The 30 best ads of 2022

2022 was a tumultuous and challenging year in which advertisers grappled with striking the right tone in an uncertain and polarized world. Just as we began to emerge from the pandemic, Russia waged war in Ukraine, with the effects reverberating around the world; inflation, energy prices and and a “cost-of-living” crisis came to dominate consumer conversations, on top of ongoing incendiary topics such as climate change and gun control. We also witnessed the rise (and fall) of cryptocurrency, Elon Musk’s wild ride with Twitter, a much-criticized World Cup and the death of the world's most longstanding monarch. Meanwhile, brands and agencies also faced a world of intense social media scrutiny. Many took a serious and purpose-based approach; others helped us escape from our troubles with more light-hearted fare. Here’s our pick of the ideas that made us laugh, cry or just think harder in 2022. Ad Age Year in Review 2022 The year's biggest news, trends and takeaways Click here 30. Velveeta: Velveeta Martini Agency: Johannes Leonardo/ABMC Over the past year, Kraft Heinz's Velveeta has repeatedly outdone itself in its attempts to transform the brand into a luxe lifestyle symbol, including fashion spreads, nail polishes and sculptures. But none quite reached the height of eyebrow-raising as the Velveeta Martini, which was actually available for purchase in BLT steakhouses. The beverage merged cheese, vodka, olive brine and vermouth with Velveeta-themed dressings. A fascinating collision of grotesquery and extravagance, the “Veltini” got the Ad Age office buzzing about what would come next from “La Dolce Velveeta.” 29. Asda: Have your Elf a Merry Little Christmas Agency: Havas U.K. Will Ferrell’s Buddy the Elf has become an icon of Christmas, and U.K. superstore Asda had a tall order integrating the beloved goof into their seasonal advertising. Beyond simply procuring the highly-protected IP (a feat in itself), the brand and agency Havas U.K. pulled off the impossible by seamlessly weaving scenes and dialogue from the original movie into the spot via VFX, matching every minute production detail to bring Buddy to life within the store. See also: Watch all of the big holiday ads of 2022 28. Belvedere Vodka: Daniel Craig Agency: In-house Belvedere Vodka offered a glimpse at the man behind the Bond—and does he have some sweet moves! Directed by Oscar-winner Taika Waititi, Daniel Craig glides and spins through the streets of Paris with effortless pizzazz, clad in a skin-tight vest. The LVMH brand certainly drummed up fan attention on social media for this surprising spot. See also: The top 10 celebrity ads of 2022 27. Back Market: Hack Market Agency: Marcel We saw a few clever campaigns from refurbished tech seller Back Market this year as the French brand tried to break into the U.S. and U.K. markets in a big way. There was a comedic horror spot in which cats turned evil and a spot featuring a “monster” made of tangled cables. But the best move was when it “hacked” an Apple store in a guerilla marketing campaign for Earth Day. It airdropped a message to showroom iPhones in the stores promoting second-hand devices that come in “in pink, blue, black and greener” for customers seeking a new phone, and directing them to its own website. 26. Courageous Conversations: What If They Were Black? Agency: Goodby Silverstein & Partners Courageous Conversation Global Foundation, the organization founded by Glenn Singleton to improve racial equity in the U.S., kicked off 2022 with a jolt in yet another eye-opening push marking the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riots. It created a series of limited-edition tees that imagined if the insurrectionists had been Black. Styled in the form of “RIP shirts” worn in the Black community as part of the mourning process, they featured Black individuals in the places of familiar rioters, and on the back, stats such as the fact that Black people are five times more likely to go to prison. 25. Pantene: Hair Has No Gender Agency: Valtech Radon We saw a whole host of campaigns around Pride month, but this effort by Pantene really stood out among the crowd. The P&G brand expanded its multi-year “Hair Has No Gender” campaign to offer salons resources on how to be more inclusive for LGBTQ+ patrons and employees. The campaign is built around the power hair has in self-expression and the importance of hair particularly to the transgender community. It featured a heartfelt and educational documentary, featuring members of the community discussing the power of hair. More about haircare: L'Oréal's network of inclusive salons 24. Uber Eats: Don't Eats Agency: Special Group U.S. Not only was Uber Eats’ Super Bowl campaign packed with celebs, it deftly converged a number of cultural moments from the beginning of the year: Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina candle, a “Succession” actor, the viral “Oh no” TikTok sound and Jennifer Coolidge (a constant zeitgeist fixture these days). The silly ad was a hilariously memorable way to promote the delivery service’s lesser-known, non-food offering. 23. Virgin Atlantic: I Am The Way I Am Agency: Lucky Generals Virgin Atlantic’s glorious celebration of diversity is a showcase for powerful and joyful filmmaking. Set to a cover of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Am What I Am,” the spot was a vibrant standout from typical travel ads, and coincided with the return to travel during the pandemic while bolstering cultural conversation around inclusion. 22. Pedigree: Rescue Doodles Agency: BBDO New York Mars Petcare’s Pedigree matched kids with their dream dogs via an adorable use of buzzy artificial intelligence tech. Parents could share photos of kids' drawings of their ideal pups via text and Pedigree would use AI to share nearby pet listings that resembled the doodles (some a stretch more than others). The initiative was created in partnership with Adopt-a-Pet.com. 21. Michelob Ultra: McEnroe vs McEnroe Agency: FCB New York Among the many moves into virtual worlds that we saw this year, Michelob Ultra managed an astounding feat of technical innovation when it pitted tennis star John McEnroe against various iterations of his past self on the court. The hour-long special on ESPN2 and ESPN+ was an extension of the brand’s “It’s only worth it if you enjoy it” platform and stunningly merged physical and virtual worlds to showcase the athlete’s legendary career. FCB New York worked with production company Unit9 to bring the idea to life using multiple technologies that included AI, Unreal tech and robotics. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here 20. March for Our Lives: Thoughts and Prayers Agency: McCann New York Gun control continued to be an emotive topic in America this year, and ad agencies came up with yet more creative ways to highlight the ongoing devastation of gun-related violence. One that stood out was this campaign for the non-profit March for Our Lives marking the fourth anniversary of its Washington march. It sent an unmissable message to U.S. leaders—a series of body bags spelling out the words “thoughts and prayers” in front of the U.S. Capitol. The campaign, led by McCann New York, was accompanied by a documentary-style short that was revived months later after the tragedies in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. See also: A gun control campaign drove 52 buses to Ted Cruz's office 19. Dole: Piñatex Agency: L&C NYC Dole and agency L&C NYC brought a sustainable leather substitute from pineapples to the masses. Piñatex, which went on to win the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Creative Business Transformation, utilized byproducts from pineapple farms that would have otherwise gone to waste, which also boosted income for local farmers in the Philippines. Though the product was originally created out of vegan leather startup brand Ananas Anam, Dole’s support amplified Piñatex through over 1,000 brand partnerships, including H&M and Nike, and brought in $100 million in additional revenue for Dole. Read more: The duo behind Piñatex 18. Pringles: Stuck in Agency: Grey New York Sometimes the best ideas are the silliest, e.g. getting one’s hand stuck in a Pringles tube for life. Set to Lionel Richie’s “Stuck on You,” the chuckle-inducing ad imagines all of life’s moments, even the intimate ones, with the company of a Pringles can. The spot, from agency Grey, ran during the Super Bowl and was directed by Tom Kuntz. It received a coveted five-star score in Ad Age’s annual Super Bowl ad review, being lauded for finally departing from the chip brand’s long-used “stacking” platform. More: Pringles fan to be a non-playable character in a video game 17. Coors Light: Chillboards Agency: DDB An example of the unique ways out-of-home is being utilized, Coors Light took to the roofs of Miami buildings to cool off residents. Utilizing reflective white paint, the environmental effort from DDB put branded “chillboards” (the colder version of a billboard) over black rooftops to replace the heat-absorbing color with one that would repel rising temperatures, helping lower bills for residents who might otherwise pay high electric bills to cool off. Coors Light also distributed 5,000 gallons of additional paint so the good deed could spread further. See also: Top 5 out-of-home innovations of 2022 16. Dell/Intel: I Will Always Be Me Agency: VMLY&R In a touching use of tech innovation, Dell and Intel revolutionized the historically challenging voice-logging process for people with motor neurone disease/ALS. Developed by agency VMLY&R, the campaign featured a book-reading experience in which participants would record themselves reciting a story by Jill Twiss, crafted to include all the necessary sounds to properly bank a voice. The technology would then create a synthetic replica for the person with MND to use should they eventually lose their ability to speak. The recording also acts as a beautiful keepsake for loved ones to revisit over the years. 15. British Airways: A British Original Agency: Uncommon Creative Studio The first work for British Airways from Uncommon had at its core a compelling creative idea: the common question travelers fill out on landing forms when they travel, asking what is the purpose of your visit? The answers—not business or leisure, but a third, more intangible option—fed into over 500 different executions, some playful, some daring, some emotional, running over multiple platforms. The campaign combines a potentially evergreen idea with some of the cleverest airline copywriting we’ve seen for years; we'll have to see if it can help revive the floundering airline's fortunes, though. 14. CALM: The Last Photo Agency: Adam&Eve/DDB This U.K. campaign for the suicide prevention charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) kicked off with an exhibit of photographs on London's South Bank simply titled “The Last Photo.” People were directed to a series of photos of smiling, happy-looking people, but with no explanation of what the photos signified. A segment on ITV daytime show “This Morning” then revealed that the exhibition was the work of CALM, and that the photos are of real-life people who died by suicide in the U.K. Visitors to the exhibition could then scan QR codes to take them to a website to learn more about suicide prevention. 13. Penguin Random House/Pen America: Unburnable book Agency: Rethink Book lovers were intrigued and a little bit perturbed when author Margaret Atwood mysteriously took a torch to her classic dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” in a video that she shared on her social channels. Ultimately, however, the book endured because it was actually an “unburnable” copy that was put on auction at Sotheby’s. The campaign, created by Rethink for Penguin Random House, promoted the nonprofit Pen America, which seeks to protect freedom of expression in the U.S. amidst a surge in the banning of books at schools. The book eventually sold for $130,000. 12. Nebo: Torrents of Truth Agency: Nebo/72andSunny Amsterdam Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we saw a plethora of initiatives from agencies that tried to help the Ukrainian people. One of the most interesting ideas came from Ukrainian agency Nebo, which along with 72andSunny Amsterdam conceived this stealthy way to deliver censored news about the war to Russians. Russia had legalized digital content piracy to retaliate against sanctions placed on the country, and the campaign took advantage of that by inserting journalists’ reports in the guise of entertainment. When Russians tried to watch, they encountered a message saying “This isn’t what you expected to see. But this is something that you should see. The truth,” followed by harrowing, personal accounts of the brutal realities of the war. See also: 'Backup Ukraine' uses smartphones to preserve artifacts 11. Ocean Spray: Power your holidays Agency: Orchard This surreal Thanksgiving campaign for Ocean Spray centered on the jiggliness of its cranberry jelly. Orchard's new chief creative officer David Kolbusz, fresh from the U.K. scene, served up the kind of outlandish comedy we don't usually see in a U.S. holiday campaign; a spot directed by Jeff Low went all out to liven up a boring family Thanksgiving dinner, as a family erupts into dance moves after being transfixed by the jelly. A social extension invited people to duet with the wobbly jelly on TikTok, and the campaign extended into Christmas later with a 10-hour “yule log” video —featuring jelly logs, of course. Ad Age's Marketers of the Year The 10 marketers that broke through in 2022 See the full list here 10. McDonald’s: Cactus Plant Flea Market Agency: Wieden+Kennedy New York McDonald's collab with buzzy streetwear brand Cactus Plant Flea Market, which was positioned like a Happy Meal for adults, was a resounding success, boosting sales and driving traffic to the restaurants even at a time when consumers were watching their wallets. The inspired idea was promoted by a fun commercial that featured the fast food brand’s classic characters Grimace, Hamburglar and Birdie driving with the Cactus Plant mascot to get a meal box; within four days, customers had snapped up half of the campaign's collectible toys. Read more: McDonald's pop culture plays are paying off 9. Jeep: Earth Odyssey Agency: Highdive Among a slew of EV ads this year, Jeep stood out with this spot that premiered during the Golden Globes broadcast, in which animals and birds “sang” the music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to promote the Wrangler 4xe. The spot, directed by Park Pictures' Lance Acord, aimed to highlight the plug-in hybrid's environmental credentials with images of the animals, including a hippo, monkey, a peacock, wolves and more, but the “music” was what charmed and grabbed the attention of viewers. Read more: Another auto brand went galactic this year 8. John Lewis: The Beginner Agency: Adam&Eve/DDB The U.K.’s hugely anticipated John Lewis Christmas ad struck the right tone this year with this sensitively handled story of a prospective foster father learning to skateboard. While more stripped-back and less “magical” than in recent years, the spot's blend of gentle humor, a nostalgic track (Blink-182’s “All the Small Things,” sung by Mike Geier) and a purposeful message ensured that this campaign stayed true to brand “DNA,” while shining a light on an important and under-publicized issue. 7. Google: Real Tone Agencies: Gut Miami, T Brand Studio, Wieden+Kennedy, Essence This idea, which won a Mobile Grand Prix at Cannes, saw Google engineers teaming up with Black photography and directing talents to develop “Real Tone” technology designed to more accurately capture a diverse range of skin tones. The innovation was promoted in a Super Bowl spot from Gut that starred Lizzo, in, launch work from Wieden+Kennedy and also in a native advertising campaign with The New York Times’ T Studio. 6. Chevrolet: Sopranos Agency: Commonwealth McCann Detroit The familiar anthem of HBO’s classic series “The Sopranos” was enough to grab people's attention when this spot aired in the Super Bowl. We were treated to even more nostalgia with a remake of the show’s opening scene, this time, with actor Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Tony Soprano’s daughter Meadow, in the driver’s seat, eventually reuniting with her brother A.J. (Robert Iler). GM’s push for Chevrolet’s Silverado EV pickup was even directed for McCann by “Sopranos” creator David Chase. If you weren't a “Sopranos” aficionado it arguably meant less; but the brand was gambling on the residual love for the show, and we think it worked. 5. Liquid Death: Blind Taste Test Agency: In-house Liquid Death’s unorthodox marketing earned it a place on Ad Age’s Marketers of the Year list. From its promise to send a witch to the Super Bowl to its gory Halloween spot featuring Martha Stewart, its campaigns have consistently delivered the unexpected. Perhaps its most eye-catching stunt was its subversion of the classic blind taste test, in which it sought to prove the luxury of its canned water by pitting it against the world’s most pricey delicacies, like Spanish squid ink, $51 Wagyu beef and Beluga caviar. Only, those luxuries were mashed into disgusting, vomit-worthy concoctions. Gross—and totally hilarious. 4. Dove: Deepfake Tutorials Agency: Ogilvy Dove continues with its powerful campaigns designed to help protect girls’ self-esteem, which recently have focused on the toxic effects of social media. In this latest project it used deepfake technology to an incredibly unsettling effect, bringing together a group of moms and daughters to watch beauty tutorials by "influencers." But these were revealed to be deepfake versiosn of the girls’ real moms giving harmful, even toxic beauty advice of a kind perpetuated by influencers on social media—think recommendations to file down your teeth or get a chemical peel. The idea: your mom wouldn't talk to you like this, but influencers do. See also: Dove highlights race-based hair discrimination 3.Mastercard: Introducing Touch Card Agency: McCann Mastercard made history with its “Priceless” campaign, but the innovations it has introduced in recent years around its own credit card offerings are a new landmark in its marketing. After the company’s True Name card recognized the brand’s transgender customers, the Touch Card promised to make life a lot easier for consumers with sight impairment. As well as the groundbreaking design, the campaign itself was also innovative; the brand promoted the offering with a cinematic ad that features a day-in-the-life of a blind woman, each moment narrated with audio description. 2.Coinbase: QR Code Agency: Accenture Song Given what’s happened to cryptocurrency in the past month, we debated long and hard about including this spot in our top 10. But in the end, Coinbase’s Super Bowl ad, which showed nothing but a lo-fi QR code bouncing up and down around the screen like a game of Pong, would have made an inspired idea move for any advertiser. Viewers who snapped the code were taken to Coinbase.com, where they were invited to sign up for an account including $15 worth of free cryptocurrency, or got a chance to score $1 million in a contest. The ad dominated Super Bowl Sunday chatter and led to half a million new subscribers (although it also sparked a row about the value of agencies.) Whatever happens to crypto, the format will surely influence future communications. Read more: QR codes are more than just awareness plays 1. Apple: The Greatest Agency: In-house Our No. 1 campaign of 2022 came out late in the year, breaking in December, and it blew us away. While Apple's "Underdogs" campaign won a Grand Prix for Film at Cannes this year, it was this outstanding commercial that combined craft, purpose, brand message and watchability. Top-notch direction from Somesuch's Kim Gehrig takes us on a journey following seven different people as they go about their days, demonstrating how Apple's accessibility tech helps them in their daily lives. Set to a punchy original soundtrack based on the words of Muhammad Ali (performed by some of the ad’s super-talented cast) it unfolds their stories while communicating the various products on offer; many of which viewers won't even have been aware of. Like Channel 4's celebrated Paralympics trailers, this moves the dial on portrayals of disability, but at its heart, it's also a classy brand commercial. See also: Apple's Underdogs ad wins Cannes Film Grand Prix Ad Age Year in Review 2022 The year's biggest news, trends and takeaways Click here

The 30 best ads of 2022

Featured Stories