It was a busy year for brand stunts, logo redesigns, new products and good old-fashioned ads.
The Olympics, a presidential election, the proposed Omnicom-IPG merger … 2024 has been a hectic year, to say the least.
Now that we’re almost on the other side of it, how well do you remember the twists and turns in the world of creative advertising?
Find out with the 25 questions below, which will test your knowledge of the past 12 months on topics ranging from Super Bowl celebrities to AI pratfalls—and everything in between.
Good luck, and here’s to a creatively eventful 2025.
DoorDash’s campaign from Wieden+Kennedy Portland was quite the logistical feat, involving dozens of partners and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of prizes. Read more here.
Walken, Ortega and Fey stumped for BMW, Doritos and Booking.com, respectively, while Stiller appeared in a Pepsi campaign in the previous year’s Super Bowl. Read more here.
Mischief also topped Ad Age’s A-List for 2024—the first time since Droga5 in 2016 that an agency won both awards in the same year. Read more here.
Many ripped Jaguar for frittering away much of its brand equity with the rebrand, though some supported the automaker for swinging for the fences and getting attention. Read more here.
Nike’s “Winning Isn’t Comfortable” campaign from Wieden+Kennedy took the top spot. Campaigns from Roku, Telstra and CeraVe finished second, third and fourth, respectively. Read more here.
Instead of gold, silver and bronze, Astroland’s awards are grouped into “Damn,” “Great” and “Kind of Great.” Read more here.
Swiss Miss, the Conagra cocoa brand, launched Swiss Miss ’Shmallow, a toasted marshmallow whiskey, in partnership with distiller Hotel Tango. Read more here.
Flagg’s star has quickly risen among brands, as he struck several NIL deals before playing a minute of college basketball at Duke. Read more here.
Riswold was central to many iconic Wieden+Kennedy campaigns for Nike, from Michael Jordan’s “Mars Blackmon” and “Hare Jordan” to Bo Jackson’s “Bo Knows,” Charles Barkley’s “I Am Not a Role Model” and Tiger Woods’ “Hello World.” Read more here.
Social media impressions for the White campaign were worth about $74 million, according to the brand’s holding company, PVH Corp. Read more here.
The win for “Fuzzy Feelings” was Apple’s second Emmy in a row—the first time any brand has accomplished that feat. Read more here.
E+K grew revenue by 13% in 2023, won pitches including Gulf States Toyota and Amazon Prime, opened a second office in Texas, and made consistently memorable work, earning it the Small Agency of the Year award. Read more here.
The Oslo campaign, by agency NewsLab AS, featured a fictional resident named Halfdan who has grown up in the city but is totally sick of the place. Read more here.
A Six Flags spot from The Infinite Agency, released in June, showed Mr. Six dancing to his favorite song: “We Like to Party” by the Vengaboys. Read more here.
“We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry,” Apple told Ad Age following complaints that the spot seemed to represent technology crushing the history of human creativity. Read more here.
Lubars helped lead projects including the game-changing BMW Films series at Fallon. Read more here.
The 12-minute Dramamine film from FCB Chicago and directing collective Sunny Sixteen went on to win the Health & Wellness Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. Read more here.
Few brands are as collab-happy as Liquid Death, though McDonald’s is a hill it’s yet to climb. Read more here.
“I ♥ New York” was launched in 1977 and featured graphic designer Milton Glaser’s famous logo. Read more here.
Under Armour’s spot from Tool director Wes Walker provoked hang-wringing that directors could soon become superfluous in the creation of certain types of advertising. Read more here.
Commonwealth/McCann and Leo Burnett in Detroit both lost GM business when the company brought on a new slate of creative, CRM and content agencies. Read more here.
Duolingo’s Brat-green owl masks made quite the impression at the concert, and in social media. Read more here.
Markle’s American Riviera Orchard was considered too much of a mouthful by many observers. Read more here.
Bumble removed the billboards after the message sparked a social media backlash. Read more here.
Nutter Butter’s TikTok following more than doubled in two weeks after nano-influencer Cassie Fitzwater urged viewers to check it out in September. Read more here.
