Psychology
Curiosity gap
A question left open nags at us until we close it, so an ad that holds back the answer makes us go and find out for ourselves.
2020s
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2024Like a Good Neighbaaa
Billed 'Agent State Farm' as Schwarzenegger's next action film on The Tonight Show, so viewers wondered what it was until it turned out to run sixty seconds.
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2024Michael CeraVe
Spent three weeks letting Michael Cera act as if he had invented the brand while dermatologists objected, so people watched the Super Bowl to see where the joke was going.
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2024All the Ads
The prize list grew with each new commercial, so viewers kept watching to see what else one winner would get, from a BMW to 30 pounds of mayonnaise.
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2022Less Talk, More Bitcoin
Floats an unexplained QR code across a black screen with the brand withheld until the end, so millions reached for their phones to see where it led.
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2022Flipvertising
Influencer clues sent people searching for exact phrases that unlocked hidden films and codes for free phones, and an unsolved puzzle kept ad-wary buyers hunting.
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2022Never Done Evolving feat. Serena
Stages a match that could never happen, young Serena against her older self, and streams it live, so fans had to watch to learn which version would win.
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2022World Cup Delivery
Sends an unexplained 'Your order is on the way' that some feared was a charge for something never ordered, so they had to open it to find out.
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2022Bring Home the Bud
Asking 'Who will get them?' and dropping crates in winners' cities overnight kept fans following each round to see where the beer would end up.
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2021Superb Owl
Flashes a dense slide no one could finish reading in time, and the unread words nagged viewers into rewinding and searching for the rest.
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2020The Bread Exam
Circulated first as a plain recipe under the question 'Have you baked bread?', so when its double meaning came out, people had a reason to look again.
2010s
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2018It's a Tide Ad
Teaches viewers that any clean shirt might mean Tide, so every ad in the break became a puzzle: is this one a Tide ad too?
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2017The Journey
Stops the broadcast film before the mother and daughter's journey ends, so viewers rushed online to see it, 300,000 requests in the first minute by the company's count.
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2017Did You Mean MailChimp?
Scatters unexplained oddities like MailShrimp and JailBlimp, and the nagging question of what they are sends people searching until they land on the brand.
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2017Pass the Heinz
Shows fries, a cheeseburger and a steak with no ketchup in sight, and the missing piece nags at viewers until their own appetite fills it in with Heinz.
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2016The Next Rembrandt
Promises a Rembrandt that Rembrandt never painted, and the question of whether software could pull it off drew people in to judge the result for themselves.
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2016Thanks 2016, It's Been Weird
Asks the person who played 'Sorry' 42 times on Valentine's Day what they did, leaving every reader to imagine the story behind it.
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2016The Swedish Number
Puts callers through to a random Swede with no script, so nobody knew who would answer, and that open question drew 188,625 calls from 186 countries.
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2015High School Girl?
Plants a line in a student's book asking whether you have noticed any boys, and viewers who saw none are hooked until the film rewinds to show them.
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2015Love Has No Labels
Hides every couple behind identical skeletons on a giant 'X-ray' screen, so the crowd waits to see who has been kissing, hugging and dancing.
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2014The Other Side
Holding R reveals a hidden night-time version of every scene, and the urge to see what the other side holds kept viewers watching for over three minutes.
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2013Chicken
Holds back the point until the closing line, so viewers watching swaying chickens wonder what is being sold until the S-Class suspension is named.
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2012A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Square ("Push to Add Drama")
A big red button on a pedestal invites passers-by to 'push to add drama' without saying what will happen, and the urge to find out is hard to resist.
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2011Break Up
Opens with a seemingly mistaken tweet about a break-up and staged split-ups on Valentine's night, so people speculated about who was leaving whom before the reveal.
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2010A Hunter Shoots a Bear
With 42 alternative scenes behind the title, each word typed raised the question of what else the hunter and bear might do, so people kept trying more.
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2010Music. See What It's Made Of.
A familiar star's face becomes, up close, a mosaic of other artists, and readers lean in to find out who is hiding in there, Vanilla Ice included.
2000s
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2009Carousel
Freezes a shootout mid-action and tucks behind-the-scenes views behind hotspots, so viewers keep exploring to see what else the scene is hiding.
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2008Awareness Test ("Moonwalking Bear")
Asking whether you saw the moonwalking bear leaves most viewers baffled, and the need to see what they missed holds them for the replay.
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2007The Shirato Family (White Family)
Never explains why the father is a talking dog, and SoftBank declined to say when asked, so the unanswered question kept viewers watching for clues.
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2007Gorilla
Holds viewers on a gorilla simply waiting, with no chocolate on screen until the end card, so people keep watching to find out what on earth it is for.
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2007Why So Serious? (The Dark Knight alternate reality game)
Hides the first image of the Joker behind pixels that vanish one email at a time, and the half-seen face drives fans to keep digging.
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2006Still Free (Air Force One)
Left viewers unsure whether hooded figures had really tagged Air Force One, and that open question kept people arguing until the Pentagon issued three denials.
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2006Will It Blend?
Each video poses one question, will marbles, a rotisserie chicken or an iPhone blend, and viewers have to watch to see the answer.
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2005Love Story
Unfolds as a four-part soap over two months, in the style of film shows that stop at the most gripping moment, so viewers kept watching to learn how Jum's story ended.
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2005Crossbar ("Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold")
Shows Ronaldinho hitting the crossbar four times without the ball touching the ground and never says if it was real, so viewers watched again and again to settle it.
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I Love BeesMicrosoft / Bungie (Halo 2)2004
I Love Bees
Hides a sci-fi drama behind what looks like a small honey company's website, and the unexplained oddity pulls people in to work out what is going on.
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Get chicken just the way you like it.Burger King2004
Subservient Chicken
Every typed command raised the question of whether the man in the chicken suit would really do it, so visitors kept testing him to find out.
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2003Cog
Each toppling part sets up the next for two minutes without saying where it is heading, so viewers keep watching until the finished car rolls off the ramp.
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2003What Happens Here, Stays Here
Lets each story stop short of what really happened, and the untold night is more tempting than any casino shot could be.
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2002Bus
Lets viewers puzzle over why nobody falls off a swaying, overloaded bus, holding the answer back until a small Fevicol sign appears in the last shot.
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Beach, Bar, PoolClub 18-302002
Beach, Bar, Pool
Hides its jokes in what look like ordinary holiday snaps, so readers who spot one innuendo keep scanning the scene for the next.
1990s
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Taco Bell Buys the Liberty BellTaco Bell1996
Taco Liberty Bell
Floats a premise just plausible enough to doubt and holds the truth back until noon, so the need to know whether it was real spread the story.
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Power is nothing without control.Pirelli1994
Power Is Nothing Without Control (Carl Lewis)
Puts the world's fastest man in red stilettos, a puzzle that stops viewers until the line about power and control resolves it into a point about tyres.
1980s
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1989Bud Bowl
Splits one bottle football game across six spots from the pregame show to the final quarter, so viewers kept watching to learn whether Budweiser or Bud Light would win.
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1987Hitler
Builds a face dot by dot while praising a leader's record, and viewers keep watching to find out who this admirable figure is.
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1986Roll Up the Rim to Win
Keeps each cup's result hidden under the rim until the drinker unrolls it, so every coffee ends with a small moment of suspense.
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19841984
Shows no product and no features, only the promise that you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984', so viewers have to find out more.
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(No copy — a slash in purple silk, plus the government health warning.)Silk Cut (Gallaher)1983
Silk Cut (the purple silk)
Shows only purple silk with a single slash and no name, leaving viewers to solve the pun themselves, and the small win of decoding it fixed the brand.
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1981Myriam ("Le 2 septembre, j'enlève le haut")
Myriam's promise to take off her top on 2 September, then her bottom on the 4th, left passers-by waiting days for each new poster to see whether she would.
1970s
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Can West Wear East?Parco1979
Can West Wear East?
Leaves one open question, 'Can West Wear East?', beside girls with red-masked eyes, so viewers are drawn in to work out what it means.
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Surreal Gold Pack PostersBenson & Hedges (Gallaher)1977
Surreal Gold Pack Posters
Each poster is a riddle with the gold pack hidden in it, and people kept looking until they had worked out where it was.
1960s
1950s
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1956Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking (torture tests)
Broadcasts some tests live with failure a real risk, so viewers stayed to find out whether the watch would still be running at the end.
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The man in the Hathaway shirt.C.F. Hathaway1951
The Man in the Hathaway Shirt
A 50-cent eyepatch on a shirt model left readers asking who he was and what happened to his eye, and the question kept them looking at the shirt.
1920s
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1926They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano
The headline breaks off at 'but when I started to play!', so readers dive into the long copy to learn what happened next.
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Within this vale / of toil / and sin / your head grows bald / but not your chin — Burma-ShaveBurma-Shave1925
Burma-Shave Roadside Verses
Doles out a comic verse one small roadside sign at a time, so drivers had to keep reading to reach the punchline and the brand name at the end.
1900s
Curiosity gap: where it comes from
George Loewenstein described curiosity as a gap between what we know and what we want to know, a gap that feels uncomfortable until we close it (Loewenstein, 1994).
In ads it shows up as teasers, mysteries, puzzles, unexplained images and stories that end on a question the viewer has to answer.