Psychology
Self-image
We buy things that say who we are, or who we would like to be, so the best brands sell an identity as much as a product.
2020s
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2023The Everyday Tactician
Turns every player's belief that they could do the manager's job better into a real vacancy, so fans see a version of themselves in the dugout.
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2020You Can't Stop Us
Gives everyday athletes the same split-screen billing as Serena Williams and LeBron James, so ordinary viewers could see themselves in the company of their heroes.
2010s
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2019Swipe Night
Turns choices such as saving a person or a puppy into badges on profiles, so the story became a way of showing matches who you are.
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2018Dream Crazy
Asks viewers to believe in something even at the cost of everything, so wearing Nike becomes a statement that you are someone who stands for something.
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2018adDRESS the Future (Neo-Ex)
Fits a digital outfit onto each buyer's own photo, ready to post, feeding the wish to be seen in something new without buying clothes only to send them back.
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Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.State Street Global Advisors2017
Fearless Girl
Offers a fearless figure that women and girls want to see themselves in, which helped turn the statue into a protest site and a place to visit.
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2016Kenzo World (My Mutant Brain)
Margaret Qualley slips away from a formal function to dance with total abandon, offering wearers a picture of themselves freed from all composure.
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2016Marriage Market Takeover
Recasts so-called leftover women as women choosing their own future, an identity many wanted to claim, and a premium skincare brand stood for it.
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2016Spotify Wrapped
Hands users a flattering portrait of their taste ready to post, so sharing it becomes a way of telling others who they are.
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On Black Friday, we're closing. Opt outside.REI2015
#OptOutside
Invites people to opt outside instead of shopping, letting millions post the hashtag as a statement of who they are and what they value.
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2014The Big Leap
Recasts the tennis label's tenacity and panache as the everyday courage to risk a kiss, a version of themselves wearers would gladly claim.
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2014I Will What I Want (Gisele Bündchen)
Shows a woman training hard through doubt and abuse, offering women a picture of themselves as athletes who answer critics with effort.
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2014The Other Side
Shows one father on the school run by day and in a police sting by night, flattering buyers with an average age of 62 that they have a wilder side too.
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2014#LikeAGirl
Invites girls to hear 'like a girl' as a mark of strength, giving them a better picture of themselves just as confidence tends to collapse at puberty.
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2013Farmer
Toasts 'the farmer in all of us' with Paul Harvey's tribute to farmers, inviting truck buyers to see that farmer in themselves.
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A billboard that turns air into clean drinking water is ingenuity in action.UTEC (University of Engineering and Technology)2013
The Billboard That Makes Water
Lets teenagers see engineering pull drinking water out of desert air, inviting them to picture themselves as the kind of person who can do that.
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2012Red Bull Stratos
Makes 'gives you wings' literal with a man breaking the sound barrier in freefall, so the drink stands for the fearless person its fans would like to be.
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2011Legend ("Ghost Chips")
Casts the friend who speaks up as cool and rewards him with one word, 'Legend', so young men could stop a drunk mate without losing face.
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Be stupid.Diesel2010
Be Stupid
Sold an attitude more than jeans, letting buyers cast themselves as the bold, reckless ones with the nerve that sensible people lack.
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2010Music. See What It's Made Of.
Rewards readers who can name the influences inside each star, flattering them as the kind of serious music fan the magazine is made for.
2000s
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2009Roller Babies
Babies pulling off impossible moves embody 'Live young', letting adults see a bottle of water as a way to feel youthful and carefree themselves.
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2007Jaago Re (Politician)
Recasts a cup of Tata Tea as the habit of an awake, questioning citizen, an identity some six lakh mostly young people took up by registering to vote.
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2007Pinkie ("Speeding. No One Thinks Big of You.")
Turns speeding from a show of manhood into a sign of a small penis with one wiggled finger, attacking the very image young men speed to project.
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2007No Money, but Love (Yubari Fusai)
Bills the town as a home for happy couples, with certificates and vow renewals, and couples visit to celebrate the lasting partnership they see in themselves.
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2006Get a Mac ("Mac vs. PC")
'Hello, I'm a Mac' turned a computer into a personality, and viewers chose to see themselves as Justin Long's laid-back Mac rather than the malfunctioning PC.
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2006The Most Interesting Man in the World
Built on young drinkers' dread of being boring, the silver-bearded legend lets each bottle stand for the interesting person they would like to be.
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2003What Happens Here, Stays Here
Sells the permission to be someone else for a weekend, and adults buy the bolder version of themselves they get to be in Vegas.
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2003iPod Silhouettes
Faceless dancers let anyone picture themselves inside the outline, and the white earbuds became a badge worn even by people who never bought the player.
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2002Metamorfosis
Opens on a young man swarmed by women the instant he sprays, feeding a fantasy of irresistibility that the scent then carries far beyond him.
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2002Odyssey
Sends a couple bursting through wall after wall and up into the night sky, so the jeans stood for the unstoppable, unconstrained person viewers wanted to be.
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Beach, Bar, PoolClub 18-302002
Beach, Bar, Pool
Shows what really goes on during these holidays with a wink, flattering young readers who see themselves as up for exactly that kind of trip.
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Let's Motor.MINI USA (BMW Group)2002
Let's Motor (MINI USA launch)
Teaches Americans the British habit of 'motoring', giving a small car a way of life its buyers could adopt as their own and show off.
1990s
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1999Michael Power
Pairs the stout with an impeccably dressed action hero, so ordering a Guinness becomes a way of borrowing his cool, capable masculinity.
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1999Flat Eric (Sta-Prest)
Flat Eric's deadpan, unexplained cool became something to own, so buying Sta-Prest let people borrow the puppet's attitude.
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1997Think Different ("The Crazy Ones")
Salutes the misfits and rebels who change the world, flattering viewers into seeing themselves as one of the crazy ones, with Apple as their badge.
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1995Bob ("It's Party Time When Bob Drives")
Makes the friend who stays sober the hero of the night out instead of the spoilsport, so being Bob becomes something people want to be.
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1994Cricket (Kuch Khaas Hai)
Lets a grown woman act like a giddy child in public, inviting adults to see the chocolate as permission for the kid in everyone rather than a children's treat.
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Hello Boys.Wonderbra (Playtex)1994
Hello Boys
Shows a woman in charge of the joke rather than the butt of it, offering buyers a confident, playful version of themselves.
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1991Be Like Mike
Sells the dream of turning into Michael Jordan himself, so every fan who wished to play like him could buy a sip of that dream.
1980s
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1989Girlfriend ("If You Drink, Then Drive, You're a Bloody Idiot")
Brands anyone who drinks and drives a 'bloody idiot', a label few drivers would want to wear, and the blunt line kept stinging for decades.
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1988Just Do It (launch spot, "Walt Stack")
Launches with an 80-year-old runner crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn, telling ordinary people that anyone who makes the effort can count themselves an athlete.
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Smooth character.Camel (R.J. Reynolds Tobacco)1988
Joe Camel ("Smooth Character")
Sold smoking through a smirking camel in sunglasses, a smooth, cool persona that teenagers eager to seem cool recognised far more readily than adults.
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"I never read The Economist." Management trainee. Aged 42.The Economist1988
"I never read The Economist." Management trainee. Aged 42.
Mocks the non-reader so that anyone who does read The Economist gets to feel like the sharp high-flyer who is in on the joke.
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1987Spuds MacKenzie: The Original Party Animal
Billed as the Original Party Animal and already a cult on college campuses, Spuds let young drinkers see the beer as the mark of the life of the party.
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1986Don't Mess with Texas
Gives the young men who littered most a line of defiant Texan swagger to live up to, so not littering becomes part of being tough.
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1985Launderette
Nick Kamen's calm strip in a 1950s launderette sells the cool, confident man in the 501s, and buyers wanted to be him, not just own his jeans.
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1984Lalitaji
Makes buying Surf the mark of a sensible shopper, so careful homemakers could pay four times Nirma's price and still feel shrewd.
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1983Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk
Recasts taking a drunk friend's keys as what a true friend does, so stepping in becomes a way to live up to the loyal friend people want to be.
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1981Be All You Can Be
Recasts enlisting as a way to become your best self rather than a last resort, so joining spoke to the person young recruits hoped to become.
1970s
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Can West Wear East?Parco1979
Can West Wear East?
Shows no merchandise, only Faye Dunaway in Issey Miyake embracing two Japanese girls, offering young shoppers a bold, border-crossing outlook to adopt.
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1975Liril Girl (Waterfall)
Shows a carefree young woman splashing beneath a forest waterfall, and housewives who saw the daily bath as their only time to themselves glimpsed the free spirit they longed to be.
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1974Tastes Great, Less Filling
Casts retired athletes and gruff celebrities as light-beer drinkers, so men could order a diet product without feeling any less of a man.
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Chi mi ama mi segua.Jesus Jeans (Maglificio Calzificio Torinese)1973
Chi mi ama mi segua ("He who loves me, follows me")
Pairs scripture with provocation, and the Vatican paper's cry of blasphemy made the jeans a badge for young buyers who saw themselves as rebels.
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1971Because I'm Worth It
Lets a woman say she pays more because she's worth it, so buying the product becomes a declaration of self-respect that women were glad to claim as their own.
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1971You Deserve a Break Today
Tells overworked families they have earned a treat, so a burger stop becomes a reward that confirms they are hard-working people who deserve one.
1960s
1950s
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1959You're Never Alone with a Strand (The Lonely Man)
Asks smokers to see themselves as a lone man on a wet night street, and if he looked merely lonely few would want to be him, one reason offered for its failure.
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1957Does She... or Doesn't She?
Promises colour so natural that nobody can tell, letting women who saw themselves as respectable try a product that had seemed only for the artificial.
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Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country.Marlboro (Philip Morris)1955
The Marlboro Man
Puts a filter cigarette once sold to women as 'Mild as May' in the hands of a cowboy, so men could smoke it as a badge of rugged masculinity.
1940s
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I dreamed I went shopping in my Maidenform braMaidenform1949
I Dreamed I Went Shopping in My Maidenform Bra
Casts the wearer as a Dreamer who wins elections, fights fires or serves as an ambassador, letting women see a bolder version of themselves in an everyday purchase.
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1943We Can Do It!
A woman flexing her arm under a bold promise of strength gave later audiences a picture of the capable woman they wanted to be, and to wear on a T-shirt.
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1941Join the ATS ("The Blonde Bombshell")
Swaps the service's dowdy image for a glamorous young woman in the new cap and red lipstick, so enlisting looks like becoming the woman recruits wanted to be.
1930s
1920s
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Torches of FreedomLucky Strike (American Tobacco Company)1929
Torches of Freedom
Recasts a cigarette lit on Fifth Avenue as a torch of freedom, inviting women to smoke as a way of showing they saw themselves as men's equals.
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Nord ExpressNord Express (Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits and partner railways)1927
Nord Express
Places the viewer at track level beneath a machine built for speed, selling the trip as glamorous and modern, a journey for the traveller people longed to be.
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1923Somewhere West of Laramie
Writes the Playboy for a sun-browned Wyoming girl and draws it racing a horseman, selling readers the young, free person they wished to be.
1910s
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1919The Instrument of the Immortals
Ties the piano to the greatest names in music, so owning a Steinway let a buyer claim a place, however small, among the immortals.
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1915The Penalty of Leadership
Paints the leader in any field as envied and attacked, and readers who saw themselves as leaders took it personally, requesting reprints for some thirty years.
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1911A Skin You Love to Touch
Shows not the soap but the admired woman it might make you, and readers buy into the picture of themselves winning that attention.
1890s
Self-image: where it comes from
Research into consumer behaviour has long found that people prefer brands whose image fits how they see themselves, or how they would like to be seen (Sirgy, 1982).
In ads it shows up as brands that stand for a kind of person: the rebel, the athlete, the sophisticate, the free spirit.