The Ads We Never Forgot
The stories, ideas and moments behind the world’s most unforgettable advertising.
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Apple’s “Misunderstood”: The Christmas Ad That Won an Emmy by Changing How You Read a Teenager
A teenage boy spends his family’s Christmas gathering looking at his phone. Then the family sits down together and the film shows what he has been doing all along: he has recorded and edited a short film of the family’s holiday moments, all shot on his iPhone 5s. The ad was released late in 2013…
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Google’s “Reunion”: The 2013 Search Ad That Reunited Two Friends Across a Border
An old Punjabi man named Baldev tells his granddaughter, Suman, about his childhood in Lahore and his best friend Yusuf. The two boys were separated during the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, and he has not seen his friend since. Suman decides to find him, using Google Search to find the park, the old…
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Pepsi’s Cindy Crawford Ad: The 1992 Super Bowl Spot Built Around a New Can
A sports car pulls up at a dusty roadside cafe, and Cindy Crawford steps out in a white tank top and denim cutoffs. Two young boys watch as she buys a Pepsi from a vending machine, opens it and drinks. One of them says, “Is that a great new Pepsi can or what?” and a…
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Coca-Cola’s “Holidays Are Coming”: The 1995 Truck Ad That Became a Christmas Ritual
A line of Coca-Cola trucks covered in lights rolls through a snowy town. The ad first aired in 1995, and for many viewers it is the moment Christmas begins. In the UK, its yearly return is often treated as the unofficial start of the season. It was created by the agency W.B. Doner, and the…
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Chipotle’s “Back to the Start”: The Two-Minute Animated Film About a Farmer’s Change of Heart
A farmer builds his family farm into an industrial animal factory, and then sees the error of his ways and chooses a more sustainable future. That is the story of “Back to the Start,” a two-minute stop-motion film released by Chipotle in 2011. It was directed by the London-based director Johnny Kelly, with animation by…
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Amazon’s “Alexa Loses Her Voice”: The Super Bowl Ad That Replaced Alexa With Celebrities
What happens if Alexa cannot answer? Amazon’s answer, in its 2018 Super Bowl spot, was to let famous people try. A man asks for a grilled cheese recipe and gets a scolding from chef Gordon Ramsay. A dinner party asking to set the mood gets a suggestive answer from Rebel Wilson. A woman asking Alexa…