Top 10 Advertising Campaigns So Iconic They Made Their Brands Immortal

Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 to find it 90 days from bankruptcy. The "Think Different" campaign — featuring black-and-white portraits of Einstein, Gandhi, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, and Amelia Earhart over Richard Dreyfuss reading "the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers" — did not show a single Apple product. It sold an identity. "Think Different" told creative people, rebels, and anyone who felt different that Apple was for them. Within a year, Apple was profitable. The iMac launched six months later. The campaign is credited with beginning one of the greatest corporate recoveries in business history.

"Got Milk?" launched in California in 1993 and became one of the most recognized advertising campaigns in American history within three years. The campaign reversed a decades-long decline in California milk consumption by 1.07% in its first year — the first increase in a decade. Licensed nationally, "Got Milk?" featuring celebrities with milk mustaches ran in virtually every major U.S. magazine for 20 years. The campaign's genius: it didn't promote milk's benefits — it created a fear of not having milk when you needed it. The "Aaron Burr" television spot, showing a man unable to answer a radio trivia question because his mouth was full of peanut butter and he had no milk, is considered one of the greatest single ads ever made.

Marlboro was initially marketed as a women's cigarette, with a red filter tip designed to hide lipstick stains. In 1954, Philip Morris repositioned it around the "Marlboro Man" — a rugged Western cowboy embodying freedom, masculinity, and the American frontier. Marlboro went from a 1% market share to the world's best-selling cigarette within a decade, eventually commanding a 38% share of the global premium cigarette market. The campaign is the most commercially successful repositioning in advertising history, though it is also the most ethically complex — the Marlboro Man helped addict hundreds of millions of people to a product that killed roughly half of them.

Unilever's Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" launched in 2004 with billboards showing non-model women and asking passersby to vote: "fat or fit? Wrinkled or wonderful?" The campaign challenged the beauty industry's use of impossibly perfect models while competing against brands that had built fortunes on precisely that strategy. Dove's global sales grew from $2.5 billion to $4 billion in the three years following the campaign launch. The "Evolution" viral video — showing a real woman transformed into a billboard model through lighting, makeup, and Photoshop in a time-lapse — generated 40 million views before YouTube had 40 million viewers. It changed the conversation about beauty standards in advertising permanently.

Coca-Cola replaced its iconic logo on bottles with 250 of Australia's most common names, inviting consumers to "Share a Coke" with someone. The campaign ran first in Australia in 2011 and increased Coca-Cola's Australian sales by 7% — reversing a decade of declining consumption among young adults. Rolled out globally between 2013-2014, Share a Coke was one of the first campaigns to systematically exploit the power of personalization and social sharing simultaneously. The hashtag #ShareACoke generated over 500,000 social posts within a month of U.S. launch. The campaign proved that even a 125-year-old brand could be made to feel personal and relevant to digital natives.

Apple's "1984" commercial, directed by Ridley Scott and aired exactly once during Super Bowl XVIII, is the most celebrated single advertisement in history. Shot like a dystopian film, it showed a heroic woman hurling a sledgehammer to destroy the oppressive conformity of Big Brother — IBM, implied. The ad introduced the Macintosh to America without showing the computer. It was pulled by Apple's board before airing; Steve Jobs defied them and aired it anyway. The commercial generated $150 million in Macintosh orders in the following days. It invented the concept of the Super Bowl ad as cultural event and set the standard for technology company storytelling that every competitor has tried to replicate since.

Avis was the second-largest car rental company in 1962 and losing money. Their advertising agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, convinced Avis to admit they were #2 — and argue that being second made them better: "When you're only No. 2, you try harder. Or else." The campaign was the first major advertising campaign to acknowledge a brand's weakness as a strength. Avis went from losing $3.2 million in 1962 to profiting $1.2 million in 1963. Market share increased from 11% to 35% within four years. "We Try Harder" demonstrated that honesty, correctly framed, could be the most powerful advertising strategy available.

A 50-inch bronze statue of a girl standing defiant in front of the Wall Street Bull appeared on March 7, 2017 — International Women's Day Eve. Commissioned by State Street Global Advisors to promote their Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE), "Fearless Girl" became the most photographed spot in New York City within days. The installation won every major Cannes Lions Grand Prix, the most prestigious advertising award in the world, including the inaugural Glass Lion for gender equality. State Street's SHE ETF saw its assets under management increase 384% following the campaign, and the statue became a permanent fixture of New York City's Financial District.

Dos Equis was a minor Mexican import beer with 1% U.S. market share when its "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign launched in 2006. Jonathan Goldsmith as the suave, silver-bearded adventurer with a rotating series of impossibly accomplished exploits ("He can speak French... in Russian," "He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt") became a genuine cultural phenomenon and early meme template. Dos Equis sales grew 22% in 2007 while the overall import beer market shrank. By the campaign's peak, Dos Equis was the fastest-growing import beer in America. The character is still used as an internet meme format years after the campaign retired him.

Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 to find it 90 days from bankruptcy. The "Think Different" campaign — featuring black-and-white portraits of Einstein, Gandhi, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, and Amelia Earhart over Richard Dreyfuss reading "the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers" — did not show a single Apple product. It sold an identity. "Think Different" told creative people, rebels, and anyone who felt different that Apple was for them. Within a year, Apple was profitable. The iMac launched six months later. The campaign is credited with beginning one of the greatest corporate recoveries in business history.

"Got Milk?" launched in California in 1993 and became one of the most recognized advertising campaigns in American history within three years. The campaign reversed a decades-long decline in California milk consumption by 1.07% in its first year — the first increase in a decade. Licensed nationally, "Got Milk?" featuring celebrities with milk mustaches ran in virtually every major U.S. magazine for 20 years. The campaign's genius: it didn't promote milk's benefits — it created a fear of not having milk when you needed it. The "Aaron Burr" television spot, showing a man unable to answer a radio trivia question because his mouth was full of peanut butter and he had no milk, is considered one of the greatest single ads ever made.

Marlboro was initially marketed as a women's cigarette, with a red filter tip designed to hide lipstick stains. In 1954, Philip Morris repositioned it around the "Marlboro Man" — a rugged Western cowboy embodying freedom, masculinity, and the American frontier. Marlboro went from a 1% market share to the world's best-selling cigarette within a decade, eventually commanding a 38% share of the global premium cigarette market. The campaign is the most commercially successful repositioning in advertising history, though it is also the most ethically complex — the Marlboro Man helped addict hundreds of millions of people to a product that killed roughly half of them.

Unilever's Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" launched in 2004 with billboards showing non-model women and asking passersby to vote: "fat or fit? Wrinkled or wonderful?" The campaign challenged the beauty industry's use of impossibly perfect models while competing against brands that had built fortunes on precisely that strategy. Dove's global sales grew from $2.5 billion to $4 billion in the three years following the campaign launch. The "Evolution" viral video — showing a real woman transformed into a billboard model through lighting, makeup, and Photoshop in a time-lapse — generated 40 million views before YouTube had 40 million viewers. It changed the conversation about beauty standards in advertising permanently.

Coca-Cola replaced its iconic logo on bottles with 250 of Australia's most common names, inviting consumers to "Share a Coke" with someone. The campaign ran first in Australia in 2011 and increased Coca-Cola's Australian sales by 7% — reversing a decade of declining consumption among young adults. Rolled out globally between 2013-2014, Share a Coke was one of the first campaigns to systematically exploit the power of personalization and social sharing simultaneously. The hashtag #ShareACoke generated over 500,000 social posts within a month of U.S. launch. The campaign proved that even a 125-year-old brand could be made to feel personal and relevant to digital natives.

Apple's "1984" commercial, directed by Ridley Scott and aired exactly once during Super Bowl XVIII, is the most celebrated single advertisement in history. Shot like a dystopian film, it showed a heroic woman hurling a sledgehammer to destroy the oppressive conformity of Big Brother — IBM, implied. The ad introduced the Macintosh to America without showing the computer. It was pulled by Apple's board before airing; Steve Jobs defied them and aired it anyway. The commercial generated $150 million in Macintosh orders in the following days. It invented the concept of the Super Bowl ad as cultural event and set the standard for technology company storytelling that every competitor has tried to replicate since.

Avis was the second-largest car rental company in 1962 and losing money. Their advertising agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach, convinced Avis to admit they were #2 — and argue that being second made them better: "When you're only No. 2, you try harder. Or else." The campaign was the first major advertising campaign to acknowledge a brand's weakness as a strength. Avis went from losing $3.2 million in 1962 to profiting $1.2 million in 1963. Market share increased from 11% to 35% within four years. "We Try Harder" demonstrated that honesty, correctly framed, could be the most powerful advertising strategy available.

A 50-inch bronze statue of a girl standing defiant in front of the Wall Street Bull appeared on March 7, 2017 — International Women's Day Eve. Commissioned by State Street Global Advisors to promote their Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE), "Fearless Girl" became the most photographed spot in New York City within days. The installation won every major Cannes Lions Grand Prix, the most prestigious advertising award in the world, including the inaugural Glass Lion for gender equality. State Street's SHE ETF saw its assets under management increase 384% following the campaign, and the statue became a permanent fixture of New York City's Financial District.

Dos Equis was a minor Mexican import beer with 1% U.S. market share when its "Most Interesting Man in the World" campaign launched in 2006. Jonathan Goldsmith as the suave, silver-bearded adventurer with a rotating series of impossibly accomplished exploits ("He can speak French... in Russian," "He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it felt") became a genuine cultural phenomenon and early meme template. Dos Equis sales grew 22% in 2007 while the overall import beer market shrank. By the campaign's peak, Dos Equis was the fastest-growing import beer in America. The character is still used as an internet meme format years after the campaign retired him.