Case Studies
Coca-Cola "Share a Coke" Campaign Case Study
Coca-Cola reversed a decade of declining sales in Australia by doing something no brand manager would sanction: erasing their own logo and replacing it with someone's name.
Coca-Cola
De Beers "A Diamond is Forever": The Ad That Invented a Tradition
Frances Gerety wrote 'A Diamond is Forever' in 1947 without particularly liking it — and in doing so created the most successful manufactured tradition in consumer history.
De Beers
Liquid Death: How a $700M Water Brand Was Built on Heavy Metal Branding
Liquid Death is literally water in a can. The fact that it's a $700 million company is entirely a branding story, and it's one of the more instructive branding stories of the past decade.
Liquid Death
New Coke: The 1985 Marketing Failure Case Study
Coca-Cola ran the most rigorous consumer taste tests in the history of packaged goods, got a clear result, acted on it decisively — and produced one of the most spectacular brand failures of the 20th century, because they were measuring the wrong thing.
Coca-Cola
Burger King "Moldy Whopper" Campaign Case Study
Burger King showed their flagship burger decomposing over 34 days — and won more advertising awards than any other campaign that year, because the rot was the proof.
Burger King
Duolingo on TikTok: What a Giant Owl Mascot Teaches About Brand Personality
Duolingo let a 23-year-old social media manager put their mascot in a costume and act unhinged on TikTok — and it became one of the most successful brand accounts on the platform.
Duolingo
Pepsi Kendall Jenner Ad: A Marketing Failure Case Study
Pepsi's Kendall Jenner ad was pulled within 24 hours — a case study in how purpose-washing fails when there's no genuine connection between a brand and the cause it's appropriating.
Pepsi
Wendy's Twitter Strategy: How a Fast Food Chain Rewrote the Rules of Brand Voice
Wendy's decided to act like a person on Twitter instead of a brand, and in doing so became the most-talked-about fast food account on the internet.
Wendy's
Always "#LikeAGirl" Campaign Case Study
Always turned a phrase used as an insult into one of the most awarded and culturally resonant campaigns of the 2010s — by simply showing what 'like a girl' looks like before someone teaches you it means weak.
Always (P&G)
Spotify Wrapped: How a Data Feature Became a Cultural Moment
Spotify figured out how to turn surveillance into a gift, and in doing so created one of the most reliable annual social media events of the past decade.
Spotify
Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" Case Study
Dos Equis built one of the most imitated advertising characters in modern marketing by understanding that their real target wasn't beer drinkers — it was a specific aspiration.
Dos Equis
Nike "Dream Crazy" — The Colin Kaepernick Campaign Case Study
Nike put Colin Kaepernick's face on a global ad campaign knowing full well that a percentage of their customers would burn their shoes. They did it anyway.
Nike
Volkswagen "Think Small" Campaign Case Study
In 1959, Bill Bernbach put a tiny car in the corner of a white page and wrote two words that would change advertising forever: Think Small.
Volkswagen
Dove "Real Beauty" Campaign Case Study
Dove built one of the most durable brand platforms of the 21st century by asking a simple question that the entire beauty industry had avoided: what if we showed real women?
Dove
Old Spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" Case Study
Old Spice was your grandfather's aftershave — until Wieden+Kennedy turned a single Super Bowl commercial into a cultural reset that doubled body wash sales in a year.
Old Spice
Apple "Get a Mac" Campaign Case Study
Sixty-six commercials, two actors, a white void, and the most effective identity-based comparative advertising campaign in technology history.
Apple
Apple "1984" Super Bowl Commercial Case Study
The Apple board voted to fire the agency and pull the ad — then the ad aired once and changed advertising forever.
Apple