7 of the Greatest Commercials that Will Never Be Forgotten

Epic Slip, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Baby Roller, and more

Diana Rus

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ILLUMINATION-Curated

4 min readFeb 12, 2021

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The moment you are watching a movie on TV, something important is about to happen, and suddenly a commercial appears:

Buy this detergent now and all of your problems will disappear the same way this detergent makes the mud stain will go away!

Sometimes commercials are annoying. You can’t love all of them and in every moment of your life.

Your relation with ads is a love-hate one. Sometimes you love and care more about them than the game at the Super Bowl. Sometimes you hate them, like when they get in the way of you watching the movie.

Creating a good ad is not easy. But many commercials exceeded our expectations, impressed us, and succeeded to amaze us.

Today we are going to talk about 7 of the greatest commercials of all time.

1. Volvo Trucks: Epic Split feat. Van Damme

Epic Slip is an ad created by Volvo Trucks in 2013. The ad is 75 seconds long.
Jean- Claude Van Damme is featured while performing a gymnastic split between two moving trucks.

The song played in the ad is “Only Time” by Enya.

The ad became famous instantly after it was released. People from all around the world talked about it.

A week after the release, Volvo created a new version of the ad, swapping Van Damme’s face with Rob Ford and the Mayor of Toronto.

Chuck Norris was a feature in another parody, as Walker, Texas Ranger. He performed a gymnastic split between two aircraft. On Chuck Norris’s head are 11 commandos balancing, forming the shape of a Christmas Tree.

The ad was never forgotten. The internet is full of memes and videos about this commercial. In 2021 the Epic Slit is a commercial that is still talked about due to the ingeniosity that made it this great. Seeing Van Damme doing the splits and also seeing Chuck Norris is an image that can’t be forgotten.

2. Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

Old Spice’s target market is women. This can be clearly seen from the commercials they make.

Old Spice’ The Man Your Man Could Smell Like ad was launched in 2010. It was created by the agency Weiden + Kennedy. The commercial features the actor Isaiah Mustafa in different situations.

The brand is loved by women from all around the world due to Isaiah Mustafa and the scrip. Old Spice succeeded in convincing women to buy the products for their boyfriends.

3. Gatorade: Water Made Active

The ad was released in 2017, and it socked viewers due to how incredible it was.

A human is created just out of water droplets. The human runs, boxes, and exercise. The most amazing thing is that the human is not created on a computer and they made it real using a 3D liquid printer.

The ad makes you think that you are watching an SF movie, not an ad. Gatorade is presented in a spectacular and unique way.

4. Transport Accident- Commission: Meet Graham

The Australian road safety campaign ‘Meet Graham’ was released in 2017.

The ad was created to raise awareness of the danger of car accidents to humans. Their message was that the human body is not made to resist a car accident that happens because of the high speed.

They created a human that would withstand a car accident. His name is Graham.

The human-created is not a beautiful one, and it’s clearly an image that viewers can’t forget.

The ad had a huge impact on viewers due to Graham’s image and story.

5. Evian: Baby Roller

Released in 2009, the ad was declared by the Guinness Book of World Records the most viewed online ad.

The ad is funny and hard to forget. The babies are dancing, playing while they are on roller skates. People loved the commercial.

Evian focused on the concept of young and succeeded in creating a viral ad and transmitted the message to the whole world.

6. Geico: Unskippable

The day the ad was filmed was probably one of the dog’s happiest days.

Geico’s message is transmitted straight on point in just 10 seconds. Then the family froze, and a dog comes into the frame, eating all the food from the table.

The ad was created by Martin Agency.

This ad is not an ordinary one is a pre-roll ad, but with a twist. Everybody skips pre-roll ads because of how annoying they are.

This is why Geico created an unskippable ad. It’s doing good that you can’t skip it. The ad was successful from the beginning. In the first 3 weeks, it had over 10 million views.

7. Samsung: Safety Truck

Released in 2015, Samsung presented a solution to a real problem.

In Argentina, almost one person dies every hour because of a car accident. 80% of the accidents happened because people try to overtake other cars. This doesn’t end well most of the time.

The principal target market was Argentina because there are hundreds of roads with just one lane. So the visibility is low, and overtaking other cars is difficult.

Samsung created Safety Truck. The truck has cameras in front and monitors in the back that show the road from the front.

This way, the car behind could see the traffic perfectly and could overtake safely.

The video was successful from the beginning, being seen by people from all around the world. Samsung’s idea was admired and loved but was questioned too.