876 articles · page 5 of 19
MAXELL | THE ISRAELITES | 1990
In 1990, the cassette tape was already on its way out. Losing to CDs on both sound quality and futuristic appeal, it had slipped to fifth place in the UK blank tape market. That's when Hitachi Maxell dropped this 30-second ad.
JOHN LEWIS | Monty the Penguin | 2015
Every November, the whole of Britain starts getting restless. That's because it's the season when John Lewis's Christmas ad arrives. The star of 2014 was a stuffed penguin named Monty. Why did this two-minute tale of friendship with a boy named Sam strike such a chord?
RONSON | COMET | 1967
In 1967, a quiet revolution was happening in the world of lighters.
NIKE | CITY CUP | 2011
Mexico, 2011. NIKE turned an entire city into its playing field with a campaign called "CITY CUP."
AXE | BOWLING | 2011
In 2011, an ad arrived from Argentina for AXE. The title: "BOWLING." That simplicity is what drew me in.
DEGIRO & UN WOMEN | Pink Chip | 2024
When a woman becomes CEO, the stock price drops 2 to 3%. According to Harvard researchers, the reason is bias against women. Even though companies led by women perform better in both earnings and stock performance, the stock still falls. A tool was created to fight back against this contradiction with data.
Apple | iPhone X | 2017
Set to a song that sounds a bit like Buruzon Chiemi, it's just one beautiful shot of the product after another. You could call it very Apple, and leave it at that—but this ad isn't even trying to make you want to buy the thing.
LVMH | THE PARTNERSHIP THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING | 2025
The Olympics doesn't let brands put logos in the competition areas. LVMH paid 150 million euros, and instead of placing a logo anywhere, it chose to become the Games themselves.
VOLKSWAGEN | FOUR HOURS | 2007
The title is simply "FOUR HOURS." Just that one phrase, a length of time sitting there on its own, with no hint of what those four hours were actually for. I honestly can't picture it. But that very bluntness is what makes it stick in my mind.
TIGO-UNE | THE PAYPHONE BANK | 2017
In Colombia, 8 million people don't have a bank account. Living on $3.5 a day, all they can do is hide their coins at home. In that country, TIGO-UNE turned payphones into banks, just as they were. The Grand Prix in Product Design wasn't given out for nothing.
ZOO ANTWERP | BABY ELEPHANT | 2010
An elephant's pregnancy, watched by an entire country. The ultrasound photos, the contractions, the moment of birth. This isn't really an ad—it's the story of everyone coming together to witness a new life.
Haraku Ramen | One Noodle | 2025
3.5 meters. That's the length of a single noodle. When I heard it described as "a noodle designed so you never have to hit pause," I couldn't help but laugh. This is a genuine love letter to gamers from an Indonesian ramen shop.
CARREFOUR | Black Supermarket | 2018
This isn't a supermarket ad. It's a lesson in how to pick a fight with the law.
ソニー | 新世代ウォークマン WM-501 | 1987
Looking at it again, this is a seriously great piece of work. The idea, the direction—everything about it is excellent. But at the same time, it's a little sad to think that even a masterpiece like this had to work in a line about the "EX Amorphous Head."
Honda | 負けるもんか | 2015
"Effort doesn't pay off. Dreams don't come true. So what?" I still remember how many people this corporate ad moved when it came out. In just 60 seconds, it lines up generations of Honda cars and motorcycles at Twin Ring Motegi, and through them, the spirit of Soichiro Honda comes through as one powerful message.
サントリー ペプシコーラ | イチローダンス | 2002
The finest product of Japanese baseball crossed the ocean in 2001, and the next year he was first in All-Star voting, won the batting title, the stolen base title, and MVP—so perfect it was almost anticlimactic. Riding that wave of success, this commercial started airing in February 2002. Brian Setzer's rockabilly blasts at full volume while Americans dance wildly, imitating Ichiro's famous batting routine.
クラシエホームプロダクツ | 日本の四季 | 2023
A camera slowly circles a cherry tree as the seasons pass by. There's a commercial that took over 80 days to shoot, all for this one tree. The moment I heard about the plan, I thought, "This is going to be tough" — and I found myself admiring the trust it took to actually pull it off.
ALPHAGO | AlphaGo | 2016
Seoul, March 2016. The world's strongest Go player, Lee Sedol, faced off against Google's Go-playing AI, AlphaGo, in a five-game match. Go had long been called a game AI could never solve. In just five days, that belief was turned upside down.
KRUNGSRI FIRST CHOICE | WHAT THE FAST! | 2024
Making up with a partner. Talking your dad into something. Apologizing to your boss. The most awkward conversations in life, wrapped up in the split second two motorbikes pass each other. Three 15-second films built on that idea won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions.
BEATS BY DRE | You Love Me | 2020
"You love Black culture. But do you love us?" In November 2020, Beats asked that question in a two-minute film.
ERRATA AT 88 - | Errata at 88 | 2024
In 1962, a legendary concert at Carnegie Hall introduced bossa nova to the world. One of its founders, Alaíde Costa, wasn't on that stage. Now 88 years old, she finally got to stand there.
KPN | EVERT_45 | 2018
What if a boy living in 1945 had filmed vlogs just like kids do today? KPN actually turned that idea into real posts on YouTube and Instagram.
PURINA | STREET-VET | 2019
Make a sign that dogs can't resist peeing on, then use that pee to check their health. Sounds absurd written out, but it actually makes perfect sense.
COCA COLA | HAPPY ID | 2014
Turning the photo on your ID card into an ad campaign. And then actually building it into a national system. This campaign, which won the Grand Prix in the Media category at the 2014 Cannes Lions, expanded what we even mean by "media."
JEEP | Snow Covered | 1994
It's 1994, and for 30 seconds something moves through a landscape buried in snow. The vehicle itself never once appears on screen. And yet everyone watching thought, "Ah, that's a Jeep." This is the ad that became the first car commercial ever to win the Grand Prix at Cannes, and even 30 years later, it hasn't lost an ounce of its power.
WIKIFARMER | The Wedding Rice | 2026
At more than 50,000 weddings a year in Greece, rice gets thrown at the bride and groom. Did you know that rice used to be rice that was perfectly edible, but got thrown away instead?
GOOGLE | Voice Search | 2012
In 2012, more than 150 oddly spelled billboards popped up on the streets of London. Outside subway stations, mysterious strings of letters that looked like station names. Outside a stadium, something like "ley-tist-skohrz." Read them out loud, and suddenly they make sense. This was an ad for Google's voice search.
CHEVROLET | TRUCK EGG TEST | 1963
In 1963, Chevrolet won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Their fourth win in five years. They hung eggs from a truck, drove it over rough roads, and the eggs didn't break. That was the whole ad.
UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY FUND | Have a Cigar | 1969
A husband holds out a cigar to his newborn baby. It looks like a casual gesture, but hidden in it is a story about cerebral palsy. This is Have a Cigar, Grand Prix winner at the 1969 Cannes Lions.
CERAVE | Michael CeraVe | 2024
Roping in an actor whose name just happens to sound similar, growing fake news across the whole country for three weeks, then revealing the truth at the Super Bowl. This is completely unhinged (the highest compliment). The client, Michael Cera, and the 450 influencers who jumped on board - everyone involved is out of their minds.
TRANSPORT ACCIDENT COMMISSION | BEACH ROAD | 1991
A road safety ad from Australia, made in 1991. I watched it for the first time in 2024, and it sent a chill down my spine. The footage is over 30 years old, but that scream hasn't aged a day. Human screams, it turns out, don't come with an expiration date.
THE BIG ISSUE & LINKEDIN | Raising Profiles | 2020
A homeless magazine seller signs up for LinkedIn. As a response to the pandemic, you couldn't ask for a more logical idea.
MICROSOFT | Halo 3: Believe - John 117 Monument | 2008
It's an ad for a video game, but no game footage shows up anywhere in it. All you get is an old soldier recalling memories of war, and a massive 110-square-meter battlefield diorama. This ad treated Halo 3 like it was a real war.
AXE | AXE 3 | 2007
In 2007, an ad out of Buenos Aires won the Grand Prix at Cannes. In the deodorant market, it pulled off something that shouldn't have been possible: 1+1=3.
UNICEF | TAP PROJECT | 2007
Esquire magazine challenged the creatives it named to its "Best and Brightest" list to build a brand using just one page of the magazine. What David Droga came up with wasn't an ad at all — it was a mechanism that changed the world.
WOWOW | WOWOWに入りましょう。 | 2017
"♪Should I join the hmm-hmm-hmm~" Yuya Yagira hums to himself on a train platform, and the lyrics are so mysterious that Kasumi Arimura can't help but call out to him. I've been watching this series for a while, but thinking about it again, this really is a celebrity commercial, isn't it.
VOLVO | LIFEPAINT | 2015
All they did was hand out cans of paint, and it brought home two Cannes Grand Prix. This is the story of a reflective spray Volvo made for cyclists in 2015.
GOOGLE | Creatability | 2019
Moving your face to make music. Drawing a picture by listening to sound. Turning your whole body into an instrument. This wasn't a tool made for people with disabilities—it was an experiment that asked, "What do we even mean by creativity?"
UN WOMEN | THE AUTOCOMPLETE TRUTH | 2014
Type "women should" into Google's search box, and it fills in the rest with words of discrimination. This wasn't any one person's opinion—it was the answer pulled straight from everyone's search history.
BUDWEISER | WASSUP | 2000
60 seconds of friends shouting "WHASSUUUP!?" into the phone at each other. When this commercial aired during Monday Night Football in 1999, it somehow turned into a greeting used all over the world.
NIKE | DREAM CRAZY | 2019
A man kneeling became the face of the world's biggest sports brand. An ad that gets people burning Nike products and rushing out to buy new ones at the very same time? That doesn't happen often.
XBOX | THE BIRTH OF GAMING TOURISM | 2020
Game ads are usually about weapons and heroes. Xbox decided to sell its games as a "tourist destination" instead. You've got to applaud the sheer craziness of that.
KOREAN NATIONAL POLICE AGENCY | Knock Knock | 2023
Inspired by Morse code, this emergency reporting system lets people ask for help without saying a word. Just tap the screen, and the police know where you are. It's the first change to Korea's emergency reporting system in 65 years — the sound of a knock.
APPLE | RELAX, IT'S IPHONE: R.I.P. LEON | 2023
The lizard you're watching isn't moving. Worst case scenario, it's dead... wait, it's alive! That thirty-second swing from despair to joy lines up perfectly with iOS 16's "undo send" message feature.
MAXELL | INTO THE VALLEY | 1990
In 1990, cassette tapes were losing ground fast to CDs. MAXELL and HHCL's answer wasn't to explain sound quality—it was to talk about misheard lyrics.
HEINEKEN | SHUTTER ADS | 2020
In 2020, the pandemic forced bars to pull down their shutters. The lights went out across the city. So why not put those shutters to work bringing the light back?
PERRIER | LE LION ET LA LIONNE | 1991
This film won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1991, and it's still the only French film ever to win the Film Grand Prix. 28 years later, it's remembered by one in two French people, and in 2019 it was voted the greatest ad of all time by the magazine Stratégies. That's how far a water ad can go.
NISSIN FOOD | hungry? | 1993
At the Cannes festival, someone shouted "Hungry!" In 1993, Moa and Synthetoceras won the Grand Prix together, two films at once. Even across 60 years of Cannes, it's one of the legendary moments.