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Lürzer’s Archive Special Report

[40+]

Beware: work-in-progress.

40+ leading creatives choose 40+ greatest ads from the 40+ years of Lürzer’s Archive

40 YEARS SPECIAL

Here was the future This special report celebrates the first 40 years of Lürzer’s Archive by presenting a work-in-progress. That work is our first take on “the long view” across our publication’s lifespan. The result is what we set out in the following pages: the 40 best ads created in the past four decades.

The list of the great and the good who helped us on this project are listed below. We are immensely grateful for their suggestions and, online, you can see their thoughts in full. Only a synthesis of many hundreds of suggestions makes its way into the following pages. We had a longlist and a shortlist and here’s the result. But it won’t be the final word on the subject.

Oh no! It too will change. It has to … We want to be challenged. For input on that, read the closing page of the report. But first enjoy, rejoice, then be driven crazy by our selection, and then rejoice again …

Why have we done this? For one very good reason. The existence of Lürzer’s Archive is built on caring deeply about showcasing the best, setting standards, helping us all learn from each other and be inspired to do even better. We try to do that with each issue, and with each “best of the week” on our site, with each of our 200best books. And so on. But despite being around for 40 years, and having some great readers who savor and keep every issue, along with many great public and university libraries that follow us, the

history of standard setting is far from clear.

In every issue we show the new strong work, every year awards recognize good work. But how often do we step back and really seek a wider, longer, deeper perspective? This is that moment and not before time. We need to do it more, we need to examine what we think is best and why, reset our standards regularly, and reflect on what we are putting aside, as well as what we are embracing. Because without a strong sense of our place in history, we are very small. And without learning from history, we can’t really learn.

Before you start on a journey through our Top 40 great ads, before you start thinking about the values to embrace or to challenge, here’s a wonderful quote about why it matters that we treasure and examine and constantly evolve our sense of history for our culture, and our industry.

These words come from Lewis Lapham, a great American writer and editor who died in Rome in 2024 at the age of 89. He dedicated his later years to making the case for greater study and use of history to better understand the present and shape our future. We’ve been holding this quote close to us while working on this project:

You can’t live in the future because the future doesn’t exist, and the present comes to a close too quickly to leave a mailing address. The only present where you can find a ground of being is in the living past.

We would like to pay a huge debt of thanks to our 40+ nominators. Many have contributed to works that are, or could be, in this list … or may be in the next one.

Katrina Alvarez-Jarratt Brynna Aylward Natalia Benincasa Xavier Blais Diogo Borges Richard Brim Joaquin Campins Ashish Chakravarty Alice Chou Michael Conrad Hemal Dhanjee Aldo Ferretto Graham Fink Brendan Hoffmann Claudia Illan Pedro Izzo Tony Kaye Chow Kok Keong Nonthaporn Ketmanee Dara Kleyer Frances Leach Tao Legêne Thomsen Rich Levy Cyril Louis Fran Luckin Santiago Luna Lupo Saymon Medeiros John Mescall Kevin Mulroy Clara Noguier Piyush Pandey Jacquelyn Parent Jarrad Pitts Laura Rapela Cristina Reina Debby De Ridder Saulo Rocha Yasu Sasaki Ajab Samrai Julie Scelzo Anna Martha Silveira Marijke Spain Kate Stanners Sandra Valencia Park Wannasiri Micah Walker Nicola Wood Jody Xiong

Now let’s explore and look for the diamonds in that living past that so fascinates readers of Lürzer’s Archive …

Vol 3/2024

126–127

Here’s to the Crazy Ones [1997]

This is the mother of all manifestos. I truly believe this is the best copywriting that has ever been done in a TV spot. I remember the first time I saw this and said to myself ‘damn, I wish I wrote that.’ I’ve spent my entire career trying to be this good.

Rich Levy, Chief Creative Officer, Klick Health

When Steve Jobs returned to run Apple in 1997, he didn’t immediately have any great products to launch but he knew that he needed to shift the brand perception fast. This film, and the related Think Different campaign in print and outdoor, did the trick and then some.

No longer was it disappearing into beige box commodity computer land, Apple was back. Even before changing the products, Jobs had revitalized the brand and Apple’s share price moved strongly upwards. The following year the iMac was launched, then came the iPod, and the rest is history.

Much has been said about it and, at the time of writing, probably the piece by Creative Director Siltanen in Forbes is the best we are going to get on it. Besides the genius/ dictator role of Steve Jobs in the proceedings, one man stands central in the story as the master of combining creative and strategic intent. Lee Clow. It gets me every time.

Richard Brim, Chief Creative Officer, adam&eveDDB

Here’s to the Crazy Ones, with its cast list of great artists, campaigners, sportspersons, etc., has long been seen as one of the greatest commercials of all time. Along with the Think Different print and posters, it is one of the most remarkable brand message shifts. But it wasn’t always thus. At launch, it had mixed reviews as the Apple brand had yet to launch.

Some journalists suggested that the roll call of often dead heroes was an appropriate sign for a soon-tobe-dead brand. This was not only rude, but they got it very wrong.

Lürzer’s Archive

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40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Apple Agency TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles Chief Creative Officer Lee Clow Creative Direction Rob Siltanen

Vol 3/2024

Copywriter Rob Siltanen, Ken Segall Art Direction Craig Tinamoto Director Jennifer Golub

132–133

Surfer [1998]

No other entry in our 40 Best has as many nominations, which is a trend that follows the numerous accolades this film has earned over the years. It’s been the “best commercial ever” on many occasions when various media of differing persuasions have made their attempt at a roll call. Is it famously great for being famously great or is it really out there on its own? Well, it still holds up remarkably well as a film that has influenced others but was a true original in its own right and is still compelling today. As several of our nominators noted, it would still be a work of genius if launched today.

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40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Guinness Agency Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV) BBDO, London Art Direction Walter Campbell

Copywriter Tom Carty Production Company Academy Films Director Jonathan Glazer

Breathtaking cinematography, a heart-pounding track, poetic narration, all capturing the thrill and anticipation of waiting for a Guinness. Flawlessly executed, this holds up as one of the greatest ever made.

Hemal Dhanjee, Creative Director, Courage Toronto Nonthaporn Ketmanee, Senior Creative Director, Publicis Groupe Hong Kong

It could so easily have gone wrong … but somehow it all comes off. A black and white film with an edgy soundtrack and some really quite poetically demanding lines, not to mention magic realism kind of waves that are horses (or is it horses that are waves?).

Yet it all comes tightly together and thumps you with the line, “Good things come to those who wait.”

Great pedigrees are no guarantee of glory every time. But in this case, Surfer was the film that most perfectly united the golden run of the creative team Campbell and Carty with the emerging star director Glazer, along with the overall culture of excellence at AMV BBDO and the strong creative openness of the client Guinness.

It wasn’t long after, that Glazer would start to spend more time making his move into features (where Campbell would continue with involvement, as a writer with Glazer on his film adaptation Under The Skin). This was the moment – well, the 60 seconds – when everything came together.

Beautifully delivered and simply stunning. Still holding, despite the years, it hasn’t aged at all.

Cyril Louis, Creative Partner, The Royals Australia

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Vol 3/2024

136–137

Michael Corridore

Selected for all 200Best Ad Photographers worldwide.

WORLDWIDE 2006-2007

WORLDWIDE 2008-2009

WORLDWIDE 2009-2010

WORLDWIDE 2010-2011

michaelcorridore.net

Ad Photographers worldwide 16/17 WORLDWIDE 2012-2013

WORLDWIDE 2014-2015

Ad Photographers worldwide 18/19

TIM TADDER

STILLS AND MOTION

t im t ad der. c om 858.205.2455

Giving [2013]

Client True Move Agency Ogilvy & Mather, Bangkok Creative Direction Panu Meepaibul

Art Direction Nonthaporn Ketmanee Production Company Phenomena Director Thanonchai Sornsriwichai

Often this film has been known as “the Thai ad with good karma at the heart of the story”. After all, it’s a slow burn of a tale that grows on the viewer. The film is profound and touching and – to be frank – not that hard-hitting in terms of the client’s name or message. That reputation has kept on rising, thanks to the quality of storytelling and basic film craft.

I played a small role in this project as a Senior Art Director at Ogilvy. Working alongside my mentor, Creative Director Panu Meepaibul, and for the first time with the renowned ad director Thanonchai Sornsriwichai, I learned how a big idea can make a significant impact through storytelling.

Nonthaporn Ketmanee, Senior Creative Director, Publicis Groupe Hong Kong

Giving has a classic plot line that reinforces the old saying that what goes around, comes around. Or put another way, and as The Beatles once had it, the love you take is the love you make. The film shows a poor boy trying to steal medicine for his sick mother and getting lucky with the gift of a kind stranger. Many years later, that boy is the doctor who saves the life of a man who is, yes, his original benefactor. It packs a punch and is better in the viewing, so watch it. Once popular website Gawker (RIP), said the three-minute film put many Hollywood multimillion dollar works to shame. And in the tens of millions of views it earned around the world, it clearly touched on something universal.

Lürzer’s Archive

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Subservient Chicken

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2004]

Client Burger King Agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami Creative Direction Andrew Keller, Jeff Benjamin

This is an example that made me keenly aware that digital is not driven by technology, but by people.

At the time, there were no Burger King restaurants in Japan, but everyone in Japan discovered Burger King’s playful side. This opened up a new era of communication, where people tell other people.

Burger King’s personality has been consistent from this time until now, and it is wonderful.

Art Direction Mark Taylor Copywriter Bob Cianfrone Illustrator Pres Rodriguez Production Company The Barbarian Group

Yasu Sasaki, Global Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu

“Chicken just the way you like it” is a promise that sounds a little bit … well, BS. But it took on a whole other dimension in this pioneering campaign that delivered a website where a person in a chicken outfit, in what seemed to be some kind of motel room or dull rental apartment, would do their best to meet your requirements.

It appealed particularly to the 16-35 male with and that was exactly who needed to be drawn back through the Burger King doors. BK was in trouble, decline had set in and a bold move was needed.

The resulting viral triumph was a pioneering interactive campaign, a populist phenomena able to generate massive earned media. It helped turn out around Burger King and was a key step in how we got to the integrated interactive everything that we live in today. This is probably the most important chicken costume in global history. And further proof that creativity does pay: in 2004 BK’s performance turned around and its sales growth surpassed McDonald’s.

PS: In truth, the chicken was not doing everything to order. More than 400 commands had been filmed to correspond to the most likely demands. The system was coded to find an appropriate response or to decline the commands, offering a good reason why, and inviting you to try again.

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Vol 3/2024

142–143

Silk Cut campaign [1984]

Client Silk Cut Agency Saatchi & Saatchi, London

Creative Direction Paul Arden, Charles Saatchi

Ok, this campaign originated in 1983, which is before our 40-year history begins. However, most of the great posters and print ads – and there were many – happened within the early part of our 40 years.

The original idea was inspired by agency co-founder and great art collector/dealer Charles Saatchi, who referenced a painting he owned by Lucio Fontana. The Italian artist was famous for his minimalist slashed canvases and the story goes that Saatchi brought one of the paintings into the office of creative director Paul Arden and his creative partner Tim Mellors, then said: “Here is the next campaign for Silk Cut. Photograph it.”

Arden got to work, hiring various photographers. From this came the look of the cut purple silk, the theme of the long-running campaign, so obscure and yet so direct and so ingeniously avoiding the strictures of cigarette advertising that it lasted until the final ad ban.

When we pointed out that silk being cut was a concrete idiom, a visual pun that would not work in any other language but English, Saatchi would have none of it.

Tim Mellors, much-honored creative leader, writing about Paul Arden in The Independent

Many great creatives and photographers worked across the various multi-award-winning ads in the campaign. They were undoubtedly influential to the whole idea of getting a stronger, more minimal, more purely artistic, focus into some of the best advertising. We feel we must include it because it was hugely impactful, successful, and (allowing for the Fontana inspiration) a real original in many ways, crafted to perfection. In some ways, it was following in the footsteps of the surrealism of the Benson & Hedges work from Collett Dickinson & Pearce (the best of which arguably predates our period), and yet it marked a crucial departure too.

Lürzer’s Archive

Celebrating 20 years 2004 -2024

STANLEYSPOST.COM

@STANLEYSPOST.COM

Heaven and Hell [2011]

A beautiful level of craft to visualise something we can all relate to.

Marijke Spain, Innovation Creative Director, HeimatTBWA\

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40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Samsonite Agency JWT, Shanghai Art Direction Hattie Cheng, Rojana Chuasakul, Haoxi Lv, Danny Li

The impact of this ad helped put Chinese advertising on the map and seemed to suggest the floodgates might be opening on creative genius from the world’s then most populous nation. After a year, it had become “the most awarded print ad of all time”, according to the Gunn Report.

Now, the wonderful Gunn Report has long disappeared into something else while the creativity of Chinese advertising has generally fallen behind the hopes that Heaven and Hell helped set for it. Oh, and India has more people than China now.

Copywriter Marc Wang Digital Artist Illusion

But let’s savor this ad for its genius. It’s a nice idea but the execution really makes it. For that, there’s no doubt that much of the magic comes from the signature look and the talents of Illusion, CGI masters from Bangkok, which is not in China, then or now. At least something’s reliable in creativity.

Vol 3/2024

146–147

Aaron Burr

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[1993]

Client California Milk Processor Board Agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco

This launch commercial in the famous, long-lasting Got Milk? campaign presents the scenario of a nerdy expert on Alexander Hamilton who gets the chance to compete for a radio quiz jackpot. Unfortunately, a lack of milk – which he urgently needs to wash down a sandwich he is eating – prevents the expert from being able to speak the words clearly to answer a question asking who shot Hamilton.

(The answer being, as you all know, Aaron Burr, who shot his fellow US Founding Father Hamilton in a duel.)

For about 10 years, the campaign was a who’s who of popular culture. Everyone wanted to be in an ad. Everyone was in an ad. And it did more to increase the sales of milk than any other campaign in history.

Rich Levy, Chief Creative Officer, Klick Health

It’s a clever and engaging script but what makes the film really sparkle is that the humor is delivered with a super-tight film edit, camera angles and soundtrack that all build the melodramatic intensity. For that, we must doff our hats to the emerging star director Michael Bay, who has since gone on to a vast body of high-impact films and TV. But perhaps he has never been as good as when he made this … or at least, never as subtle in the handling of film craft.

As advertising, it gave a great start to one of the great campaigns, which moved away from preaching about the health-giving qualities of milk to focus on how life can go seriously off-course without it.

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Creative Direction Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein Art Direction Erich Joiner Copywriter Scott Burns, Chuck McBride Director Michael Bay

sofiebarfoed.dk

SOFIE BARFOED

BERND OPITZ.COM

& AI

Power of Wind

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2010]

Client Epuron Agency Nordpol+, Hamburg Art Direction Bjoern Ruehmann , Joakim Reveman

Copywriter Matthew Branning Production Company Paranoid Projects: Tool, Paris Director The Vikings

Every now and then, a young team comes and tells me an idea using this film as a reference. That speaks to its freshness.

It’s still so relevant, and that twist at the end is just brilliant.

Joaquin Campins, Executive Creative Director, GUT Buenos Aires

Actor Guillaume Delaunay was the last one through casting but thankfully he turned up.

It’s hard to imagine anybody else playing the magnificently sad, friendly giant hero of this film: Mr Wind, the embodiment of wind power. It’s an exquisite little story that leaves you guessing until the end as Mr Wind seems thoroughly annoying and disturbing to people … until he finds his place in the world. Epuron, a green energy company seeking to encourage investment in wind power, found in Nordpol and directing collective, The Vikings, the perfect combination of strategy and creative craft to deliver mystery and thought provocation. It makes wind power more desirable, not just because it’s rationally the smart thing but because we care about it, maybe even have a tender love for it, after seeing Mr Wind.

A brilliant reimagining of the invisible force of wind, personified and brought to life in a mischievous, destructive, yet ultimately purposeful way. This concept takes us to a realm of unexpected possibilities, where the wind transforms from an intangible entity into something with character and use. A truly imaginative and playful piece of creativity.

Alice Chou, Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Creative Taiwan

Lürzer’s Archive

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Balls

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2005]

Client Sony Bravia Agency Fallon, London Art Direction Juan Cabral

A very basic brief, no amazing insight, but the most perfect piece of advertising craft that I was compelled to buy a Sony TV a couple of weeks after I first saw it. Not because I needed one, but because I needed to reward this work.

John Mescall, Creative Chair, by The Network

On 6 November 2005, the entire two-anda-half minute ad break before a key Premier League match – Man Utd v Chelsea – was booked out. And what did the audience see?

The very first showing of a film that captured 250,000 coloured bouncy balls descending the steep hill of Filbert Street, San Francisco.

The digital perimeter boards during the match showed more balls, and a 60-second cut down aired in the half-time ad break.

Quite a way to communicate the image quality of the Sony Bravia range of televisions.

However, the global audience already had more than an inkling of what had been happening in San Francisco. While good quality video on phones was yet to arrive, there were plenty of home video users around for the prep and then the one-time, main ball drop, keen to capture what was on the street. As a result, the shoot for Balls was itself an early global viral phenomenon long before the likes of Instagram or Tiktok.

Epic, thanks to the music.

Music and sound in advertising: so, so important.

Debby De Ridder, Creative Content Director, VML Belgium

Had this film not been shot “for real”, in one key take with street closures and all those balls, had this been a CGI extravaganza, then it’s highly unlikely it would be featured here.

But this film holds up, there’s no intermediate technology to let it down in production terms … just the quality of your own color TV. The decision to use slow motion, and to add the track Heartbeats by José González (the first broadcast version using almost the whole song), the change of viewpoints, the sunny day … Well, it’s a magic few seconds that lasts. It’s so far from being an ad and is yet like a product test, not a product demo. It’s got staying power, as many of our nominators have said.

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Copywriter Juan Cabral Production Company MJZ Director Nicolai Fuglsig

BEREZA STUDIO

kubabereza.com

Tire

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2006]

Client Bangkok Insurance Agency Creative Juice, Bangkok Creative Direction Thirasak Tanapatanakul Prangthip Praditpong Art Direction Jon Chalermwong, Kittitat Larppitakpong, Thirasak Tanapatanakul

Copywriter Nutchanun Chiaphanumas, Prangthip Praditpong Director Thanonchai Sornsriwicha Production Company Phenomena

It makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. Shows what you can do with a small budget and a big idea.

Graham Fink, multimedia artist, most recently former Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy China

Bangkok Insurance wanted to communicate that we need to take great care and protect ourselves. That sounds dull. But the creative idea for the campaign ran with the idea of illustrating that the chance of being lucky in certain accidents or situations is less than 1%.

This opened a great place to create around, playing with how people might be unbelievably fortunate in perilous moments.

Tire is the most famous of those films, going on to win multiple awards. It centres around presenting a staggering bit of fake CCTV road camera footage of an unlikely scenario that keeps getting more unlikely for the full 30 seconds. One viewing might be a lasting deterrent to travelling on roads in Thailand. Or, at least, it will certainly remind us of the case for having insurance cover.

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CJ Burton

Ale Burset

Roth & Ramberg

Jan Snarski

We’re a full-service production company in Canada representing an A-list roster of commercial photographers and directors.

We work with agencies and clients to create amazing AH HA moments! andrea@ahharepresents.com 647 892 8062 ahharepresents.com

Bil Zelman

Ben Brümüller

Jazz Beaulieu

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like [2010]

Client Old Spice Agency Wieden + Kennedy, Portland Art Direction Craig Allen, Barton F. Graf 9000 , Eric Baldwin

Copywriter Craig Allen Production Company MJZ Director Tom Kuntz

“Anything is possible when your man smells of Old Spice and not like a lady.” Ooh, even with lashings of irony, could you even think that today?

Anyway, that’s the proposition of the crazy scene-changing wonder that is this much-loved and much-shared 30-second spot, which aired online and then was broadcast four days later, in an ingenious appropriation of 2010 Super Bowl popularity. But it never actually ran during the game, rather afterwards, thereby catching the wave of interest in advertising.

Despite its shape-shifting magic, the film was made with limited CGI and instead relied on a lot of old-school film craft, most notably achieving most of what we see in one continuous take.

This may be another reason for its distinct charm. If you haven’t worked it out, this commercial is seriously commercial, built to really max out on the insight that it is women and not men who buy a lot of their male partner’s toiletries.

One of the most memorable product-centric viral ads.

Cyril Louis, Creative Partner, The Royals Australia

The handsome Old Spice Man is the actor Isaiah Mustafa, who also appeared in other spots for the brand, including a 2018 guest appearance as Old Spice Man within the greatest Super Bowl Tide ad (to be found elsewhere in these pages). So that’s a post-modern advertising icon guesting in an even more metafictional work. Did reality go somewhere while we were in the shower?

Lürzer’s Archive

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Gorilla

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2007]

Client Cadbury Agency Fallon, London Art Direction Juan Cabral

Copywriter Juan Cabral Production Company Blink Director Juan Cabral

I remember turning on my TV one night and saw the face of a gorilla. He hardly moved. I was intrigued, especially as the background was purple rather than a jungle. After about 60 seconds of doing very little apart from sniffing the air, he started drumming! WTF? Another 30 seconds later it all made sense. Pure joy. The ad mesmerized viewers, sparked a national conversation, and boosted Dairy Milk sales. The buzz led numerous clients to rethink their approach, with many calling their agencies, saying, “We want a ‘Gorilla’”. And that’s what I love most about this ad, because it changed the way clients thought. I call it: The Gorilla Effect.

Graham Fink, multimedia artist, most recently former Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy China

Back in 2006-7, venerable chocolate maker Cadbury was buckling under PR blunders and industrial relations issues, alongside an ageing profile for its signature chocolate bar. Thank goodness an Argentinian creative genius was knocking around Soho with a penchant for old Phil Collins tracks. The rest is history. You can see the headline, you can see the picture, yes, of course we’re getting all excited again about that spot with the gorilla – actually actor Garon Michael, given Cabral couldn’t be behind the camera and in the suit – who turns out to be a crazy drummer who just loves Collins’ classic smoocher In The Air Tonight. You either love it or … well, what’s wrong with you? It did what it set out to do, repositioning the brand as a kind of a bit cool, kind of OK for people under 40 to enjoy. Never mind strategy: it’s just a great bit of art that touches the soul in some truly surprising way.

Although the main character is a gorilla, this ad should be called the GOAT. So groundbreaking and powerful. Such a creative piece — unique and distinctive from anything else that has ever been made in our industry.

Joaquin Campins, Executive Creative Director, GUT Buenos Aires

It’s so very good that it carves out a little space for Phil Collins in ad heaven. Cabral, of course, can look forward to his own reserved pillow of clouds, with multiple honours.

There was speculation that Collins was the man in the suit. He settled that with the comment: ‘Not only is he a better drummer than me, he also has more hair.’

This is an absolute triumph of feeling over thinking.

The ultimate expression of how powerful advertising can be when it’s unburdened by the need to be overtly logical, when emotion really is at the core of the brand proposition.

Fun facts: the costume was from woven yak hair and there were apparently 27 small electric motors to control the gorilla’s face.

John Mescall, Creative Chair, by The Network

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Vol 3/2024

162–163

SEANIZZARD.COM

SEAN IZZARD

TOP 3 photographer Ranking 21-23

bilzelman.com

Fearless Girl [2017]

A powerful symbol of gender equality and empowerment that was not just a cultural landmark but an actual one. How many times in our lives have we witnessed a piece of advertising work become a global talking point that is shared, written, and spoken about by everyone from film stars to leaders of nations, to hordes of selfie-hunting tourists who still throng to it?

Ashish Chakravarty, Executive Director and India Head of Creative at McCann Mumbai

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This multi-award-winning campaign is one of those projects that you might struggle to remember exactly who it was for, what they do, and what was the message. But you remember an image and a phenomenon. That is to take nothing away from the power and brilliance of execution behind the idea and the ongoing work that Fearless Girl is still doing.

It’s technique of viral activity and earned media generation, of mixing a big creative idea with an innovative creative strategy, utilising a very full media mix (except not much in the way of conventional media), helped spawn many an imitator, moved the ad world on step or two.

The background: in March 2017 there was the initially mysterious appearance on Wall Street of a near life-size sculpture of a confident girl, which faced down the famous large bronze of a Charging Bull. From this event a massive amount of coverage began to build, some carefully generated but much just truly viral. The mystery was unpicked and the story enlarged and the message landed.

40 YEARS SPECIAL Client State Street Global Advisors Agency McCann, New York

Creative Direction Eric Silver, Sean Bryan, Tom Murphy, Rob Reilly, Joyce King Thomas Art Direction Lizzie Wilson

Copywriter Tali Gumbiner Photographer Federica Valabrega Digital Artist Kristen Visbal

This is not just an ad but a statement that – literally – still stands.

There were and are many ways to promote women in leadership, but the execution is what makes this so brilliant.

And it’s so inspiring, it is photographed by hundreds every day.

It’s not often that an ad becomes a permanent landmark.

Julie Scelzo, Chief Creative Officer for Global Clients, Dentsu Creative and Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Creative Chicago

Behind it sat the money and the mission of State Street Financial Advisers, putting themselves on the map with a call for improving gender diversity within the workplace, tying this in with a fund they were promoting to invest in companies that were in the vanguard of that movement. Much earned media raised the image, raised the issue and presumably raised the funds.

The statue was only permitted temporarily and was finally moved in November 2018 to a longer-term position on Bowling Green but still on a temporary status. This followed protests about its implied criticism of the original Charging Bull sculpture. By then it had more than done its work … but the challenge continues. Fearless Girl needs to stick around!

Vol 3/2024

168–169

Survival Billboard [2015]

40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Xbox Agency McCann, London Creative Direction Jamie Mietz, Sanjiv Mistry, Chad Warner, Rob Doubal, Laurence Thomson

It was incredibly brave for the client to do this stunt. It made people look at a billboard for hours, not only live but also online. It changed the way I saw OOH, and opened up the possibilities of what an outdoor campaign could be.

Claudia Illan, Copywriter, Marcel Paris

Apparently the average viewer spends eight seconds looking at a billboard (really? that long?). So imagine getting people to spend an average of eight minutes looking at a billboard. Well, Survival Billboard did just that. 3.5 million viewers can’t be wrong … or can they?

Yes, the power of gamification and social media, with a billboard in the middle. Survival Billboard was the way Xbox chose to promote a reboot of its hit Tomb Raider game, cutting through other game-launching noise to stand out as a true original. Lara Croft lives again!

Bringing the game into the real world, this campaign blurs the lines between fiction and reality. The outdoor experience not only echoes the game’s content but also redefines how brand essence can be communicated, pushing the boundaries of traditional outdoor advertising to thrilling new heights.

Alice Chou, Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Creative Taiwan

Of course, this was not just any billboard: this was one turned into a brutal stage where competitors stood on a narrow platform putting up with all the conditions (natural and otherwise) that could be thrown at them, once upon a rather unpleasant time in London. Eight gamers fought it out – the last one remaining gritting it out for 22 hours – while fans voted online for various ordeals to be imposed on the contestants. Combining the oldest ad medium with the latest interactive social tools somehow threw us back into medieval times. Can we expect to see the pillory and dunking supposed witches next? Several of our nominators voted for this ad and, for sure, it’s a pioneering work heading in a creative direction we might yet fear to see more of …

Lürzer’s Archive

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Art Direction Jacob Björdal Copywriter Jim Nilsson Agency Producer Lois Newcombe

The Hire [2001]

When this campaign started, I was honestly knocked out. In an era before YouTube and smartphones, they stopped advertising on TV and invested all of the $2.5 million budget in creative.

This is where it all began. The Internet became an entertainment space, and it was a moment when the methodology of branding changed dramatically.

And I don’t think there has been any branded entertainment that has surpassed this series yet.

Yasu Sasaki, Global Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu

We don’t really have the space here for the list of star directors, actors and producers involved in the eight films involved across the lifespan (so far?) of this hugely influential series of branded short films. It was like nothing else before it but has had many followers, knowingly or not, along its walk of fame. One could argue all branded films today are in its debt.

Anyway, this is why Cannes Lions invented the Titanium award. Because Dan Wieden, the 2002 Cyber Jury chair, told organizers that they needed to if they were to reward the most innovative work in the industry – namely, The Hire – properly.

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40 YEARS SPECIAL Client BMW Agency Fallon, Minneapolis

Across the films there is a thread of narrative but each one is individual. All are linked with the mysterious driver figure, played by an increasingly familiar Clive Owen. He is the strong silent type and pretty nifty in his driving. He’s at the wheel of various BMWs, depending on which film it is. But the car is just there, doing its stuff, looking great but nobody talks about it. If you like it, good.

Meanwhile, you’ll have your own favorite days in the driver’s life. Is it Powder Keg, from the first series by director Alejandro Inarritu? Or are you more for the bling of Tony Scott directing James Brown to sell his soul to the devil (Gary Oldman) and then turn that situation around with the help of Clive’s driving and his fast car? The auteur directors lined up to take the job: John Frankenheimer, Wong Kar-Wei, John Woo, Ang Lee …

The films are not that easy to get to see these days: apparently you can pay a bit for the DVD set – a collectors’ favorite.

They are out there on social, of course.

But where to start?

Well, Powder Keg is pretty damn good as is Beat The Devil (the one with James Brown). But probably best to start at the beginning with Frankenheimer’s Ambush.

Definitely not with Guy Ritchie’s attempt, Star, featuring his then wife, Madonna.

Vol 3/2024

176–177

Benetton poster campaign Newborn baby [1991] Condoms [1991] Aids, David Kirby [1992] Hearts [1996]

We have chosen three posters from the campaign created by Oliviero Toscani for the clothing company Benetton. This huge body of work began in 1982 with product photography but as of 1984 an anti-racism message was emerging, and from 1989 the United Colors of Benetton branding made the commitment all-in. In 1991, creativity went into overdrive.

The “shock and awe” approach of startling provocation led to much criticism and some of the most talked-about ads ever. The industry often criticized Benetton for flouting the rules (and perhaps for not requiring much in the way of an advertising agency). But the work pioneered techniques that laid the very base for such terms as “viral” and “earned media”.

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40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Benetton Creative Direction Oliviero Toscani Photographer Oliviero Toscani

“We consider the poster campaign unacceptable.

We are concerned that advertisers are not matching their messages with the mediums they use.”

Advertising Standards Authority, UK, on Benetton’s Hearts poster.

Toscani and Benetton’s creative prime ran through the 1990s, with offshoots including the Fabrica art school and Colors magazine (both still operating).

Toscani was dismissed after the Sentenced to Death campaign, using portraits of US death row prisoners, which was so controversial that it led to the closure of many Benetton stores in the US. He returned in 2017 only to be dismissed again in 2020 for causing further offence.

For all the outrage, many images are iconic and have a strange beauty. Even if Benetton’s anti-racism values did not go deep, it hit audiences directly between the eyes. It didn’t make colored condoms when the poster ran, an awareness-raising image around HIV and AIDS, but it produced a line from 1997.

The hearts are from pigs but the point is even stronger: we are all alike under our skin and are very close to other species. And the baby? Well, babies are kind of all the same when born, purple and red, not black and white. United colors, get it?

Vol 3/2024

182–183

Dumb Ways to Die

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2012]

Client Metro Trains Agency McCann Erickson, Melbourne

Creative Direction John Mescall Art Direction Pat Baron Copywriter John Mescall

Edgy, funny and serious, all at once.

This campaign is still a game-changer.

Diogo Borges, Executive Creative Director, XELEMENT Dubai

“The most shared ad of all time” claims McCann Australia and unless you have a contender with more than 200 million views and five million shares, you are not competitive. What made it so popular is a mix of a catchy tune, simple but distinctive animation, and offbeat humor, all as a counterintuitive way of making a very serious point about deterring people from having accidents or worse on the metro. The snowball of awards recognition includes 28 Cannes Lions alone (is there no such thing as too much for one work?). The song also charted around the world. The irrepressible film, which ran on social rather than paid media, was an idea that also worked across print, radio, a website, and a chart-topping app game. In 2021, part of the Dumb Ways to Die franchise was sold for A$2.25m.

You can’t watch this film and not smile.

No huge budgets, production values or celebrities. Just a super memorable, dark-yet-joyful earworm. A very important message delivered in the most unexpected way, and it went viral before viral was even a thing.

Julie Scelzo, Chief Creative Officer for Global Clients, Dentsu Creative and Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Creative Chicago

It’s so brave to talk about safety by talking about dying, humor and cuteness included!

I still find myself singing the song from time to time.

Laura Rapela, Executive Creative Director, GUT Buenos Aires

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Campaign For Real Beauty [2004 – 2024]

Wow, how do we summarise this campaign in a page or two? We don’t. This could be a book or two! It was pioneering when it launched back in 2004 and it has regularly thrown up outstanding creative works since then. Not always great in output but always worthwhile and, underneath, at its heart, working with something huge and great and unstoppable.

That work-in-progress is to make women comfortable with their bodies, to educate, celebrate, and fight for more understanding and recognition. Or as it is officially described: “A commitment to promoting inclusivity, diversity, autonomy, and body confidence.”

Dove was not the first brand to rethink how women were portrayed in advertising but, in my generation, they felt like the first to help us recognize where this vicious cycle started. I’m positive that thanks to the success of social experiments like this, creatives were able to challenge themselves to reframe the way we talked about beauty. Slowly but surely we’d have amazing campaigns like Viva la Vulva, Like a Girl and This Girl Can. Sandra Valencia, Copywriter, The Basement

Dove Real Beauty Sketches ushered in an era of experimental advertising.

It had a brilliant insight that created a standout brand in a lowinvolvement category.

Tao Legêne Thomsen, Creative Director, Vice Media, Copenhagen

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40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Dove

Agency Ogilvy, Edelman, and others

Dove’s Real Beauty campaign challenged long-established beauty norms, creating a deep emotional connection with consumers. It sparked global conversations around self-esteem and body image, demonstrating how brands could drive social change while building stronger, more meaningful relationships with their audiences.

Cristina Reina, Chief Creative Officer, Quality Experience, New York

It started in 2004 with an exhibition of 67 women photographers’ work that explored the idea of what real beauty was in women. This led into a research project that manifested itself in a global, in-your-face campaign of billboard images, initially shot by Rankin, showing groups of non-professional models, “regular women”. Viewers were asked to vote on their appearance – e.g. wrinkled or wonderful?

– with the data dynamically displayed.

In 2006, Evolution, a film (first posted online then broadcast) and print campaign, showing the impact of make-up and digital retouching in changing the perception of a woman’s face, went viral and got much coverage.

It also won a bunch of top awards.

The campaign has gone through many iterations over the years and around the world.

Another celebrated high spot being the Real Beauty Sketches project, out of Ogilvy Brazil in 2013. Here a forensic artist produced two drawings of various women that he had not seen, one of how they saw themselves and one of how others saw them. The latter was invariably more appealing and more accurate.

Online, we link to some of the key works (there you will find not only inspiration but more extensive credits on who did what).

Looking back 20 years ago, it’s hard to describe the cultural impact of this campaign. It now feels like Dove has been advertising this idea forever. Yet it always feels new, fresh, a true living brand.

Rich Levy, Chief Creative Officer, Klick Health Vol 3/2024

188–189

High School Girl?

[2015]

40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Shiseido Agency Shiseido, in-house, Tokyo

I love ads with a masterful twist and Shiseido’s film was the ultimate trickster. This ad didn’t just redefine beauty standards for a young audienc – it fooled everyone, including every juror on the panel I was part of.

The film opens in a classroom where high school girls are frozen in adorable, kawaii-style poses. But then the twist hits: as makeup is removed in reverse, we realize these “girls” are actually boys. The craftsmanship is astonishing – a true masterclass in detail. Once that rug is pulled, you’re compelled to watch it again, just to see how they pulled it off.

Graham Fink, multimedia artist, most recently former Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy China

A slow burn of a gem, this film for Shiseido resonates with something quite subversive as well as being a tour de force of craft. There are hidden depths, possibly beyond those intended. However, the “intentionalist fallacy” was dealt with and discarded as false thinking decades ago. Now the meaning of this film can be a shapeshifter, as it floats around representation issues, discreet as to its own values. It is what it is, while we change.

A good old fashioned product demo at heart, this Japanese cosmetics company fooled audiences with their genderswitching youth ad. A sublime example of misdirection executed in a seamless single camera move.

In my opinion, one of the most underrated pieces of work in the past 40 years. Exceptional craft, Japanese aesthetic genius.

Ajab Samrai, Chief Creative Officer, Samrai Arts

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Creative Direction Masato Kosukegawa Production Company Watts of Tokyo Director Show Yanagisawa

Client: Black Grace Art Director: Neil Ieremia

Represented by The Collective Force collectiveforce.co.nz

TOAKI OKANO

Fluffy Bun [1984]

Client Wendy’s Agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, New York Creative Direction Cliff Freeman Copywriter Cliff Freeman Director Joe Sedelmaier

Emphysema is a serious disease, a killer indeed. But without it, so the story goes, one of advertising’s most famous catchphrases may never have come about.

Supreme comedy director Joe Sedelmaier was at the helm, working to a snappy script provided by the brilliant copywriter Cliff Freeman. They just needed the actors to do what they were told, yes?

“It was only a couple of days before that I thought of Clara … as being like the bull in the china shop.”

Joe Sedelmaier

But Clara Peller, in her 80s and suffering from emphysema, apparently could not get out the whole of the line, “Where’s all the beef?”, as she stared scornfully at the kind of burger that was supposedly being sold by Wendy’s bigger rivals. And so Sedelmaier told her to drop “all” so that she had enough breath to get to the end, and “Where’s the beef?” was born. The saying has lived in popular culture ever since, albeit Wendy’s has tried to reboot it on occasion. It’s gone way beyond its humble role as a line in a spot that was simply trying to elevate the humble Wendy’s burger to compete with the Big Mac and the Whopper..

The quirky twist of that magnificently mangled line, coupled with Sedelmaier’s perfect timing and signature close-up wide-angle approach, all on the foundations of a Cliff Freeman script, is a lasting masterpiece. For a brief moment, well, 30 seconds, the empires of McDonald’s and Burger King must have trembled. Very slightly. It was during the same era as Ridley Scott’s epic 1984 for Apple – also in our top 40 selection – but it probably came in for quite a few dollars less.

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Moldy Whopper [2020]

40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Burger King Agency David, Miami, INGO, Stockholm, Publicis, Bucharest Creative Direction Eduardo Marques, Jorg Riommi

Art Direction Ivan Montebello, Max Hultberg, Sergio Takahata Copywriter Magnus Ivansson, Pablo Murube

Photographer Pål Allen Production Company Colony Director Markus Ahlm

It takes guts to show your product looking its absolute worst full size on a 48 sheet.

A brilliant example of ‘show’ and not just ‘tell’.

Frances Leach, Creative Director, VCCP London

This may be one of our more divisive choices. It’s a campaign that certainly drew attention. It was definitely original, highly creative in various ways and well-crafted, but was it just attention-grabbing? Did it sell … or did it put people off? Various views and conflicting data swirled around the campaign.

The best provocation I’ve seen so far — playing off the urban legends of McDonald’s supposed preservatives.

Tao Legêne Thomsen, Creative Director, Vice Media, Copenhagen

At its heart, there is a really strong product benefit rammed home: that Burger King food is better, healthier, because it has no artificial preservatives … evidence being that you can see it go off quite quickly. In a 45-second stop-motion film, shots taken over 34 days show a Whopper decaying until it is absolutely covered in mold. Posters in the street confronted viewers with stunning closeups of an increasingly moldy burger, with the days of decay listed next to it and the line, “the beauty of no artificial preservative.” Radical, even scary, stuff in advertising’s world of perfection. It seems very different from about 99.99 per cent of advertising. Ahead of its time? It’s in our 40 …

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Vol 3/2024

194–195

Like A Girl

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2014]

The Like a Girl campaign challenged societal perceptions of gender, proving that brands could take a stand on important social issues while influencing public discourse and maintaining product relevance.

Client Always Agency Leo Burnett, Toronto / Chicago / London Creative Direction Becky Swanson, Judy John

Art Direction Hmi Hmi Gibbs, Nick Bygraves Copywriter AJ Hassan, Angel Capobianco Production Company Chelsea Pictures Director Lauren Greenfield

Cristina Reina, Chief Creative Officer, Quality Experience, New York

Killer insight, handled with such simplicity and finesse in execution.

Katrina Alvarez-Jarratt, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\Sydney

This campaign won 14 Cannes Lions and transformed the phrase ‘like a girl’ from a negative stereotype into an empowering message. Its impact extended well beyond the ad industry, making a bold statement for young women globally.

Park Wannasiri, Chief Creative Officer, VML Thailand

It’s insightful in a way that makes you realise your internalized bias.

It turns something negative into something empowering. It was executed in the most effective way.

Claudia Illan, Copywriter, Marcel Paris

This execution is super simple, and it might have been too simple if it wasn’t such an incredible, ginormous insight. It’s so damn smart and human and touches a raw nerve in a way that is extremely hard to pull off in an ad. You got me, you bastards.

Kevin Mulroy, Executive Creative Director, Mischief USA

This campaign redefined a common insult with such power and clarity. It challenged societal norms in a way that was both simple and deeply emotional, making it a brilliant example of impactful advertising.

Dara Kleyer, Associate Creative Director, MRM Germany

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First released online in June 2014, then later as a 60-second film during Super Bowl 49, this campaign for Always explored the question, What does it mean to do something “like a girl”? And how did this come to be an insult?

Documentary director Greenfield had young women act out what they thought the phrase might mean when applied to activities, such as running, throwing and fighting. It became a massive viral hit and an empowering film that challenged accepted tropes and the climate of values that women grow up surrounded by. It swept all before it at awards shows that year for best commercial.

Touch

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2007]

Client Skittles Agency TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York Art Director Craig Allen

Skittles feels like the kind of kooky you can taste and never get tired of.

Sandra Valencia, Copywriter, The Basement

There are a lot of great Skittles ads. And perhaps at the epicentre of the genius of the long running Taste the Rainbow campaign, is Touch. It draws on a story that goes all the way back to a mythical king of Phrygia in Asia Minor … Yes, well done at the back, that would be Midas, the man with the golden touch.

Now transplant that story to benighted character to a grim desk job in a windowless office where a latter-day Midas, only now called Tim, has his daily life beset by the curse of turning everything he touches into Skittles.

He laments the tragedy of shaking a man’s hand. He picks up the phone and it collapses into little colored candy bits. He hits his desk in frustration and that too collapses into candy. Somehow you remember the spot as having a laugh tape but it doesn’t – the laugh is in your mind and in your memory. A great script with terrific comic timing and all round directing skill makes for a classic. Who cares if it might scare the kids!

Just so wonderfully dark.

Micah Walker, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, Sydney

It is somehow very funny and really, truly sad, a dark and intense inquiry into the sickness of our sense of humor. As indeed, is the whole campaign of spots that end with the exhortation “Touch the rainbow, taste the rainbow,” turning the consumption of brightly colored Skittles into a kind of religious cult.

We can only assume it worked as the Taste the Rainbow campaign continues to be one of the most long-lasting and celebrated campaigns of all time.

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Copywriter Eric Kallman Production Company MJZ Director Tom Kuntz

cascadas.ch info@cascadas.ch

Thomas Kettner

Photographer & Director

thomaskettner.com

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Skidmarks [1997]

Client Mercedes-Benz Agency Leo Burnett, London Creative Direction Gerard Stamp

Art Direction Mark Tutssel Copywriter Nick Bell Photographer Russell Porcas

This was the first print ad that I saw that made me realise that you can do anything you want. I was inspired by the simplicity and it taught me that great print ads should let the viewer close the loop.

That’s the reward that makes you love the ad.”

Brendan Hoffmann, Executive Creative Director, Joe Public, Cape Town

With a waiting list of buyers, Mercedes-Benz was not in desperate need of pushing immediate sales. They had a great brand and, in the SLK small sports car, a very hot model indeed. It didn’t really need advertising at all. Perhaps that’s the confident mood you need to have inside a brand, and at the agency working on the account, to be able to have work like this emerge. Out of that situation came one of the most memorable and perfect of automotive print ads.

Much copied, with various overt referential homage paid by some, but it has never been beaten. The idea is terrific, an exaggerated bit of observational anthropology. Just in case you don’t get it – and very few don’t – the car’s so great that passing drivers slam on the brakes to get a better look. If you were in the market for an SLK you certainly would get it. If not, you’d be curious about “getting” the ad … until you too just might think you need an SLK.

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Find Your Greatness

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2012]

Client Nike Agency Wieden + Kennedy, Portland Creative Direction Ryan O’Rourke, Alberto Ponte

A film that was epic from the start. A grandiose script paired with an unusual visual style for the brand. Truly unforgettable.

Art Direction Sezay Altinok, Aramis Israel, Sara Phillips Copywriter Caleb Jensen, Brock Kirby Production Company Park Pictures Director Lance Acord

Anna Martha Silveira, Content Vice President, DPZ

For the 2012 London Olympics, where could Nike go with its message? It had a mass of superstar athletes under contract, it had a load of product to sell … but it was Nike. It goes in the opposite direction from the starry activities on the track and on our screens: it said that “greatness” can be found wherever we are, if we want to find it. The resulting campaign took us all over the world to see people dreaming of glory in their own unique ways. The most memorable spot may be the one of the overweight 12-year-old Nathan Sorrell – from London, Ohio – running towards the camera.

This is the idea that I would love to have had myself. So simple and perfect at the same time, so well-written. It’s instant envy for me – but the good kind.

Joaquin Campins, Executive Creative Director, GUT Buenos Aires

He put himself forward for the casting, although wasn’t into running. He weighed 232 lbs. The effort had him vomiting at the roadside during the shoot.

It caused controversy that he was even used in the spot. He (and his mom) later made their weight loss goals and were an inspiration to many.

Most sports brands behave the same way, including most Nike spots: remarkably fit people perform fast-paced feats of athleticism. But Find Your Greatness and the Jogger spot in particular, subverted that expectation to show that athletic greatness can be so much more. The sound design, the locked off camera, the simplicity is quiet and true, and more engaging as a result.

Jacquelyn Parent, Creative Director, Rethink

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Vol 3/2024

202–203

The Epic Split [2013]

Client Volvo Agency Forsman & Bodenfors, Gothenburg Art Direction Anders Eklind, Jerry Wass, Sophia Lindholm

Copywriter Bjorn Engstrom, Martin Ringqvist Production Company Folke Film Director Andreas Nilsson

It taps into pop culture and becomes pop culture itself. All of a sudden you want to make and look at truck advertisements. It proves any brand or product can be highly entertaining – even a truck demo.

Claudia Illan, Copywriter, Marcel Paris

Might this be the ultimate product demo?

It’s right up there. Epic Split is the sixth in a series of films called Live Tests that Forsman devised for Volvo Trucks to show the features of their trucks. This is the only one that everybody remembers … no doubt including its hero, none other than Jean-Claude van Damme.

The “muscles from Brussels” was cast to do the splits while standing on the wing mirrors of two articulated trucks that were travelling backwards at around 14mph. It goes on for 75 seconds and it’s a thing of strange beauty. And the point of it? This was explained in the superimposed end line: “This test was set up to demonstrate the stability and precision of Volvo Dynamic Steering.” It really does do the job and it worked for the client, as a lot more trucks were sold. OK, JeanClaude had a hidden safety harness and, yes, the road is a super-smooth runway in Spain. But really, it’s wild. And there’s one more line when it fades to black, advising: “It was carried out by professionals in a closed off area.” How thoughtful. Don’t try this on your local highway.

I could watch it endlessly, and every time, I still think — what the heck just happened?

Santiago Luna Lupo, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Springtime, Buenos Aires

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Twister

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[1995]

Client Volvo Agency Abbott Mead Vickers (AMV) BBDO, London Art Direction Walter Campbell

Copywriter Tom Carty Production Company Tony Kaye Films Director Tony Kaye

It was a challenge whether we should choose this Volvo film or Unexpected, an earlier masterpiece for Dunlop from the same team of Kaye, Campbell and Carty (look it up if you’re not familiar). Both films are full of visual riches and use collage-like storytelling to push the boundaries of the senses. Twister, perhaps, is in some ways a little more orthodox yet more truly filmic and coherent. It sets up a grand engagement by depicting a storm chaser … somewhere in the Midwest, we might guess … a man who, of course, needs a great car to take him right into the ferocity of the all-destroying storm, where he must plant his tornado monitoring unit.

I remember when this first came out — everyone was talking about it.

Directed by the inimitable Tony Kaye, it left everyone asking, How did he do it? Stories from the shoot went viral around London. Back then, a Volvo was seen as a pretty boring car.

Well, not anymore.

Graham Fink, multimedia artist, most recently former Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy China

It combines high-energy action shots with moments of great lyricism, dramatic pace changes and surprising edits, and yet the whole hangs together precisely and strongly.

And now it has withstood the test of time.

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Vol 3/2024

206–207

Cog

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2003]

Client Honda Agency Wieden + Kennedy, London Art Direction Matt Gooden

Copywriter Ben Walker Production Company Partizan Director Antoine BardouJacquet

It’s an art film that is at the same time a superb product demo.

Fran Luckin, Chief Creative Officer, VML South Africa, Johannesburg

The story goes that, after the two-minute long Cog premiered on TV, slotted into an ad break in the middle of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the Honda website saw more traffic in 24 hours than all but one other automotive website saw in an entire month. It was a phenomenon, a water cooler moment (when we still went into the office) and a standout case of earned media before we quite knew how to measure earned media. It uses the idea of the chain reaction of events, of perpetual motion between an ingenious arrangement of objects and materials, to construct a bizarrely amusing and exciting journey through the car parts of a Honda Accord. So creative and complicated is the sequence of actions that the film production took seven months. Two months were spent on making hundreds of drawings of possibilities, then four months on testing which of the possible movements could work. The final film consists of two 60-second shots joined together (spot the join!). Bardou-Jacquet was determined to have it as real as possible and there is very little CGI involved. Bear in mind that the smallest variations in temperature and humidity, or a little dust, can throw off the timing so that a sequence fails. Anyway, they got there. There were two articulated trucks worth of spare parts from Honda Accords leftover after the shoot.

From a copywriter’s perspective, I read this line as a beautiful bow on top of an already impeccable idea. There’s simply nothing more to say.

And I think there’s beauty in the simple craft of finding the right combination of words that don’t let the last 120 seconds fall flat. Great track.

Sandra Valencia, Copywriter, The Basement

Cog not only gathered mass popular attention but took many of the top awards going in the following year. The only slight fly in the ointment was a threat of litigation from the artists Fischli & Weiss, who pointed out how close Cog was in concept and execution to their wonderful art piece 1987 film Der Lauf Der Dinge (The Way Things Go). Check it out, it’s online. But nothing came of that and, even if there is the suggestion of an appropriation in Cog there is a crucial and major creative leap to make the endless motion process the story of a car. Cog ends its sequence of bizarre car-part transactions with an ingenious twist that leads to a complete Honda Accord rolling off, while Garrison Keillor’s smooth tones provide the sign off line: “Isn’t it nice when things just work?” Indeed it is.

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YOUR RIDE TO WORLDS UNSE E N

represented by

marianne campbell associates

annabelle breakey shaun fenn randal ford sara forrest will graham margaret lampert rj muna matthew turley

mariannecampbell.com

marianne@mariannecampbell.com

+1 (415) 433 0353

Absolut Warhol [1985]

Client Absolut Vodka

Agency TBWA Worldwide, New York Artist Andy Warhol

Warhol is commenting on how commercial our society has become and how art is a part of that by exploring the relationship between art and money.

Mia Sundberg, curator, Absolut Art Collection, Spritmuseum, Stockholm

In picking out this particular classic print/ poster image, we are really endorsing the 25-year long Absolut campaign that started in 1981 and ran until 2006. It began with a retouched product shot, one that focused on the beauty of the distinctive clear glass bottle and its typography, adding a halo above it. Absolut Perfection was a hit, the first of many.

As we have a 40-year limit here, back to 1984 and the origin of Lürzer’s Archive, we have focused on 1985, and perhaps the most lasting treatment in the whole campaign. It was when the Absolut campaign got a turbo-charge by using a major artist to create an artwork around the product. This was to become a regular theme of the campaign, getting great artists to make art with, of and on the bottle. Andy Warhol was huge and it was a huge endorsement – but also a strong ad.

Keith Haring, Ed Ruscha and many others followed, while the campaign also moved through almost endless visual puns where the bottle-shape was suggested by a swimming pool, or 34 yellow taxis parked on a New York avenue traffic jam, a ski run and a ski jump, or how about a portable toilet door? Yes, a weird one but it associates with the crowd who like outdoor music festivals. All this elevated the Swedish brand, with its apothecary bottle packaging and clean spirit that probably tastes like many other vodkas, into seeming super-premium and for the smarter US drinker. But the magic of the Warhol project with Absolut, is that it has continued to be revived and rebooted, even as recently as this summer with an experiential work at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.

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Skating Priests

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2005]

Client Stella Artois Agency DLKW Lowe, London Creative Direction Ed Morris Art Direction Vince Squibb

Copywriter Vince Squibb Production Company Academy Director Jonathan Glazer

A two-minute black and white film where all the characters are priests? Yes. It’s one of the best. And there really are a lot of priests, young and old. Oh, and there’s some beer that never gets near being drunk. It doesn’t even get out of the bottle. There are no fancy pouring shots here.

If you look at the pedigree, you get a clue: one of the greatest directors at work in advertising and, mostly since then, feature films. One of the great art directors. And all in the service of one of the very great, longlasting campaigns. Stella Artois and its “reassuringly expensive” message.

What makes Skating Priests so super special is the double debunk … we’re rewarded not once but twice!

Nicola Wood, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy UK

We could have put quite a few other ads here from that campaign, there’s so much great work (and Glazer indeed had shot two previous commercials in the campaign).

The “reassuringly expensive” print work is masterful and it hurts not to show it here but we have to come down to one ad, really.

And so we tempt you with somewhat understated black-and-white frames drawn from the wonderful poignant tale of Skating Priests.

Look at them and reflect on the twists and turns of life, while humming Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.

Brilliant storytelling, witty, simple, beautiful. It hooks you from the first scene. It’s timeless.

Richard Brim, Chief Creative Officer, adam&eveDDB

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Vol 3/2024

212–213

fabianhaefeli.ch

Styling: Feride Dogum – feridedogum.ch

Fabian Häfeli Fotografie

La Compil des Bleues [2023]

40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Orange Agency Marcel, Paris Creative Direction Gaëtan du Peloux, Youri Guerassimov, Xavier Le Boullenger

There are a number of themes that emerge across the selections from our nominators, one of them being the examination of the position and values around women in societies and cultures, where great ads have increasingly moved to challenge historic or ongoing injustices.

A proper viral, an ad for our time.

Kate Stanners, Chairwoman and Global Chief Creative Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi

One of the most recent works of excellence highlighted in this area is this genius spot. It used state-of-the-art image manipulation to appear to show us the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann strutting their stuff for Les Bleus, the French soccer team, only for it to be revealed that image-mapping had replaced action from a match of Les Bleues, the French women’s team. Yes, those stunning shimmies and dummies, bicycle kicks and bullet-fast penalties were the work of women! Indeed, the game looks rather better in terms of hot action than the average top men’s team.

Brilliant stuff from Orange, who sponsor the sport, but don’t ask if there is any direct connection with buying a service from Orange. It’s a tour de force idea, a really effective tricking of the viewer, a serious political point being reinforced (women’s football really is fully equal to the men’s game!) And we feel better about the company as a result.

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Art Direction Vincent Teffene, Sam Salou Copywriter Antonin Jacquot Motion Designer Julien Taillez

Will Hartley

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Counterfeit Mini [2005]

Client MINI Agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami Art Direction Paul Stechschulte, Tiffany Kosel

Copywriter Rob Reilly, Franklin Tipton Production Company Jodaf Mixer, Hungry Man Director Bryan Buckley

In what has been described as a “proactive measure” against brand copying, this early integrated campaign embodied a combination of DVD, print inserts, warnings in trade classified ads, and a trade show presence. Along with a special website, it all supposedly manifests the concerns of the Counter Counterfeit Commission and its raising of the alert around fake Mini cars.

It’s disturbing and funny in equal measure, with a strange kind of grit in it that stuck in the mind and popped out of the various media. It punches above its weight in a truly original manner and so enabled Mini to strike an edgy attitude and position the brand as super-desirable through a kind of double bluff of somewhat tacky ads/fake reportage, helping cut through much larger spending by competitors.

At the heart of the weird fun is great comic timing in the low-rent film-style satire, another example of the director Bryan Buckley’s flexibility.

This completely changed the way we did everything as a creative moving forward. Actually, everything that Crispin touched at that time did that.

Richard Brim, Chief Creative Officer, adam&eveDDB

Lürzer’s Archive

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Phone It In

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2022]

Client Skinny Agency BBDO Colenso, Auckland Creative Direction Levi Slavin, Simon Vicars

Art Direction Charlotte Upton, Leon Bristow Copywriter Callum Mcdonald

Old-school media will definitely always have its place. It’s just how you use it.

Jamie Tait, Marketing Manager, Spark, the company behind Skinny

Skinny is a low-cost telco brand in New Zealand with a modest budget for advertising. So how did this integrated campaign capture massive audience engagement and a heap of awards? By being very smart in the way it connected old and new media to spark direct engagement, so that fans helped make the ads.

It started with 34 bespoke ads that were placed OOH. The text invited Skinny customers to call in and record the voiceover for the ad. The script was handily supplied in the ad they were standing in front of. These recordings were all stored and then many were put back out as radio ads, thereby having real people do real endorsements with great energy. In total 2560 ads were made, effectively for free.

One of the low-cost campaigns I’m jealous of.

Who says people don’t read long copy anymore?

Debby De Ridder, Creative Content Director, VML Belgium

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Vol 3/2024

218–219

It’s A Tide Ad [2018]

40 YEARS SPECIAL Client Procter & Gamble Agency Saatchi & Saatchi, New York Creative Direction Chad Baker, Paul Bichler, Javier Campopiano, Daniel Lobaton,

Art Direction Jacopo Borcio, Erin Evon Copywriter Blake Morris Director Traktor Production Company Rattling Stick

Why limit your airtime to your media buy? This one wins for staying in the minds of consumers when they least expect it.

Marijke Spain, Innovation Creative Director, HeimatTBWA\

Super Bowl LII (ie. The 52nd one, for those who are not sports fans or Latin lovers) perhaps would be best numbered as “It’s a Tide Super Bowl.” A brilliant creative and media strategy hijacked the ad breaks to make a hero of the detergent brand. The ads featured the actor David Harbour, famous from Stranger Things, as a character who first establishes the idea that when very white clothes are seen on screen in any kind of ad, “It’s a Tide ad”. Then he proceeds to crop up five times more in other brands ads, determining that they are also Tide ads.

Smart, simple and fun.

Great hack to the Superbowl.

Laura Rapela, Executive Creative Director, GUT Buenos Aires

Brilliant brand collaborations, brilliant extension of how to get more from your (vast) media spend. For example, a new version of the great Old Spice campaign “The man your man could smell like,” (also in these pages) gets a reprise but with David Harbour inserted, declaring, alongside the original Old Spice Man, atop a stretched white horse, that this too is a Tide ad.

The idea exploded across social during the Super Bowl game, with people posting their own #TideAd images … the hashtag trended only slightly behind that of #superbowllii itself. At the heart of the idea was a clever undermining of all advertising – in that ads tend to have people in often ridiculously perfect clean clothing – and twisting that to convince that Tide is how such standards are achieved. Very meta indeed, very 2018.

Lürzer’s Archive

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Whassup?

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[1999]

Client Budweiser Agency DDB, Chicago Art Director Chuck Taylor

Copywriter Vinny Warren Production Company C&C Storm Director Charles Stone III

I was just starting my career when this blew up everywhere. A perfect example of how a cultural insight can turn into a timeless hit.

Diogo Borges, Executive Creative Director, XELEMENT Dubai

Often associated with being a stand out from the 2000 Super Bowl array of ads, this classic spot in fact broke just before Christmas a whole millennium previously. Remember how difficult it was to do viral stuff way back then … before smartphones, when the internet was often still pretty slow, etc.? Anyway, there was a lot of whassupping going around quite soon after. The best version is the one-minute chilled out classic Whassup? True. But there’s also a 30-second version and then there’s various follow up extensions and reprises.

What’s worth digging out on the web is the inspiration for it all, Charles Stone’s original short film True, from 1998, which gives you 6m 30s of the same riff around the call sign. Even more warm brotherly affection/repressed male bonding.

I was saying Whassup? even before seeing the ad as it went mainstream into the culture.

Cyril Louis, Creative Partner, The Royals Australia

This spot shows how appropriation, or reinvention, especially when including the creator of the original (ie. Stone) is often a great way of doing something outstanding but not doing it from a standing start. It can still be truly creative in the sense that everything must come from somewhere, so stand on the shoulders of others and try to reach higher.

This ad perfectly nailed the laid-back vibe of grabbing a beer with a bud, capturing the realness of friendships we all recognize. With a funny, relatable catchphrase, it quickly became a pop culture phenomenon, making Budweiser part of everyday conversation.

Hemal Dhanjee, Creative Director, Courage Toronto

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Vol 3/2024

220–221

Just Do It

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[1988]

Client Nike Agency Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Oregon

How could we not include in our “40 Greatest” one of the most familiar, most celebrated and most successful slogans? It’s a gem of lasting copywriting in advertising … but where did it start and what do we show?

None of us really paid that much attention. We thought, ‘Yeah. That’d work.’ People started reading things into it much more than sports.

Dan Wieden, writer of the slogan Just Do It and Co-founder, Wieden + Kennedy

There’s a slightly ambiguous aspect to the story. It seems undisputed that the man himself, Dan Wieden, had a very big hand in coming up with and committing to the line.

However, it has become colored with the perception that it is based on the words of the serial killer Gary Gilmore who, shortly before being executed by firing squad in 1977, said, “Let’s do it.” Wieden acknowledged the impact of Gilmore’s words and that he had this in his mind. But let’s not ignore there’s a crucial tweak, introducing a more imperative note with “Just”. Small changes like that are what differentiates great writing from a shopping list. Or from a death wish.

The result is “universal and intensely personal”, as Nike described it. Somehow the three words are highly motivational, timeless, able to cover a massive range of possibilities, all sport and all kinds of sporting engagement. And the line reaches beyond sport to represent the values that should inform our behaviors. As a result, over the decades this line has played a hard-tomeasure but not insignificant role in making billions for Nike. It has come and gone in active use but captures an attitude that is in the very DNA of the brand.

In the launch phase in 1988, many notable works used it. We are going to plump for this almost lost print classic from our Archive, a lone runner on a bridge, photography by the great Arthur Meyerson, art direction by David Jenkins, and poetic copy by Jerry Cronin: “Mothers, there´s a mad man running in the streets, and he´s humming a tune, and he´s snarling at dogs, and he still has four more miles to go. Just Do It.”

Lürzer’s Archive

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Trillion Dollar Billboard

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2009]

Client The Zimbabwean newspaper Agency TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, Johannesburg

Creative Direction Damon Stapleton Art Direction Nadja Lossgott, Shelley Smoler Copywriter Nicholas Hulley, Raphael Basckin

One of the first major breathtaking pieces that I saw. What a use of OOH. Such an incredible statement.

Jarrad Pitts, Creative Director, Consulum, Dubai

The Zimbabwean newspaper, based in South Africa – an exiled opponent of the Zimbabwe regime – needed to find a way to promote itself and draw attention to the crisis of the Zimbabwean economy, where hyperinflation was making life extremely hard. They didn’t have the budget to buy much media (only about $ 5,000): but they did have a trillion dollar note or two … that would be a Z$ trillion, so just about worthless. Well, worthless, until transformed into the medium itself, carrying the message.

The agency printed on the worthless money, making posters, murals and billboards out of it to get the story across. A national and then global range of coverage resulted, delivering massive awareness of the newspaper and the issues it was raising. Perhaps the key measure of success was that the embarrassment around the campaign may just have been why the Zimbabwean regime removed the false “luxury” tax that it had imposed on the newspaper, which had crippled its circulation in Zimbabwe. As a result of this change, the newspaper could once again be sold in the country.

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Vol 3/2024

224–225

Laundrette

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[1985]

Client Levi’s Agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), London Creative Direction John Hegarty, Barbara Nokes

Art Direction John Hegarty Copywriter Barbara Nokes Production Company Mike Dufficy & Partners Director Roger Lyons

For many, if not most, people, this commercial is now seen as a precursor to Beyoncé’s Levi’s commercial from the summer of 2024. Also shot in a launderette, it features the central character stripping down to their underwear in order to put their jeans in the wash. Of course, hers is a neat homage to the earlier spot, while doing solid work for the brand and helping with sales of her own country music album. But does the earlier spot need homage … or perhaps just re-mastering and putting it out there again?

It still looks great. We still have 501s and we still indulge ourselves in a myth of 50s Americana, similar to that concocted by the very young BBH and its creative leaders, the stylist Ray Petri and director Roger Lyons.

Oh, and let’s not forget the great music licensing, I Heard it Through the Grapevine. This sounds just like the Marvin Gaye original but is actually a custom version/near copy by Karl Jenkins and Mike Ratledge. The impact of this spot was immense, not only being credited with helping a several hundred per cent sales increase for 501s but also having a cultural resonance within advertising and beyond.

A game changer.

Kate Stanners, Chairwoman and Global Chief Creative Officer, Saatchi & Saatchi

Lürzer’s Archive

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Lamp

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[2002]

Client Ikea Agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami Art Director Steve Mapp

Copywriter Ari Merkin Production Company MJZ Director Spike Jonze

My all time favourite TV spot.

Spike Jonze at his best. Insightful, simple, beautiful, funny.

Brendan Hoffmann, Executive Creative Director, Joe Public, Cape Town

To make the viewer get emotional over a discarded desk lamp, then have a rather charmless Swedish-sounding man pull the rug with a crude interjection that promotes a smart replacement light … There’s a bizarre mix in this film that was much awarded and still lives strong in the memory of admiring creatives. Yes, there is a strong brand message, or messages, around a clear reinforcement of product quality, of choice and being on-trend, while overall we can just put ourselves in the picture, empathise with the characters. But, on top of that, Spike Jonze has heaps of finesse in film craft and tells the tale with real warmth. It’s a lovely film to watch, many times over. There was even a later version that wrapped in a more holistic recycling/upcycling message, with a little girl coming along and picking it up for re-use in her bedroom. But the 60-second original is a perfectly-tuned piece with tight plotting, and looks and sounds great.

It was CP+B’s launch of a new Unböring tagline for IKEA, encouraging shoppers to see their furnishings as something that can change with the times more often, but it’s the feel of the film, not the sales pitch, that we remember.

This one is almost unfair, since it was shot by Spike Jonze. But, man, the visual storytelling is just killer. The shaky handheld cam as the lamp is taken from its home, the dim light extinguished in the rain, its bowed “head” for maximum tear-jerk, just before the ridiculous punchline. Perfection.

Kevin Mulroy, Executive Creative Director, Mischief USA

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Vol 3/2024

226–227

1984

40 YEARS SPECIAL

[1984]

Client Apple Agency Chiat\Day Creative Direction Lee Clow Art Direction Brent Thomas

This positioned the brand as a revolutionary force against conformity, embodied by IBM. It redefined brand storytelling by moving away from traditional, product-focused advertising and instead created a cinematic, dystopian narrative that resonated deeply with the cultural fears of the time.

Cristina Reina, Chief Creative Officer, Quality Experience, New York

We are going to tweak the rule that all our selections are from 1984 onwards. The fact is that this iconic 1984 ad first ran on 31 December 1983, on a few local TV stations. That was just so it could qualify for an awards show. But really it was destined for 22 January 1984, with just one airing in the third ad break of the Super Bowl. That single airing is explained by the endline: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

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Copywriter Steve Hayden Production Company RSA Director Ridley Scott

Even that one showing nearly didn’t happen. The Apple board apparently hated the scary dystopian film that co-founder Steve Jobs had encouraged Chiat\ Day to come up with. They wanted the ad slots sold off and the film axed. But through some ruses, it went ahead – just the one showing. The rest is history and this spot is undoubtedly one of the most iconic films, whether you rate it as up there with the greatest or not.

It lasted and grew huge in reputation. That’s undoubtedly helped by hindsight: the film, which was a veiled attack on the Big Brother figure of IBM and a massive claim to be about to revolutionise computing … Well, it kind of came true. Not in one year, or even one decade. But Apple ultimately became, for a while, the world’s most valuable company, in danger of being more the dictator on the screen than the outsider challenging orthodoxy.

It’s perhaps best enjoyed as a fine piece of Ridley Scott film craft. Shot in the UK, the director, with a very stretched budget, apparently hired local skinheads to fill out the mass rank of compliant drones in the audience. For what seems quite a maximum big budget experience, a closer look reveals it to be seemingly quite a minimalist shoot.

WE LOVE COLOR.

printalliance.at

40 YEARS SPECIAL

Starting over … over to you It’s been great fun – and also an almighty group headache – researching and refining our special report on the greatest 40 ads of the past 40 years.

Of one thing we can be sure: you will not agree with us! Or with each other. After all, we didn’t agree here. And neither did our many wonderful nominators.

Our process was to get 40 (or so) creative experts to suggest ads that they felt had to be in the 40. They pitched in with anything from three to 20 ideas. We also allowed them to add a few works that they might be connected with. Primarily though, we wanted their best shot at identifying the works by others that had blown them away over the years and which they felt were essential to the Top 40. We aimed for a wide mix of participants, notably by geography and by age. We involved famous names from decades of great work from the history of Lürzer’s Archive, and we also sought insights from hot creatives and creative leaders of today.

That mix probably caused us some challenges from the off. After all, the frame of ready reference is very different from somebody who has been in the industry for ten years than from somebody who might have worked through the full 40 years.

We can also see that previous measurements of creative excellence (awards, etc.) breed, or perhaps contaminate, to generate groupthink that is hard to break away from. Fortunately, or perhaps inevitably, many of our nominators could see that force at work and redoubled their efforts to find the more difficult-to-see diamonds. Another filter that was harder to escape is that we all exist surrounded by the values of today. We can’t help being of our time if we are actively engaged now, and that tends to reinvent the past to what is relevant and acceptable to us now. For example, there were hardly any suggestions of tobacco advertising by our nominators, even though back in the 1980s there was still a lot of it

Lürzer’s Archive Special Report

[40+]

LÜRZER’S ARCHIVE 40 YEARS SPECIAL

about and some of it was seen as really very good, winning favor with the media and public as well as awards festival attention.

And it is not only that advertising may filter out its past to be more “right” for now but that it also promotes that which seems to speak most to the agenda today. It’s almost impossible not to, without some serious debate. We can see it in our selection. Are we too compliant with the values of today? Or not compliant enough?

How will this list be viewed in five, ten or even another 40 years?

All of that brings us to the next step. These 40 works are all remarkable. But what’s missing? What would you make a strong case to add in … or indeed, remove from this set?

Yes, Lürzer’s Archive needs you! Any reader of this publication will have opinions about what makes for great creative work, and specific examples of excellence. What is the top of your list for inspiration or that you wish you had made? What ads have changed the world for the better in the past 40 years, not by being worthy but by being amazing examples of communication?

Please send your picks to us at editor@lurzersarchive.com and/or post comments into the LinkedIn discussions we are running on this topic.

You can read the full nominations from our experts as individual pieces on our website, and we will highlight more ideas as we build this out.

Having started on the Top 40, we realize that the vast industry and the incredible culture that we are a part of has a task to embark on and one where Lürzer’s Archive has a responsibility to lead. For this generation and the next (as well as acknowledgment of the past). Our mission is nothing less than to help great creativity have a real sense of its living history. Without that, we are destined to … You know the rest. Don’t you? (See the intro.)

Published by Lürzer International Limited 151 Wardour Street London W1F 8WE United Kingdom Printed by Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH Druckhausstr 1 2540 Bad Vöslau Austria printalliance.at

Beware: work-in-progress.

40+ leading creatives choose 40+ greatest ads from the 40+ years of Lurzer‘s Archive

Contents © 2024 Lürzer International Ltd. All rights reserved The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission from the publisher, Lürzer International Ltd. Lürzer’s Archive is a trademark of Lürzer International Ltd, London.

Lürzer’s Archive

Submissions We welcome published work, as individual or campaigns, in print, OOH, film, digital, experiential and all other marketing categories.

Please submit at luerzersarchive.com The submitter must have the authority to grant Lürzer’s Archive the rights and permission to reproduce, edit, comment editorially on the submission and to use the submission in print, online and in any marketing material for Lürzer’s Archive. All work is featured free of charge.

We accept no responsibility to return unsolicited material and reserve the right to accept or reject any material for any reason.

When I was approached about the Anniversary issue, immediately it came to me “What a perfect moment to create an Analog image“. Shooting an 1980’s styled ad campaign inspired by “Miami Vice“ was my first thought. What better than a beautiful Alfa Romeo Duetto with a lot of loud colours. I shot this on Kodak Portra 400, I did clean up the scanned image with photoshop. Happppy 40th Anniversary!!

Special thanks to Rossella Oppes, Lucio Cadeddu, Fabrizio Usai, Aurelio Pisano, Valerio Loi, Alessandro Murgia, Foto Classic & Superemme.

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