The Most Creative Ads of All Time: A Guided Tour From Wartime Posters to the AI Era

The most creative ads of all time include a 1917 recruitment poster that pointed straight at the viewer, a 1960 print ad that made a tiny car look brave, a 1984 computer launch spot that aired nationally once, a 2003 car-maker film built from a single chain reaction of parts, and a 2012 live-streamed jump from the edge of space. Each one changed what people thought an ad could be.

This guide walks you through those landmark ads era by era: posters, 1970s TV, 1980s launch spots, 2000s single-take films, digital and interactive work, and the AI era. For every ad you get the year, the format, the idea, why it worked, and the lesson you can apply to a 15 to 30 second video ad today. We'll describe each ad by its idea rather than its advertiser, and you'll recognize most of them within a sentence.

What makes an ad one of the most creative of all time?

There is no single official list. Rankings vary by source: trade magazines run reader polls, award shows rank by trophies, and some lists come from expert juries of creative directors. One widely shared 2022 poll of readers and leading creative directors put the 2003 chain-reaction car ad at the top, just ahead of a black-and-white surfing beer ad and the 1984 computer launch. Other lists put a 1960 print ad at number one.

The ads that show up on almost every list share four qualities:

1. A single, simple idea. You can describe the whole ad in one sentence.
2. Craft that serves the idea. The execution is so well made that the effort itself becomes part of the message.
3. Cultural reach. People talked about it, copied it and parodied it for years.
4. A link to the product. The idea proves something true about what is being sold, rather than borrowing attention.

That fourth point separates great advertising from great entertainment. A funny film that nobody connects to the product is a short film, not an ad. Keep these four tests in mind as we go, because they are also the tests we use on our own scripts.

The most creative ads of all time at a glance

Here is the full tour in one table. The years are when each ad originally ran.

• 1917: Format: Poster; Category: Military recruitment; The idea in one line: A figure points straight out at you; The lesson for today: Speak to one person, not a crowd
• 1960: Format: Print; Category: Small car; The idea in one line: A tiny car in a sea of white space; The lesson for today: Turn your weakness into your hook
• 1971: Format: TV; Category: Soft drink; The idea in one line: A global crowd singing on a hilltop; The lesson for today: Sell a feeling bigger than the product
• 1979: Format: TV; Category: Soft drink; The idea in one line: A tough athlete softened by a kid's gift; The lesson for today: A 60-second story can carry a brand
• 1984: Format: TV; Category: Personal computer; The idea in one line: A hammer thrown at a giant screen; The lesson for today: Launch with an enemy, not a feature list
• 1988: Format: TV; Category: Sportswear; The idea in one line: An 80-year-old running across a bridge; The lesson for today: Real people beat polished models
• 1999: Format: TV; Category: Stout beer; The idea in one line: Surfers waiting for the perfect wave; The lesson for today: Make your product's flaw a virtue
• 2003: Format: TV and online; Category: Car; The idea in one line: A chain reaction of car parts; The lesson for today: Show, don't claim
• 2006: Format: Online film; Category: Beauty; The idea in one line: A face made up and retouched in time-lapse; The lesson for today: Reveal the trick everyone suspects
• 2010: Format: TV and YouTube; Category: Body wash; The idea in one line: A single-take monologue, then personal replies; The lesson for today: Talk back to your audience fast
• 2012: Format: Live stream; Category: Energy drink; The idea in one line: A jump from the stratosphere, streamed live; The lesson for today: Make the ad an event
• 2013: Format: Online film; Category: Trucks; The idea in one line: An action star doing the splits between two trucks; The lesson for today: One stunt can prove a spec
• 2014: Format: Packaging; Category: Soft drink; The idea in one line: Given names printed on bottles; The lesson for today: Let customers become the ad
• 2018: Format: Print; Category: Fast food; The idea in one line: A rearranged logo as an apology; The lesson for today: Own a mistake in public
• 2020: Format: Print and film; Category: Fast food; The idea in one line: A burger rotting in time-lapse; The lesson for today: Prove a claim the ugly way
• 2023 to now: Format: AI and interactive; Category: Film, apps, retail; The idea in one line: Fans in the poster, AI-made spots in days; The lesson for today: Speed and personalization, same old idea test

The poster and print era: 1910s to 1960s

Before radio and TV, an ad had one chance: a single image on a wall or a page. The best work from this era is still taught because it had to do everything in one frame.

1917: the recruitment poster that pointed at you

A stern, bearded figure in a top hat looks straight out of the poster and points a finger at the viewer, with a short line telling you that you are the one needed. It was printed in the millions during World War I and brought back in World War II.

Why it worked: most posters of the time showed scenes. This one broke the fourth wall and made the viewer the subject. You could not walk past it without feeling addressed.

The lesson today: on a phone, the opening frame is your poster. A person looking into the lens and speaking to "you" in the opening second still stops the scroll better than a wide scene. That is why so many creator-style ads open on a face.

1960: the small car in a sea of white space

A German small-car maker ran a print ad in the US that was almost empty. A tiny photo of the car sat in a big white page, with a short headline that admitted the car was small and body copy that turned smallness into a list of benefits: easier parking, less fuel, cheaper insurance.

Why it worked: American car ads of the time were loud, colorful and full of chrome. This one was quiet, honest and funny. It is often ranked at or near the top of 20th-century campaign lists because it changed the tone of advertising itself.

The lesson today: your biggest objection can be your hook. If your product is small, slow, plain or new, say it up front and then flip it. Honesty in the opening line earns attention that hype cannot.

The golden age of TV: the 1970s

Color TV gave advertisers sound, motion and music in people's living rooms. The best 1970s ads stopped selling features and started selling feelings.

1971: a hilltop full of people singing

A soft-drink maker filmed young people from many countries standing on an Italian hilltop, singing a gentle song about harmony and sharing a drink with the world. The song became a hit record in its own right.

Why it worked: it arrived at a tense moment in world politics and offered a simple picture of unity. The product was in every hand, but the ad was about the feeling, not the drink.

The lesson today: a strong emotional frame lasts longer than any claim. For a short video, that might mean opening on a shared moment, such as an iftar table or a family road trip, before the product appears.

1979: the injured athlete and the kid

A huge, famously tough American football star limps down a stadium tunnel. A small boy offers him his soda. The star refuses, then accepts, drinks it in one go, and as the boy turns away, tosses him his jersey.

Why it worked: it is a complete story in about a minute, with a setup, a turn and a payoff. The product is the reason the two characters connect.

The lesson today: you can tell a full story in 30 seconds if every shot moves it forward. Cut anything that doesn't change the situation.

Launch spots that rewrote the rules: 1980s and 1990s

This era turned the ad into a cultural event. Directors from cinema arrived, budgets grew, and a few spots became as famous as the films around them.

1984: the hammer and the screen

A personal-computer maker launched its new machine with a dark, cinematic spot directed by a famous film director. Rows of grey workers watch a giant screen where a leader lectures them. A woman in bright running clothes sprints in, chased by guards, and throws a sledgehammer into the screen. The computer itself never appears.

Why it worked: it gave the brand an enemy (conformity) and cast the buyer as the rebel. It aired nationally just once, during the biggest American football broadcast of the year, and the news coverage did the rest.

The lesson today: a launch needs a point of view, not a spec sheet. What are you against? Answer that, and the features become proof rather than the pitch.

1988: the 80-year-old runner

A sportswear brand launched a new three-word tagline with a spot showing an 80-year-old man running across a famous bridge in San Francisco, talking about his daily miles.

Why it worked: athletic ads usually showed young stars. This one showed an ordinary, older man and made the tagline about everyone. The line has outlived almost every product the brand sold that year.

The lesson today: real people often beat polished casting. This is the same instinct behind creator-led ads, and it's why authentic testimonials still perform. Our sibling guide on what UGC marketing is explains how brands use that instinct at scale.

1999: the surfers and the wave

A stout beer brand made a black-and-white film of surfers waiting, and waiting, for the perfect wave. When it comes, the white surf turns into galloping horses. A slow voiceover ties the wait to the reward.

Why it worked: the beer was known for taking a long time to pour. Instead of hiding that, the ad made waiting heroic. Industry polls regularly place it among the top two or three ads ever made.

The lesson today: every product has a quirk customers complain about. A great creative team asks whether that quirk can become the story.

Craft you can't fake: the single-take era, 2000s to 2010s

By the 2000s, viewers had seen every visual effect. The ads that broke through went the other way: real objects, real stunts, filmed in what looks like one unbroken take.

2003: the chain reaction of car parts

A Japanese car-maker built a two-minute film in which parts of one car (a gear, a wheel, a wiper, an exhaust) roll, tip and swing into each other in a long chain reaction, ending with the finished car rolling down a ramp. It was reportedly shot practically, with no computer graphics for the parts, and the team needed many attempts to get the sequence to run.

Why it worked: the film says "every part is precisely engineered" without saying it. The craft is the claim. It is the ad most often named the best TV commercial ever in recent industry polls.

The lesson today: show, don't claim. If your product is precise, durable or fast, design one visual that proves it. In a 20-second vertical ad, a satisfying physical demonstration still works as a hook and as the proof.

2013: the splits between two trucks

A truck maker filmed a famous action star standing with one foot on each of two reversing trucks at sunset. As the trucks drift apart, he slowly lowers into the full splits. The point: the steering is so precise the trucks hold a perfect parallel line.

Why it worked: a dry engineering feature became a jaw-dropping single shot. It spread online with no TV budget behind it and became one of the most shared ads of its decade.

The lesson today: one stunt can prove one spec. For an automotive or industrial brand, find the single most impressive true fact and build the shot around it. That's how we approach video ads for car dealers and automotive brands: one model, one proof, one shot that makes it obvious.

When the audience joined in: digital and interactive, 2006 to 2014

Broadband, YouTube and social feeds changed who distributed the ad. The best work in this era was built to be shared, answered and joined.

2006: the time-lapse of a face

A beauty brand released a short online film showing an ordinary woman being made up, lit, photographed and then retouched on a computer until her neck is longer and her eyes bigger. The final image goes up on a billboard. It won top honors in both film and digital categories at the industry's biggest creative festival.

Why it worked: it revealed a trick everyone half suspected, and it positioned the brand on the viewer's side. It was made for the internet before TV, at a time when that was rare.

The lesson today: transparency is creative. Behind-the-scenes, "how it's really made" and before-and-after formats keep working because they answer a suspicion the viewer already has.

2010: the single-take monologue and the replies

A body-wash brand made a 30-second spot in which a confident man speaks straight to camera while the set changes around him (bathroom, boat, horse) in one continuous take. Months later the brand did something new: over a couple of days, it filmed close to 200 short, personal video replies to comments from fans and public figures and posted them on YouTube.

Why it worked: the original spot was pure craft and comic timing. The replies turned an ad into a conversation, and they were fast enough to ride the moment.

The lesson today: speed and response are creative tools. Short-form platforms reward brands that reply to comments with video. You don't need a TV spot to start, just a format you can produce quickly.

2012: the jump from the edge of space

An energy-drink brand sponsored an athlete's free-fall jump from a balloon capsule in the stratosphere and streamed it live on YouTube. Millions watched the climb and the jump in real time, and the stream was reported as one of the biggest live events the platform had hosted.

Why it worked: the brand had spent years linking itself to extreme sports. This was the ultimate proof of that position, and it was content people chose to watch, not an interruption.

The lesson today: sometimes the best ad is an event, filmed. Smaller versions of this, a launch-day stunt, a live product test, a challenge, can be cut into dozens of short clips afterwards.

2011 to 2014: given names on the bottle

A soft-drink maker replaced its logo on bottles and cans with popular given names, starting in one market and then around the world. People hunted for their own name and their friends', and posted photos of them.

Why it worked: the product became personal and shareable. Every customer photo was a free ad.

The lesson today: personalization at scale used to need a printing press. Now it can be done with video variants: the same ad with different names, cities or use cases. That's one of the main reasons AI-assisted production has grown so fast.

Brave print in the social age: 2018 to 2020

Print did not die. It became the format brands use when they want to make a statement that gets photographed and shared.

2018: the apology with a rearranged logo

A fried-chicken chain ran out of chicken in the UK after a delivery problem. It ran a full-page print apology showing an empty bucket with the three letters of its name rearranged into a rude word, followed by a frank, funny apology.

Why it worked: it owned the mistake in the brand's own voice. People shared the ad more than the complaints.

The lesson today: when something goes wrong, a fast, human, slightly self-mocking response is often the most creative option you have.

2020: the burger that rotted on camera

A fast-food chain released print ads and a film showing its signature burger slowly growing mold in a time-lapse over about a month. The message: no artificial preservatives.

Why it worked: every food ad makes the product look perfect. This one made it look disgusting to prove a true claim. It broke the category's biggest rule on purpose.

The lesson today: find the rule your category always follows, then ask whether breaking it would prove something true. Pick that one carefully. It only works if the claim behind it is real.

The AI era: 2023 onwards

The latest chapter is still being written. Generative AI has made it possible to produce a TV-quality spot in days and to give every viewer their own version.

Fans in the poster and spots made in days

In 2023, a major film's marketing team launched a selfie generator that let fans put themselves into the movie poster. Social feeds filled with personal versions, and the campaign became one of the most talked-about launches of the year. In 2025, a short TV spot made with Google's Veo 3 by a very small team in a few days aired during a live sports final, which showed that AI could now reach broadcast quality on a tight timeline.

Why it worked: both ideas used new technology to do an old thing better: make the audience the star, and get to market while the moment is hot.

The lesson today: AI changes the cost of making variants and the speed of reacting, not the need for an idea. A dull concept made in AI is still dull. If you want the production detail on these spots, our breakdown of AI commercial examples and how each was made covers tools and timelines, and our wider guide to brands using AI in advertising covers targeting, personalization and testing.

What the greatest ads have in common

Look across 100 years and the same patterns repeat, whatever the format. Here is the checklist we use when we review a script.

• Speak to one person: Seen in: 1917 poster, 2010 monologue; Question to ask your own ad: Does the opening second address "you"?
• Flip the weakness: Seen in: 1960 small car, 1999 surfers; Question to ask your own ad: What objection can we say out loud up front?
• Show, don't claim: Seen in: 2003 chain reaction, 2013 splits; Question to ask your own ad: Is there one shot that proves our main claim?
• Give the brand an enemy: Seen in: 1984 launch; Question to ask your own ad: What are we against?
• Real people: Seen in: 1988 runner, 2006 time-lapse; Question to ask your own ad: Would a real customer say this?
• Make it an event: Seen in: 2012 jump, 2014 names; Question to ask your own ad: Is there a reason to talk about this tomorrow?
• Break a category rule: Seen in: 2018 apology, 2020 burger; Question to ask your own ad: What does everyone in our category always do?

None of these patterns depends on budget. Several of the ads on this list were expensive, but the idea in each could be tested on a phone before any big shoot. The brand behind each one also had a clear identity before the ad ran, which is why the ads felt inevitable rather than random. If your brand isn't there yet, start with our guide to the brand identity design process before you brief a big creative idea.

How to apply these lessons to a short-form video ad today

Most of these classics were 60-second TV spots or full-page print ads. Your ad will probably be a 15 to 30 second vertical video, watched with the sound off to begin with, on a phone. The principles survive the change of format if you translate them carefully.

1. Pick one lesson, not five. Choose the single pattern from the table above that fits your product's strongest truth. Mixing a stunt, a testimonial and an emotional story in 20 seconds dilutes all three.
2. Write the idea in one sentence. If you can't describe the ad in one line, like every ad in this guide, the idea isn't ready.
3. Design the opening second as a poster. A face to camera, an impossible image or a bold on-screen line. This is the 1917 lesson applied to a feed.
4. Find your proof shot. One visual that shows the claim is true: a demonstration, a before-and-after, a real customer reaction.
5. Choose the right format. Some ideas are a creator talking to camera, some are a product demo, some are a mini-story. Our guide to the types of video content helps you match the idea to the format.
6. Plan the shoot or the generation properly. A simple idea still needs a script, a shot list and a plan for variants. Here's how a video production process works from brief to delivery.
7. Make versions for each market. In Dubai and the wider GCC, an Arabic-led version, written for the culture rather than translated, often outperforms a dubbed English ad. Our Arabic ad production team writes and films for that from the start.
8. Test, then scale the winner. Run two or three hooks against each other, keep the best, and cut new variants from it.

For ready-made briefs that turn individual creative techniques into fill-in templates, read our companion piece, examples of creative advertisements. It covers the how-to; this guide covers the history behind it.

A note on Dubai, the GCC and Ramadan

Some of the most loved ads in the Middle East follow the 1970s playbook: long, emotional Ramadan films about family, generosity and home. They work because the season gives viewers time and a shared mood. The short-form version of that idea is a 20 to 30 second story with one emotional turn, plus cutdowns for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Plan the Arabic and English versions together, not one after the other.

What a classic idea looks like as a modern campaign

The lessons above are not theory for us. For one car dealer selling commercial vans and SUVs in Dubai, the ad account had been dark for over a year with no link between the ads and the sales team. We rebuilt the account, made filmed and AI video ads for each model, and gave every brand its own lead board. The result was more than a hundred leads in the opening two weeks, with about one in four reaching the qualified stage. You can read the car dealer case study for the full story. The creative principle was the 2013 one: one model, one clear proof per ad.

When you are ready to make your own, our video production service covers concept, filming, AI generation and editing in one team. What it takes depends on the number of concepts, versions and languages, whether you film or generate, and how fast you need it, so the simplest route is to tell us what you sell and get a quote.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is considered the most creative ad of all time?

There is no single answer because rankings vary by source. One widely cited 2022 poll of readers and leading creative directors named a 2003 car-maker film built from a chain reaction of parts as the best TV ad ever. Other lists favor a 1960 small-car print ad or the 1984 computer launch spot. Most lists agree on a core group of about a dozen ads.

Who decides which ads are the best ever made?

Several groups do, in different ways. Trade magazines run reader polls and expert jury rankings, award festivals hand out top prizes each year, and marketing schools teach a canon of classics. Each method rewards something different: craft, cultural impact or business results. That's why the same famous ad can top one list and sit tenth on another.

Were the most creative ads also effective?

Many were, but creativity and effectiveness are measured separately. Several ads on these lists are linked with strong sales or brand growth, while others are remembered mainly for craft. The safest lesson is that a creative idea works best when it proves something true about the product, so the memory of the ad and the reason to buy point the same way.

Can a small brand make a creative ad without a big budget?

Yes. The idea behind most classic ads can be tested cheaply. A face speaking to camera, an honest flip of a weakness, or one demonstration shot can all be made with a phone, a creator or AI tools. Budget buys polish and reach. It doesn't buy the idea, which is the part that makes an ad memorable.

How do I apply classic ad ideas to TikTok or Instagram Reels?

Keep the idea and change the timing. Put the hook in the opening second, make sure it works with the sound off using on-screen text, and land the proof shot by the middle of the ad. Shoot vertical, keep it to 15 to 30 seconds, and make two or three hook variants so you can test which opening holds attention best.

Make your next ad worth remembering with XMA

The most creative ads of all time had one thing in common: a simple idea, made with care, that proved something true about the product. That's still the job, whether the final ad is a print page, a TV spot or a 20-second vertical video made with AI.

At XMA we write, film and generate video ads for brands in Dubai, the wider GCC and global markets, with AI speed and a human creative team that knows the classics. If you have a product and a story worth telling, tell us what you sell and get a quote, and we'll show you which idea we would test before anything else.