The power of a great advert shouldn’t be underestimated: they can make us laugh, cry, or even change public opinion. Click or scroll through our round-up of the most powerful ad campaigns in history, and the huge profits they raked in.

Oranges were big business in California in the early 20th century, but demand fell flat while growers continued to churn out the fruits, causing a big slump in profits. The California Fruit Growers Exchange brought on the marketing expertise of agency Lord & Thomas in 1907, who brought all of the farmers together under the name “Sunkist”. The agency also helped to popularise orange juice as a commodity, and while “Sunkist” now refers to a separate soft drinks company, OJ is still a worldwide breakfast accompaniment thanks to the work of those marketeers over 100 years ago.

We think of health shakes and smoothies as a modern phenomenon, but in the mid-1900s there was one beverage that medical professionals were certain had beneficial properties – a pint of Guinness. In 1929, adverts for the dark Irish stout read “Guinness is good for you”, and slogans promoting the drink's nutritious qualities enticed customers for the next three decades, with roaring success. Whether Guinness really can be considered good for you is still debated today, but the stout is rich in a number of vitamins and minerals.

It has often been said that Santa used to be pictured wearing green until Coca-Cola came along and put him in his now trademark red. In fact, Saint Nick had been pictured wearing red before Coca-Cola's magazine ads came out in the 1930s, although the drinks company did help to create the image of the jolly-looking character as we know him today. The association was designed to boost Coke's sales during the winter months, which it duly did.

It may surprise you that, until 70 years ago, it wasn’t common to receive a diamond engagement ring. The custom was brought to us by De Beers, along with the slogan “A diamond is forever” in this 1948 ad. As the price of diamonds was falling, young men were convinced to buy diamond rings for their fiancées, resulting in a massive boost for De Beers’ profits, rising from $23 million in 1939 to $2.1 billion in 1979.

Next time you take a coffee break you’ve got the Pan American Coffee Bureau to thank for the privilege. That’s right – it only became popular in offices after a string of print ads, which urged people to “Give yourself a Coffee-Break – and Get What Coffee Gives to You.” The organisation may no longer exist today but it had a fundamental role in shaping coffee culture and workplace habits.

This is considered one of the most successful advertising campaigns of the 20th century, and for good reason. Volkswagen’s “Think Small” campaign eliminated Americans’ worries about buying a German car in a post-war climate when the Germans weren’t seen too favourably, as well as introducing the notion that smaller is better. The proof was in the profits as sales of the VW Beetle rocketed to 570,000 cars in 1970.

Avis took an unusual approach to advertising by citing the fact that it was only the second most popular car rental company, as evidence that it provided better service: “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder”. Yet the underdog tactic clearly worked and the campaign was a success: in just one year, Avis went from making a loss of $3.2 million to earning $1.2 million.

“Does she or doesn’t she?” Those were the words on everyone’s lips after Clairol’s 1962 campaign. Before, hair-dyeing had been seen as false and cheap, but this slogan made women realise it could look natural. The advertisements transformed attitudes: within a decade, sales of dyes, tints and rinses soared from $25 million to $200 million a year, with Clairol accounting for more than half the total.

Making products popular by using celebrities is one of the oldest tricks in the advertising book, and it paid off for Miller Lite. Movie and sports stars appeared in the ad to tell us that light beer – a new product at the time – still tasted good despite its lower calorie content, helping to open it up to male markets. The campaign was a hit and production of Miller Lite quadrupled by the following decade. In fact, the brand brought back its 1970s packaging in 2014 to revive flagging sales, to great success.

In what is often seen as one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time, American Express used the slogan “Don’t leave home without it” to emphasise the usefulness of its charge card. It’s hard to deny that this memorable campaign had a major part to play in making American Express the leading issuer of personal, small business and corporate cards it is today.

A small Swedish vodka company turned its fortunes around with this deceptively simple campaign. The vodka bottle is the star of the show: a pool-shaped bottle represents “Absolut LA”, a bottle made of flowers for “Absolut spring” and a bottle carved into Central Park for “Absolut Manhattan”. The campaign was a success, taking Absolut from having a 2.5% share of the import market to becoming the leading US vodka importer in just 20 years.

Apple's 1984 Super Bowl ad marked the company's rise to success, presenting a dystopian world controlled by Big Brother. It ends with the message: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984”.” It was a hit and Americans purchased $155 million-worth of Macintosh computers in the three months that followed.

One of the most surprising things about this ad is the fact that the main character – an elderly lady who screeches the slogan “Where’s the beef?” down the phone – isn’t actually an actor. She was a manicurist working on the commercial’s set when a staff member noticed her distinctive voice and suggested she say the lines. The unlikely casting clearly paid off, as Wendy’s profits hit a record $76.2 million in 1985 and the slogan remains memorable to many.

“Just Do It” is one of the most well-known slogans on the planet, yet its introduction also marked the time when Nike turned its fortunes around. The company had been struggling for market share against leading sportswear brand Reebok, when an inspirational ad showing an elderly man running across a bridge was released, bearing the now-famous slogan. In the following 10 years, sales skyrocketed from under $1 billion to over $9.2 billion.

Levi’s didn’t just give us jeans: the brand helped to define an entire way of dressing. In 1992 it launched pamphlets explaining how to wear “Casual Businesswear”, a dress code that was gaining traction in workplaces. It clearly worked. In 1992, when the campaign was released, 66% of companies had a full- or part-time casual dress code, and just three years later that figure had risen to 90%.

Another slogan that’s become a cultural phenomenon is “Got Milk?”. It was first used in a TV ad, where a young man is unable to talk on the phone as his mouth is jammed with peanut butter and, when he reaches for the milk carton, realises it's all gone. Impressively, the campaign spurred a rise in milk sales in California, and the slogan went on to be used globally in a celebrity-led campaign for the Milk Processor Education Program which saw the likes of Kate Moss and Whoopi Goldberg pose with a 'milk mustache'.

Monster.com tugged at heartstrings with this ad, in which children say what they want to be when they grew up. Rather than the usual aspirations, theirs are cynical: “When I grow up, I want to file all day”; “I want to be underappreciated”; “I want to climb my way up to middle management”. The slogan? “There’s a better job out there”. It clearly worked, as the site’s traffic increased by around one million users a month. 

Companies already replacing humans with robots

Encouraging people to switch bank accounts is a challenge, and what’s even harder is making the whole thing seem like fun. Enter Howard Brown, a customer services assistant that UK banking brand Halifax decided to make the star of their television adverts. His singing and dancing saw him quickly become a household name, to the extent that people started to steal cardboard cut-outs of Howard from branches. And it was good for business too, as Halifax reportedly saw a 25% increase in the number of current account holders. Deemed somewhat of a British national treasure, a waxwork version of Howard was added to London’s Madame Tussauds in 2005. 

Marketing teams take a big risk when they rebrand companies, but in Aviva’s case it paid off. The insurance company, formerly known as Norwich Union in the UK, changed its name in 2008 to match the name it had already been operating under in overseas markets. The campaign resulted in an 80% increase in brand recognition and a 26% boost in profits over two years.

For many Brits, the Christmas TV ad for venerable department store John Lewis is an annual event. Since 2009 the company has funnelled millions into its memorable ads, resulting in chart-topping soundtracks, heart-wrenching storylines and strong brand reinforcement. The ads make for some impressive sales: on average, £8 ($10.50) of profit is gained for every £1 ($1.30) spent on the ads.

In our age of social media, to get noticed you have to go viral. It’s something Old Spice knew well when it launched this campaign for shower gel, which scored more than 52 million views online and brought a huge 107% increase in sales. By creating a YouTube video that could be shared on social media, it reached far wider audiences and reaped the rewards.

From bust to boom: brands that came back from the brink

Anyone in the UK will likely groan if you mention this widely-hated ad, featuring an opera singer who belts out the catchy jingle, “Go Compare!”. Yet it clearly helped to get the brand name in people’s heads, as the company reported pre-tax profits had increased by 35% to £29.9 million ($39.6m) in 2010.

Ads that emphasise social issues often do well, as Dove’s Real Beauty campaign goes to show. In the ad, a forensic artist sketches several women based on descriptions of their appearance: one from them, and one from another person. The result? Other people’s descriptions led to much kinder – and more realistic – sketches, highlighting women’s low self-confidence. The poignant campaign helped Dove’s US profits too, bringing in $4.42 (£3.34) for every $1 (£0.76) spent, according to Data2Decisions.

Many of us will remember this thought-provoking campaign from Always. Revealing that post-pubescent girls and women think negatively of the phrase “Like a girl”, Always aimed to change that stigma and remind people that “Like a girl” can be a good thing. The campaign was a roaring success: #LikeAGirl was tweeted 177,000 times in three months, while the probability of people choosing Always grew by more than 50% among its target market.

KFC can teach us a thing or two about recovering from public scandals. When the fast food outlet ran out of chicken in the UK in 2018 due to delivery issues over half of its UK restaurants had to close. But rather than let this embarrassing situation impact its brand reputation as well as its sales, advertising executives decided to 'fess up and rearranged the letters into “FCK – We’re sorry” in an ingenious apology. The ad gained an award at Cannes, and business soon bounced back for the chicken retailer, which was opening a new restaurant at a rate of one every seven hours before the pandemic. Clearly, it clucked out with this cheeky ad.

Unforgettable TV adverts from the year you were born