Psychology
Contrast effect
We judge things by what sits next to them, so the right comparison, a rival, a before shot or a bigger price, makes something look better.
2020s
2010s
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2018Alexa Loses Her Voice
Gordon Ramsay berating a man over grilled cheese and Cardi B scoffing at a question about Mars make the real Alexa seem a relief when she returns.
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2018The Ticket Shoe
Priced the trainers at 180 euros when a regular annual pass cost more than 700, so shoes with a ticket stitched into the tongue looked like a steal.
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2015High School Girl?
Setting each convincing schoolgirl beside the young man she started as makes the gap between them the measure of what Shiseido's make-up can do.
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2015Shoplifters
Shows thieves chased down by security and locked in holding cells for their freebies, so getting them legally through a rewards app looks the obvious choice.
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2014Experience the Power of a Bookbook
Holds a printed catalogue up against the reverent language of Apple's launch films, so an eternal battery and no load times make paper look cleverer than a phone.
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2014#LikeAGirl
Sets adults and boys flailing beside young girls who simply run as fast as they can, and seeing the two side by side exposes the insult without a word of argument.
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2013Real Beauty Sketches
Sets each woman's sketch from her own description against the kinder one drawn from a stranger's, and the gap between the two does all the persuading.
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2013Sorry, I Spent It On Myself
Sets a £1.61 bag of gravel for relatives beside designer clothes for the shopper, so the real treat looks all the bigger next to the token.
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2012Meet the Superhumans
Cuts from elite training to the car crash, the warzone and the hospital and back again, and setting the moment of injury beside the power makes the athletes look superhuman.
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Heaven and HellSamsonite2011
Heaven and Hell
Sets first-class passengers' heavenly flight directly above the hell their suitcases go through, and the gap makes the luggage's toughness look heroic.
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2010Selinah
Places the skin-and-bone Selinah and the healthy one at either end of the same film, and the gap between them shows how much the drugs can do.
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2010The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
Tells women to look at their man, then back at the spokesman now on a horse, inviting a side-by-side the body wash was always going to win.
2000s
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2008Baby
Shows an infant buying stock with one click, and measured against a baby, anyone watching feels more than capable of trading online.
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2007Picnic
Shows picnickers who chase a spirit from their food in daylight turning nervous the moment it goes dark, and the gap between light and dark sells the bulb.
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2006Get a Mac ("Mac vs. PC")
Stands a relaxed Mac beside a PC beset by viruses and crashes in the same white void, so every scene makes the Mac look easier to live with.
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2006Evolution
Shows a model's plain face turn into a stretched, retouched billboard in 75 seconds, and the gap between first and last frame makes the fakery impossible to unsee.
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2005noitulovE
Frames the pint as 500 million years in the making, and set against that span of natural history, a short wait for it feels like nothing.
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Small but tough. Polo.Volkswagen2003
Cops
Has the officers pass over their own patrol car for a little Polo, and choosing small over big makes the Polo look the tougher of the two.
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2002The Sculptor
Shows a boxy old Ambassador being beaten into curves, so the 206's shape looks all the more desirable set against the car it is meant to replace.
1990s
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1992Free Flights Promotion
Set two free return flights against a £100 spend on appliances, a gap so lopsided that about 200,000 people bought the offer rather than the product.
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1991Não é assim uma Brastemp
Each rival appliance is merely fine when held up against Brastemp, which quietly makes Brastemp the yardstick shoppers judge everything else by.
1980s
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Perception. Reality.Rolling Stone1985
Perception. Reality.
Sets the media buyer's picture of a tie-dyed burnout right beside a young professional with a wallet, so the real reader looks far richer by comparison.
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1984Fluffy Bun ("Where's the Beef?")
Holds up a rival's absurdly fluffy bun with hardly any beef in sight, so Wendy's looks generous by comparison without naming anyone.
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It also sticks handles to teapots.Araldite1983
It Also Sticks Handles to Teapots
Beside a whole car held up by glue, mending a teapot handle looks like nothing, so the everyday job the line mentions seems guaranteed.
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Reassuringly expensive.Stella Artois1982
Reassuringly Expensive
Set against cheaper lagers, the higher price itself reads as the mark of a better beer, so the gap reassures drinkers rather than putting them off.
1970s
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1977Monks ("Brother Dominic")
Sets a modern duplicator against monks who copy manuscripts by hand, so 500 copies in moments looks like nothing short of a miracle.
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1975The Pepsi Challenge
Puts two unlabelled colas side by side for a single sip, a comparison that strips away the leader's name and lets taste alone decide.
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1974Martians ("For Mash Get Smash")
Makes peeling, boiling and smashing real potatoes look like the habits of a primitive species, and a packet of instant mash seems advanced by comparison.
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1973The 60-Year-Old Swede
Jogs an average 30-year-old Canadian beside an average 60-year-old Swede at the same easy pace, and the pairing makes Canadian fitness look shockingly poor.
1960s
1950s
1930s
1920s
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1929The Pause That Refreshes
Offered a five-cent pause when everything else felt unaffordable, so a small daily treat looked like a luxury any worker could still afford.
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Nowhere else but Mossel'prom!Mossel'prom1923
Mossel'prom Cooking Oil: Nowhere Else but Mossel'prom
Sets the oil beside butter and calls it three times cheaper, so the working masses judge it against a pricier staple and it looks like an obvious saving.
1910s
1890s
Contrast effect: where it comes from
Men who had just watched an episode of Charlie's Angels rated a photo of an average-looking woman as less attractive than men who had not (Kenrick and Gutierres, 1980). What we have just seen changes how we judge what comes next.
In ads it shows up as side-by-side comparisons, before and after shots, a rival that looks worse, and small things set against big ones.