The best marketing examples, and why they worked

What makes a marketing example "great" (not just nice)

A great marketing example is specific and stealable. It is not "be authentic" or "tell a story." It is a concrete move you can name: a made-up word, a slider on a homepage, two fries dressed as Dracula. If you can describe the move in a sentence and reuse it, it is a great example. If it is just a good-looking ad, it is decoration.

The best examples also pass one test: the trick and the product are the same thing. Swap the brand for a competitor and it should fall apart. That is the difference between a strong idea and a cheap stunt.

The best marketing examples, decoded

Here are standouts worth studying, with the move that made each one work:

• Oatly, "Wow No Cow." A deliberately odd, grammatically-wrong line that your brain cannot autocomplete, so it sticks. A masterclass in tone of voice as positioning.
• Squatty Potty. Sold a $25 footstool with a rainbow-pooping unicorn and 100M+ views. Hook that has nothing to do with the product, then name a problem you did not know you had.
• Dollar Shave Club. One cheap, funny launch video built a company. Confidence and clarity beat production budget.
• Cards Against Humanity. Anti-marketing as marketing. They sold literal nothing and made headlines doing it.
• IKEA. A print ad that doubled as a pregnancy test. The medium was the message.
• HEY. Launched a calendar by inventing the word "calendaring" and calling the whole category boring.
• Surreal. A tiny cereal brand faked celebrity endorsements for about £200 and got everyone talking.

Each of these is broken down in full on the site. Browse the latest below or read the whole archive.

Best marketing examples by category

Ads

Dollar Shave Club, IKEA, Surreal, McDonald's Halloween "vampire fries." See more in the best ad examples.

Copywriting

HEY's "calendaring," cold emails that get replies, and short lines that do a lot of work.

Brand and positioning

Oatly's voice, Zomato running an ad with no logo, Levi's turning censorship into the campaign.

Social and community

Weetabix's cursed beans tweet, KFC's hidden Twitter joke, Nutter Butter's fever-dream TikTok.

How to actually use a marketing example

Studying examples only pays off if you extract the move. For any campaign you love, do this:

• Name the move in one sentence. If you cannot, you have not understood it yet.
• Ask if it is transferable. Would this work for a totally different company? If yes, it is generic. If no, you found something real.
• Adapt, do not copy. Take the mechanism, not the surface. The unicorn is not the point; the "name a problem they did not know they had" is.

Where to find fresh marketing examples every week

You could scroll for hours hunting for great campaigns, or you could let me do it. Every edition of Epic Marketing Shit is one real example, pulled apart, with the takeaway spelled out. It is free, and it is about a two-minute read. Subscribe and the next great example comes to you.