Positioning the fast-food brand as healthier than the competition, Subway hired Jared Fogle as its spokesman and real-life example of a patron who lost weight while eating Subway products. At one point he weighed over 400 pounds, and he literally lost half his weight by eating healthier, including switching to Subway sandwiches. He famously would show his older, bigger jeans in ads. He even went on to run the NYC Marathon. As the famous face of the brand, he was part of what has driven Subway to become the fast food restaurant with the most locations all over the world.

The Gecko campaign found its roots in a challenge: Geico often had its name mispronounced to sound like a lizard. This campaign has dominated the others, but the insurer's strategy has bucked the trend of other advertisers, focusing not on one theme, but many. (Remember the cavemen?) The sheer volume of these ads -- the Gecko having the most -- is what's astounding. The company has become one of the biggest advertisers in the country since this campaign began. Brand awareness is not an issue for Geico any longer.

Johnnie Walker was in decline in the 90s, and it turned to BBH and a new idea to help stem its problems. The idea was one based on "personal progress," a universal message. And so this became a truly global campaign -- in 120 campaigns -- and volume sales rose 94%. BBH claimed that the campaign was directly responsible for over $2.2 billion in retail sales. The 2009 short film "The Man Who Walked Around the World" starring Robert Carlyle was a popular part of the campaign.

This Spike Jonze-directed spot was so unusual for the time in its willingness to make fun of its target audience. An old lamp that's been chucked out onto the street while it's been replaced by a new Ikea model takes center stage. Then a wild-looking Swedish man appears to say "Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That's because you are crazy. It has no feelings and the new one is much better." True, funny and a good reason to buy new furniture. It won the Titanium at Cannes that year.

This was a bold move by a Unilever brand to challenge cultural norms. The idea was to start a discussion around the notion that the definition of beautiful had become limiting and launched at the same time a wider cultural conversation was raging about anorexia, plastic surgery and pressure to conform. Dove also created the educational arm, The Self Esteem Fund, as a way to give parents and educators tools to talk to young girls about how they see themselves. There have been a range of award-winning executions, including the first branded video to go viral in 2006, "Evolution" and a follow-up in 2013 with the moving "Sketches" work.

This approach took literally the idea of Burger King's message to consumers: "Get Chicken the Way You Want It." This interactive idea came with an intentionally lo-fi look -- a man in a chicken costume in a simple living room setting. Users could submit commands and the human chicken would respond. It was a stunt that went viral and was so successful that it was used in future campaigns. Underscoring the campaign's popularity, the chain has just brought the Subservient Chicken back after a decade.

Office Max's experiment to forgo a big holiday TV spot and create a digital experience instead was a big success. The ultra popular site, where users uploaded photos of themselves and friends and family, was a much-imitated model for how to create a fun, branded digital destination. The site got 36 million hits in its first 5 weeks, and new iterations were made each year. Later versions added social components and one year there was even an elf-themed flash mob.

This series of YouTube videos showed that even a small challenger brand can earn popularity in the social media era. Its online stunts -- most memorable are the iPhone blending and the Super Bowl making of a nachos and Budweiser smoothie -- were watched again and again as entertainment. But the best part was that the product was front and center throughout. It was a model for online video content.

He's tangled with bears, won arm wrestling matches and surfed the toughest waters in the world with ease. He's the most interesting man! Everyone has seen these funny ads starring the dashing Jonathan Goldsmith. And they all know the way they end: "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis...Stay thirsty, my friends." The spots have become a web meme and sales are said to have gone up 22% thanks to the entertaining branding push.

Launched on World Water Day in 2007, this effort to raise awareness about providing the clean and safe drinking water to children in impoverished areas of the world. UNICEF for $1 could offer a child clean water for 40 days, and so Droga5 partnered with restaurants -- first in New York, and later nationwide -- to encourage patrons for a single day to pay for their free drinking water. Not only did this cause marketing effort raise awareness of UNICEF's work around the world, but it also directly helped children by donating the proceeds to sanitation programs. Some $2.5 million has been raised, thanks to this joint effort from consumers and retail.

This campaign stretched the possibilities for marketing into a new realm -- forget TV commercials. Now agencies could create platforms. In partnership with Apple, R/GA created this system for Nike to hook up shoes with a tracking device that could wireless connect with an athletes iPod, transmitting running stats that can be uploaded to iTunes. The site then let athletes track their own goals and hook up with a larger community or runners to compare performance. That evolved into another winning effort with the Fuelband a few years later, sparking the whole wearables trend. For an agency, it is the holy grail; to not just influence the advertising of a product but to be in on the ground floor of the development of it as well.

This campaign revolutionized the notion of product placement and turned it on its head; rather than putting real brands in the movie, it took fictional brands from the "Simpsons" and brought them into the real world. There were a ton of fun components, but the most buzzed about ones included a 7-Eleven effort that transformed 12 stores overnight into real-life Kwik-E-Marts, Burger King's "Simpsonizer" website that led to a million Simpsonesque social media avatars, and JetBlue christening itself the "Official Airline of Springfield."

IBM in 2008 -- right in the middle of an economic crisis -- launched a brave new corporate branding campaign that has become the overarching framework for the company's growth strategy. Called "Smarter Planet" it encouraged its clients and the public to come up with smarter systems to help the world run in a more efficient and intelligent way, from transportation to healthcare to water. It's had many iterations since then, including Watson, the robot that processes information like a human not a computer, and Smarter Cities, the outdoor effort that has transformed walkways and bus stops to be more convenient for citizens. It's B-to-B at its best.

You know you are a big deal when you've got people dressing up as you for Halloween. And Flo is one of the most popular costumes in recent times because she is a recognizable pop culture figure -- not just a brand icon. She has helped personalize Progressive with this lasting campaign.

Haagen-Dazs' 2008 campaign payed homage to a very special helper to its business: the Honey Bee. The company explained the impact of this little creature to consumers, demonstrating through long form content and a web platform that bees pollinate one-third of the foods we eat -- including the tasty fruits in the brand's ice cream. Proceeds from sales went towards Honey Bee research.

"Live Young" defined viral, garnering 45,166,109 views as of November 2009, which got it recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most viewed ad in history. It featured babies appearing to do stunts on wheels to "Rapper's Delight". The "Live Young" strategy continues to be the primary branding framework for the French bottled water brand.

No words. But wow -- this is one campaign that used the product in the ads in a humorous way that got people talking and taking notice. Durex is after all a brand about sex, so why not have an eye-catching and risky campaign. It's also a smart print idea.

Look for the results of these Members' Choice picks on January 12, and see how they stack up against our judges' Top 15 winners. Voting will remain open until Jan. 5, 2015.

The Top 15 Ad Campaigns of the 21st Century will be part of the ebook, "Advertising Age: Top Ad Campaigns." The ebook also includes the Top 100 Ad Campaigns of the 20th Century.

On sale January 12, 2015, the ebook can be preordered from Amazon and Google Play. It will also be available at Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBooks.