florian Grimm" }, { "role": "Client (ZDK / EXIT-Deutschland)", "name": "Fabian Wichmann" } ], "tagline": "Germany's most involuntary charity walk.", "why_studied": "The march that paid for its own undoing. Every November neo-Nazis paraded through Wunsiedel, the Bavarian town where Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess was buried from 1988 to 2011. In 2014 residents and local businesses quietly pledged €10 for every metre the marchers walked to EXIT-Deutschland, a programme that helps people leave the far right, and the route was dressed as a sponsored charity walk, with start and finish lines and cheering slogans on banners and on the road itself. Around 250 marchers raised €10,000 against their own cause. A film was on YouTube three hours after the finish; German TV and print coverage alone reached 24 million people, private donors added another €10,000, and other towns copied the mechanic — all on €5,000 of production costs and no paid media. It won D&AD White and Yellow Pencils. It is studied as advertising judo: using an opponent's momentum instead of confronting it.", "watch": [ { "label": "EXIT-Deutschland's announcement, with the film", "url": "https://www.exit-deutschland.de/meldungen/wunsiedel-macht-aus-nazimarsch-spendenlauf", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The Guardian's report from Wunsiedel", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/neo-nazis-tricked-into-raising-10000-for-charity", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Wunsiedel macht aus Nazimarsch Spendenlauf (Wunsiedel turns Nazi march into charity walk)", "publisher": "EXIT-Deutschland (2014)", "url": "https://www.exit-deutschland.de/meldungen/wunsiedel-macht-aus-nazimarsch-spendenlauf" }, { "title": "German town tricks neo-Nazis into raising thousands of euros for anti-extremist charity", "publisher": "The Guardian (2014)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/neo-nazis-tricked-into-raising-10000-for-charity" }, { "title": "Rechts gegen Rechts – Der unfreiwilligste Spendenlauf Deutschlands (effectiveness case)", "publisher": "GWA Effie (2015)", "url": "https://gwa.de/content/files/cases/1028.pdf" }, { "title": "Nazis Against Nazis (White and Yellow Pencils)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2015)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/nazis-against-nazis" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ysTqSHoTz0M/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Nazis Against Nazis (\"Rechts gegen Rechts\") (EXIT-Deutschland, 2014)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Rechts Gegen Rechts – Der Film zum unfreiwilligsten Spendenlauf Deutschlands”, uploaded by Rechts gegen Rechts", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysTqSHoTz0M", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ysTqSHoTz0M/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ysTqSHoTz0M", "uploaded_at": "2014-11-15T20:37:16+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "sport-club-recife-immortal-fans", "title": "Immortal Fans", "brand": "Sport Club Recife", "year": 2013, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Patients on transplant lists promise fans that their eyes will keep watching the team and their hearts keep beating for it." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Issues the first organ-donor card from a football club, prompting the family conversation that most often blocks transplants." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Channels supporters' tribal loyalty to the club into a decision to become an organ donor." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action (football-club organ-donor card)", "agency": "Ogilvy Brasil, São Paulo", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Ogilvy Brasil, São Paulo" } ], "tagline": "I promise that your heart will always beat for Sport Club Recife.", "why_studied": "A football club that asked its supporters to keep cheering after death. In Brazil the biggest barrier to organ transplants was family authorisation, so Ogilvy Brasil gave the supporters of Sport Club Recife — among the most passionate in the country — a reason to have that conversation: the first organ-donor card issued by a football club. Patients on real transplant waiting lists made the appeal themselves, promising fans that their eyes would keep watching the team and their hearts would keep beating for it, and at the launch match players walked onto the pitch hand in hand with them while a stand signed up new donors. Some 51,000 fans declared themselves donors — more than the club's stadium holds — and, the agency says, organ donation rose 54% within a year. It won the Promo & Activation Grand Prix at Cannes 2013. It is studied for channelling tribal loyalty, sport's most durable emotion, into a behaviour that saves lives.", "watch": [ { "label": "Results film on Ogilvy Brazil's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GFcAlWhBM", "type": "official" }, { "label": "FIFA news feature: 'Brazilian club helps save lives'", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c65sSNU4tQY", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Ogilvy Brazil Scores Promo Grand Prix for Soccer Team's Organ Donor Campaign", "publisher": "Adweek (2013)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ogilvy-brazil-scores-promo-grand-prix-soccer-teams-organ-donor-campaign-15/" }, { "title": "Immortal Fans (first organ-donor card for a football club)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2013)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/immortal-fans" }, { "title": "Sport Club Recife: Immortal Fans", "publisher": "WARC (2014)", "url": "https://www.warc.com/en/article/sport-club-recife%3A-immortal-fans-8a705f1d47c340769580ed9793f44b82" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Creative Effectiveness, Direct Lions, Promo & Activation and PR Winners Announced", "publisher": "Cannes Lions via ACN Newswire (2013)", "url": "https://www.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/13428/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/-8GFcAlWhBM/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Immortal Fans (Sport Club Recife, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Immortal Fans”, uploaded by Ogilvy Brazil", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GFcAlWhBM", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/-8GFcAlWhBM/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "-8GFcAlWhBM", "uploaded_at": "2013-05-24T20:47:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hindustan-unilever-kan-khajura-tesan", "title": "Kan Khajura Tesan", "brand": "Hindustan Unilever", "year": 2013, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Listeners give a free missed call and are rung back with music, jokes and a presenter, broken up by the company's ads." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand-owned media channel (missed-call mobile radio)", "agency": "Lowe Lintas + Partners; PHD India", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative agency", "name": "Lowe Lintas + Partners" }, { "role": "Media agency", "name": "PHD India" }, { "role": "Cloud telephony", "name": "Ozonetel Systems" } ], "tagline": "Missed call lagao, muft manoranjan pao", "why_studied": "In the 'media dark' villages of Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, power cuts meant traditional media reached no more than a fifth of people, yet many were already using cheap mobile phones for entertainment. So Hindustan Unilever, with Lowe Lintas and media agency PHD, built its own station on the phone. Listeners gave a free 'missed call' to a toll-free number and were rung back with around 15 minutes of Bollywood music, jokes and a presenter, broken up by ads for Unilever brands such as Wheel, Close Up and Pond's. It is studied as a brand creating a medium where none existed instead of buying one. According to the award entries, it signed up eight million subscribers in six months at about four US cents per contact. It won three Gold Lions at Cannes in 2014, two in Media and one in Mobile, took the Grand Prix of the 2014 WARC Prize for Asian Strategy, and topped the 2015 WARC 100 ranking of campaigns.", "watch": [ { "label": "Kan Khajura Tesan case film (DigitalMarketAsia, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESWH9if00q0", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes 2014: HUL's Kan Khajura Tesan Strikes Gold!", "publisher": "afaqs! (2014)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/41135_cannes-2014-huls-kan-khajura-tesan-strikes-gold" }, { "title": "Kan Khajura Tesan: The Full Story", "publisher": "afaqs! (2014)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/digital/41226_kan-khajura-tesan-the-full-story" }, { "title": "Hindustan Unilever wins top Warc Asia Strategy prize", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2014)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/hindustan-unilever-wins-top-warc-asia-strategy-prize/391883" }, { "title": "Lowe, PHD, WPP and Unilever Among Warc 100 Winners", "publisher": "Warc via PR Newswire (2015)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/lowe-phd-wpp-and-unilever-among-warc-100-winners-293934321.html" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/w7ZMroRVpRA/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Kan Khajura Tesan (Hindustan Unilever, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Kan Khajura Tesan”, uploaded by mbillionthawards southasia", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ZMroRVpRA", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/w7ZMroRVpRA/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "w7ZMroRVpRA", "uploaded_at": "2015-07-28T07:38:47+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lifebuoy-roti-reminder", "title": "Roti Reminder", "brand": "Lifebuoy (Hindustan Unilever)", "year": 2013, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Heat-stamps the handwashing question onto rotis served at festival eateries, a medium nobody can skip." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Reminds diners to wash their hands at the very moment it matters, since roti is eaten by hand." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Edible media / experiential activation", "agency": "OgilvyAction India (Ogilvy & Mather India)", "credits": [ { "role": "Activation agency", "name": "OgilvyAction India" }, { "role": "National creative director, OgilvyAction", "name": "Vipul Salvi" }, { "role": "Media partner (Cannes entry)", "name": "Mindshare Fulcrum" } ], "tagline": "Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya? (Did you wash your hands with Lifebuoy?)", "why_studied": "At the 2013 Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, billed as the largest gathering of people on the planet, Lifebuoy made the bread itself the reminder to wash. The soap brand teamed up with more than 100 dhabas and eateries on the festival grounds and gave them custom heat stamps that branded fresh rotis, without ink, with the line \"Lifebuoy se haath dhoye kya?\" (\"Did you wash your hands with Lifebuoy?\"). The first roti of each order carried the message, and around 2.5 million stamped rotis were served over a month, with soap placed in the eateries' washrooms and banners around the site. It is studied as a lesson in timing and context: roti is eaten by hand, so the prompt arrived at the precise moment hands mattered, on a medium nobody could skip. It won a Bronze PR Lion at Cannes in 2013 and the Grand Effie at India's 2013 Effie Awards, where Hindustan Unilever was named client of the year.", "watch": [ { "label": "Roti Reminder case film (Campaigns of the World, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhyGYN1TJ84", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Kumbh Mela: Of clean hands and rotis (Business Today, with photos)", "url": "https://www.businesstoday.in/lifestyle/off-track/story/maha-kumbh-mela-lifebuoy-unilever-campaign-38415-2013-02-08", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "India's 2013 Effie Awards", "publisher": "Effie Worldwide (2014)", "url": "https://effie.org/news/indias-2013-effie-awards/" }, { "title": "Effies 2013: Ogilvy wins Grand Effie; HUL is Client of the Year", "publisher": "afaqs! (2014)", "url": "https://www.afaqs.com/news/advertising/39727_effies-2013-ogilvy-wins-grand-effie-hul-is-client-of-the-year" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions 2013: India grabs a Silver and two Bronze Lions in PR", "publisher": "exchange4media (2013)", "url": "https://www.exchange4media.com/cannes-lions-news/cannes-lions-2013india-grabs-a-silver-and-two-bronze-lions-in-pr-51501.html" }, { "title": "Kumbh Mela: Of clean hands and rotis", "publisher": "Business Today (2013)", "url": "https://www.businesstoday.in/lifestyle/off-track/story/maha-kumbh-mela-lifebuoy-unilever-campaign-38415-2013-02-08" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fhyGYN1TJ84/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Roti Reminder (Lifebuoy (Hindustan Unilever), 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Roti Reminder Campaign - Watch How Lifebuoy Hand Wash Transformed Hygiene in Rural India”, uploaded by Campaigns of the World ®", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhyGYN1TJ84", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fhyGYN1TJ84/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "fhyGYN1TJ84", "uploaded_at": "2024-12-19T06:34:24+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-small-world-machines", "title": "Small World Machines", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2013, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Strangers on either side of the border must wave, press hands to the glass or trace a peace sign together to win a free Coke." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Creates a shared, hopeful moment between people across one of the world's most hostile borders, who can look each other in the eye." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive installation", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Sydney & Chicago", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Leo Burnett Sydney & Leo Burnett Chicago" }, { "role": "Chief creative officers", "name": "Mark Tutssel, Andy DiLallo" }, { "role": "Executive creative directors", "name": "Dave Loew, Jon Wyville" }, { "role": "Machine build / technology", "name": "The SuperGroup, Atlanta" }, { "role": "Global creative director, Coca-Cola", "name": "Jackie Jantos Tulloch" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Highlight Films, New Delhi" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In March 2013 Coca-Cola put two custom vending machines in shopping malls in Lahore and New Delhi and joined them with a live video link. Each machine's body-length touchscreen showed a stranger from across the border; people who waved, pressed hands to the glass or traced a peace sign or smiley face together were rewarded with a free Coke. The screens projected and filmed through the same glass, so the two sides could look each other in the eye, and the award entry says the team had to commission its own internet connection because cross-border traffic was slow and often blocked. It is studied as a global brand stepping, carefully, into one of the world's most hostile borders with nothing more than a shared moment and a can of soda. At Cannes 2013 it took two Gold Lions in Direct and, by Leo Burnett's count, a third in Media among at least six Lions; it also won a One Show Bronze Pencil in 2014.", "watch": [ { "label": "Small World Machines film (Coca-Cola, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE", "type": "official" }, { "label": "One Show award entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/20545/small-world-machines/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How Coca-Cola Used Vending Machines To Try And Unite The People Of India And Pakistan", "publisher": "Fast Company (2013)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1683001/how-coca-cola-used-vending-machines-to-try-and-unite-the-people-of-india-and-pakistan/" }, { "title": "Cannes winners: McCann's 'Dumb' campaign takes two Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2013)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/cannes-winners-mccanns-dumb-campaign-takes-two-grand-prix/347095" }, { "title": "Leo Burnett Worldwide Wins 18 Cannes Lions In Media And Outdoor", "publisher": "Leo Burnett via PR Newswire (2013)", "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/leo-burnett-worldwide-wins-18-cannes-lions-in-media-and-outdoor-212069521.html" }, { "title": "Coca-Cola | Small World Machines (One Show 2014, Bronze Pencil)", "publisher": "The One Club (2014)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/20545/small-world-machines/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ts_4vOUDImE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Small World Machines (Coca-Cola, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Coca-Cola Small World Machines - Bringing India & Pakistan Together”, uploaded by Coca-Cola", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ts_4vOUDImE/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ts_4vOUDImE", "uploaded_at": "2013-05-20T03:37:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "harvey-nichols-sorry-i-spent-it-on-myself", "title": "Sorry, I Spent It On Myself", "brand": "Harvey Nichols", "year": 2013, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "great-british-ads" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Sells a deliberately cheap gift range, from paper clips to gravel, so shoppers can give a token and spend the real money on themselves." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Product range and integrated campaign", "agency": "adam&eveDDB, London", "credits": [], "tagline": "A little something for them, a bigger something for you.", "why_studied": "For Christmas 2013 the luxury department store Harvey Nichols put a real range of deliberately cheap presents on sale: the Sorry, I Spent It On Myself gift collection. Paper clips, wooden toothpicks, a sink plug, a plastic doorstop, a Christmas lunch in a tin and a bag of Lincolnshire gravel at £1.61 came neatly boxed under the store's name, so shoppers could hand relatives a token and spend the real money on designer clothes for themselves. A film of awkward present-opening scenes launched the joke online. It is studied because the gag was also a working retail offer: the product line itself carried the message, and it played on the brand's prestige by suggesting that even toothpicks feel special in a Harvey Nichols bag. At Cannes 2014 it won four Grands Prix, in Promo & Activation, Press, Film and Integrated, and D&AD gave it a Yellow Pencil for Branding.", "watch": [ { "label": "The gift collection film on Harvey Nichols' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8DOZ_rK8rI", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The Christmas 2013 film on Harvey Nichols' YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITyeI3YyYw8", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Adam&eveDDB Selfishly Snags the Promo Grand Prix for 'Sorry, I Spent It on Myself'", "publisher": "Adweek (2014)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/adameveddb-selfishly-snags-promo-grand-prix-sorry-i-spent-it-myself-158346/" }, { "title": "Adam&eveDDB Finishes With 4 Grand Prix for Harvey Nichols, Adding Integrated and Film", "publisher": "Adweek (2014)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/adameveddb-finishes-4-grand-prix-harvey-nichols-adding-integrated-and-film-158502/" }, { "title": "Does Harvey Nichols' advert spoil the holiday spirit?", "publisher": "CNBC (2013)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/29/does-harvey-nichols-advert-spoil-the-holiday-spirit.html" }, { "title": "OgilvyOne wins two yellow pencils at D&AD", "publisher": "Campaign (2014)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/ogilvyone-wins-two-yellow-pencils-d-ad/1295545" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/P8DOZ_rK8rI/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Sorry, I Spent It On Myself (Harvey Nichols, 2013)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Harvey Nichols 'Sorry I Spent It On Myself' Gift Collection”, uploaded by Harvey Nichols", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8DOZ_rK8rI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/P8DOZ_rK8rI/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "P8DOZ_rK8rI", "uploaded_at": "2013-11-22T10:25:39+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tnt-push-to-add-drama", "title": "A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square (\"Push to Add Drama\")", "known_as": "Push to Add Drama", "brand": "TNT (Turner Broadcasting System Europe)", "year": 2012, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Invites passers-by to press a big red button, and whoever does triggers the whole show." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Stages a rapid chain of mayhem in a quiet market square, from an ambulance to a shoot-out, before a banner unrolls." }, { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Proves the channel's promise of drama by making it physically happen in a sleepy town square." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live stunt", "agency": "Duval Guillaume Modem, Antwerp", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Directors", "name": "Geoffrey Hantson, Katrien Bottez" }, { "role": "Director", "name": "Koen Mortier" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "CZAR" } ], "tagline": "Push to add drama.", "why_studied": "The big red button that started a genre. To launch the US channel TNT in Flanders, a network promising 'We know drama', Duval Guillaume Modem put a button on a pedestal in the quiet market square of Aarschot, with a sign inviting passers-by to 'push to add drama'. Whoever pressed it set off a rapid chain of staged mayhem — an ambulance, an accident, a brawl, a shoot-out between gangsters and police, an American football team — capped by a banner unrolling down a building: 'Your daily dose of drama'. The sequence was performed several times and cut into one film, released almost entirely through YouTube and social media. Within weeks it had around 31 million views and ranked as the second most-shared ad ever, behind Volkswagen's 'The Force'. It won three Eurobest Grands Prix. It is studied as the template for the hidden-trigger brand stunt, endlessly imitated since, and for making a channel's promise physically true in public.", "watch": [ { "label": "The film, on production company CZAR's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1zInPWBO8", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/push-to-add-drama", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Push to Add Drama (brief, idea and execution)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2013)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/push-to-add-drama" }, { "title": "A dramatic surprise on a quiet square (sequence, staging and release)", "publisher": "Direct New Ideas (2012)", "url": "https://www.directnewideas.com/magazine/duval_guillaume_modem_a_dramatic_surprise_on_a_quiet_square/?id=1006" }, { "title": "TNT-viral 31 miljoen keer bekeken (Aarschot; second most-shared ad)", "publisher": "Adformatie (2012)", "url": "https://www.adformatie.nl/communicatie/pr/tnt-viral-31-miljoen-keer-bekeken" }, { "title": "Eurobest Announces Winners of the 25th Awards (three Grands Prix for Push to Add Drama)", "publisher": "Eurobest via ACN Newswire (2012)", "url": "https://www.acnnewswire.com/press-release/english/11720/eurobest-announces-winners-of-the-25th-awards" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vJ1zInPWBO8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square (\"Push to Add Drama\") (TNT (Turner Broadcasting System Europe), 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “TNT A DRAMATIC SURPRISE ON A QUIET SQUARE”, uploaded by CZAR Belgium", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1zInPWBO8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/vJ1zInPWBO8/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "vJ1zInPWBO8", "uploaded_at": "2012-05-25T08:31:24+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "samsung-life-bridge-of-life", "title": "Bridge of Life", "brand": "Samsung Life Insurance", "year": 2012, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Ties an insurer to suicide prevention on a notorious bridge, a cause whose results are later questioned by the city itself." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Offers short, kind messages to anyone on the bridge, aiming comfort directly at people who may be in despair." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Turns the guardrails of a public bridge into the medium, with sensors lighting up messages as pedestrians walk past." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Interactive installation on public infrastructure", "agency": "Cheil Worldwide, Seoul", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Cheil Worldwide, Seoul" }, { "role": "Partner", "name": "Seoul Metropolitan Government" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In September 2012 Seoul's city government and Samsung Life Insurance relaunched Mapo Bridge, a Han River crossing notorious for suicides, as the 'Bridge of Life'. Sensors on the guardrails switched on lights as pedestrians walked by, revealing short, kind messages so the bridge seemed to talk to whoever was on it. It is studied because an insurer turned public infrastructure into the medium, and because Cheil Worldwide's Seoul office won a Titanium Lion with it at Cannes in 2013. It is studied just as much for what came next. City figures showed reported attempts on the bridge rising from 15 in 2012 to 93 in 2013; officials argued that wider detection explained much of the jump and noted that deaths fell from six to five. The lights were switched off when the campaign ended in late 2015, an anti-jump fence went up in 2016, and in 2019 the city removed the last slogans, saying they had done little to prevent suicide.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Bridge of Life film (Samsung Life Insurance, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDsVOXTQAIs", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Bridge of Life at The One Show 2013 (Gold Pencil)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/19596/bridge-of-life/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Cannes winners: 'Dumb Ways' adds two Grand Prix; Dove wins Titanium", "publisher": "Campaign Asia (2013)", "url": "https://www.campaignasia.com/article/cannes-winners-dumb-ways-adds-two-grand-prix-dove-wins-titanium/347675" }, { "title": "Bridge of Life", "publisher": "D&AD (2013)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2013/direct/19653/bridge-of-life/" }, { "title": "Seoul’s ‘Bridge of Life’ curbed the actual suicides attempts", "publisher": "Seoul Metropolitan Government (2014)", "url": "https://english.seoul.go.kr/seouls-bridge-life-curbed-actual-suicides-attempts/" }, { "title": "마포대교 자살 예방 문구, 7년 만에 모두 제거된 까닭", "publisher": "JoongAng Ilbo (2019)", "url": "https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/23611804" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/cDsVOXTQAIs/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bridge of Life (Samsung Life Insurance, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “'The Bridge of life' by Samsung Life Insurance (삼성생명 bridge of life ver. Eng)”, uploaded by 삼성생명", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDsVOXTQAIs", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/cDsVOXTQAIs/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "cDsVOXTQAIs", "uploaded_at": "2013-02-16T02:56:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "mercedes-benz-invisible-drive", "title": "The Invisible Drive", "brand": "Mercedes-Benz", "year": 2012, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "cars", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Makes zero tailpipe emissions literal by covering a car in LED mats fed by a camera, so it appears to vanish." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Drives the seemingly see-through car through city streets, letting passers-by and then online viewers encounter the uncanny sight." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded vehicle", "agency": "Jung von Matt, Hamburg", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Jung von Matt, Hamburg" }, { "role": "Art directors", "name": "Jonas Keller, Andreas Wagner" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Markenfilm Crossing" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A car that seemed to vanish in traffic. For about a week in early 2012, Mercedes-Benz drove a B-Class F-CELL through Hamburg looking as if it wasn't there. Jung von Matt covered one side of the hydrogen fuel-cell car in LED mats and mounted a Canon 5D Mark II on the other; the camera's live feed played on the LEDs, so people on the screen side appeared to see straight through it. The point was the car's zero tailpipe emissions, made literal on a public street. It is studied as a product demonstration that turns an abstract benefit into an uncanny sight, then lets the film travel: FOCUS Online reported more than two million YouTube views within days, while noting the claim only holds if the hydrogen is made with carbon-neutral power. It shared the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes 2012 with Coca-Cola's 'Coke Hands' and won a One Show Silver Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Invisible Drive film (Mercedes-Benz Thailand on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lu3BD9owSc", "type": "official" }, { "label": "One Show award entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/17874/the-invisible-drive/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "See The Best Outdoor Ads, According To Cannes Lions Judges", "publisher": "Fast Company (2012)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1680963/see-the-best-outdoor-ads-according-to-cannes-lions-judges" }, { "title": "Mercedes creates an ‘invisible’ F-Cell car", "publisher": "The Verge (2012)", "url": "https://www.theverge.com/2012/3/5/2845878/mercedes-f-cell-invisible-car-video" }, { "title": "Mercedes schickt unsichtbares Auto durch Hamburg: Tarnkappe an Bord", "publisher": "FOCUS Online (2012)", "url": "https://www.focus.de/auto/videos/mercedes-schickt-unsichtbares-auto-durch-hamburg-tarnkappe-an-bord_id_2553302.html" }, { "title": "The invisible drive (One Show 2012, Silver Pencil)", "publisher": "The One Club (2012)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/17874/the-invisible-drive/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/9lu3BD9owSc/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Invisible Drive (Mercedes-Benz, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Mercedes-Benz F-Cell (2013): The Invisible Drive | Mercedes-Benz Innovation”, uploaded by Mercedes-Benz Thailand", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lu3BD9owSc", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/9lu3BD9owSc/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "9lu3BD9owSc", "uploaded_at": "2013-01-07T08:35:35+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "red-bull-stratos", "title": "Red Bull Stratos", "brand": "Red Bull", "year": 2012, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Makes the 'gives you wings' slogan literal with a real edge-of-space jump, so the event itself is the proof rather than an ad about it." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the awe of a record-breaking leap from the stratosphere, with the logo on the suit as the only copy." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Live-streamed stratospheric jump", "agency": "Red Bull (in-house)", "credits": [ { "role": "Jumper", "name": "Felix Baumgartner" } ], "tagline": "Red Bull gives you wings.", "why_studied": "The logical endpoint of \"Red Bull gives you wings\": the brand funded an actual edge-of-space program. On October 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner rode a helium balloon to 128,100 feet and jumped, breaking the sound barrier in freefall while more than 8 million people watched the YouTube livestream — the largest concurrent live audience in the platform's history, carried additionally on 40+ networks in 50 countries. There was no ad: the event was the advertising, the logo on the suit the only copy. It is studied as the apex of brand-as-publisher strategy — a marketing department operating like a space agency and a broadcaster at once — and the definitive proof that audiences will voluntarily watch marketing if the content clears a high enough bar.", "watch": [ { "label": "YouTube's official account of the record livestream", "url": "https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/mission-complete-red-bull-stratos-lands/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Mission complete: Red Bull Stratos lands safely back on Earth (8M+ concurrent streams; records)", "publisher": "YouTube Official Blog (2012)", "url": "https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/mission-complete-red-bull-stratos-lands/" }, { "title": "Skydiver Baumgartner sets YouTube live view record", "publisher": "BBC News (2012)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19947159" }, { "title": "Red Bull brand boosted by space skydive (40+ networks, 50 countries)", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2012)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/red-bull-brand-boosted-by-space-skydive/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FHtvDA0W34I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Red Bull Stratos (Red Bull, 2012)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128k' - Mission Highlights”, uploaded by Red Bull", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/FHtvDA0W34I/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "FHtvDA0W34I", "uploaded_at": "2012-10-15T00:06:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "carling-black-label-be-the-coach", "title": "Be the Coach", "brand": "Carling Black Label", "year": 2011, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "sports", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Every bottle top carries a vote, letting fans pick each club's starting eleven and even make a live substitution by text." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Promotion and live event", "agency": "Ogilvy Cape Town", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Chris Gotz, Nicholas Wittenberg, Jonathan Lang, Tommy Le Roux" }, { "role": "Production companies", "name": "Platypus Productions, Brandtone" } ], "tagline": "Be the Coach", "why_studied": "Carling Black Label created a new pre-season derby between Soweto rivals Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, then handed the fans the coach's job. Every bottle top carried a code worth one vote, entered on a phone through a simple USSD menu, to pick each club's starting eleven; during the match, fans voted by SMS on a live substitution. Purists and coaches were furious, which fed the publicity. It is studied because it turned a sponsorship into a reason to buy: the beer became the ballot, and a derby between the country's two biggest clubs became a brand property. According to figures released by the brand and agency, 10.5 million votes were cast in seven weeks and the beer gained market share. The first match, in 2011, drew a sell-out crowd of about 85,000, and Pirates won on penalties. The campaign won a Cannes Gold Lion for Branded Content and Entertainment in 2012 and the Loeries Grand Prix, and the fan-picked cup became an annual fixture.", "watch": [ { "label": "Be the Coach case film (MarkLives on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDNvbUEvHg", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Be the Coach at The One Show 2012", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/18267/be-the-coach/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "[Cannes Lions 2012] Final winners", "publisher": "Bizcommunity (2012)", "url": "https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/75/111/77332.html" }, { "title": "Carling Black Label ‘Be the Coach’ campaign wins at Virgin Active Sports Industry Awards", "publisher": "Media Update (2012)", "url": "https://www.mediaupdate.co.za/marketing/45274/carling-black-label-be-the-coach-campaign-wins-at-virgin-active-sports-industry-awards" }, { "title": "The Loeries: the good, the bad and all the winners", "publisher": "The Media Online (2012)", "url": "https://themediaonline.co.za/2012/09/the-loeries-the-good-the-bad-and-all-the-winners/" }, { "title": "KICK OFF looks back over the history of the Carling Black Label Champions Cup", "publisher": "Kick Off (2017)", "url": "https://www.kickoff.com/sa-news/kaizer-chiefs/kick-off-looks-back-over-the-history-of-the-carling-black-label-champions-cup-20170703" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xyDNvbUEvHg/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Be the Coach (Carling Black Label, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “South African Breweries - Carling Black Label 'Be the Coach'”, uploaded by MarkLives", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyDNvbUEvHg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/xyDNvbUEvHg/sd2.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "xyDNvbUEvHg", "uploaded_at": "2012-09-24T15:31:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "nab-break-up", "title": "Break Up", "brand": "National Australia Bank", "year": 2011, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Dramatises a fee cut as a public break-up, from a seemingly mistaken tweet and staged split-ups to a farewell letter to the other banks." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Takes direct swipes at its rivals, flying banners past their offices and serenading one competitor's headquarters with sad songs." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Plays the familiar break-up cliché for laughs, with the bank telling its rivals that it is not them, it has changed." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Business action and PR stunt campaign", "agency": "Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive creative director", "name": "Ant Keogh" }, { "role": "Creative directors", "name": "Rohan Lancaster, Julian Schreiber, Darren Pitt, Tom Martin" }, { "role": "PR", "name": "Bang PR" } ], "tagline": "It's not you, it's me. I've changed.", "why_studied": "Australians tend to see their four big banks as one cosy club, so when National Australia Bank cut fees and paid rivals' exit fees for switching customers, hardly anyone noticed. In February 2011 NAB announced the change as a public break-up instead. A seemingly mistaken tweet about a break-up set off speculation, 60 staged couples split up in restaurants and bars across the country on Valentine's night, and a “Dear John” letter to the other banks ran in newspapers. Helicopter banners then flew past rivals' offices and a pianist sang sad songs from a ute outside ANZ's Melbourne headquarters. It is studied as a pricing decision dramatised as a soap opera, borrowing a story everyone understands to make dry news impossible to ignore. NAB said home-loan enquiries rose 79% and it gained 226,000 new customers; the agency's entry claims $5 million of earned media in a single day. It won the PR Grand Prix at Cannes in 2011.", "watch": [ { "label": "“The break up letter that explains it all” on NAB's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBoXvgysltw", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Clemenger BBDO case study", "url": "https://clemengerbbdo.com/work/case-study-featured-NAB-Breakup/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "NAB stunt puts it poles apart", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2011)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/business/nab-stunt-puts-it-poles-apart-20110622-1gf9x.html" }, { "title": "Australian Campaigns of the Decade: NAB ‘Break up’ (2011) via Clemenger BBDO Melbourne", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2019)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/australian-campaigns-of-the-decade%e2%80%88nab-break-up-2011-via-clemenger-bbdo-melbourne/" }, { "title": "NAB Breakup case study", "publisher": "Clemenger BBDO", "url": "https://clemengerbbdo.com/work/case-study-featured-NAB-Breakup/" }, { "title": "National Australia Bank | Break Up", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/17886/break-up/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fDD0r2zbfpU/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Break Up (National Australia Bank, 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “NAB Break up by Chopper Melb/Syd”, uploaded by nab", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDD0r2zbfpU", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/fDD0r2zbfpU/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "fDD0r2zbfpU", "uploaded_at": "2011-02-15T06:10:58+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "homeplus-subway-virtual-store", "title": "Subway Virtual Store", "brand": "Homeplus (Tesco)", "year": 2011, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Commuters scan product codes on lifelike supermarket shelves with their phones and pay while waiting for a train." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Offers a clear practical benefit to busy workers: shop during dead waiting time and get the groceries delivered that evening." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Installation (shoppable virtual store)", "agency": "Cheil Worldwide, Seoul", "credits": [ { "role": "Executive Creative Director", "name": "Joungrack Lee (Cheil Worldwide)" }, { "role": "Creative Director", "name": "Youna Chung" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The supermarket that came to the commuters. Tesco's South Korean chain Homeplus wanted an edge over its larger rival E-mart, so Cheil Worldwide stopped trying to lure busy Seoul workers into stores and put the store where they already stood: lifelike images of supermarket aisles lined a subway station, every product carrying a QR code. Commuters scanned groceries with their phones while waiting for a train, paid on the spot and had the order delivered to their door that evening. Engagement ran only to the tens of thousands, but the client reported online sales up 130%, and in 2012 Homeplus opened a 'smart' virtual store at Seolleung station. The work won the Media Grand Prix at Cannes 2011, South Korea's first in that category. It is studied as an early, defining picture of mobile commerce: dead waiting time turned into shopping time, and outdoor media turned into a storefront.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on Cheil's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEwvh_8MQb8", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Lürzer's Archive feature on the Homeplus virtual stores", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/features/homeplus-smart-virtual-store/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "South Korea's Cheil Captures Media Grand Prix at Cannes", "publisher": "Ad Age (2011), via Internet Archive", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20171113113101/http://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-2011/south-korea-s-cheil-captures-media-grand-prix-cannes/228319/" }, { "title": "Virtual Grocery Shopping", "publisher": "MIT Technology Review (2011)", "url": "https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/07/05/22522/virtual-grocery-shopping/" }, { "title": "Tesco opens virtual store in South Korea", "publisher": "Retail Week (2011)", "url": "https://www.retail-week.com/technology/tesco-opens-virtual-store-in-south-korea-/5028571.article" }, { "title": "Homeplus Smart Virtual Store", "publisher": "Lürzer's Archive (2012)", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/features/homeplus-smart-virtual-store/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GEwvh_8MQb8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Subway Virtual Store (Homeplus (Tesco), 2011)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Homeplus 'Subway Virtual Store'”, uploaded by Cheil UK", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEwvh_8MQb8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/GEwvh_8MQb8/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "GEwvh_8MQb8", "uploaded_at": "2016-02-05T09:25:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "share-a-coke", "title": "Share a Coke", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2011, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Replaces the logo with popular first names, inviting people to hunt for their own and their friends' names and share them." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Packaging-led integrated campaign", "agency": "Ogilvy, Sydney", "credits": [], "tagline": "Share a Coke with...", "why_studied": "The campaign where the medium was the can. In the Australian summer of 2011, Coca-Cola replaced its own logo — the most protected asset in branding — with the 150 most popular first names, inviting people to find themselves and their friends on a bottle. A country of 23 million bought more than 250 million named packs; young-adult consumption rose 7%; and the hunt for names became self-sustaining social content years before 'user-generated' was a plan. The idea rolled out to more than 80 markets and is credited with reversing a decade-long consumption decline in the US. It is studied for personalization at mass-production scale, for the courage of surrendering the logo, and as packaging's greatest proof that the product itself can be the campaign.", "watch": [ { "label": "Coca-Cola's official history of the campaign", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/how-a-campaign-got-its-start-down-under", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How a Groundbreaking Campaign Got Its Start \"Down Under\"", "publisher": "The Coca-Cola Company (brand archive)", "url": "https://www.coca-colacompany.com/about-us/history/how-a-campaign-got-its-start-down-under" }, { "title": "Coca-Cola — Share a Coke (agency case: 80+ markets, 7 Cannes Lions, US decline reversed)", "publisher": "Ogilvy Australia", "url": "https://www.ogilvy.com.au/Our-Work/Coca-Cola-Share-a-Coke" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "bavaria-dutch-dress", "title": "Dutch Dress", "brand": "Bavaria", "year": 2010, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "sports", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Ambushes the World Cup with an almost unbranded orange dress, so the heavy-handed ejections become a worldwide story." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Rides on the prestige of a World Cup match it never sponsored, letting the event's spotlight fall on a beer brand's dress." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Ambush marketing stunt and promotional merchandise", "agency": "Selmore", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Selmore" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Dutch brewer Bavaria was not a World Cup sponsor; Budweiser was the official beer in 2010. Bavaria instead sold an orange mini-dress, the Dutch Dress, as part of a gift pack with its beer in the Netherlands. At the Netherlands v Denmark match in Johannesburg, stewards ejected 36 women wearing it, two Dutch women were arrested under South Africa's strict World Cup marketing laws, and ITV sacked pundit Robbie Earle after their tickets were traced to his allocation. Prosecutors dropped the charges once FIFA reached an agreement with Bavaria. It is taught as the textbook ambush: an almost unbranded item, a heavy-handed response, and a story that travelled worldwide while the official sponsor paid for the rights. Marketing Week reported a spike in UK traffic to Bavaria's website and recalled the brand's history: fans in its branded trousers had been refused entry to a match at the 2006 World Cup. The Dutch Dress case won Selmore a Bronze Lion in Promo & Activation at Cannes in 2011.", "watch": [ { "label": "Bavaria Dutch Dress case film (Selmore, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9IqmYv2W9c", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Bavaria DutchDress case and credits (SAN Accenten)", "url": "https://sanaccent.nl/case/bavaria-dutchdress/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Fifa acts after 'ambush marketing' by Dutch brewery", "publisher": "BBC News (2010)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/10321668" }, { "title": "World Cup Dutch 'beer stunt' charges dropped", "publisher": "BBC News (2010)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/10377074" }, { "title": "FIFA hits back at Bavaria after ambush marketing stunt", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2010)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/fifa-hits-back-at-bavaria-after-ambush-marketing-stunt/" }, { "title": "Cannes: magere vangst tot nog toe", "publisher": "Adformatie (2011)", "url": "https://www.adformatie.nl/communicatie/pr/cannes-magere-vangst-tot-nog-toe" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/v6JVCfz1CEI/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Dutch Dress (Bavaria, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “BAVARIA | Dutch Dress”, uploaded by Selmore Creative Agency", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6JVCfz1CEI", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/v6JVCfz1CEI/sd3.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "v6JVCfz1CEI", "uploaded_at": "2011-12-07T13:35:26+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "colombia-operation-christmas", "title": "Operation Christmas", "brand": "Colombian Ministry of Defence", "year": 2010, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Targets fighters at the time of year they are most emotionally sensitive, with lit trees urging them to come home." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the hope of Christmas, decorating jungle trees so the holiday itself makes the case for demobilising." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Places motion-triggered lit trees in FARC-controlled jungle and along guerrilla routes, taking advertising behind the lines of a civil war." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Installation (lit Christmas trees in guerrilla territory)", "agency": "Lowe SSP3, Bogotá", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Lowe SSP3, Bogotá (now MullenLowe SSP3)" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officer", "name": "Jose Miguel Sokoloff" } ], "tagline": "If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home.", "why_studied": "Advertising deployed behind the lines of a civil war. For the Colombian Ministry of Defence's programme encouraging FARC guerrillas to demobilise, Lowe SSP3 worked from one insight: Christmas is the time of year when the fighters are most emotionally sensitive. In December 2010, two Black Hawk helicopters and 200 military engineers and soldiers spent more than four days decorating a 75-foot tree in FARC-controlled jungle with 2,000 lights triggered by motion sensors. Beside it, and beside nine more trees lit along guerrilla routes, a banner read: 'If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home. Demobilise. Everything is possible at Christmas.' According to the agency's creative chief, the trees helped persuade 331 guerrillas — roughly 5% of the force at the time — to demobilise. The campaign won the IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix and a D&AD Yellow Pencil. It is studied as emotional persuasion at its most consequential, and as a reminder that its results are reported by one side of a war.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on MullenLowe's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODTTz3ayCk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum: 'Christmas Operations' in the Designing Peace exhibition", "url": "https://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/designing-peace/christmas-operations/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Army gives FARC giant Christmas tree", "publisher": "Colombia Reports (2010)", "url": "https://colombiareports.com/army-gives-farc-giant-christmas-tree/" }, { "title": "Operation Christmas (Yellow Pencil)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2012)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/operation-christmas" }, { "title": "Program of Humanitarian Attention to the Demobilised: FARC Operation Christmas campaign (Grand Prix)", "publisher": "IPA Effectiveness Awards (2011)", "url": "https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/case-studies/program-of-humanitarian-attention-to-the-demobilised-farc-operation-christmas-campaign/" }, { "title": "How Christmas lights helped guerrillas put down their guns (transcript)", "publisher": "TED, Jose Miguel Sokoloff (2014)", "url": "https://www.ted.com/talks/jose_miguel_sokoloff_how_christmas_lights_helped_guerrillas_put_down_their_guns/transcript" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gODTTz3ayCk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Operation Christmas (Colombian Ministry of Defence, 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Operation Christmas”, uploaded by MullenLowe Global", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODTTz3ayCk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/gODTTz3ayCk/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "gODTTz3ayCk", "uploaded_at": "2012-01-27T11:03:25+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "amex-small-business-saturday", "title": "Small Business Saturday", "brand": "American Express", "year": 2010, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Invents a shopping day after Black Friday to steer holiday spending towards independent local shops." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Hands shopkeepers badges, posters and do-it-yourself digital tools to promote themselves, so merchants carry the campaign." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Business action and campaign (a new shopping day)", "agency": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Digitas", "credits": [ { "role": "Agencies", "name": "Crispin Porter + Bogusky; Digitas" }, { "role": "Chief Creative Officers (CP+B)", "name": "Rob Reilly, Lincoln Bjorkman" } ], "tagline": "Shop Small.", "why_studied": "A brand that added a day to the calendar. In 2010 American Express created Small Business Saturday, the day after Black Friday, to steer holiday spending towards independent local shops; at the first one, on 27 November, cardholders who spent $25 at a small business got a $25 statement credit. For 2011, with Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Digitas, the aim was to make it permanent: shopkeepers were handed badges, posters and do-it-yourself digital tools — a YouTube video maker, a Facebook page builder, Foursquare 'Shop Small' deals — to promote themselves. That year 103 million Americans shopped small, the US Senate declared it an official day, and the Small Business Administration has co-sponsored it ever since. The 2011 campaign won both the Promo & Activation and the Direct Grands Prix at Cannes 2012. It is studied as a payments company inventing a holiday that serves its own merchants — a promotion that hardened into an annual civic fixture.", "watch": [ { "label": "D&AD Awards archive entry: 'Small Business Gets an Official Day'", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/small-business-gets-an-official-day", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "U.S. Small Business Administration: Small Business Saturday", "url": "https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/organization/observances/small-business-saturday/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Local Retailers Hope for Big Returns on Small Business Saturday", "publisher": "ABC News (2010)", "url": "https://abcnews.go.com/Business/small-business-saturday-hopes-holiday-shopping-local/story?id=12255389" }, { "title": "Small Business Gets an Official Day (Yellow Pencil; 103 million shoppers, Senate recognition)", "publisher": "D&AD Awards archive (2012)", "url": "https://www.dandad.org/work/d-ad-awards-archive/small-business-gets-an-official-day" }, { "title": "Cannes Diary: AmEx, CP+B Win Kudos (Promo & Activation and Direct Grands Prix)", "publisher": "Digiday (2012)", "url": "https://digiday.com/media/cannes-diary-amex-cpb-win-kudos/" }, { "title": "Small Business Saturday (founded by American Express in 2010; SBA co-sponsor since 2011)", "publisher": "U.S. Small Business Administration", "url": "https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/organization/observances/small-business-saturday/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "rom-the-american-takeover", "title": "The American Takeover", "brand": "Rom (Kandia Dulce)", "year": 2010, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "shock", "note": "Swaps the bar's familiar national-flag wrapper for the Stars and Stripes, deliberately provoking young Romanians into outrage." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Relies on the Romanian flag long printed on the wrapper, so taking it away makes people fight for both the symbol and the brand." }, { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Stirs national pride in a disillusioned generation by threatening something they took for granted, rather than lecturing them about patriotism." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Packaging stunt and integrated campaign", "agency": "McCann Erickson Romania, Bucharest", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Adrian Botan" } ], "tagline": "The taste of coolness", "why_studied": "In October 2010 Rom, a chocolate bar sold in Romania since 1964 and always wrapped in the national flag, appeared on shelves in a Stars and Stripes wrapper, backed by TV spots, posters and a website promising “the taste of coolness”. Young Romanians who had shrugged at national pride were furious: Facebook groups sprang up, flash mobs protested and the switch made the national news. After about a week the tricolour wrapper returned and the brand admitted the provocation. The case is studied as reverse psychology on a national scale: instead of lecturing a disillusioned, emigration-minded generation about patriotism, the brand took a familiar symbol away so people would fight for it. According to the agency, it earned around €300,000 in free media and lifted market share by 79%. At Cannes 2011 it won Grands Prix in both Promo & Activation and Direct, Romania's first, plus one of only three Titanium Lions awarded that year.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case study film (uploaded by McCann Romania creative Dinu Panescu)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0jZxtsd_24", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The One Show archive entry: American Rom", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/17901/american-rom/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How A Candy Bar Wrapper Ignited Romanian Pride And Won McCann Two Grand Prix", "publisher": "Fast Company (2011)", "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/1761932/how-candy-bar-wrapper-ignited-romanian-pride-and-won-mccann-two-grand-prix" }, { "title": "'Direct at its best' helps McCann Erickson to Romania's first Grand Prix", "publisher": "Campaign (2011)", "url": "https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/direct-its-best-helps-mccann-erickson-romanias-first-grand-prix/1075943" }, { "title": "Cannes Lions: Titanium at 20", "publisher": "Contagious (2023)", "url": "https://www.contagious.com/en/article/news-and-views/cannes-lions-titanium-grand-prix-award-winners-20-years" }, { "title": "The new Rom chocolate bar and our mother", "publisher": "Bursa (2010)", "url": "https://www.bursa.ro/the-new-rom-chocolate-bar-and-our-mother-2294791" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/U0jZxtsd_24/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The American Takeover (Rom (Kandia Dulce), 2010)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “ROM American Takeover - Case Study.mpg”, uploaded by Dinu Panescu", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0jZxtsd_24", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/U0jZxtsd_24/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1024, "height": 576 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "U0jZxtsd_24", "uploaded_at": "2023-01-31T15:29:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "t-mobile-dance-liverpool-street", "title": "Dance (Life's for Sharing)", "brand": "T-Mobile", "year": 2009, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "great-british-ads", "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Hides hundreds of dancers in a rush-hour station crowd, turning a commuter concourse into a surprise performance filmed for television." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Staged flash mob filmed for TV", "agency": "Saatchi & Saatchi, London", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "Saatchi & Saatchi, London" }, { "role": "Creative partner", "name": "Paul Silburn" }, { "role": "Choreographer", "name": "Ashley Wallen" }, { "role": "Media agency", "name": "MediaCom" } ], "tagline": "Life's for sharing.", "why_studied": "On the morning of 15 January 2009, music came over the loudspeakers at London's Liverpool Street station, a single commuter started to dance, and within moments some 350 dancers hidden in the rush-hour crowd were moving in unison before melting away again. Ten hidden cameras filmed it, and the next evening the footage aired as a three-minute solo spot during Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4. It is studied as an early template for the staged \"real event\" ad: one stunt designed from the outset to be TV commercial, news story and online video at once, launching T-Mobile's \"Life's for sharing\" platform. By Saatchi & Saatchi's count it won eight Lions at Cannes 2009, two of them Gold, and it was named commercial of the year at the British Television Advertising Awards. T-Mobile's advertising manager later told Marketing Week that store footfall hit a record, up 16% year on year, and online orders rose more than 20%.", "watch": [ { "label": "T-Mobile Dance ad (TMW Unlimited, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ZPjYk5QFQ", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Saatchi & Saatchi launch release: Saatchi & Saatchi and T-Mobile Create Dance Mania", "url": "https://saatchi.com/en-us/news/saatchi__saatchi_and_t-mobile_create_dance_mania/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Saatchi & Saatchi and T-Mobile Create Dance Mania", "publisher": "Saatchi & Saatchi (2009)", "url": "https://saatchi.com/en-us/news/saatchi__saatchi_and_t-mobile_create_dance_mania/" }, { "title": "Saatchi & Saatchi and T-Mobile Top UK Cannes Rankings", "publisher": "Saatchi & Saatchi (2009)", "url": "https://saatchi.com/en-us/news/saatchi__saatchi_and_t-mobile_top_uk_cannes_rankings/" }, { "title": "T-Mobile 'flashmob' ad wins top award", "publisher": "Digital Spy (2010)", "url": "https://www.digitalspy.com/media/a208080/t-mobile-flashmob-ad-wins-top-award/" }, { "title": "T-Mobile dials up a winner", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2010)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/t-mobile-dials-up-a-winner/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/_6ZPjYk5QFQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Dance (Life's for Sharing) (T-Mobile, 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “T-Mobile -- Life's For Sharing Integrated Campaign”, uploaded by TMW Unlimited", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6ZPjYk5QFQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/_6ZPjYk5QFQ/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "_6ZPjYk5QFQ", "uploaded_at": "2011-09-20T09:45:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kit-kat-mail", "title": "Kit Kat Mail", "brand": "Kit Kat (Nestlé Japan)", "year": 2009, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "pathos", "note": "Builds on the bar's status as a good-luck charm, so posting one to an exam candidate becomes a warm gesture of encouragement." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Buyers write an address and a handwritten message on the pack and post it themselves, turning the product into a postcard." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Packaging and new distribution channel", "agency": "JWT Japan, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency (planning and execution)", "name": "JWT Japan" }, { "role": "PR", "name": "PRAP Japan" } ], "tagline": "Kitto, sakura saku yo.", "why_studied": "A chocolate bar that became a postcard. In Japanese, Kit Kat sounds like 'kitto katsu' — roughly 'you will surely win' — and the bar had become a good-luck charm for students sitting university entrance exams. JWT Japan turned the pun into a product and a medium: with Japan Post, Nestlé created Kit Mail, a cherry-blossom pack of Kit Kats with space for an address and a handwritten message that could be stamped and posted to a candidate, sold from January 2009 at post offices across the country. The post office facing the University of Tokyo was wrapped in cherry blossom for the season. It took the Media Grand Prix at Cannes 2009 — the first time a Japanese entry had won that category — and Japan Post brought the project back for the following year's exams. It is studied as media invention: rather than buy space, the brand turned the national postal network, and its own packaging, into the channel.", "watch": [ { "label": "Asahi Shimbun news video of the 2010 Kit Mail launch (Japanese)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-UDytHXFLs", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Joint press release on the Cannes Media Grand Prix, with product photos (Japanese)", "url": "https://www.prap.co.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2018/12/090625-KitmailCanne.pdf", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Nestle, Japan Post to launch Kit Kat postage for university candidates", "publisher": "Japan Today (2008)", "url": "https://japantoday.com/category/business/nestle-japan-post-to-launch-kit-kat-postage-for-university-candidates" }, { "title": "郵便局×「キットカット」の受験生応援企画「キットメール」 カンヌ国際広告祭メディア部門 日本初のグランプリ受賞 (Kit Mail wins Japan's first Cannes Media Grand Prix)", "publisher": "Japan Post Network, Japan Post Service, Nestlé Confectionery, JWT Japan and PRAP Japan joint release (2009)", "url": "https://www.prap.co.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2018/12/090625-KitmailCanne.pdf" }, { "title": "Annual Report 2010: Post Office × KitKat student support project, second year", "publisher": "Japan Post Holdings (2010)", "url": "https://www.japanpost.jp/en/ir/library/disclosure/2010/pdf/02.pdf" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "alibaba-singles-day-11-11", "title": "Singles' Day (11.11)", "brand": "Alibaba (Tmall)", "year": 2009, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "tech" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "bandwagon", "note": "Turns one date into a mass shopping event, publishing ever-larger sales totals until rivals end up running their own versions." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Gives shoppers concrete reasons to buy on the day: half-price deals and free delivery from a midnight start." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand-built shopping festival", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Creator (then head of Taobao Mall)", "name": "Daniel Zhang" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "November 11, written 11.11, is widely believed to have started in the 1990s as a joke holiday among Chinese university students: a day for single people, inspired by its four lonely ones. In 2009 Daniel Zhang, then running Alibaba's young brand marketplace Taobao Mall (now Tmall), borrowed it to fill a quiet month for retail, persuading 27 merchants to offer half-price deals and free delivery with a midnight start. The first edition took about $7.8 million. Alibaba kept enlarging it, later leaning on livestreamed selling, until the 2019 edition recorded 268.4 billion yuan, roughly $38 billion, in 24 hours, dwarfing Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It is studied as a rare case of a company inventing a cultural occasion rather than sponsoring one: rivals such as JD.com ended up running their own 11.11 sales. Its scale also became a liability; in 2022, with the economy cooling and regulators pressing big tech, Alibaba stopped publishing the total after the 2021 event reached 540.3 billion yuan.", "watch": [ { "label": "What is 11.11? (Alibaba Group, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FseqMn78o0", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Alibaba's CEO on how he created Singles' Day (CNBC, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abonvwgq890", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Alibaba's CEO started Singles Day to promote a new brand. Now it's a $25 billion 'phenomenon'", "publisher": "CNBC (2018)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/alibaba-singles-day-how-the-giant-shopping-event-began.html" }, { "title": "Ten years of Singles' Day, China's ridiculously huge shopping festival", "publisher": "Quartz (2018)", "url": "https://qz.com/1450338/10-years-of-singles-day-in-china-the-shopping-festival-alibaba-invented" }, { "title": "Alibaba breaks Singles Day record with more than $38 billion in sales", "publisher": "CNBC (2019)", "url": "https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/11/alibaba-singles-day-2019-record-sales-on-biggest-shopping-day.html" }, { "title": "Alibaba keeps Singles Day sales tally under wraps for first time", "publisher": "RFI / AFP (2022)", "url": "https://www.rfi.fr/en/business-and-tech/20221112-alibaba-keeps-singles-day-sales-tally-under-wraps-for-first-time" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5FseqMn78o0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Singles' Day (11.11) (Alibaba (Tmall), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “What is 11.11?”, uploaded by Alibaba Group", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FseqMn78o0", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/5FseqMn78o0/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "5FseqMn78o0", "uploaded_at": "2020-11-11T18:29:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "andes-teletransporter", "title": "Teletransporter", "brand": "Andes (Cervecería Quilmes)", "year": 2009, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Builds a laddish alibi machine, letting men fake a hospital or gym backdrop when their girlfriends call while they are out drinking." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Places soundproof booths inside bars, so the medium is used at the very moment the beer is being drunk." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Installation in bars", "agency": "Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Buenos Aires", "credits": [ { "role": "Chief creative directors", "name": "Maxi Itzkoff, Mariano Serkin" }, { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Javier Campopiano" }, { "role": "Copywriter", "name": "Patricio del Sante" }, { "role": "Art director", "name": "Carlos Muller" }, { "role": "Directors", "name": "Nico y Martín (Primo)" } ], "tagline": "Para qué mentir, si podés teletransportarte.", "why_studied": "In late 2009 Andes, the leading beer in Mendoza, Argentina, installed soundproof booths in local bars for men whose girlfriends phoned while they were out drinking. A man could step into the Andes Teletransporter, pick a background sound from a panel, such as a hospital or a gym, and take the call as if he were somewhere else entirely. A TV teaser, outdoor ads, online films and a website where men could practise “teleporting” supported the booths. It is studied as a brand promise turned into a working object: rather than just telling young men it understood them, the beer built them an alibi machine and put it where the product is drunk. The joke is laddish, but the booth itself was the medium, used at the very moment the product is consumed. At Cannes 2010 it shared the Outdoor Grand Prix with Diesel's “Be Stupid”, and the agency reported further Lions in Direct and Promo; it also won a One Show Silver Pencil.", "watch": [ { "label": "Case film on Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi's YouTube channel", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G58J2rPSKms", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Saatchi & Saatchi announcement of the Grand Prix", "url": "https://saatchi.com/en-us/news/teletransporter_wins_cannes_grand_prix_for_del_campo_nazca_saatchi__saatchi_and_andes_beer/", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Diesel and Argentinian beer ads share top prize at Cannes", "publisher": "The Guardian (2010)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jun/23/diesel-beer-top-prize-cannes" }, { "title": "Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi presenta el caso Andes teletransporter", "publisher": "Adlatina (2010)", "url": "https://www.adlatina.com/publicidad/del-campo-nazca-saatchi-saatchi-presenta-el-caso-andes-teletransporter" }, { "title": "'Teletransporter' Wins Cannes Grand Prix for Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi and Andes Beer", "publisher": "Saatchi & Saatchi (2010)", "url": "https://saatchi.com/en-us/news/teletransporter_wins_cannes_grand_prix_for_del_campo_nazca_saatchi__saatchi_and_andes_beer/" }, { "title": "Inbev | Andes Teletransporter", "publisher": "The One Club", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/12969/andes-teletransporter/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/G58J2rPSKms/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Teletransporter (Andes (Cervecería Quilmes), 2009)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Andes Teletransporter”, uploaded by DelCampo Saatchi&Saatchi Buenos Aires", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G58J2rPSKms", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/G58J2rPSKms/sd3.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "G58J2rPSKms", "uploaded_at": "2012-11-22T18:37:01+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "best-job-in-the-world", "title": "The Best Job in the World", "brand": "Tourism Queensland", "year": 2009, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Disguises tourism promotion as a job listing, so tens of thousands of video applications become tourism advertising made by the public." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Global recruitment campaign (classified ads + website)", "agency": "CumminsNitro, Brisbane", "credits": [], "tagline": "Island caretaker wanted. The best job in the world.", "why_studied": "A tourism campaign disguised as a job listing. Tiny classified ads in newspapers worldwide advertised a six-month, AU$150,000 post as 'caretaker' of a Great Barrier Reef island — blog weekly, feed the fish — and routed the world to islandreefjob.com, which took four million hits in an hour on day one. 34,684 people from 201 countries applied by video, each application a piece of user-made tourism advertising, and the hiring process generated months of global news (an estimated $80m+ in equivalent media from a ~$1m budget). At Cannes 2009 it won three Grand Prix — PR (the first ever awarded), Direct and Cyber — a record at the time. It is studied as the perfect participation mechanic: the audience didn't watch the ad; they were the ad.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Guardian's report on the campaign's record Cannes haul", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/23/best-job-advertising-awards", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "'Best job in the world' campaign storms Cannes Lions advertising awards", "publisher": "The Guardian (2009)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/23/best-job-advertising-awards" }, { "title": "'Best job in the world' campaign wins third top award (Cyber Grand Prix)", "publisher": "The Guardian (2009)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/jun/25/best-job-in-world-cannes" }, { "title": "Ad campaign for 'the best job in the world' wins at Cannes (34,684 applicants from 201 countries)", "publisher": "ABC News (2009)", "url": "https://abcnews.com/Business/story?id=7903719&page=1" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "coca-cola-coke-studio-pakistan", "title": "Coke Studio Pakistan", "brand": "Coca-Cola", "brand_slug": "coca-cola", "year": 2008, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Lets music do the selling, recording pop and rock acts live with qawwali, folk and classical singers on a show the brand hosts." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Attaches the brand to the nation's music, presenting the show as the sound of the nation and becoming its host rather than a sponsor." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded music series (brand-built institution)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Founding producer", "name": "Rohail Hyatt" }, { "role": "Producer, season 14 (“Pasoori”)", "name": "Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan (Xulfi)" } ], "tagline": "Sound of the Nation", "why_studied": "In 2008 Coca-Cola in Pakistan funded a studio music show, adapted from a promotional project the company had run in Brazil, and gave it to the pop veteran Rohail Hyatt. He paired pop and rock acts with qawwali, folk and classical singers and recorded them live. Hyatt was allowed only a few songs as an experiment in the first season, but their success won a deal to air the show at once on every major Pakistani TV and radio network, with the tracks free to download. The brand stopped being a sponsor of the country's music and became its host. That is why it is studied: a soft-drink company built a cultural institution that outlived its founding producer, crossed the hostile India-Pakistan border and now has Indian and Bangladeshi editions. The BBC calls it Pakistan's longest-running music show. Its 2022 song “Pasoori” became the first Pakistani track to top Spotify's global viral chart and, in September 2026, the first Pakistani-made music video to pass a billion YouTube views.", "watch": [ { "label": "“Pasoori”, Ali Sethi x Shae Gill, season 14 (Coke Studio Pakistan on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eqb_-j3FDA", "type": "official" }, { "label": "“Durr”, Strings & Ustad Gullu, season 1, 2008 (Rohail Hyatt on YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUIuDciyNX0", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pasoori: How Coke Studio is defeating hate between India and Pakistan", "publisher": "BBC News (2022)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61518339" }, { "title": "High on Coke Studio", "publisher": "Open Magazine (2010)", "url": "https://openthemagazine.com/features/world/high-on-coke-studio" }, { "title": "Global hit Pasoori opens doors for Pakistani pop", "publisher": "The Guardian (2022)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/13/global-hit-pasoori-opens-doors-for-pakistani-pop" }, { "title": "Pasoori becomes first Pakistani music video to cross a billion views", "publisher": "Gulf News (2026)", "url": "https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/pasoori-becomes-first-pakistani-music-video-to-cross-a-billion-views-1.500666775" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/CUIuDciyNX0/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Coke Studio Pakistan (Coca-Cola, 2008)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Durr | Strings & Ustaad Gullu | Season 1 | Coke Studio Pakistan | @RohailHyattMusic”, uploaded by Rohail Hyatt", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUIuDciyNX0" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "CUIuDciyNX0", "uploaded_at": "2010-12-08T08:11:29+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "wwf-earth-hour", "title": "Earth Hour", "brand": "WWF (WWF-Australia)", "year": 2007, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "politics-psas" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Asks everyone to do one simple, symbolic thing: switch off their lights for an hour." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Turns public concern about climate change into a visible act aimed at a government sceptical of the issue." }, { "slug": "bandwagon", "note": "Draws its power from mobilisation, as famous landmarks go dark and the event grows each year across countries and cities." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Mass-participation event", "agency": "Leo Burnett, Sydney", "credits": [ { "role": "Co-creators", "name": "WWF-Australia, Leo Burnett Sydney and The Sydney Morning Herald" }, { "role": "Client executives (WWF)", "name": "Andy Ridley, Liz Potter" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An ad that switched a city off. On 31 March 2007, WWF-Australia, Leo Burnett Sydney and The Sydney Morning Herald asked Sydney to turn off its lights for one hour from 7.30pm, a show of public concern aimed at a government sceptical about climate change. The Opera House, Harbour Bridge and Luna Park went dark, and the Coca-Cola sign at Kings Cross was switched off for the first time since 1974; organisers counted more than 2.2 million people and 2,000 businesses taking part. A year later 50 million people in 35 countries joined in; by 2009 it was 88 countries and more than 4,000 cities, and it has since become an annual ritual involving thousands of landmarks. At Cannes 2007 it won a Titanium Lion. It is studied as a brand-built ritual — a simple, symbolic act anyone can join, owned by one organisation and renewed every year — whose power lies in mobilisation rather than in the modest energy it saves.", "watch": [ { "label": "Earth Hour milestones (official)", "url": "https://www.earthhour.org/about/milestones", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Campaign Brief's anniversary feature, with the 2007 case video", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/celebrating-the-20th-anniversary-of-earth-hour-created-by-leo-burnett-sydney/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Sydney goes dark for Earth Hour", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2007)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/national/sydney-goes-dark-for-earth-hour-20070331-5ar.html" }, { "title": "Global gong for hot message (Titanium Lion)", "publisher": "The Sydney Morning Herald (2007)", "url": "https://www.smh.com.au/environment/global-gong-for-hot-message-20070625-gdqgt4.html" }, { "title": "Milestones over the years", "publisher": "Earth Hour / WWF (official)", "url": "https://www.earthhour.org/about/milestones" }, { "title": "Celebrating the 20th anniversary of 'Earth Hour', Leo Burnett Sydney's finest hour", "publisher": "Campaign Brief (2026)", "url": "https://campaignbrief.com/celebrating-the-20th-anniversary-of-earth-hour-created-by-leo-burnett-sydney/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/BhDUz68CAxE/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Earth Hour (WWF (WWF-Australia), 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Earth Hour 2007 video”, uploaded by Earth Hour", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhDUz68CAxE" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "BhDUz68CAxE", "uploaded_at": "2010-08-12T04:45:55+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "yubari-no-money-but-love", "title": "No Money, but Love (Yubari Fusai)", "brand": "Yubari Resort / City of Yubari", "year": 2007, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Owns the city's bankruptcy instead of hiding it, recasting a lack of money as an abundance of love and promoting its low divorce rate." }, { "slug": "humour", "note": "Uses cheerful self-mockery, including a cartoon couple whose name puns on the Japanese words for debt and spouse." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Fronts the campaign with a cartoon married couple who personify the city's new image as a home for happy couples." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Place-branding and PR campaign", "agency": "Beacon Communications, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Creative director", "name": "Masato Mitsudera" } ], "tagline": "No money, but love", "why_studied": "Yubari, a former coal-mining city in Hokkaido, had gone broke with around $353 million of debt when Beacon Communications offered it a cheerfully self-mocking rescue. In September 2007 the agency and the local resort operator unveiled Yubari Fusai, a cartoon married couple whose name puns on the Japanese words for “debt” and “spouse”, with the motto “no money, but love”. Built on the claim that Yubari had Japan's lowest divorce rate, the campaign recast the city as a home for happy couples: the end-of-the-line station was billed as love's first stop, couples received official certificates and thousands came to renew their vows. It is studied as small-budget place branding that owned an embarrassing truth instead of hiding it. The entry reported a 10% yearly rise in visitors and more than $30 million in new revenue for the city. In 2009 the Cannes Promo jury voted it the Grand Prix unanimously, and it also took a PR Lion.", "watch": [ { "label": "Promotional video for the Yubari Fusai song (YouTube, 2007)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-_ETYBCppw", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "***FLASH***No wins for Canada from the first day of Cannes 2009", "publisher": "Media in Canada (2009)", "url": "https://mediaincanada.com/2009/06/22/canneswinsdayone-20090622/" }, { "title": "SPECIALE CANNES. Grand Prix Promo al Giappone con ‘Yubari’", "publisher": "ADC Group (2009)", "url": "https://www.adcgroup.it/adv-express/creative-portfolio/advertising/speciale-cannes-grand-prix-promo-al-giappone-con-%E2%80%98yubari.html" }, { "title": "夕張再建は自虐キャラで", "publisher": "Kanko Keizai Shimbun (2007)", "url": "https://www.kankokeizai.com/%E5%A4%95%E5%BC%B5%E5%86%8D%E5%BB%BA%E3%81%AF%E8%87%AA%E8%99%90%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A3%E3%83%A9%E3%81%A7/" }, { "title": "Judging the PR Lions at Cannes: Reflections", "publisher": "Carol Cone On Purpose (2009)", "url": "https://www.carolconeonpurpose.com/post/judging-the-pr-lions-at-cannes-reflections" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/E-_ETYBCppw/hq2.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from No Money, but Love (Yubari Fusai) (Yubari Resort / City of Yubari, 2007)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “夕張夫妻「愛の始発駅」PV”, uploaded by I SUMIRE", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-_ETYBCppw", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/E-_ETYBCppw/sd2.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "E-_ETYBCppw", "uploaded_at": "2007-12-18T23:26:14+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "adidas-bonded-by-blood", "title": "Bonded by Blood", "brand": "adidas (All Blacks)", "year": 2006, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cannes-grand-prix", "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Lets fans own a piece of their heroes, so buying a jersey earns a relic that makes them and the players one bloodline." }, { "slug": "shock", "note": "Grabs attention with a slightly macabre premise: each poster is printed with the squad's own sterilised blood." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Limited-edition poster promotion", "agency": "TBWA\\Whybin, Auckland", "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Every year adidas issued a commemorative All Blacks team poster. In June 2006 it made one that literally contained the team. Each of the roughly 40 players gave blood, which was sterilised and added to the printing of a limited run of 8,000 posters showing the squad performing the haka in a Fiordland forest. Fans could get one only by buying an All Blacks jersey, and each came with a numbered certificate; a making-of film of players giving blood played in stores and online. It is studied as a vivid, slightly macabre way to make a sponsor's merchandise feel like a relic: the poster turned the idea of fans and players sharing one bloodline into a physical object. Trade reports of the case said posters were reselling online for about US$400 and that All Blacks apparel sales rose 24%. It won the Promo Grand Prix at Cannes in 2007.", "watch": [ { "label": "Making-of film on YouTube (uploaded by Scott Kelly)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSfO8jkXZMk", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "The One Show archive entry: Bonded by Blood", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/5470/bonded-by-blood/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Adidas’ “Bonded by Blood” Takes Top Cannes Promo Award", "publisher": "Chief Marketer (2007)", "url": "https://www.chiefmarketer.com/adidas-bonded-by-blood-takes-top-cannes-promo-award/" }, { "title": "All Blacks give blood for fans", "publisher": "NZ Herald (2006)", "url": "https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/all-blacks-give-blood-for-fans/2HNDJ3MZIMI2CKHU7WV7KZP5E4/" }, { "title": "All Blacks ad wins top international award", "publisher": "NZ Herald (2007)", "url": "https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/all-blacks-ad-wins-top-international-award/UOB5DRBPH62RRI4UZ4AC6EGU7M/" }, { "title": "Adidas Wins Promo Grand Prix for 'Bonded by Blood'", "publisher": "Ad Age (2007)", "url": "https://adage.com/article/cannes07/adidas-wins-promo-grand-prix-bonded-blood/118779/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mSfO8jkXZMk/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Bonded by Blood (adidas (All Blacks), 2006)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “adidas Bonded By Blood”, uploaded by Scott Kelly", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSfO8jkXZMk" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mSfO8jkXZMk", "uploaded_at": "2006-07-26T04:20:53+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "adidas-vertical-football", "title": "Vertical Football", "brand": "adidas", "year": 2003, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Turns a billboard into a live pitch, with two real players competing on ropes high above the street as crowds gather." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live billboard", "agency": "TBWA\\Japan, Tokyo", "credits": [ { "role": "Agency", "name": "TBWA\\Japan, Tokyo" }, { "role": "Creative director / copywriter", "name": "John Merrifield" }, { "role": "Art directors", "name": "Clementine Tourres, Hirofumi Nakajima" }, { "role": "Production company", "name": "Media Concierge" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In late summer 2003, TBWA\\Japan turned an adidas billboard in Tokyo into a football pitch stood on its end. Two real players, suspended on ropes some 12 storeys above the street, went head to head on the face of the board while crowds gathered below; a second board ran in Osaka. It is studied as the moment a billboard stopped being a picture and became a live event: the poster site itself was the stunt, and the spectacle drew an audience no static image could. It won the Grand Clio for Innovative Media and two One Show Gold Pencils in 2004, one in outdoor and one in innovative marketing, as the One Show named adidas its client of the year. The idea also proved repeatable: in spring 2004 the agency staged a ten-day sequel in Tokyo's Shibuya district, with a bungee-suspended player dunking a basketball on a vertical court.", "watch": [ { "label": "One Show 2004 Gold Pencil entry", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-award/1214/vertical-football/", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Lürzer's Archive entry (\"Vertical Soccer\")", "url": "https://www.luerzersarchive.com/work/adidas-174/", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Creative: A New Playing Field", "publisher": "Adweek (2004)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/creative-new-playing-field-71821/" }, { "title": "Beyond TV At The Clios", "publisher": "Adweek (2004)", "url": "https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/beyond-tv-clios-72651/" }, { "title": "One Show | adidas | 2004 | Gold Pencil", "publisher": "The One Club (2004)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/awards/theoneshow/-client/adidas/2004/all/1" }, { "title": "adidas (One Show 2004 Client of the Year)", "publisher": "The One Club (2004)", "url": "https://www.oneclub.org/articles/all/-view/adidas/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "volkswagen-autostadt-wolfsburg", "title": "Autostadt", "brand": "Volkswagen", "brand_slug": "volkswagen", "year": 2000, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Builds appreciation of the group's brands through a museum, brand pavilions and a showpiece delivery centre beside the factory." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand theme park and delivery centre", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Architecture", "name": "HENN" }, { "role": "Volkswagen and Bentley pavilion content", "name": "Furneaux Stewart" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "Volkswagen opened Autostadt beside its Wolfsburg plant on 1 June 2000, timed to Expo 2000 in nearby Hanover. Designed by the architects HENN, it combines a customer centre where buyers collect their new cars, a museum and a pavilion for each group brand, from Skoda to Bentley and Lamborghini. Its emblem is a pair of 48-metre glass towers that hold finished cars and lift them down to their owners, so the logistics of delivery become the show. Marketing Week said at launch that it took brand experience to a new level, quoting VW's brand-management director that the aim was not to sell cars to visitors but to build appreciation of the brands; the Associated Press called it a cross between Disney World and the Smithsonian. It is studied as an early, large-scale case of a carmaker turning its factory gate into a destination. By Autostadt's own count at its 25th anniversary, it has drawn more than 48 million guests and handed over almost 3.5 million new vehicles.", "watch": [ { "label": "Inside the Autostadt car towers (Travel Channel, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1cDqxGTHk", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Autostadt: Car Towers", "url": "https://www.autostadt.de/en/explore/car-towers", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "VW's motor city", "publisher": "Marketing Week (2000)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/vws-motor-city/" }, { "title": "Volkswagen Museum Rolls Off Assembly Line", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times / Associated Press (2000)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jun-11-tr-39667-story.html" }, { "title": "Autostadt", "publisher": "HENN", "url": "https://www.henn.com/en/project/autostadt" }, { "title": "25 Jahre Autostadt in Wolfsburg - Ein Vierteljahrhundert Mobilität erleben", "publisher": "Autostadt via Presseportal (2025)", "url": "https://www.presseportal.de/pm/19185/6046313" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/9Q1cDqxGTHk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Autostadt (Volkswagen, 2000)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “You Have to See How Epic Volkswagen's Enormous Car Storage Centre”, uploaded by TravelChannelVOD", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1cDqxGTHk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/9Q1cDqxGTHk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "9Q1cDqxGTHk", "uploaded_at": "2016-09-23T15:46:37+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "taco-bell-taco-liberty-bell", "title": "Taco Liberty Bell", "brand": "Taco Bell", "year": 1996, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "humour", "note": "Runs an April Fools' newspaper hoax claiming the chain has bought a national landmark, then owns up by noon." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Hitches the brand to the Liberty Bell, a treasured national symbol, by pretending to rename it after itself." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "PR stunt (April Fools' print hoax)", "agency": "PainePR", "credits": [ { "role": "PR agency (concept and execution, with Taco Bell)", "name": "PainePR (David Paine)" }, { "role": "Taco Bell executive on the stunt", "name": "Jonathan Blum" }, { "role": "Advertising agency (placed the ads)", "name": "Bozell" } ], "tagline": "Taco Bell Buys the Liberty Bell", "why_studied": "On April Fools' Day 1996, readers of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer and other major papers found a full-page ad announcing that Taco Bell had bought the Liberty Bell 'in an effort to help the national debt' and would rename it the 'Taco Liberty Bell'. Thousands of people called the National Park Service and the chain before Taco Bell owned up at noon and pledged $50,000 for the bell's upkeep; the White House press secretary joked that the Lincoln Memorial would become the Lincoln Mercury Memorial. Some critics called it tasteless. It launched Taco Bell's 'Nothing Ordinary About It' campaign, and its PR firm said it played on unease about corporate naming rights. It is studied as the template for the brand April Fools' hoax: one print ad, a barely plausible premise, a fast reveal. The agency claimed coverage worth $25 million in advertising; The Inquirer later reported a sales rise of about $1 million over the next two days.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Taco Liberty Bell: the ad and the reaction (Museum of Hoaxes)", "url": "https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/taco_liberty_bell", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "Full text of the ad as printed in The New York Times (ushistory.org)", "url": "https://www.ushistory.org/LibertyBell/bellhoax.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The fake news about Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell rang true in 1996", "publisher": "The Philadelphia Inquirer (2021)", "url": "https://www.inquirer.com/food/liberty-bell-taco-buy-april-fools-20210325.html" }, { "title": "The Taco Liberty Bell", "publisher": "The Museum of Hoaxes", "url": "https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/taco_liberty_bell" }, { "title": "Taking Liberty : Taco Bell April Fool's Ad Causes Stir", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1996)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-02-fi-54103-story.html" }, { "title": "That time Taco Bell said it bought the Liberty Bell", "publisher": "The Philadelphia Inquirer (2025)", "url": "https://www.inquirer.com/history/taco-bell-april-fools-day-prank-20250331.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "hoover-free-flights-promotion", "title": "Free Flights Promotion", "brand": "Hoover", "year": 1992, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "logos", "note": "Offers a seemingly unbeatable deal, two free return flights for a £100 spend, worth far more than the appliances themselves." }, { "slug": "card-stacking", "note": "Headlines only the generous offer while relying on tight deadlines, unwanted dates and costly extras to deter people from claiming." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Sales promotion", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "Two return flight tickets. Unbelievable.", "why_studied": "In August 1992 Hoover's British business, trying to shift vacuum cleaners and washing machines in a recession, promised two free return flights to anyone who spent £100 on its products. The first offer was for European destinations; a second, to the United States, followed while the first was already struggling. The flights were worth far more than the appliances, so people bought the offer rather than the product. Hoover had planned for about 50,000 applicants and got around 200,000, putting its factory on a seven-day week. The scheme leaned on deterrents, including tight deadlines, unwanted dates and pressure to buy costly extras, which drew a BBC Watchdog investigation, a customer pressure group and years of small-claims cases. Three senior Hoover executives lost their jobs in 1993, the bill reached £48m and about 220,000 people eventually flew. It is taught as a classic promotion disaster: an untested offer too generous to honour, which the Advertising Standards Authority later called an example of \"what not to do\".", "watch": [ { "label": "Hoover's 1992 'Two Return Flights' TV advert — The Laundry Lab archive on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPj1vUjdfm8", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "BBC News: Hoover's free flights fiasco recalled", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3704669.stm", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Hoover's free flights fiasco recalled", "publisher": "BBC News (2004)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3704669.stm" }, { "title": "Sucker punch to free rides: Hoover's ill-fated flight of fancy has dealt a fresh blow to the image of sales promotions", "publisher": "The Independent (1993)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/sucker-punch-to-free-rides-hoover-s-illfated-flight-of-fancy-has-dealt-a-fresh-blow-to-the-image-of-sales-promotions-chris-blackhurst-and-russell-hotten-report-1453279.html" }, { "title": "Hoover set to lose pounds 20m over free flights fiasco: Task force moves in to sort out chaos after three top executives are fired", "publisher": "The Independent (1993)", "url": "https://www.independent.co.uk/news/hoover-set-to-lose-pounds-20m-over-free-flights-fiasco-task-force-moves-in-to-sort-out-chaos-after-three-top-executives-are-fired-1500925.html" }, { "title": "Hoover fails to shake off free flights horror", "publisher": "Marketing Week (1997)", "url": "https://www.marketingweek.com/hoover-fails-to-shake-off-free-flights-horror/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pPj1vUjdfm8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Free Flights Promotion (Hoover, 1992)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “1992: Hoover [Two Return Flights]”, uploaded by The Laundry Lab", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPj1vUjdfm8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/pPj1vUjdfm8/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "pPj1vUjdfm8", "uploaded_at": "2022-05-23T14:52:33+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "tim-hortons-roll-up-the-rim-to-win", "title": "Roll Up the Rim to Win", "brand": "Tim Hortons", "year": 1986, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Hides the prize message under the cup's rim, so every drinker plays simply by rolling it up." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Parks real prize cars outside stores so sceptical customers can see for themselves that the rewards are genuine." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Packaging promotion", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Creator (Tim Hortons marketing)", "name": "Ron Buist" } ], "tagline": "Please play again", "why_studied": "In 1985 Tim Hortons wanted a contest it could afford. Pull-tab cups would have doubled the cost of every cup, so the marketer Ron Buist asked the chain's cup maker whether it could print on the strip of paper that is rolled down to form the rim. It could, and the message stayed hidden until the drinker unrolled it. Roll Up the Rim to Win launched in 1986; to convince sceptical customers that the prizes were real, stores displayed them, with cars parked outside. It became an annual Canadian ritual and is studied as packaging turned into the medium: the entry form was the cup in your hand. It also shows how promotions age. Environmental groups attacked the millions of disposable cups; in 2019 the company said its biggest promotion \"didn't work\"; the pandemic pushed play onto the app in 2020, and the much-hated \"Please Play Again\" was retired in 2021. After guests said they missed the tactile roll, paper rims returned alongside the app in 2025.", "watch": [ { "label": "Legends of Roll Up: The Dynasty — Tim Hortons (2019)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATHx41CAdEg", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Roll Up the Rim To Win 2020: Paper, Digital and Sustainable — Tim Hortons newsroom", "url": "https://news.timhortons.ca/en/articles/roll-up-the-rim-to-win-r-2020-paper-digital-and-sustainable", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "As Tim Hortons vows changes to Roll Up the Rim, contest's inventor has some thoughts", "publisher": "Financial Post (2019)", "url": "https://financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/its-gotten-old-tim-hortons-vows-major-changes-to-roll-up-the-rim-after-campaign-fails-to-boost-sales" }, { "title": "Tim Hortons changes Roll Up the Rim contest to go greener", "publisher": "CBC News (2020)", "url": "https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/tim-hortons-roll-up-the-rim-1.5468748" }, { "title": "Tims gets rid of cups and ‘please play again’ for ‘Roll Up To Win’", "publisher": "Strategy (2021)", "url": "https://strategyonline.ca/2021/03/08/tims-ditches-cups-and-please-play-again-for-roll-up-to-win/" }, { "title": "Tim Hortons brings back the cups for ‘Roll Up to Win’ contest", "publisher": "The Globe and Mail / The Canadian Press (2025)", "url": "https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-tim-hortons-brings-back-the-cups-for-roll-up-to-win-contest/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ATHx41CAdEg/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Roll Up the Rim to Win (Tim Hortons, 1986)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Legends of Roll Up: The Dynasty”, uploaded by Tim Hortons", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATHx41CAdEg", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ATHx41CAdEg/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ATHx41CAdEg", "uploaded_at": "2019-02-06T10:02:11+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "amex-statue-of-liberty-restoration", "title": "Statue of Liberty Restoration", "brand": "American Express", "year": 1983, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Promises a donation to restore a national monument every time the card is used, tying everyday spending to a shared cause." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the emotional pull of the Statue of Liberty, effectively casting the national monument as the card's pitchwoman." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Cause-marketing programme", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Executive vice president, worldwide marketing (coined 'cause-related marketing')", "name": "Jerry Welsh" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The campaign that gave 'cause-related marketing' its name. In the autumn of 1983 American Express promised a penny towards restoring the Statue of Liberty every time someone used its card, and a dollar for every new card issued, and backed the pledge with a national TV campaign costing an estimated $4 million — launched, the Christian Science Monitor noted, without the sanction of the official restoration foundation. The promotion raised $1.7 million for the statue's repair; card use rose 28% in the first month and new card applications jumped 45%. Jerry Welsh, the Amex marketing chief behind it, coined the term 'cause-related marketing', which the company went on to copyright, and a 1988 Journal of Marketing paper set the concept out for the discipline. It is studied as the moment philanthropy became a sales tool — proof that tying everyday spending to a shared cause could pay — and for the unease it raised about casting a national monument as a pitchwoman.", "watch": [ { "label": "The Christian Science Monitor's 1985 report on the Statue of Liberty ad drives", "url": "https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1210/flib.html", "type": "press" }, { "label": "Slate on the campaign and its results", "url": "https://slate.com/human-interest/2010/06/is-amex-s-members-project-a-worthy-avenue-for-charity.html", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Is AmEx's Members Project a worthy avenue for charity? (1983 results; Welsh coined the term)", "publisher": "Slate (2010)", "url": "https://slate.com/human-interest/2010/06/is-amex-s-members-project-a-worthy-avenue-for-charity.html" }, { "title": "Huddled masses of US givers wooed by Miss Liberty ads", "publisher": "The Christian Science Monitor (1985)", "url": "https://www.csmonitor.com/1985/1210/flib.html" }, { "title": "Cause-Related Marketing: A Coalignment of Marketing Strategy and Corporate Philanthropy (Varadarajan & Menon)", "publisher": "Journal of Marketing (1988)", "url": "https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002224298805200306" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pepsi-challenge", "title": "The Pepsi Challenge", "brand": "Pepsi", "brand_slug": "pepsi", "year": 1975, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Lets Coke drinkers run a blind taste test on camera, so the audience sees the proof for themselves." }, { "slug": "comparative", "note": "Pits the brand directly against the market leader, with unlabelled glasses of each cola side by side." }, { "slug": "logos", "note": "Builds its advertising from the test results, with more than half of tasters choosing Pepsi." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Live blind taste test", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The ad as a live experiment. In 1975 Pepsi trailed Coca-Cola three to one in Dallas, so it stopped asserting and started testing: Coke drinkers sipped from two unlabelled glasses and said which they preferred, and Pepsi turned the results — more than half choosing Pepsi — into local advertising. Within a year Coke's Dallas lead had narrowed to two to one, and the challenge spread to Michigan, Los Angeles and New York before going national. Coke's counter-attack became part of the legend: it argued that people simply preferred the letter M on Pepsi's glass to the Q on its own, so Pepsi switched letters and kept winning. It is studied as the purest form of demonstration advertising — the audience runs the test, on camera — and for its long tail: sweeter drinks tend to win single sips, and the challenge pushed Coca-Cola into the formula research that ended in New Coke. Pepsi revived the challenge for its 50th anniversary.", "watch": [ { "label": "PepsiCo's brand history, including the Pepsi Challenge", "url": "https://www.pepsico.com/newsroom/stories/2026/pepsi-history-brads-drink-iconic-american-brand", "type": "official" }, { "label": "TIME's 1976 report on the Coke-Pepsi taste-test war", "url": "https://time.com/archive/6848150/advertising-coke-pepsi-slugf-est/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "ADVERTISING: Coke-Pepsi Slugfest", "publisher": "TIME (1976)", "url": "https://time.com/archive/6848150/advertising-coke-pepsi-slugf-est/" }, { "title": "The Power of Narrative: The Return of New Coke", "publisher": "American Marketing Association", "url": "https://www.ama.org/marketing-news/the-power-of-narrative/" }, { "title": "Pepsi: From back-counter soda fountain to one of America's most iconic brands", "publisher": "PepsiCo (2026)", "url": "https://www.pepsico.com/newsroom/stories/2026/pepsi-history-brads-drink-iconic-american-brand" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/eiO_JES4yBY/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Pepsi Challenge (Pepsi, 1975)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Pepsi Challenge 1981”, uploaded by MrClassicAds1980s", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiO_JES4yBY", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/eiO_JES4yBY/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "eiO_JES4yBY", "uploaded_at": "2011-04-23T05:29:30+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "kfc-kentucky-for-christmas", "title": "Kentucky for Christmas", "brand": "KFC Japan", "year": 1974, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "slogans-that-stuck", "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows Christmas, a holiday with no established local tradition, and makes a fried-chicken party barrel its ritual meal." }, { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Dresses the Colonel Sanders statues outside stores as Santa, merging the brand's character with the season." }, { "slug": "jingle", "note": "Runs the same Christmas jingle for two decades, so the music becomes part of the seasonal habit." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Seasonal promotion and campaign", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Originator (first KFC Japan store manager, later company president)", "name": "Takeshi Okawara" } ], "tagline": "Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii (Kentucky for Christmas)", "why_studied": "A fast-food chain that wrote itself into another country's holiday. Japan, where about 1% of people are Christian, had no established Christmas tradition. KFC's account is that Takeshi Okawara, manager of its first Japanese restaurant, overheard foreign customers missing turkey and began selling a Christmas 'party barrel' of fried chicken; in 1974 the company took the idea national as 'Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii', Kentucky for Christmas. Stores later dressed their Colonel Sanders statues as Santa. The BBC reported that an estimated 3.6 million Japanese families eat KFC at Christmas, many ordering weeks ahead, with some stores taking up to ten times their usual daily sales; KFC says 24 December is its busiest day of the year. A marketing professor quoted by the BBC studies it as a model promotion that filled a void; KFC Japan's marketing chief told Wired the same Christmas jingle had run for 20 years. It is taught as category creation at cultural scale: the brand supplied a ritual where there was none.", "watch": [ { "label": "How 'Kentucky for Christmas' began in Japan (KFC)", "url": "https://global.kfc.com/stories/how-kentucky-for-christmas-began-in-japan", "type": "official" }, { "label": "How KFC became a Christmas tradition in Japan (CNN)", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/kfc-christmas-tradition-japan", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Why Japan celebrates Christmas with KFC", "publisher": "BBC (2016)", "url": "https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161216-why-japan-celebrates-christmas-with-kfc" }, { "title": "How 'Kentucky for Christmas' began in Japan", "publisher": "KFC (2020)", "url": "https://global.kfc.com/stories/how-kentucky-for-christmas-began-in-japan" }, { "title": "The curious tale of how Japan got hooked on KFC at Christmas", "publisher": "Wired (2019)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/story/kfc-christmas-japan/" }, { "title": "How KFC became a Christmas tradition in Japan", "publisher": "CNN (2019)", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/kfc-christmas-tradition-japan" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lego-legoland-billund", "title": "Legoland Billund", "brand": "LEGO", "year": 1968, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "demonstration", "note": "Fills a stretch of moorland with miniature towns built from ordinary bricks, a giant showcase of what the product can do." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand theme park", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Concept", "name": "Godtfred Kirk Christiansen" }, { "role": "Park designer", "name": "Arnold Boutrup" }, { "role": "Model builder", "name": "Dagny Holm" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "By the mid-1960s about 20,000 people a year were turning up at the LEGO factory in Billund, a small town in Jutland, to look at its model displays, more than the building could cope with. Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's answer was to move the showroom outdoors. He hired Arnold Boutrup, a Copenhagen department-store display designer, while model builder Dagny Holm's team filled a stretch of moorland with miniature towns made from ordinary bricks. Legoland opened on 7 June 1968 and, according to the LEGO Group, drew 625,000 visitors in its first season against a forecast of half that; Wired reports the same figure. It is studied as a product demonstration that became a destination: its Miniland is in effect a giant showcase of what the bricks can do, and a New York Times travel writer marvelled at the detail in 1991. The format was exported from 1996, starting with Windsor, and the parks were sold to an entertainment operator in 2005.", "watch": [ { "label": "First Legoland Park opens in Billund (1968), British Pathé (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg73b5WoUq4", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The first LEGOLAND park", "publisher": "LEGO Group", "url": "https://www.lego.com/en-us/history/articles/e-the-first-legoland-park" }, { "title": "June 7, 1968: Legoland Opens in Denmark", "publisher": "Wired (2010)", "url": "https://www.wired.com/2010/06/june-7-1968-legoland-opens-in-denmark/" }, { "title": "All the World's a Lego At a Park in Denmark", "publisher": "The New York Times (1991)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/travel/all-the-world-s-a-lego-at-a-park-in-denmark.html" }, { "title": "LEGOLAND - The most famous and loved theme park in Denmark", "publisher": "LEGOLAND Billund Resort", "url": "https://www.legoland.dk/en/about-legoland/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "pirelli-calendar", "title": "The Pirelli Calendar", "brand": "Pirelli", "year": 1964, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the prestige of celebrated photographers and art, never selling the calendar so it becomes a coveted status symbol for a tyre brand." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded publication (corporate gift)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Art director", "name": "Derek Forsyth" }, { "role": "Photographer (1964 edition)", "name": "Robert Freeman" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "In 1964 Pirelli's British subsidiary, looking for a way to stand out from local tyre rivals, hired art director Derek Forsyth and Beatles photographer Robert Freeman to shoot a calendar in Majorca. It was never put on sale. Copies went to tyre dealers and a short list of powerful people, and the scarcity did the marketing: the Los Angeles Times records that the Daily Mail was soon calling it the world's greatest office status symbol. The Guardian notes that Pirelli stopped it after 1974, partly because it was starting to overshadow the brand, that the Tate bought a 1973 edition at auction in 1980, and that it returned in the 1980s. It is studied as the classic case of a promotional giveaway becoming a cultural property, shot since by the likes of Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz, whose 2016 portraits of accomplished women were read as a break with its pin-up past. Its framing as a record of the zeitgeist is largely Pirelli's own.", "watch": [ { "label": "Pirelli Calendar 50th anniversary film (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sImwR8EchA8", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Pirelli: the four eras of The Cal", "url": "https://pirellicalendar.pirelli.com/en/about-the-cal/history", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "The evolution of the Pirelli calendar: from high-end porn to legitimate art", "publisher": "The Guardian (2015)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/02/pirelli-calendar-evolution-amy-schumer-patti-smith" }, { "title": "The Ultimate Status Symbol", "publisher": "Los Angeles Times (1995)", "url": "https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-03-16-ls-43449-story.html" }, { "title": "History: the 4 eras of The Cal", "publisher": "Pirelli", "url": "https://pirellicalendar.pirelli.com/en/about-the-cal/history" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sImwR8EchA8/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Pirelli Calendar (Pirelli, 1964)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Pirelli Calendar | 50th Anniversary”, uploaded by Pirelli", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sImwR8EchA8", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/sImwR8EchA8/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "guinness-book-of-records", "title": "The Guinness Book of Records", "brand": "Guinness", "brand_slug": "guinness", "year": 1955, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "beer-drinks" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Positions the brewery as the trusted source for settling pub arguments, with professional fact-finders compiling the records." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Gives pubs a genuinely useful reference book as promotional material, so useful that it outgrows its sponsor." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand-built institution (promotional book)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Originator (managing director, Guinness Brewery)", "name": "Sir Hugh Beaver" }, { "role": "Compilers", "name": "Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A pub-argument settler that became one of the best-selling books in history. After a shooting party in County Wexford argued about Europe's fastest game bird and no reference book could say, Guinness managing director Sir Hugh Beaver reasoned that the same kind of dispute was being fought nightly across Britain and Ireland's 81,400 pubs. He hired Fleet Street fact-finders Norris and Ross McWhirter, and in August 1955 the brewery published The Guinness Book of Records, printing 50,000 copies with waterproof covers to give to pubs as promotional material. A retail edition followed that autumn and topped the UK bestseller list by Christmas; by 1974 it was the biggest-selling copyright book in history, and by 2019 it had sold more than 143 million copies in over 100 countries. It is studied alongside the Michelin Guide as a brand-built institution: a promotion so genuinely useful that it outgrew its sponsor, and has had no tie to the brewery since 2001.", "watch": [ { "label": "Guinness World Records: our history", "url": "https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/about-us/our-history", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Smithsonian: a promotional stunt that became an international phenomenon", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/guinness-book-world-records-promotional-stunt-became-international-phenomenon-180956420/", "type": "press" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Our history", "publisher": "Guinness World Records (official)", "url": "https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/about-us/our-history" }, { "title": "Why was the Guinness World Records book first published?", "publisher": "Guinness World Records (2022)", "url": "https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2022/9/why-was-the-guinness-world-records-book-first-published-714607.html" }, { "title": "Timeline (biggest-selling copyright book by 1974)", "publisher": "Guinness World Records (official)", "url": "https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/about-us/our-story/timeline" }, { "title": "The Guinness Book of World Records: A Promotional Stunt That Became an International Phenomenon", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2015)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/guinness-book-world-records-promotional-stunt-became-international-phenomenon-180956420/" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ppMxHnF1P8I/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Guinness Book of Records (Guinness, 1955)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “From Idea to Icon, the Origins of Guinness World Records”, uploaded by Guinness World Records", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppMxHnF1P8I", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/ppMxHnF1P8I/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "ppMxHnF1P8I", "uploaded_at": "2025-08-23T14:01:14+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "general-motors-futurama", "title": "Futurama (Highways and Horizons)", "brand": "General Motors", "year": 1939, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "participation", "note": "Seats visitors in moving chairs and carries them over a vast model of 1960 America, so the audience experiences the pitch rather than watching it." }, { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Sells no particular car, only a shining vision of the future, summed up by a pin telling riders they have seen it." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "World's fair exhibit and ride", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Designer", "name": "Norman Bel Geddes" }, { "role": "Architect of the GM building", "name": "Albert Kahn" } ], "tagline": "I Have Seen the Future", "why_studied": "The most popular exhibit at the 1939–40 New York World's Fair was, in effect, an advertisement for the motor car. Inside General Motors' Highways and Horizons pavilion, the designer Norman Bel Geddes seated visitors in moving, sound-equipped chairs and carried them over a 35,000-square-foot model of America in 1960: highways cutting through cities, mountains and valleys, and suburbs spreading outwards. Bel Geddes later wrote that five million people saw it and that queues often stretched more than a mile. Riders were handed a pin reading \"I Have Seen the Future\". Rather than selling any particular car, the ride sold a future built around driving. It is studied as a founding piece of brand experience, which the Smithsonian calls a precursor of the theme-park dark ride, and for an influence well beyond marketing: President Roosevelt sought Bel Geddes's advice on transport, and his model anticipated the interstate highways of the 1950s.", "watch": [ { "label": "To New Horizons (1940), GM's film of the Futurama — Internet Archive", "url": "https://archive.org/details/ToNewHor1940", "type": "archive" }, { "label": "\"I Have Seen the Future\" souvenir button — Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_741597", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "1939-1940 New York World's Fair Souvenir Button, \"I Have Seen the Future\"", "publisher": "Smithsonian National Museum of American History", "url": "https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_741597" }, { "title": "“I have seen the future:” Norman Bel Geddes and the General Motors Futurama", "publisher": "Museum of the City of New York (2013)", "url": "https://blog.mcny.org/2013/11/26/i-have-seen-the-future-norman-bel-geddes-and-the-general-motors-futurama/" }, { "title": "Job 381, General Motors Building at the New York World's Fair, 1938-1952", "publisher": "Norman Bel Geddes Database, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin", "url": "https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/NBGPublic/details.cfm?id=307" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/OU17pnPeC9o/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Futurama (Highways and Horizons) (General Motors, 1939)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “To New Horizons- Highways 1”, uploaded by Biblionnypl", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU17pnPeC9o" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "OU17pnPeC9o", "uploaded_at": "2011-03-13T17:59:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "oscar-mayer-wienermobile", "title": "The Wienermobile", "brand": "Oscar Mayer", "year": 1936, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "mascot", "note": "Turns the vehicle itself into the brand's mascot, a giant hot dog on wheels that draws crowds and photographs wherever it tours." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Takes the ad onto the road as a touring vehicle, standing out from competitors by turning up at stores in person." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded vehicle", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Creator", "name": "Carl Mayer" }, { "role": "Builder of the 1936 vehicle", "name": "General Body Company, Chicago" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "A 13-foot metal hot dog on wheels. Oscar Mayer built the first in 1936, to an idea by Carl Mayer, nephew of the company's founder, to carry its spokesman from store to store late in the Depression. The BBC called it a way to stand out from dozens of competitors. After wartime gas rationing parked it, new versions returned in 1952; one is now in the Henry Ford Museum. Oscar Mayer retired the fleet in 1977 to concentrate on television advertising, then brought a Wienermobile out for its 50th birthday in 1986. According to the company, the crowds and the letters asking to see it led to a new fleet touring again from 1988. Today six tour the US, each crewed for a year by graduates hired as 'Hotdoggers'. It is studied as the purest form of product-as-media: the vehicle is the ad, the mascot and the photo opportunity at once, and it nearly lost out to TV spots before the public asked for it back.", "watch": [ { "label": "1952 Wienermobile in the collections of The Henry Ford", "url": "https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/13269", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "The Biggest Surprise of the Summer: The #WienermobileLyft (Oscar Mayer, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRu_S7SBl9Y", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "WienerMobile rolls on", "publisher": "BBC News (2001)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1508116.stm" }, { "title": "1952 Wienermobile", "publisher": "The Henry Ford", "url": "https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/13269" }, { "title": "The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Rolling through History", "publisher": "Oscar Mayer / Kraft Heinz", "url": "https://omwienermobile.com/pressreleases/KH_Wienermobile_History_PR_v1r2.pdf" }, { "title": "Hot Diggity Dog! The Wienermobile turns 70", "publisher": "NBC News (2006)", "url": "https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13597729" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mRu_S7SBl9Y/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Wienermobile (Oscar Mayer, 1936)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “The Biggest Surprise of the Summer: The #WienermobileLyft”, uploaded by Oscar Mayer", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRu_S7SBl9Y", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/mRu_S7SBl9Y/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "mRu_S7SBl9Y", "uploaded_at": "2021-08-30T19:18:04+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lucky-strike-torches-of-freedom", "title": "Torches of Freedom", "brand": "Lucky Strike (American Tobacco Company)", "year": 1929, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "glittering-generalities", "note": "Recasts cigarettes as torches of freedom, wrapping a sales push in the virtue language of women's equality." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Borrows the cause of women's equality, without disclosing the tobacco company behind it, to make smoking in public a statement." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Plants women lighting cigarettes in the Easter Parade on Fifth Avenue so the stunt reads as news rather than advertising." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "PR stunt (staged event)", "agency": "Edward L. Bernays (public relations counsel)", "credits": [ { "role": "Public relations counsel", "name": "Edward L. Bernays" }, { "role": "Spokeswoman for the march (Bernays's secretary)", "name": "Bertha Hunt" }, { "role": "Psychoanalyst; source of the 'torches of freedom' metaphor", "name": "A. A. Brill" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "At New York's Easter Parade in 1929 a handful of young women lit cigarettes on Fifth Avenue and called them \"torches of freedom\", a gesture for women's equality. It was a sales promotion. Edward Bernays, working for the American Tobacco Company's Lucky Strike, took the phrase from the psychoanalyst A. A. Brill. The group's spokeswoman, Bertha Hunt, was Bernays's secretary; she sent the telegram inviting some thirty debutantes to take part, then told reporters it was no publicity stunt. The New York Times gave the smokers a subheading in its parade report. Working from Bernays's own scrapbooks, the historian Vanessa Murphree found the coverage far less celebratory, and its effect far smaller, than he later claimed, and several columnists reported that a cigarette firm had planted the women. It is taught as the textbook pseudo-event and as an ethics warning: a social cause borrowed, without disclosure, to sell a harmful product. From the early 1960s Bernays campaigned against smoking.", "watch": [ { "label": "The New York Times report of the Easter Parade, 1 April 1929", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1929/04/01/archives/easter-sun-finds-the-past-in-shadow-at-modern-parade-lone-prancing.html", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Edward Bernays's 1929 “Torches of Freedom” March: Myths and Historical Significance", "publisher": "American Journalism / Taylor & Francis (2015)", "url": "https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08821127.2015.1064681" }, { "title": "Teaching Our Journal: Edward Bernays’s 1929 “Torches of Freedom” March", "publisher": "American Journalism Historians Association (2015)", "url": "https://www.american-journalism.org/teaching-our-journal/teaching-our-journal-edward-bernayss-1929-torches-of-freedom-march/" }, { "title": "Edward Bernays, 'Father of Public Relations' And Leader in Opinion Making, Dies at 103", "publisher": "The New York Times (1995)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/16/specials/bernays-obit.html" }, { "title": "Easter Sun Finds the Past in Shadow at Modern Parade … Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of \"Freedom\"", "publisher": "The New York Times (1929)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1929/04/01/archives/easter-sun-finds-the-past-in-shadow-at-modern-parade-lone-prancing.html" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "citroen-eiffel-tower-lights", "title": "Citroën on the Eiffel Tower", "brand": "Citroën", "year": 1925, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Spells the brand's name down the Eiffel Tower in giant lit letters, borrowing a national monument as its medium." }, { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Turns a city landmark into an animated light sign, a surprising placement that some Paris papers attack as a disfigurement." } ], "featured": true, "medium": "Illuminated installation", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Lighting design and engineering", "name": "Fernand Jacopozzi" }, { "role": "Sponsor", "name": "André Citroën" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "On 4 July 1925, during the Paris decorative-arts exposition, the Eiffel Tower came alive with an animated light show that ended by spelling CITROËN down its height. The scheme was devised by lighting engineer Fernand Jacopozzi, who needed someone to pay for it; André Citroën did, and got his name on three faces of the tower in letters roughly 30 metres tall, lit by about 250,000 bulbs according to the French broadcast archive INA and Autocar. Autocar's correspondent at the time called it the most remarkable flashing advertising sign yet created, while INA notes that some Paris papers attacked it as a disfigurement of the capital. It is studied as a landmark case of a brand turning a national monument into its own medium: Citroën renewed the display for about a decade, adding a giant clock in 1933 according to the tower's official history.", "watch": [ { "label": "L'Aventure Citroën on the 1925 illumination (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTH1u-7IoCk", "type": "official" }, { "label": "INA archive montage and article", "url": "https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/tour-eiffel-lumiere-panneau-publicitaire-citroen", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Lorsque la tour Eiffel était l'un des plus grands panneaux publicitaires au monde", "publisher": "INA (2024)", "url": "https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/tour-eiffel-lumiere-panneau-publicitaire-citroen" }, { "title": "A brief history of the Tower's lighting", "publisher": "Eiffel Tower official site (2020)", "url": "https://www.toureiffel.paris/en/news/history-and-culture/brief-history-towers-lighting" }, { "title": "Throwback Thursday - Citroën lights up the Eiffel Tower, 4 July 1925", "publisher": "Autocar (2015)", "url": "https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/throwback-thursday-citro%C3%ABn-lights-eiffel-tower-4-july-1925" }, { "title": "100 years on, Citroën continues to electrify the world", "publisher": "Stellantis Media / Citroën (2025)", "url": "https://www.media.stellantis.com/em-en/citroen/press/100-years-on-citroen-continues-to-electrify-the-world" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qTH1u-7IoCk/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Citroën on the Eiffel Tower (Citroën, 1925)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Illumination de la tour Eiffel par Citroën racontée par L'Aventure Citroën”, uploaded by L'Aventure Peugeot Citroën DS", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTH1u-7IoCk", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/qTH1u-7IoCk/maxresdefault.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "qTH1u-7IoCk", "uploaded_at": "2025-07-05T06:28:52+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "goodyear-blimp", "title": "The Goodyear Blimp", "brand": "Goodyear", "year": 1925, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Turns an airship into an airborne billboard over cities, and later into a camera platform that floats the name into live broadcasts." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Branded vehicle (airship)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Goodyear executive who championed the airship programme", "name": "Paul W. Litchfield" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "An airship built for a different dream became one of advertising's most recognisable media. Goodyear's Pilgrim first flew over Akron on 3 June 1925 with no logo on it: its champion, executive Paul Litchfield, imagined families owning small 'air yachts' the way they owned motorboats. Government control of helium stymied that plan, so Goodyear put the craft to work as publicity instead. By 1927 the Pilgrim carried the Goodyear name, each December it flew as the 'Santa Claus Express', and in 1930 the company added a lit neon sign so it could advertise after dark. A growing fleet of billboard blimps toured American cities, and in 1955 a Goodyear airship carried the equipment for a live NBC broadcast of the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl, starting a second career as an aerial camera that later covered the first Super Bowl in 1967. It is studied as media that earns its airtime: for seven decades the brand has floated into the broadcast by supplying the shot.", "watch": [ { "label": "Goodyear Blimp History: Above and Beyond, Part 1 (Goodyear, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shcDseW40zQ", "type": "official" }, { "label": "The Goodyear Blimp (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXu7Gvx-wpM", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "A Brief History of the Goodyear Blimp, Which Celebrates Its 100th Anniversary This Year", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2025)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-brief-history-of-the-goodyear-blimp-which-celebrates-its-100th-anniversary-this-year-180985772/" }, { "title": "Blimps in the Heavens Over Akron", "publisher": "JSTOR Daily (2025)", "url": "https://daily.jstor.org/blimps-in-the-heavens-over-akron/" }, { "title": "The Goodyear Blimp Celebrates 100 Years in the Sky with a 100+ City Tour and Passenger Flight Giveaway", "publisher": "Goodyear (2025)", "url": "https://news.goodyear.com/2025-01-01-The-Goodyear-Blimp-Celebrates-100-Years-in-the-Sky-with-a-100-City-Tour-and-Passenger-Flight-Giveaway" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/shcDseW40zQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Goodyear Blimp (Goodyear, 1925)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Goodyear Blimp History Above and Beyond Part 1 - Goodyear Tires”, uploaded by Goodyear", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shcDseW40zQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/shcDseW40zQ/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "shcDseW40zQ", "uploaded_at": "2010-03-24T17:49:08+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "macys-thanksgiving-day-parade", "title": "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade", "brand": "Macy's", "year": 1924, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows Thanksgiving, Santa Claus and Mother Goose floats, crowning Santa on the store's marquee to open the Christmas shopping season." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand-built event (parade)", "agency": null, "credits": [], "tagline": "A marathon of mirth.", "why_studied": "A department store's Christmas sales push that became a national holiday ritual. On Thanksgiving morning 1924, Macy's staff marched a six-mile 'Christmas Parade' from Harlem to the newly enlarged Herald Square flagship, which Macy's billed as the 'World's Largest Store', with clowns, Mother Goose floats matching the store's Christmas windows, animals from the Central Park Zoo and Santa Claus, who was crowned on the store's marquee. About 10,000 people waited at the store; the next day's papers barely noticed, but Macy's promptly advertised that it would do it again. It is studied as the archetype of the brand-built institution: an event designed to open the shopping season that wove itself so deeply into the calendar that few viewers now think of it as marketing. Giant character balloons arrived in 1927 and television coverage in 1948. Gimbels in Philadelphia had staged a store parade first, in 1920; Macy's is the one that lasted a century.", "watch": [ { "label": "Old Friends: Macy's tribute film to the parade (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDonPiUV07E", "type": "official" }, { "label": "Library of Congress business-history guide to the parade", "url": "https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/november/macys-thanksgiving-parade", "type": "archive" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "How the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Went From Its Modest Start to an American Tradition Rivaling Stuffing and Pumpkin Pie", "publisher": "Smithsonian Magazine (2024)", "url": "https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-modest-start-american-tradition-rivaling-stuffing-pumpkin-pie-180985216/" }, { "title": "The First Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade", "publisher": "HISTORY (2014)", "url": "https://www.history.com/articles/the-first-macys-thanksgiving-day-parade" }, { "title": "How the largely immigrant-founded Macy's Thanksgiving parade became a national symbol", "publisher": "The Guardian (2024)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/28/macys-thanksgiving-day-parade-100-years-history" }, { "title": "Macy's Thanksgiving Parade - This Month in Business History", "publisher": "Library of Congress", "url": "https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/november/macys-thanksgiving-parade" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/PDonPiUV07E/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Macy's, 1924)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Old Friends: A Tribute to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade”, uploaded by Macy's", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDonPiUV07E" }, "video": { "youtube_id": "PDonPiUV07E", "uploaded_at": "2016-11-01T14:10:15+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "selfridges-bleriot-monoplane", "title": "Blériot's monoplane at Selfridges", "brand": "Selfridges", "year": 1909, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [], "techniques": [ { "slug": "real-time", "note": "Puts the aircraft from the first Channel flight on show within a day, making the shop floor the place to witness the summer's biggest story." }, { "slug": "transfer", "note": "Borrows the glory of a historic flight and its famous aviator, transferring the excitement to a new department store." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "In-store exhibition", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Retailer", "name": "Harry Gordon Selfridge" } ], "tagline": "An epoch making event", "why_studied": "On 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot became the first person to fly across the English Channel. That same day, The New York Times reported from London, Harry Gordon Selfridge arranged to put the aircraft on show in his new Oxford Street department store, paying to bring it up from Dover and making a donation to a London hospital for the privilege. A Selfridges souvenir postcard held by the SFO Museum records the plane on display at 9 a.m. the following morning. The BBC reports that around 150,000 people came to see it over four days. It is studied as an early and near-perfect piece of newsjacking: a retailer who sold shopping as entertainment borrowed the biggest story of the summer and made his shop floor the place to witness it. The Guardian's centenary profile of the store lists it alongside John Logie Baird's first public television demonstration among the spectacles that defined Selfridges.", "watch": [ { "label": "Selfridges' 1909 postcard of the Blériot monoplane in store (SFO Museum)", "url": "https://collection.sfomuseum.org/objects/1511906795/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Bleriot's Flier a Show; Londoners Will See Aeroplane Which Crossed Channel at Selfridge's", "publisher": "The New York Times (1909)", "url": "https://www.nytimes.com/1909/07/26/archives/bleriots-flier-a-show-londoners-will-see-aeroplane-which-crossed.html" }, { "title": "Original Bleriot plane on display", "publisher": "BBC News (2009)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8170196.stm" }, { "title": "Selfridge's: where retail therapy began", "publisher": "The Guardian (2009)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/30/selfridges-centenary-shopping-oxford-street" }, { "title": "Postcard: M. Louis Blériot, Blériot XI Monoplane inside Selfridge's store", "publisher": "SFO Museum", "url": "https://collection.sfomuseum.org/objects/1511906795/" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "lauto-tour-de-france", "title": "The Tour de France", "brand": "L'Auto", "year": 1903, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "sports" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "storytelling", "note": "Serialises a 19-day race around France into episodes, so readers keep buying the paper to follow the story." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand-built institution (sporting event)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Editor and race founder", "name": "Henri Desgrange" }, { "role": "Originator of the idea", "name": "Géo Lefèvre" } ], "tagline": "A gigantic concept which will have the whole of France on its feet", "why_studied": "In 1903 the French sports daily L'Auto, losing a circulation war with its rival Le Vélo, launched a bicycle race around the whole of France. The idea came from Géo Lefèvre, assistant to editor Henri Desgrange, who adopted it and pitched it as an event that would keep the country on its feet for 19 days. The BBC describes the first Tour as a publicity stunt to sell newspapers, one that worked well enough to finish off Le Vélo. Historians Hugh Dauncey and Geoff Hare argue its real novelty was selling a product through sport: the paper invented, organised and reported the race itself, serialising the 19-day event into episodes that kept readers buying. The branding outlived the newspaper. When Desgrange introduced a leader's jersey in 1919 he chose yellow, the colour of L'Auto's newsprint, so the race's best-known symbol began as a piece of a publisher's identity. It is studied as the promotion that became a national institution.", "watch": [ { "label": "Tour de France: One day One story, July 1st 1903 (YouTube)", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5pW8q_nbd4", "type": "official" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "1903-1914: Pioneers and 'assassins'", "publisher": "BBC Sport (2004)", "url": "http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/cycling/tour_de_france_2004/history/3772467.stm" }, { "title": "A national epic on two wheels", "publisher": "Times Higher Education (2003)", "url": "https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/a-national-epic-on-two-wheels/176971.article" }, { "title": "'Sowers' inspire the energy ride", "publisher": "The Guardian (2002)", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2002/oct/25/cycling.tourdefrance2002" }, { "title": "History of the Tour de France jerseys and how they got their colours", "publisher": "Cyclist (2024)", "url": "https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/history-of-the-tour-de-france-jerseys" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/q5pW8q_nbd4/hq3.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Tour de France (L'Auto, 1903)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “Tour de France 2020 - One day One story : July 1st 1903”, uploaded by Tour de France", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5pW8q_nbd4", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/q5pW8q_nbd4/maxres3.jpg", "width": 1280, "height": 720 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "q5pW8q_nbd4", "uploaded_at": "2020-06-30T09:15:03+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "michelin-guide", "title": "The Michelin Guide", "brand": "Michelin", "year": 1900, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food", "cars" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "ethos", "note": "Builds an authority in its own right through anonymous inspectors and stars, lending a tyre maker the credibility of a powerful restaurant rating." }, { "slug": "purpose", "note": "Gives motorists useful maps, repair tips and places to eat and sleep, on the logic that people who drive more buy more tyres." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Brand-built institution (promotional guidebook)", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Founders", "name": "André Michelin and Édouard Michelin" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "The world's most powerful restaurant rating began as a tyre promotion. In 1900, when France had fewer than 3,000 cars, André and Édouard Michelin gave away 35,000 copies of a guide for motorists — maps, mechanics, petrol stops, how to change a tyre, where to eat and sleep — on the logic that people who drove more would buy more tyres. For two decades it was free. Then, the story goes, André found copies propping up a workbench in a tyre shop, and from 1920 the guide was sold, on the principle that people only respect what they pay for; paid advertising was dropped, anonymous inspectors were recruited, and stars followed from 1926. Michelin says more than 30 million guides have since been sold. It is studied as the archetypal brand-built institution: content so useful that it became an authority in its own right, while still carrying the name of a company that makes tyres.", "watch": [ { "label": "About the MICHELIN Guide (official history)", "url": "https://guide.michelin.com/en/about-us", "type": "official" }, { "label": "L'Aventure Michelin, the company's heritage museum, on a century of Michelin guides", "url": "https://laventure.michelin.com/en/100-ans-devasion-avec-le-guide-vert-michelin-copy/", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "About the MICHELIN Guide", "publisher": "MICHELIN Guide (official)", "url": "https://guide.michelin.com/en/about-us" }, { "title": "The History of the Michelin Guide (35,000 free copies in 1900)", "publisher": "MICHELIN Guide (2016)", "url": "https://guide.michelin.com/kr/en/article/features/history-michelin-guide" }, { "title": "Michelin Guide history: How did a tire company become an elite restaurant rating guide?", "publisher": "CNN (2024)", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/business/michelin-guide-history" } ], "image": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/eUxO2F2PfPQ/hqdefault.jpg", "width": 480, "height": 360, "alt": "Still frame from The Michelin Guide (Michelin, 1900)", "kind": "youtube-thumbnail", "credit": "Video still via YouTube — “About the MICHELIN Guide & MICHELIN Guide History”, uploaded by MICHELIN Guide", "source_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUxO2F2PfPQ", "share": { "src": "https://img.youtube.com/vi/eUxO2F2PfPQ/sddefault.jpg", "width": 640, "height": 480 } }, "video": { "youtube_id": "eUxO2F2PfPQ", "uploaded_at": "2021-05-28T05:45:17+00:00" }, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" }, { "slug": "heinz-pickle-pin", "title": "The Pickle Pin", "brand": "Heinz", "year": 1893, "category": "stunts-experiences", "collections": [ "food-fast-food" ], "techniques": [ { "slug": "guerrilla", "note": "Scatters small printed tags around the fairgrounds promising a free souvenir, drawing crowds to a booth stuck on an upper floor." }, { "slug": "participation", "note": "Turns a visit into a treasure hunt with a reward worth keeping, a pickle charm visitors wear home." } ], "featured": false, "medium": "Experiential giveaway", "agency": null, "credits": [ { "role": "Originator", "name": "H. J. Heinz" } ], "tagline": null, "why_studied": "At Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, H. J. Heinz found his display stuck on the upper floor of the Agricultural Building, away from the big attractions. His fix was to scatter small printed tags around the fairgrounds promising a free souvenir to anyone who came to the Heinz booth. The prize was a little green watch-chain charm shaped like a pickle. According to the Heinz History Center, hundreds of thousands of people climbed the stairs to taste samples and collect one; a curator there has said the crowds made the floor sag, and that neighbouring exhibitors thanked Heinz for the extra traffic. Visitors then wore the charm home, spreading the name as they went. It is studied as an early, cheap experiential mechanic that still works: a treasure-hunt invitation, a reward worth keeping and a branded object that travels. The charm became the Heinz pickle pin, still handed out today; the History Center notes it has been called one of the most effective promotions ever.", "watch": [ { "label": "The 1893 pickle charm, Heinz History Center collection", "url": "https://heinzhistorycenter.emuseum.com/objects/25594/charm", "type": "museum" }, { "label": "Photograph of the Heinz booth at the 1893 fair (The Henry Ford)", "url": "https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/16575", "type": "museum" } ], "sources": [ { "title": "Pendant, Charm (Heinz pickle charm collection record)", "publisher": "Senator John Heinz History Center", "url": "https://heinzhistorycenter.emuseum.com/objects/56702/pendant-charm" }, { "title": "Big crowds, little gherkins: a history of the Heinz pickle pin", "publisher": "Pittsburgh City Paper (2019)", "url": "https://www.pghcitypaper.com/food-drink/big-crowds-little-gherkins-a-history-of-the-heinz-pickle-pin-15474080/" }, { "title": "H. J. Heinz Co. Booth at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois, 1893", "publisher": "The Henry Ford", "url": "https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/artifact/16575" }, { "title": "Charm", "publisher": "Senator John Heinz History Center", "url": "https://heinzhistorycenter.emuseum.com/objects/25594/charm" } ], "image": null, "video": null, "updated_at": "2026-10-06T10:40:39.547905+00:00" } ], "pages": [ { "slug": "about", "title": "About Damn Good Ads", "description": "Damn Good Ads is a curated, cited directory of the best ads ever made, with a plain-English explanation of why each one works.", "body": "Damn Good Ads is a curated directory of the best advertising ever made: commercials, online films, posters, print ads, billboards and stunts from the 1880s to today. Every entry explains, in plain English, why the work is studied, and every claim is backed by sources listed on the same page.\n\n## Who it's for\n\n- **Marketers and creatives** looking for reference work and the story behind it.\n- **Students and teachers** who need real examples of advertising techniques to analyse.\n- **Anyone** who remembers an ad and wants to know where it came from.\n\n## What's on every page\n\nEach ad page gives the brand, year, agency and medium; the line it is remembered for; a short explanation of why it works; the people who made it, where credits are documented; links to watch or view the original; and the sources behind every claim.\n\n## What we don't do\n\nWe don't host anyone's ads. Videos are embedded from YouTube or linked to their official source, and still images are shown from their source with credit. Where no reliable image exists, the page shows a typographic card built from the ad's own line, never a recreated or AI-generated picture.\n\n## How to browse\n\nStart with the four [categories](/#categories), the themed [collections](/#collections) or the [complete list](/ads/). [How we choose ads](/how-we-choose/) explains what gets in.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T08:04:48.807882+00:00" }, { "slug": "how-we-choose", "title": "How we choose ads", "description": "The selection criteria, sourcing rules and image policy behind every entry in Damn Good Ads.", "body": "Damn Good Ads lists ads that are studied, not just remembered. Being famous isn't enough: each entry has to answer the question \"why is this still worth learning from?\"\n\n## What gets in\n\nAn ad qualifies when at least one of these is documented:\n\n- **A breakthrough in craft:** copy, art direction, film-making or technology that changed how ads are made.\n- **A strategy that changed things** for the industry, a category or a brand.\n- **A documented result:** sales, behaviour change or cultural impact reported by a credible source.\n- **Recognition:** a Cannes Lions Grand Prix or Titanium Lion, a D&AD Black Pencil, a One Show Best of Show, an Effie, a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Commercial, a place in Ad Age's list of the top 100 campaigns of the 20th century, or a museum collection.\n\nWe look for great work from every decade and every country, not only the US and the UK.\n\n## How each entry is sourced\n\n- Every entry cites at least two sources, and every factual claim in its explanation is supported by one of them.\n- We prefer award bodies, museums and archives, brand and agency records, trade press such as Ad Age, Adweek, Campaign, The Drum and Creative Review, and major newspapers. We don't cite Wikipedia.\n- When a result comes only from the brand or its agency, the text says so.\n- Explanations are written in our own words, and quotes from ads are kept short.\n- Every link is checked before an entry is published.\n\n## Images and video\n\n- Commercials and films are embedded from YouTube uploads that clearly show the work, preferring official brand and agency channels, award bodies and archives.\n- Print and poster work in the public domain is shown as a scan from a museum, library or archive: work published in 1930 or earlier, US government posters, and British posters whose Crown copyright has expired.\n- Other entries show a still from a case film or report that clearly shows the work, or a typographic card. We never use AI-generated or recreated images of ads.\n\n## How entries are made\n\nResearch is carried out with the help of AI research assistants, which gather sources and draft entries. Every entry is checked against its sources before it is published, and entries are corrected as better sources appear. Each page shows when it was last updated.\n\n## Order and featured ads\n\nLists run newest first. Featured ads, chosen by the editors, lead the rows on the home page.", "updated_at": "2026-10-06T11:45:04.176941+00:00" } ], "image_policy": "Images are hotlinked, never hosted here, and each carries a credit (image.credit) and a link to where it came from (image.source_url). image.kind \"youtube-thumbnail\" is a still from the ad's video or, for print and outdoor work, from a case film or report about it. image.kind \"print-scan\" is a public-domain scan of the original printed ad or poster (published in 1930 or earlier, a US government work, or out of UK Crown copyright), hotlinked from a museum, library or archive. Entries with image: null are rendered as typographic poster cards built from the ad's tagline; no imagery is fabricated.", "generated_at": "2026-10-07T21:12:33.339Z" }