Industry
58 articles
HYUNDAI | COQUÍ ALARMED | 2026
Puerto Rico's car theft alarm sound turned out to be the call of the island's beloved frog. Once people realized it had been quietly borrowed, they were not happy about it.
HYUNDAI | TREE CORRESPONDENTS | 2025
Giving trees a voice sounds like a clever idea right off the bat. But what they actually did was the opposite: they simply made it possible for humans to hear what trees were already saying. Deforestation is one of the causes of global warming, yet it only gets 5% of climate coverage. So they made trees into "correspondents."
RENAULT | UN.PATENT | 2025
Renault opened up its patent for extinguishing electric vehicle fires for free, even to rival manufacturers. Instead of locking the technology away, as companies usually do, they let the whole thing go.
RENAULT | PLUG-INN | 2023
Is it an ad, or is it a business? Renault's "PLUG-INN" came to smash that whole line apart. It took the Grand Prix in the Creative Strategy category at Cannes Lions 2023.
BMW | NOTHING BUT SHEER JOY | 2022
Chinese Lunar New Year ads have a go-to formula: a long, tearjerking drama about family reunions. In 2022, BMW threw that formula out completely. Ninety seconds, relentlessly upbeat, without a single tear. Choosing not to make people cry actually takes real nerve.
FORD | VERY GAY RAPTOR | 2022
It all started with a single line of hate thrown at a YouTube video. Ford didn't demand an apology, and didn't delete it. Instead, they actually built the car.
トヨタモビリティパーツ | 連続10秒ドラマ「愛の停止線」SEASON2 | 2020
A 10-second commercial that somehow packs in a full story arc, complete with a product punchline at the end. And not just once, but as a whole series. You laugh, you want to see what happens next, and before you know it, you've remembered the product name.
TOYOTA | START YOUR IMPOSSIBLE | 2019
The car disappeared from Toyota's global campaign. What's shown instead: wheelchairs, robotic prosthetic legs, support robots. A car maker made an ad that doesn't show a car.
FIAT | Love Affair | 2017
A woman pauses in front of a puddle. Stepping out of her red 124 Spider, she realizes her high heels are about to get soaked. That's when the man parked next to her, driving a 500X, lays his jacket down over the puddle. Then his shirt. Then his jeans. Until he's down to just his underwear. And then comes that scene — the woman deliberately spills her coffee. His right eyebrow twitches up in a priceless expression.
BMW RUSSIA | ULTIMATE GIVING PLEASURE | 2017
For BMW's 100th anniversary, they built a dedicated free gate. And it wasn't only BMW owners who could pass through it.
トヨタ | Loving Eyes | 2016
A story about a father and daughter, released for Father's Day. Ads about fathers and daughters aren't exactly rare, but the turn it takes in the second half will definitely make you cry. The first half alone is pretty intense, but once the song starts playing in the girl's voice partway through, it's completely over for you.
Volvo Trucks | The Hamster Stunt | 2016
A 175-gram hamster takes the wheel of a 15-ton truck. The setting: a bumpy road right next to a cliff edge at a Spanish quarry.
smart | The Dancing Traffic Light | 2016
Waiting at a crosswalk is boring, so people cross on red anyway. smart figured: why not make the waiting itself fun?
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.
HONDA | 試す人になろう | 2015
This ad just seemed to appear out of nowhere. It runs 120 seconds, calmly showing people working at Honda's research facility, nothing more. And yet somehow it has this strange power to make you think, "I want to work here."
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.
三菱自動車 | Heart-Beat Motors | 2015
Cars that make your heart race, cars that make you excited. That's really the heart of it, isn't it—something that stirs your instincts. Honestly, I think it's fine for cars to be about that.
VOLVO | INTERCEPTION (The Greatest Interception Ever) | 2015
Hijacking the Super Bowl without paying the $4.5 million entry fee. The moment rivals poured $60 million into their own ad slots, Volvo was trending worldwide on Twitter. This is the Cannes Grand Prix winner.
AMERICAN HONDA MOTOR | PROJECT DRIVE IN | 2014
You need a car to go to a drive-in theater. That point is so obvious nobody ever says it out loud, but Honda took it seriously.
Volvo Trucks | The Epic Split feat. Van Damme (Live Test) | 2013
The moment Enya starts singing, my jaw dropped and I let out a tiny "whaaat" (I was in public, so I kept it quiet), and my mouth just stayed open until the end. This 75-second film, released in 11/2013, still hits just as hard today.
THE LINCOLN MOTOR COMPANY | HELLO AGAIN | 2013
A brand that had been around for 90 years decided to shed 90 years of being "your dad's car." The password was "Hello, Again." Nice to meet you, once more.
SPCA | DRIVING DOGS | 2013
Dogs driving a car. Sounds like a joke, but they actually pulled it off. To prove that shelter dogs are smart, they went this far.
SMART FORTWO | OFFROAD | 2013
A tiny car takes a spectacular tumble off-road. Instead of hiding what's normally seen as a flaw, this ad shows it off proudly, then drops one line at the end: "SMART is as useless off-road as an SUV is in the city." That shameless confidence is just great.
MERCEDES BENZ | THE INVISIBLE DRIVE | 2012
This piece won the Grand Prix in the Outdoor category at Cannes Lions in 2012, and the first time I saw it, I just went "wait, what?" A car that's transparent — what does that even mean? But it really is see-through. Literally.
VOLKSWAGEN | DON'T MAKE UP AND DRIVE | 2012
You're watching a tutorial on how to do your makeup, when suddenly you hear a car crash and the screen shakes. That's the one-minute video VOLKSWAGEN put out on YouTube in 2012.
MERCEDES BENZ | REUNION | 2012
The title is "REUNION." This Mercedes film was made in 2012 by BBDO Johannesburg in South Africa, and it won Gold.
TOYOTA | BACKSEAT DRIVER | 2012
A kid in the backseat who used to just whine "are we there yet?" now grips their own steering wheel inside an iPhone app that's linked by GPS to the real car. Boring travel time spent just tracing a parent's driving got turned into a whole game.
TOYOTA PRIUS | PRIUS GOES PLURAL | 2011
If there are more Priuses on the road, what do you call them? That question alone became an entire campaign. The answer wasn't found in the car—it was found in grammar.
VOLKSWAGEN | The Force | 2011
A kid dressed as Darth Vader racked up 15 million views on YouTube and became one of the most beloved ads in Super Bowl history.
CHEVROLET | Taxi Drivers' University | 2011
There are moments when an ad stops being an ad. This campaign is exactly that. Chevrolet in Colombia built a real university for taxi drivers.
TOYOTA | IQ FONT | 2010
A car writes letters with its tire tracks. And then those letters become an actual downloadable font. Launched from Belgium out to the world in 2010, this project showed people something they'd never seen before.
HYUNDAI | ASSURANCE | 2009
It was 2009, right after the Lehman shock. In a time when nobody was buying cars, Hyundai said something strange: "If you lose your job within a year, you can give this car back." It was a promise nobody in the industry had ever made.
BMW | THE KINETIC SCULPTURE FOR THE BMW MUSEUM | 2009
At the entrance of the BMW Museum, 714 metal spheres hang in mid-air. At first it looks like nothing at all. But wait seven minutes, and the shape of a car appears.
ホンダ | オデッセイ「いいクルマが好きだ。男ですから。」 | 2008
George Clooney just walks coolly through the streets of Milan. That's all it is, and yet it's absolutely captivating.
MINI | BOOST | 2008
In 2008, MINI won gold with a piece called "BOOST." Just from the title, you get the sense it's going to give you a push forward. But what it actually involved, I still don't quite know.
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.
MINI | MINI DOMINATRIX | 2006
Winter in Canada, 2006. Anyone who visited MINI's website was greeted by a dominatrix in leather. Click on each part of the car, and she'd "discipline" the MINI with a whip or a paddle while explaining its winter safety features. Kinky, bold, and impossible to forget.
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.
VOLVO | LIFE ON BOARD PROJECT | 2005
In 2005, Volvo made a car ad that stopped talking about cars. Just by letting people talk about their lives, it became the first ad ever to win a Titanium Lion at Cannes.
SAAB | INFINITE DRIVE | 2004
In 2004, back when internet connections were still slow, there was an ad that tried to create a drive that never ends.
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.
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.
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.
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.
VOLKSWAGEN | Surprisingly Ordinary Prices - Dentist | 1997
A dentist, hand still inside a patient's mouth, freezes with wide eyes. That single shot became part of British advertising history in the 90s.
MERCEDES E-CLASS | RHINOS | 1996
1996. The year the Mercedes E-Class debuted with a new face, there was an ad featuring a rhino. The title was "RHINOS." Pretty much says it all.
VOLKSWAGEN GROUP | LUNCH-BREAK | 1996
London, 1996. This was the era when Volkswagen was taking on the UK market around the theme of "affordability." The title is "LUNCH-BREAK." What happens during a lunch break? There's something in that humor and sharp eye for detail that feels distinctly BMP DDB Needham.
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.