These marketing videos follow a consistent plot. This can have only two videos in the series, or dozens. It can run for a limited time, or over years. It drives people to look out for your adverts, because they want to see what happens next. 

The Advertising Universe

The desired outcome of any advert is to get people thinking and talking about your brand. Most adverts last between 15 and 30 seconds, unless you create a series of adverts that run on from each other. This gives viewers an incentive to keep watching, which helps reinforce your brand in their memory, without paying for a longer advert which could lose the attention of an audience. 

Read of for Squideo’s top ten picks for the best advertising series. 

01. Daz-zlingly Clean

Cleaner Close, a parody on popular British soap operas like Coronation Street and Eastenders, was an advert series run by detergent maker Daz from 2002 to 2019. It featured a range of soap opera actors along the way, and its closing hook – a juicy revelation about one of the characters – guaranteed people wanted to watch more to find out the secret. No wonder the campaign successfully ran for seventeen years. 

02. Fruit Winders-Up

Designed to run on children’s television channels like Cartoon Network, this series created a bunch of fun, bright characters who appeared throughout the series. In each advert, the characters capture an anthropomorphised piece of fruit and – using cruel and unusual methods – turn the fruit into a Kellogg’s Fruit Winder. The advert uses limited language, with no narration, making it easy for kids of all ages to understand. 

03. Puppygood

Purina and Buzzfeed partnered up to create the Puppyhood series of adverts. Promoting Purina’s Puppy Chow range, the scripts were written and produced by Buzzfeed – and American internet media company – back in 2015. Over four adverts, audiences followed a man who adopts a puppy and uses Purina to learn how to care for her. The product placement in the advert is subtle, with much of the video spent developing the relationship between Max and his new dog Chloe. This helps keep viewers engaged however, ensuring they stick around for the video’s final call-to-action. 

04. Positive Intel

With a “Meet the Makers” series, Intel decided to add a human element to its technology with this advert campaign. Focusing on several individuals, the adverts tell a story of how they have used Intel to achieve extraordinary things. Not only does this inspire the audience to use Intel’s products, but it also associates the brand with these feel-good stories helping to boost their public image. 

05. Burger’s King

When the pre-video adverts were revealed on YouTube, companies took advantage of this new tool in different ways. For Burger King, they decided to capitalise on market research that said viewers were annoyed by the inability to skip straight away. In the advert, two men complain about being unable to skip the advert, while sitting with a tray of Burger King food between them. While the premise of this advert stays the same – two men sitting in a Burger King restaurant – there are a whopping 64 variations of the video. 

06. Way to Go, Geico

Like Burger King, Geico produced this advert series in response to the YouTube pre-video advert. The “Unskippable” series worked off the premise that their main message should be delivered within five seconds before the “skip” button activates. After that, the serious financial advert takes a humorous turn which encourages the viewer to keep watching. Launching several variations of the advert, it became so popular Geico eventually released behind-the-scenes footage of the adverts’ creation to satisfy the curiosity of its audience. 

07. Get Some Snickers

Featuring the legendary Mr T, this series poked fun at this celebrity’s tough persona. In the campaign, Mr T randomly appears in a tank – or sometimes a helicopter – to pelt Snickers bars at men he thinks need to toughen up. Bedecked in Snickers-themed jewellery, sporting his signature mohawk, and wearing a vest made of Snickers bars, it’s a call-back to Mr T’s role as B.A. (Bad Attitude) Baracus in The A-Team and it quickly became a classic in British advertising history. 

08. Young at Old Spice

This male grooming brand has made a number of appearances in the Advert Alchemy series, and for good reason! Under its “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign, Old Spice produced several videos starring Isaiah Mustafa. Created by Procter & Gamble, the series was so successful upon release that it led to a 60% increase in sales of Old Spice products after the first advert aired when the target had only been 15%. In the series, Mustafa’s character delivers rapid-fire monologues while progressing through various activities, locations and costumers – all in one seemingly uninterrupted take. 

09. No Nonsmith

Originally performed by Jack Dee, the eponymous John Smith was played by U.K. comedian Peter Kay from 2002 to 2005. They became so popular with viewers that, when the advert series ended in 2005, there was a public campaign calling for its return. Kay returned in 2010 for another year. The “No Nonsense” campaign saw John Smith performing laddish behaviour before a product placement, popularising the phrase “’ave it!” at the same time. These comedic adverts featured a cast of characters and often took place in the same locations. 

10. None the Budweiser

From 1999 to 2002, you could only go about the world having never heard the phrase “Whassup?” if you didn’t own a television. Budweiser’s hugely successful campaign launched a pop culture catchphrase, which went on to enter American vernacular and is known across the English-speaking world. Budweiser has resurrected the campaign since 2002, most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage friends to remotely check-in with each other during lockdown. 

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