The Most Effective Advertising Campaigns in the Last Decade

Picture this: you’re 10 years old watching TV in your childhood living room and a commercial comes on that absolutely hooks you. Maybe it was a humorous commercial that had you being sushed by your parents. Maybe it was a commercial that had you doing extra chores because you wanted the toy being shown on screen. Maybe it was Sarah McLachlan singing “in the arms of the angel, fly away from here” and suddenly you’re crying while begging your parents to adopt yet another dog. Those were the ads that were lodged into your brain and extended far beyond the screen. But why those ads? Why did they become memorable moments instead of just… ads? 

Popularity and effectiveness of ads are often confused. A funny Super Bowl spot might trend on social media for 24 hours, but did it actually sell the product, shift brand perception, or change consumer behavior? The most effective advertising does more than entertain. It works strategically, emotionally, and measurably.

Let’s talk about what makes an advertisement effective, not just popular, and which ads to study from the last decade so you, too can create unforgettable work throughout your career as a creative. If you’re an aspiring creative, a student building a portfolio, or a marketing enthusiast trying to understand what separates good ads from great ones, this is your playbook.

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What Makes an Advertising Campaign “Effective”?

Before we crown anything as the “best,” it’s important we set some criteria. Creativity is subjective after all, right? However, effectiveness isn’t just subjective vibes. It’s about strategic impact.

Effective advertising:

• Is rooted in a real human insight
• Moves the audience emotionally
• Shifts brand perception
• Drives measurable results (sales, engagement, sign-ups, brand lift)
• Creates lasting cultural impact

This is where creative effectiveness diverges from creative awards. Should we say it louder for the people in the back?! Listen, a Cannes Lion is impressive, but a gold trophy doesn’t automatically mean the work actually worked. The true effectiveness of an ad lies at the intersection of insight, creativity, execution, and results in the real world.

Before you build a campaign for your portfolio, ask yourself:

• What problem am I solving?
• What human insight is this idea rooted in?
• How would I measure whether this idea actually worked?

Strategy isn’t the enemy of creativity. It’s the reason creativity matters.

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10 Groundbreaking Campaigns of the Last Decade

1. Dove—Real Beauty Sketches (2013)

• Insight: Women see themselves more negatively than others see them.

• Why it worked: Dove visualized self-criticism through a forensic sketch artist, turning an internal insecurity into a powerful reveal.

• Impact: One of the most shared videos of its time, massive earned media, and a long-term brand repositioning around self-esteem.
• Effectiveness: Increased brand trust and emotional affinity, which translated into higher purchase intent and loyalty across Dove’s product lines.
• Student lesson: Tension plus truth equals emotion.
• Portfolio tip: Don’t just show the idea; show the human tension behind it. Real Beauty works because it starts with a real, uncomfortable truth and lets the audience discover it visually.

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2. Always—#LikeAGirl (2014)

• Insight: Language shapes confidence.
• Why it worked: Always reclaimed a phrase used as an insult, and reframed it as empowerment.
• Impact: A cultural shift in how “like a girl” was perceived, with massive engagement and brand lift.
• Effectiveness: Drove a significant increase in brand favorability and purchase intent among younger consumers.
• Student lesson: Words matter. Reclaiming language is powerful storytelling.
• Portfolio tip: Identify a phrase your audience has internalized, then flip it.

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3. Apple—Shot on iPhone (2015–ongoing)

• Insight: Anyone is capable of taking beautiful photos. 
• Why it worked: Apple turned user-generated content into global OOH and film, proving the product’s power without saying a word.
• Impact: Long-running global platform, elevated iPhone camera credibility.
• Effectiveness: Reinforced the iPhone’s camera as a key purchase driver, directly supporting iPhone upgrade cycles
• Student lesson: Let the audience participate and trust them to understand your idea. 
• Portfolio tip: When you build ads, think about them in terms of a design or campaign system, not just stand-alone pieces. 

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4. Nike—Dream Crazy (2018)

• Insight: Belief in yourself is radical, but necessary. 
• Why it worked: Nike aligned with Colin Kaepernick, embracing cultural tension instead of avoiding it, aligning the brand with something bigger. 
• Impact: Massive conversation, changes in perspectives, and reinforced brand values.
• Effectiveness: Generated a measurable increase in online sales in the days immediately following its launch.
• Student lesson: Bold stances differentiate brands when done authentically. 
• Portfolio tip: Show a brand choosing a purpose to support. One that aligns with their goals.

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5. Spotify—Wrapped (2019–ongoing)

• Insight: People love personalized insights and a look into themselves. 
• Why it worked: Spotify turned listening data into a shareable identity moment.
• Impact: Annual cultural event and organic social takeover.
• Effectiveness: Drove spikes in app downloads and re-engagement from lapsed users every year Wrapped launches
• Student lesson: Data can be emotional.
• Portfolio tip: In your portfolio, show how insights or metrics can be transformed into something personal, emotional, and culturally relevant, especially when the audience can see themselves in the idea. 

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6. Burger King—Moldy Whopper (2020)

• Insight: Artificial ingredients are the real villain.
• Why it worked: Burger King did the opposite of food advertising, showing decay instead of perfection.
• Impact: Massive earned media and brand differentiation.
• Effectiveness: Increased brand consideration and relevance, helping drive traffic and sales during a highly competitive period for fast food
• Student lesson: Sometimes ugly is unforgettable.
• Portfolio tip: Challenge category norms and don’t sanitize the truth. If your idea hinges on authenticity, show it boldly.
  
  

7. Burger King—Whopper Detour (2018)

• Insight: People will go out of their way for value.
• Why it worked: Geofencing near McDonald’s locations gamified ordering and poked fun at a competitor.
• Impact: Millions of app downloads overnight.
• Effectiveness: Directly increased mobile orders and repeat usage, turning a one-time stunt into long-term revenue through app-based ordering
• Student lesson: Technology should serve the idea, not the other way around.
• Portfolio tip: When you include tech-forward ideas in your portfolio, lead with the human behavior first and the technology second. Make it clear that the tech exists to unlock the idea, and show how it directly drives a business outcome

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8. CeraVe—Michael CeraVe (2024-2025)

• Insight: If a celebrity endorsement feels too perfect, we don’t believe it. But if it feels self-aware, awkward, or slightly wrong—we lean in.
• Why it worked: CeraVe didn’t fight skepticism, it made skepticism the joke. Instead of positioning Michael Cera as a polished spokesperson, the campaign leaned into an absurd idea that Michael Cera created CeraVe. No one fully believes him… which mirrors how the audience feels about celebrity claims.
• Impact: Reinforced CeraVe’s positioning as a dermatologist-trusted brand without sounding clinical or boring, which drove brand search and social conversation.
• Effectiveness: The campaign didn’t just entertain, it made CeraVe culturally relevant without compromising credibility, which directly supports long-term sales and category leadership.
• Student lesson: Self-awareness is strategy.
• Portfolio tip: Identify a belief your audience already has, especially if it's a negative or skeptical one. Then, instead of arguing with it, play with it. When you demonstrate self-awareness and control of tone, you prove you can make culturally fluent work that earns trust because it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

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9. Heineken—Shutter Ads (2020)

• Insight: Bars were closed, but communities still mattered.
• Why it worked: Heineken redirected media spend to help shuttered bars survive.
• Impact: Buying Heineken felt like a values-aligned decision, not just a beer choice.
• Effectiveness: Strengthened brand goodwill and trust, which translated into increased preference when bars and restaurants reopened
• Student lesson: Creativity thrives under constraints.
• Portfolio tip: Show how brands can help, not just sell. And if you have constraints, play in that. Transform a problem into a solution. Recruiters want to see that you can respond to context, not just generate concepts in a vacuum.
  
  

10. Barbie—Imagine the Possibilities (2015)

• Insight: Girls see limitless futures, until society limits them.
• Why it worked: Barbie reframed play as a possibility, not plastic.
• Impact: Shifted perceptions, making Barbie a tool for imaginative play and confidence-building, not just a fashion doll while validating girls’ ambitions before social pressure narrows them.
• Effectiveness: Played a key role in Barbie’s brand turnaround, contributing to a reversal of declining sales
• Student lesson: Purpose plus emotion builds brand love.
• Portfolio tip: Don’t just show what the brand sells, show what it stands for. In your portfolio, highlight how an idea shifts perception of a brand or unlocks a deeper human truth.

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Common Threads in Successful Campaigns

1. Rooted in human insight. Not demographics, data, or studies…but rather emotion, tension, and truth.

2. Visually distinctive worlds. Strong art direction builds memory. 

3. Multi-platform execution. OOH, digital, social, experiential working together.

4. Bold point of view. Great campaigns stand for something.

5. Shareability built in. Designed for conversation, not just exposure.

6. Simplicity at the core. One idea. One insight. One line.

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Lessons for Students and Junior Creatives

1. Use real human insights. If your audience can’t relate to any single moment of your campaign, then you’ve already lost them. A great strategist will help you connect the dots to the consumer psyche, but your creative has to align to genuine human experience, while still demonstrating how the product you're selling could benefit their lives. 

2. Trends fade. Emotions don’t. Tapping into cultural trends can still elicit emotion that makes your ad effective and memorable. Take Nike’s campaign with Colin Kaepernick – they strategically used a trending cultural moment to align their brand with something bigger, and it worked in a lot of ways. 

3. Show strategy, not just execution. A solid strategy is what makes an idea more than just an idea, and the strategist's job doesn’t just end after the brief is presented. Being strategic about media placements, featured actors, specific props used during the shoots, language, visuals, rollout timelines, and every minute detail will build memorability and effectiveness throughout a campaigns duration and beyond. 

4. Great portfolios always explain the problem, the insight, the idea, and strategically lays out the execution that brings it all together. 

5. Think beyond one ad. Campaign thinking beats single executions.

6. Don’t be afraid of simple ideas. Most effective ad strategies feel obvious in hindsight.

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How to Recreate Success in Your Portfolio Projects

Studying the best ads of the decade isn’t about copying. It’s about understanding why and how they worked. Here are some exercises to try when you’re creating effective campaigns of your own. 

1. Reverse-engineer a famous campaign. Break it down, then rebuild it in a new format.

2. Build from a human truth. Start with frustration, insecurity, unmet needs, or desires. 

3. Explore multi-channel case studies. Understand how the campaign(s) came to life through social, print, video, guerrilla, or experiential.

4. Show the insight clearly. Make recruiters understand your logic without having to overexplain. 

5. Take a bold visual or tonal risk. Confidence reads on the page. A big part of being an advertising creative is finding your own style and voice.

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Want to Create the Next Great Campaign? Start Studying the Greats

If you want to make work the world remembers, study the work that already did. The most effective advertising isn’t accidental, it’s built on relatable human truths, strategic thinking, creative problem solving, and emotional connection.

Want to create campaign work that stands out? book180 might just be the program for you. We’re a 6-month, totally virtual, 100% woman-owned portfolio school that offers courses that will prepare you for real-world briefs and help you make award-winning ideas.

Not to mention, you’ll learn from industry creatives who’ve worked on some of the world’s most successful advertising campaigns. If you can’t commit to a full quarter, check out our workshops like Portfolio Jam, a course designed to help you create a campaign for your portfolio in just 5 weeks.

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