10 Unforgettable TV Commercials

This post is a lightly-edited transcript of the Hyperjump Podcast: 10 Unforgettable Commercials, hosted by our Creative Director, Cameron M. Johnson, which you can watch at this link here. As such, it may read more like a stream of conversation than a formal article. Subscribe to us on YouTube for more similar content!

What's the story my cinematic individuals? Today, we are going to talk about the incredible art of the TVC, or the television commercial. I'm going to be telling you about 10 commercials that I think are absolutely incredible, iconic, or just ones that I personally love. And we're going to celebrate the art of what can make a commercial really kick.

In the corporate video production world, TVCs are one of the most important pieces of visual media that gets made. We all know what a commercial is. It's a video that advertises a specific product and gets people wanting to buy that product or become involved in that brand in some way, or have that brand as part of their lives. And today, I've picked 10 commercials that I came up with that I thought were incredibly iconic or memorable to me, and that made me really enjoy that brand in some way.

Some of these TVCs commercials are more silly, more fun, more humorous, meme-y. Others are more serious and artsy, but all of them had great ideas that were executed phenomenally well, and created this incredible sense of what that brand was and stood for that stuck in my memory permanently. So here are 10 unforgettable commercials!

10. GEICO - Hump Day

We're going to start off with a silly one. This is one of the most iconic Super Bowl commercials. We all know that the Super Bowl is the key time for commercials in the United States. It's when all of the big companies want to get some air time so that they can show their creative ideas to millions, if not billions, of people worldwide. And the one that I will never forget, the one that I will always immediately associate with Super Bowl commercials is, of course, Hump Day.

Look guys, this is a commercial of a camel. He comes into an office. "Uh-oh, guess what day it is? Guess what day it is?" And he's asking everyone what day it is, and no one wants to play ball. They're all ignoring this humped individual, but eventually, after pestering many of the people in the office, one of the ladies says "It's Hump Day."

What I really enjoy about this camel, which I'm guessing is some kind of like either costume or like animatronic thing (editor's note: it's a real camera with a CGI mouth), is that it's like he's not moving except for his jaw. It's very entertaining.

I'm not gonna lie, the main thesis of this video was commercials that made me iconically remember which product the commercials were selling, or which brand they were tied to. But I actually forgot that it was Geico that made this commercial. I just remembered that the Hump Day commercial existed, but nevertheless everyone remembers Hump Day.

In school the next day after this commercial came out, everyone was quoting it, and it was weeks and weeks of people saying "Hump Day!" Every Wednesday for the next like five, ten years of my after that thing was released, it was Hump Day. And Wednesdays are a really important inside joke in my friend group for other reasons, and then there's the "It's Wednesday my dudes!"

Wednesday has become a hugely memed day, but it will always be tied to Geico's Hump Day commercial, and I suppose for memetic reasons that makes it particularly special. But shout out to Geico, even though I forgot they were the ones who made this commercial. They are iconic for their commercial work, largely because of the gecko dude that's in many of their commercials. But in terms of humor and silly situations to get your point across, there are few that do it better than this and we'll never forget Hump Day.

9. Cadbury - Drumming Gorilla

For my second and my third options, I'm going to go for two commercials both by the same company, Cadbury, which is a hugely iconic brand in the UK where I'm originally from. My early childhood until the age of 10, most of my memories of these commercials are from British products and Cadbury's is no exception. They have made some of the most iconic commercials of the last 30, 40, 50 years and I'm going to be shouting out two of them today that I think you should check out. Both of them because they had very fun concepts that they executed really well.

The first one I'm going to talk about is pretty simple. It's the video of the gorilla playing the drums. If you know this commercial, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't know it, please, please watch it before I talk about it, because I don't wanna spoil the fun for you. But basically, it's a commercial where a guy in a gorilla costume is playing the drum part to the song "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, and he comes in and the gorilla's waiting and the song is playing, and then when the drum solo kicks in, the gorilla's like I can feel it coming! I can feel it coming! [nb: the gorilla plays the iconic drum solo with gusto, he doesn't sing those words]

It's an incredible use of a popular song for dramatic effect, and again, has absolutely nothing to do with chocolate, but everyone that was around the UK at the time remembers that ad for how iconic this use of "In the Air Tonight" was and it will always be associated now with that song, this gorilla advert. So it's absolutely incredible and well done to them for that, for creating such an incredible, iconic moment ,and for building a brand that is associated with fun and expression and creativity. That very much matches kind of the nice whimsical branding that they have.

8. Cadbury - Eyebrows

The other one that I'm going to talk about from Cadbury's is the eyebrow ad. Again, if you know what I'm talking about, I don't need to explain it, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, go and watch it before I ruin it for you.

It's really incredible but basically the eyebrow ad, it has that electronic song, "Don't Stop the Rock" by Freestyle, and basically, it's two kids, a little boy and a little girl ,and they are both moving their eyebrows to the beat of the song. It's hilarious and the whole point of the video, it increasingly gets more intense and their eyebrows are moving at like a ridiculously fast pace, and then balloons get involved and all sorts of extra stuff but the whole message of the video, similar to the gorilla video, is that there is a glass and a half of joy in every bar, which fits the Cadbury brand of joy and expression and fun.

It's another one of those iconic British ads from my childhood that Cadbury do uniquely well. For something a bit on the creepier side, check out the below.

This is absolutely atrocious, tremendously terrifying. Memorable and iconic for the wrong reasons.

7. Orangina - Shake the World

Another ad that I want to talk about that is tied to a place that I've lived in my life is a French ad for the soda beverage Orangina, which many of us might be familiar with. Their ad "Shake the World". Ut's from around 2014-2015. Around this time, I briefly lived in Strasbourg, France, and I saw this ad every time I would go to the cinema while I was there. It's absolutely hilarious, but this time on the much grander, expensive budget kind of scale.

In this commercial, basically you have a kind of parody of Gladiator, and you have this big Roman Colosseum kind of set up with gladiators fighting and so on, and the emperor is about to do the kind of thumbs up thumbs down thing, but then the gladiator starts making the kind of glug glug glug sound of what it would sound like to drink and Orangina. Then the emperor, as the gladiator makes the glug sound, his thumb is moving from upside down to right side up, and it's a hilarious use of a kind of almost ASMR sound design to create not just a visual, but an auditory kind of a connection between the audience and the product, remembering the sound of what it's like to chug this kind of drink.

It's one of the funniest ads that I remember from my brief time in France. There were some really cool ones, there but this one has always stuck with me as being just like ridiculously over the top and silly, a bit of a cinematic parody, but especially using that cool sound effect to make a unique kind of impression from its product. You know, not every product has the ability to be recognizable just by the sound of it, and so it did something really creative and interesting with that.

6. Guinness - Surfer

Away from the world of comedy, we're moving on to a more serious, artful, even sombre commercial with the epic Surfer ad from Guinness in 1999. This acclaimed ad was directed by Jonathan Glaser, who also directed one of my favorite music videos of all time as well as the films Under the Skin and The Zone of Interest. It's one of the most artful, avant-garde ads ever made, and the whole premise of the ad is that good things come to those who wait.

Compared to the other commercials on this list, it's considerably longer, it's like a minute 30 a minute 40, and it has a very slow-burning pacing. What this ad does in stunning black and white, matching the aesthetic of Guinness, is follow this group of real-life surfers as they take on some incredible waves. But it's slow. It builds glacially towards its point, and it shows these surfers plunging into the waves, going up against these epic barriers of nature, with these images of horses galloping over them through the waves, and it combines that with this incredible, deeply-moving voiceover about man going up against the elements in spite of odds, in spite of obstacles, in spite of doubt.

It builds towards this incredible sequence at the end, where the epic, slow-burning electronic music that is playing in the background cuts out, and it goes silent for a second, as we see the the surfers reach the shore and celebrate and exhale after that intense moment of surfing that they enjoyed on the rough waves. Then it cuts to this incredible sequence with Guinness flowing through the pint glass, and it says "good things come to those who". I won't go into the whole law of pint-pouring because i'm no expert on that myself, but it fits with the whole idea that a Guinness is not ready to drink until it's settled for a bit, and so it matches perfectly with this idea of good things come to those who wait.

For an ad to be so poetic, and to take the time to really get the point across, to encapsulate us in these gorgeous visuals of the surfers going up against the waves, with the horses galloping, matched with the romantic poetry that's being told to us in the background about the fight, about the struggle, it creates this epic, timeless effect that makes it one of the most beautiful commercials ever recorded.

The cinematography is absolutely fantastic; some incredible composition, with the start of the ad showing an extreme close-up of this man as he looks towards the sea. It is truly beautiful. This is a real example of commercial as an art form, and there are very few commercials ever made which can match the level of craft that was put into this one.

Not every brand could pull something like this off, but Guinness being an iconic Irish brand, from a country that is known for its poetry and for its storytelling, this is one of those examples of all of the aspects of the culture and the creativity coming together perfectly to create just a unforgettable experience that is distinctly tied to an iconic and hugely culturally-important brand.

5. eir - Fionnghuala

Continuing with the ads for Irish brands, the next ad that I've chosen is for the Irish telecommunications company Eircom, and this is an ad that was super iconic at the time when I moved to Ireland. For some context, I lived in Ireland from around 2017 until 2025, and I went to college there. I lived there before I moved here to Dubai with Hyperjump Productions.

This ad was popular in 2014/15 in Ireland (I was there briefly in 2015-16 as well), and has maintained a cult status there in the years since. I love it mainly for its choice of song. We talked about the Phil Collins ad earlier, where it's using a pop song for dramatic effect, but this time it's using a trope that I normally don't like, where they take a famous song, or in this case a traditional song, and turn it into something much more epic and cinematic. Normally, I absolutely loathe this trend in commercials. I think it's an unbelievably cringy trend.

But in this case, taking the traditional song "Fionnghuala" and giving it this epic choral sound creates this really powerful effect for the ad, one that makes you feel connected to the country. And that's obviously the whole point of this, to show that Eircom connects the country to each other through its telecommunications products. The messaging in this ad is pitch perfect from this song.

The video itself is relatively simple, it's various natural scenes of cliffs and fields and things, juxtaposed with home scenes of families and people communicating with each other, with text appearing on the screen that kind of gets across the messaging of the ad, but it's the way that the ad is edited, along with this epic music that makes it so powerful and unforgettable, and that's why it's one of my personal favorite ads.

4. Swarovski - Party of Dreams

Next I want to talk about an ad that was actually kind of the reason why I wanted to make this video in the first place. That's because this is an ad that I've been kind of obsessed with recently. Coming to Dubai and being a lot more aware of fashion and and luxury brands, it's not something that I was surrounded by much when I was living in the USA or Ireland, for comparison. But here, it's everywhere it's all that you see whenever you go out to a mall, you're surrounded by these luxury and fashion brands, and one ad that came up on my algorithm on Instagram a lot recently is this ad for Swarovski, which Ariana Grande was involved with.

To be honest with you, I was not even aware of this brand before I saw this ad. That's more of a reflection on me than a reflection on the brand itself. I know that they're a very established brand, but before I had watched this I wasn't really aware of the products that they sold.

This ad, which is called The Party of Dreams, is an impeccably-produced luxury ad which basically takes a Great Gatsby-style party and creates this kind of world in which Ariana Grande is a disruptor. She comes into this gorgeously-produced set, which is this like 1920s-style party, beautiful pastel colors everywhere, incredible kind of Wes Anderson-style framing for all of the shots, with some like really really cool whooshes in on people whenever they notice that Ariana Grande comes in. And the whole gimmick of the ad is that whenever anyone notices Ariana Grande they say "she's here!"

I absolutely love the colors, I love the the production design, I love how every element seems super intentional and focused, and I love the fun aspect of it, where it's all about, like, oh my god, this cool, interesting person has finally arrived! It makes you feel like you are a part of this spectacular special occasion, where this really cool guest of honor has crashed the party.

Some of the best ads out there are ads that make you, as the viewer, feel like you're a part of this exclusive club, or at the very least, want to be part of this club. There are a few ads that have done that as well as this Party of Dreams campaign that Swarovski has done recently. I'm a huge fan. I love the La La Land-esque dolly shot where it zooms out from this arrangement of cocktail glasses, and I especially love the ending shot, where it shows the entire party from above, and then a lid closes on the party ,and it's revealed to be inside a little Swarovski case and that Ariana Grande is the one that has closed the case. Then we just hear her in voiceover say Swarovski.

Brilliant, gorgeous, beautiful ad, one of the best ads that I've seen in terms of luxury brands, for the production design, for the creativity, and just for the the sense of wanting to be there that the ad gives you. It really is beautiful, and it's one that I've revisited many times recently, just because it was so interesting and cool and I wanted to be part of that little world that was captured in the ad. Phenomenal work.

3. Frosties - They're Gonna Taste Great

Now we flip way back to the comedic style of ads, because it wouldn't be a Cameron video we didn't end on some memes. So we're going to talk now about one of the ads that I'm most nostalgic about from my childhood, for mixed reasons. It's an ad that has had many videos made about it, even conspiracy theories actually surrounding the ad ,which you can find better from other places but it's the Frosties, or Frosted Flakes They're Gonna Taste Great! ad from the early 2000s.

It's a kid singing a song about how Frosties are going to taste great, as he goes on this epic adventure that turns from a Rube Goldberg machine into him floating through the air with hundreds of people marching behind him, including, of course, Tony the Tiger. It is insane, it is silly, it is ridiculous, but it is so funny, so unique.

Ever since the ad came out in 2006, the song from the ad "They're gonna taste great!" has been in my head perpetually ever since. It was successful in in fulfilling its responsibility of getting people to remember the ad. It's just something else. It's an indelible part of British culture of the 2000s. If you were in school in 2006, this ad will be something that you remember. There were playground conspiracies about what happened to the kid in that video, which I won't get into in this podcast, but it's a fantastic piece of work that I think, looking back, is so fun. Such a quirky and silly but adventurous ad that really gets across the sugar rush of the product that it's that it's tied to.

2. Best Buy - In the Lab

Some ads use celebrities to draw the audience to a product, by showing us that, if this celebrity is involved in the product, then, well, it must be it must be good. It must be something that I can trust. If I like that celebrity, and they like that product, then perhaps I will like that product. Or, simply put, if that celebrity entertained me in that ad, I will remember that product, and be more likely to use that product in the future.

But some ads, instead of using celebrities, turn lesser-known actors into celebrities by associating them so iconically with the product, and that happened in a very big way a few years ago with Best Buy's "In the Lab" campaign.

I won't go into too much detail on this one, but the ad basically turned the girl who appears in it, Riley Huntley, who I believe was an actual Best Buy employee at the time, into a superstar. This is largely because of many memes that were gushing over how cool she was, with her multi-colored hair that changes throughout the video, and given that that aesthetic is very popular right now especially with the kind of people who buy Best Buy products, the ad was a huge success, and is one of the most memed things on the internet over the last few years.

But as the top comments on the youtube video will tell you, it's one of the best examples of a brand knowing exactly who their audience is, and I think it's a really fun and cool ad. I love it. It's super slick!

1. Arab Dairy - Never Say No to Panda

And finally, we are coming to what I think is the greatest ad campaign of all time. It is the incomparable ad campaign by the Egyptian company Arab Dairy, "Never Say No to Panda" .

Basically the whole point of these ads is that anyone who rejects Panda cheese, this panda is terrorizing these people for that by confronting them. He's destroying their desks, throwing things around, having a tantrum, and the ads basically remind you to never say no to panda.

It's direct it's brutal, it's hilarious, it's an incredible advertising technique and these ads - there's many of them so it's kind of cheating to say it's a single great ad - but this campaign in general is one of the funniest and most unforgettable campaigns in the history of marketing, truly proof that marketing can make a specific product immortal. These ads will always be out there as a reminder that it is really unwise to say no to Panda cheese

I implore that you watch them. They're extremely funny, the concept is perfect, the execution is perfect, and they are unforgettable because they're so unexpected. Most ads play it very very safe, and it's always amazing to see an ad take that extra little step, be a little bit bold, be a little bit brave to say, you know what, we're gonna advertise our product in a way that no one else is, and we're gonna make ourselves unforgettable.

In the world of AI slop, this is what I want to see more of in the advertising world. And shout out to "Never Say No to Panda", in my opinion the absolute GOAT of marketing.

So my cinematic individuals, those were 10 of my favorite commercials of all time. I would love it if you shared some of your favorites in the comments, whether they're for big brands, small brands or something in between, I think that commercials are a really fun and underrated art form ,and while most commercials can be kind of generic and forgettable, the ones that really do stand out, the ones that do their job well, are some of the most entertaining and unforgettable pieces of art that we consume on a regular basis. I think that the extra effort and boldness and artistry that is put into those is worth celebrating. So, let's get creative, and see you guys next time!

Thinking of making a commercial for your brand in Dubai? Contact us now at hyperjump@hyperjumpproductions.com or at (+971) 058–599-8064.