31 Ad Campaigns That Changed How Products Sold
Most advertising is forgotten within a season. A small number of campaigns instead became so embedded in culture that people who never saw the original ads can still recite the tagline, proof that a good enough idea can outlive the media buy that launched it.
Got Milk?
Launched by the California Milk Processor Board in 1993, the campaign never tried to sell milk directly, instead showing the discomfort of running out of it at the worst possible moment, most famously in ads featuring a peanut butter sandwich with no liquid to wash it down. The “milk mustache” print spin-off followed soon after, featuring celebrities photographed with a visible milk mark above the lip. The tagline became so recognizable that it was widely parodied across unrelated products for decades afterward.
Think Small (Volkswagen)
DDB’s 1959 campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle broke sharply with the era’s convention of showing large cars in glamorous settings, instead using a small photo of the car surrounded by white space and blunt, self-deprecating copy. The approach ran directly against Detroit’s bigger-is-better messaging at a moment when compact imported cars were still a hard sell to American buyers. It is regularly cited by advertising historians as one of the campaigns that established modern minimalist print advertising.
Absolut Vodka Bottle Campaign
Starting in the early 1980s, Absolut built a decades-long campaign entirely around stylized images of its distinctive bottle shape, collaborating with artists and photographers to reimagine the bottle in thousands of different visual contexts. The approach turned the packaging itself into the central creative asset rather than a backdrop for lifestyle imagery. It helped an until-then minor Swedish vodka brand become one of the best-selling imported vodkas in the United States.
Just Do It (Nike)
Nike introduced the “Just Do It” tagline in 1988, at a time when the company was facing new competition and needed a unifying message across a wide range of sports and athletes. The three words were reportedly inspired by the final statement of a condemned man before his execution, according to the ad executive who wrote the line, though Nike has offered varying accounts of its origin over the years. The slogan became one of the most recognized taglines in advertising history and remains in use today.
A Diamond Is Forever (De Beers)
Written by copywriter Frances Gerety for the N.W. Ayer agency in 1947, the line helped cement the idea that an engagement ring should be a diamond, and specifically one that is never resold. The campaign is widely credited with normalizing the modern expectation that an engagement ring purchase should represent a set proportion of a buyer’s income. Advertising Age later named it the top advertising slogan of the twentieth century.
Real Beauty (Dove)
Dove’s 2004 campaign used photographs of non-professional models with a range of body types instead of conventional fashion models, positioned explicitly against the beauty industry’s usual imagery. The approach was unusual for a personal care brand at the time and generated significant media coverage on its own. It has since been revisited and expanded numerous times, becoming one of the most studied examples of brand purpose-driven advertising.
The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (Old Spice)
Old Spice’s 2010 campaign, built around actor Isaiah Mustafa delivering rapid-fire, surreal monologues in a single continuous shot, was designed to appeal to the women who often purchase men’s grooming products rather than to men directly. The ad’s viral success online, including personalized video responses posted during a live social media push, made it an early benchmark for how a television campaign could extend into internet culture. Sales of the product line reportedly rose sharply in the months following the launch.
1984 (Apple)
Directed by Ridley Scott and aired during the Super Bowl in January 1984, Apple’s ad for the original Macintosh depicted a dystopian, Orwellian society disrupted by a lone runner smashing a screen showing a Big Brother figure. The ad aired nationally only once during the game itself, a scarcity that helped drive enormous news coverage afterward. It is frequently cited as the moment the Super Bowl became a major venue for high-concept brand advertising rather than just product spots.
Think Different (Apple)
Returning to Apple in 1997 after his ouster years earlier, Steve Jobs oversaw the “Think Different” campaign, which featured black-and-white portraits of historical figures like Albert Einstein and Amelia Earhart with no product shown at all. The campaign was built around identity and values rather than technical specifications, a departure from Apple’s earlier feature-focused advertising. It is often pointed to as the start of Apple’s modern brand-first advertising approach.
Share a Coke (Coca-Cola)
Coca-Cola’s 2011 campaign, first launched in Australia before expanding internationally, replaced the brand’s logo on bottles with common first names, encouraging customers to find and share a bottle with their own name or a friend’s. The personalization strategy required a significant retooling of bottling and labeling infrastructure to print hundreds of different names. The campaign is regularly cited as an early large-scale example of mass personalization in consumer packaged goods.
I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke
Coca-Cola’s 1971 “Hilltop” ad featured a multinational group of young people singing together on a hillside in Italy, built around a message of unity during a period of significant social division in the United States. The jingle was later reworked into a standalone pop song that charted independently of the advertisement. It remains one of the most frequently referenced examples of an ad campaign generating its own hit single.
Where’s the Beef? (Wendy’s)
Wendy’s 1984 commercial featured an elderly actress examining a competitor’s oversized bun and comically undersized patty, delivering the line that became an instant catchphrase. The phrase spread well beyond advertising, even appearing in that year’s presidential primary debates as shorthand for questioning substance behind a proposal. The ad is frequently cited in advertising history as proof that a single line of dialogue can outlive the campaign that produced it.
Whassup? (Budweiser)
Budweiser’s 1999 campaign, built around a group of friends greeting each other with an exaggerated shout of “Whassup,” originated from an earlier short film before being adapted into a series of commercials. The phrase was widely repeated and parodied across television and early internet culture within months of its debut. It won a Grand Prix award at the Cannes International Advertising Festival and is regularly cited as an example of an ad line escaping into everyday slang.
The California Raisins
Introduced in 1986, the California Raisin Advisory Board’s claymation ads featured a group of anthropomorphic raisins performing to a cover of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” The characters proved popular enough to spin off into their own merchandise line, television specials, and a short-lived music career independent of the raisin marketing itself. The campaign remains a frequently cited example of advertising characters becoming more culturally prominent than the product they were created to sell.
Does She… or Doesn’t She? (Clairol)
Clairol’s 1956 campaign for its home hair color line used the suggestive question to imply that a well-done dye job could be indistinguishable from natural hair color. The ads deliberately avoided explicit confirmation, letting the ambiguity itself become the hook. The campaign is credited with substantially increasing the share of American women who colored their hair at home rather than viewing the practice as something to hide.
We Try Harder (Avis)
Facing a large gap in market share against rental car leader Hertz, Avis launched its “We Try Harder” campaign in 1962, openly acknowledging its position as the industry’s number two. The strategy of embracing rather than hiding a competitive weakness was unusual for the period and became a widely studied case in positioning theory. Avis reported a swing from losses to profitability within a year of the campaign’s debut.
Plop Plop Fizz Fizz (Alka-Seltzer)
Alka-Seltzer’s jingle, built around the sound of two tablets dropped into a glass of water, became one of the most recognized advertising sounds of the 1960s. The company also ran a related series of comedic overindulgence ads showing characters regretting a large meal, reinforcing the product’s use case through humor rather than medical claims. The jingle has remained in cultural use as a shorthand reference well beyond its original broadcast run.
Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand (M&M’s)
M&M’s built its identity around this promise starting in the 1950s, directly addressing the candy’s actual product advantage, a hard sugar shell that kept the chocolate from melting on contact with skin. The line tied a specific manufacturing feature directly to the brand’s core message rather than relying on abstract lifestyle imagery. It remains one of the longest continuously used taglines in American advertising.
The Energizer Bunny
Introduced in 1989 as a parody of a competitor’s battery commercial, the pink drumming rabbit that simply would not stop became Energizer’s mascot for decades, with the “keeps going and going” tagline directly demonstrating battery longevity through the joke itself. The character occasionally broke into unrelated fake commercials mid-broadcast, a format twist that was novel for its time. The bunny has remained in Energizer’s marketing far longer than most advertising mascots survive.
Air Jordan Launch Campaign (Nike)
Nike’s 1985 launch of the Air Jordan line, built around basketball player Michael Jordan, paired intriguing advertising, including ads acknowledging the shoes had been fined by the league for violating uniform rules, with a product design distinct from other basketball shoes on the market. The campaign helped establish athlete-driven sneaker marketing as a dominant model still used across the industry today. Air Jordan remains one of the most commercially successful athletic footwear lines ever created.
The Pepsi Challenge
Starting in 1975, Pepsi’s campaign filmed ordinary consumers taking blind taste tests between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, with the ads highlighting cases where participants preferred Pepsi. The format directly challenged a rival by name in a way that was still relatively uncommon in mainstream advertising at the time. The campaign is frequently cited in marketing courses alongside later research on how blind taste preference differs from branded preference.
Levi’s Launderette Ad
A 1985 UK television ad for Levi’s 501 jeans, featuring model Nick Kamen undressing to wash his jeans in a launderette set to a 1960s soul track, drove a dramatic spike in sales of both the jeans and the featured song, which reentered the charts after the ad aired. The commercial is often cited as an early example of a brand successfully reviving interest in a decades-old piece of music through advertising placement alone. Levi’s ran several follow-up ads using a similar retro-soundtrack formula in the years after.
British Airways “Face” Ad
Saatchi & Saatchi’s 1989 commercial for British Airways used thousands of extras arranged from an aerial view to form a giant human face, intended to represent the airline’s global reach and the idea that the world was, in the ad’s words, coming together. The elaborate physical production was unusual in scale for an airline ad at the time. It remains a frequently referenced example of large-scale, logistically ambitious advertising production from the period.
Guinness “Surfer” Ad
Directed by Jonathan Glazer in 1999, the “Surfer” ad depicted men riding enormous waves shaped like white horses, set to a cover of Leftfield’s “Phat Planet,” and made no direct reference to the beer’s taste or ingredients at all. The ad’s cinematic, almost art-house style was unusual for beer advertising at the time and won numerous industry awards. It is frequently ranked among the most acclaimed television commercials ever produced in the United Kingdom.
Chanel No. 5 and Marilyn Monroe
Chanel’s association with Marilyn Monroe grew out of a 1952 interview in which the actress, asked what she wore to bed, answered simply that it was a few drops of Chanel No. 5. The brand referenced the quote in advertising for decades afterward without needing to hire Monroe directly for a formal campaign during her lifetime. The connection remains one of the most enduring examples of a single off-hand celebrity remark shaping a brand’s identity for generations.
Yo Quiero Taco Bell
Taco Bell’s late-1990s campaign featured a talking Chihuahua delivering the Spanish-language catchphrase, becoming one of the most recognized fast-food mascots of the era almost immediately after its 1997 debut. The character generated significant merchandise sales and cultural references well beyond the restaurant chain itself. The campaign eventually ended following a lawsuit over the character’s origin, but the catchphrase remained widely recognized for years afterward.
Don’t Leave Home Without It (American Express)
American Express introduced the tagline in 1975, initially in ads featuring well-known personalities explaining that they carried the card specifically for situations where cash or recognition might not be enough. The framing positioned the card as a form of security and preparedness rather than simply a payment method. The line remained part of American Express advertising for decades and is still widely recognized as shorthand for the brand.
Bo Knows (Nike)
Nike’s 1989 campaign for cross-training shoes featured athlete Bo Jackson, who played professionally in two major sports, humorously demonstrating skill across a range of unrelated activities before a punchline delivered by a musician. The ad helped popularize the cross-training shoe category by tying the product directly to Jackson’s rare two-sport credibility. It remains a frequently cited example of using an athlete’s specific, unusual biography as the entire creative concept.
You’re Not You When You’re Hungry (Snickers)
Snickers launched the campaign in 2010, built around ads showing celebrities standing in for a hungry, irritable friend until a Snickers bar restores them to their normal selves. The format proved flexible enough to run internationally with local celebrities substituted for each market. The campaign has continued in various forms for well over a decade, unusually long for a single creative concept in fast-moving consumer advertising.
Like a Girl (Always)
Always launched “Like a Girl” in 2014, reframing a common playground insult by contrasting how young girls before puberty and older participants after puberty responded to being asked to run or fight “like a girl.” The ad aired during the Super Bowl and generated substantial discussion about gendered language beyond the product category itself. It won a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions advertising festival and is frequently studied as an example of cause-oriented advertising for a legacy product category.
Have It Your Way (Burger King)
Burger King introduced the tagline in 1974, built around the promise of a customizable order at a time when fast-food menus were largely standardized and non-negotiable. The positioning directly contrasted with the more uniform ordering process associated with its largest competitor. The slogan remained in use for decades and helped define the chain’s identity around flexibility rather than speed or price alone.
Advertising That Outlasted the Product Cycle
What separates these campaigns from the thousands that vanished after a single fiscal quarter is not bigger budgets, though many did have them. It is that each one gave the audience something to repeat, a phrase, a sound, or an image, that worked independently of the moment it was created to sell.
That is also why so many of them are remembered more clearly than the products themselves. Ask someone to describe the specific features of a 1962 rental car or a 1985 pair of jeans, and most people cannot. Ask them to finish the tagline, and a surprising number still can.
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