Emotion
315 articles
BURGER KING | XBOX KING GAMES | 2007
Burger King's agency made three Xbox games. They sold them for $3.99 as an add-on to value meals. They sold 3.2 million copies. The company's quarterly profit went up 40%. This is the story of an ad agency that made a product instead of an ad, and made the company money.
GALITIA BANK | Lopetegui Deposit | 2007
Footage of former goalkeeper Lopetegui collapsing live on air somehow became a bank ad. And the fixed deposit product was even named the "Lopetegui Deposit." I just love this kind of thinking.
BUD LIGHT | Real Men of Genius - Mr. Hair Gel Over-Geller | 2007
In 2007, Bud Light went all-in on laughs with a radio spot. This is one entry from the legendary radio series "Real Men of Genius" — a gloriously dumb 60-second ad that goes all out praising a guy who uses way too much hair gel.
BUD LIGHT | Real Men of Genius - Mr. Hot Dog Eating Contest Contestant | 2007
In 2007, this radio spot from Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" series paid tribute to competitive hot dog eaters. DDB Chicago turned the sheer resolve it takes to eat 24 hot dogs in 12 minutes into a song that's both ridiculous and full of affection.
BUD LIGHT | Real Men of Genius - Mr. Really Loud Cell Phone Guy | 2007
In 2007, an absurdly epic '80s-rock-style song started playing on radio stations across America. "Today, we salute you... Mr. Really Loud Cell Phone Guy!" What on earth is this?
SMIRNOFF | TEA PARTAY | 2007
For a new product launch with no budget and no TV airtime, BBH chose a parody rap video instead. Within days of going live, it reached a million people.
BUDLIGHT | REAL MEN OF GENIUS | 2006
"Bud Light presents... Real Men of Genius." A radio ad series that barely mentioned beer at all ended up running for more than 200 episodes over ten years. And Bud Light still sold.
GUINNESS UDV | noitulovE | 2006
500 million years, rewound in 50 seconds. Three men have their first pint of Guinness in a pub. From there, we trace evolution backward.
BURGER KING | WHOPPERETTES | 2006
At the 2006 Super Bowl, BURGER KING had dancers dressed as lettuce, tomato, pickle, patty, and flame perform a Broadway-style musical number. Set to the "Have It Your Way" jingle, it's a spot where the burger's ingredients sing and dance for real.
HONDA | IMPOSSIBLE DREAM | 2006
This two-minute ad aired in the UK on December 2, 2005 (12/2). Set to Andy Williams's "The Impossible Dream," a man in a racing suit moves from one historic Honda vehicle to the next. The sequence gets wonderfully wild—he jumps off a waterfall in a boat and comes floating back out of the mist in a hot air balloon. It all ends with Garrison Keillor's voice saying "I couldn't have put it better myself," wrapping up a perfect two minutes.
STELLA ARTOIS | Ice Skating Priests | 2006
Monks skating on a frozen pond. A young one falls through the ice, and his fellow monks rush over—not to him, but to the beer. Just when you think they've pulled it to safety, they push it back under the ice again. Two minutes, black and white. By the end, all you can say is "oh, I got had."
VICTORIA BITTER | BOONIE | 2006
Buy a VB and you'd get a miniature figure of a real former cricket player delivered to your home, one that would start talking along with the TV broadcast. And they made 200,000 of them.
Sprite | Pragnienie nie ma szans (Strip Poker) | 2005
Losing your clothes in a bottle cap contest? What's that all about?
PLAYSTATION 2 | Fun, Anyone? | 2004
Not a single second of gameplay footage appears. And yet I've never seen an ad that feels this much like a game. In Brazil, 1,500 people built a human mountain, climbing it over and over, only to be knocked down again and again. At the end, just one line appears: "Fun, Anyone?"
VIRGIN | Warren | 2004
In 2004, young Australians fell hard for an "incredibly unappealing, single and desperate" dork. His name was Warren. Speaking straight to camera in dating-video style, he was all confidence and zero charm—and yet somehow, totally unlovable as he was, Warren wormed his way into youth culture and became a legendary character who pushed Virgin Mobile to its highest-ever market ranking.
CIVIC | Everyday | 2004
In 2003, Honda poured about 600 million yen into a single campaign, running three commercials at once. "Everyday" was the youngest of those three siblings.
NIKE | ANGRY CHICKEN | 2003
A young man, chased by an angry chicken, jumps, climbs, and scrambles his way across an entire city. The whole thing is shot like a nature documentary, narrated entirely in French. The setup is completely absurd, but every single move is real.
IKEA | Lamp (Unböring campaign) | 2003
In 2002, a lamp got thrown out onto the street. Sitting there in the rain, staring through a window at the shiny new lamp that replaced it, the whole scene was so pitiful, so painfully human, that it tugged at anyone watching. Then a man with a Swedish accent stepped into frame and said one line that would end up carved into advertising history.
REEBOK | Terry Tate, Office Linebacker | 2003
The moment it aired during the 2003 Super Bowl, all of America burst out laughing. A football linebacker patrols the office — the premise is completely insane, but the ad plays it dead straight, shot like a real documentary. It's one of those perfect pieces of work. The Reebok logo barely shows up. Not one pair of sneakers appears on screen. And yet it became one of the most memorable Super Bowl commercials of all time.
NIKE | STICKMAN | 2003
In 2003, a black stick figure stepped onto the pitch alongside Ronaldinho and started kicking a ball around. But it didn't stop there. It swallowed the ball whole, ripped off its own leg, and used it to take a shot. One wildly illegal-feeling move.
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.
ホットペッパー | アフレコCMシリーズ | 2002
There's a world here that I, not being from Kansai, could never have come up with on my own, and I deeply relate to that. But at the same time, I don't think this is something only a Kansai person could make—I think it's something only one genius, Takaaki Yamazaki, could have made.
ファンタ | ファンタ学園 先生シリーズ | 2002
These Fanta commercials aired from 2002 to 2004, featuring Dragon Sensei, DJ Sensei, Leather Jacket Sensei... A series that zeroed in hard on junior high and high schoolers—especially junior high kids—and perfected the art of being ridiculous (said as a compliment).
NIKE | TAG (Play campaign) | 2002
In a subway station, a man being chased dives onto a train. The doors close right on his pursuer's arm, just out of reach. Before you know it, the whole city seems to be caught up in one game of tag.
MAGNUM ICE CREAM | 7 DEADLY SINS: GIVE IN TO IT | 2002
Naming your ice cream after a sin, then boldly telling people to give in to it. This bold move by MAGNUM in 2002 was a massive hit in Australia, and it spread around the world.
BURNING HEART RECORDS | MILLENCOLIN BATTLE | 2002
In 2002, putting a CD into your computer launched a game. Looking closer, I was stunned. This was basically Guitar Hero, three years before Guitar Hero existed.
REEBOK | Escape The Sofa | 2002
A man stands up to go exercise, and his sofa attacks him. That's the whole story — and it won gold at Cannes.
FOX INTERNATIONAL | Regional Sports Campaign | 2001
A diver leaps off a cliff, but there's no water where the surface should be, and he slams into the ground. An athlete tries to catch a huge falling tree with his bare hands and gets crushed by it. Two drunk guys trading real punches. Blindfolded men fighting with clubs. Four completely insane ads, made to look exactly like real sports broadcasts, won the Grand Prix at Cannes.
KDDI | ポーター編 | 2001
This is from 2001, starring Etsushi Toyokawa and Ryo Kase. Even back in 2015 when I first wrote about this, I thought it "hasn't aged a bit," and watching it again now, it really still hasn't. The casting and everything else feels completely natural, with no sense of dating at all. I think that's one sign of a truly great piece of work.
MILKO | MUSIC MACHINE | 2001
Back in 2000, the web was still a quiet place. Most campaign sites were static HTML pages, and banners were just animated GIFs. Into that world, the Swedish dairy brand MILKO let loose a dancing cow.
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.
トヨタ | ファンカーゴ | 2000
This is a 2000 Toyota FunCargo commercial. It's built around a rapid-fire narration that crams in benefit after benefit, then lands on the line "Where I go and what I do is my own business" followed by the sound logo "Fun-Car-Go!" Despite being packed with information, it somehow doesn't feel annoying. This ad is now 18 years old (as of this writing), but the approach would still work perfectly well today.
NIKE | BEAUTIFUL | 2000
This NIKE ad is from 2000. The title is "BEAUTIFUL." Somehow, that title alone already tells you something.
TOYOTA | REAL DEALERS CAN'T JUMP | 2000
In 2000, this Toyota dealer ad won Gold at Cannes. Just from the title, you get the feeling there's another twist waiting for you.
NIKE | DRIVING RANGE | 2000
Tiger Woods just walks through a driving range, and one by one, the amateurs around him start hitting perfect swings. But the moment he leaves, everyone suddenly slices their shot. The gap alone is funny.
コンタクトのアイシティ | 透明人間 | 1999
In 1999, an ad with absolutely wild energy hit Japanese TV. It's 60 seconds of glasses-wearing guys who get their hands on an invisibility drug and go streaking through the city, completely naked. There's a suppository, floating glasses, and more ridiculous details than you can count — yet somehow it's hilarious, and somehow it makes perfect sense. A true classic.
日本テレビ | 日テレ営業中 | 1999
I remember watching this with a pretty detached, cynical eye, thinking: well, it's a TV station, so naturally it's open 24 hours. But this stunt with Hama-chan turned out to be amazing.
TOYOTA | BUGGER | 1999
Small accidents keep happening out on the farm, one after another, and each time someone - or even a dog - just mutters the word "bugger." That's the entire commercial. And yet, before it even aired, it had the client genuinely terrified.
FRANCE TELECOM | CUSTOMS | 1999
An ad made by France Telecom ahead of the 1998 World Cup. Set at a border customs checkpoint, it follows officers smuggling a soccer ball, with a "Goal!" ringing out over the phone. Football gets people talking.
LEVI STRAUSS & CO. | ID | 1999
In 1999, a yellow puppet took over the world. Riding in a beat-up blue car, bobbing its head to a techno beat. When the police pull them over, it shows its ID, just like that. Human or puppet, both totally normal. Nobody ever bothered explaining the absurdity of it all.
HOLLYWOOD VIDEO | DON | 1999
That movie-trailer voice crawls out from under the counter at a video rental store. One ad from Hollywood Video, 1999.
FOX NETWORK | BILLIARDS | 1998
Back in 1998, this 30-second spot ran with a simple premise: what if billiards were as physical as hockey?
FOX NETWORK | NHL on Fox - Better If It Were Hockey | 1998
This is an ad from 1998, back when FOX held the broadcast rights to the NHL. It shows footage of a squash match and then flatly declares, "This would be better if it were hockey" — the sheer boldness of that move is something else.
アコム | むじんくん チャント星人シリーズ | 1996
In 1996, a commercial appeared where aliens in a UFO would say "Want to stop by Earth?" and come down to borrow money from Acom. This series, which swept the nation with its catchy "La-la-la, Mujin-kun♪" phrase, was a shocking piece of work that turned the heavy subject of consumer loans into something light and casual with its sci-fi style.
NTTドコモ | ポケベル「はじめる」 | 1996
In 1996, a 15-year-old girl lying on an octopus slide in a park, humming a little tune, appeared on TVs across Japan. "I got a pager for my birthday," she said in a sweet, slightly lisping voice. Her name was Ryoko Hirosue, and this commercial turned her into an instant star.
日清食品 | カップヌードル麻婆・五目 | 1995
The second you hear "asabaa," your brain just goes "huh?" A female employee misreads "mapo" as "asabaa," confidently adds that it comes with a refined grandma, her boss explodes in anger, and reality snaps back. All packed into just 15 seconds.
PEPSI-COLA | INNER-TUBE | 1995
A boy wearing an inner tube at the beach is drinking a Pepsi through a straw. He sucks and sucks, trying to get every last drop — and ends up getting pulled into the bottle himself, tube and all. His little sister turns and says, "Mom, he did it again." This 60-second spot aired during the Super Bowl in 1995, and it hits you with a "wait, what?" before you're already laughing.
PEPSI-COLA | PLAYGROUND | 1994
In 1994, a commercial featuring basketball superstar Shaquille O'Neal interacting with a kid became the second most popular commercial in America. It also won a Gold Lion at Cannes. That 90s Pepsi feeling—celebrity, youth, and a dash of rebellion all mixed together. But I could barely find any articles that talk about the story behind this campaign.