Most brand work that claims to build fame never gets measured. A brand awareness campaign should leave a mark you can see in surveys, search, sales or earned media. If you cannot name the result, you do not have a case study. You have a film.
We pulled twelve campaigns with published numbers. They span sportswear, chocolate, beauty, travel, retail and a robotic lawnmower that ran DOOM. None of them appear in our earlier brand storytelling examples, so this set is fresh.
The pattern is clear. The campaigns that moved awareness had a sharp idea, distinctive assets and enough media weight to wear in. Consistency beat novelty. Results beat vibes.
The short version
- Awareness needs a memory structure. A brand awareness campaign sticks when people can replay a character, a line, a sound or a look without seeing the ad again.
- Fame compounds when you stay put. IPA and System1 found consistent brands produce higher quality ads year on year and earn far more brand and business effects.
- Results must be named. Views alone are not awareness. Look for survey lifts, sales, share of search, earned media and consideration.
- Culture beats category codes. The strongest examples broke the usual look of their category, from a rotting burger to a gorilla playing the drums.
- One idea, many surfaces. The winners ran the same idea across TV, outdoor, social and owned media rather than inventing a new idea for each channel.
What makes a brand awareness campaign work?
Before the examples, the evidence. IPA and System1 studied more than 4,000 ads from 56 brands over five years. They scored creative consistency across 13 features, from brand assets and tone of voice to agency tenure and showmanship.
The most consistent brands averaged a 3.3 Star Rating for brand building potential. The least consistent sat at 2.6. After five years, ads from the most consistent brands were expected to grow market share more than twice as effectively as the least consistent, at the same media spend.
Lift for the most consistent brands vs weaker peers (%)
That is the backdrop for every example below. A brand awareness campaign that reinvents itself every quarter fights its own memory. One that keeps the same bones and refreshes the surface builds fame.
Consistency is not dull. It is how fame compounds.
Twelve brand awareness campaign examples
Each example below lists what ran, what was reported, and why it worked. Where a figure is agency or brand reported, we say so. For how to track the same metrics on your own work, see our guide to measuring brand awareness.
1. Nike Dream Crazy
In September 2018 Nike put Colin Kaepernick at the centre of its anniversary film with the line “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Edison Trends data, reported by Marketing Dive, showed Nike’s online sales rose 31% from the Sunday of the launch through the Tuesday that followed, against the same days the week before.
Why it worked: a clear stance, a familiar brand asset set, and a story people already argued about. Awareness came with heat. The risk was the point.
2. Old Spice Smell Like a Man
Wieden+Kennedy rebuilt Old Spice around Isaiah Mustafa and a run of response films. Adweek reported body wash sales up 107% in the month after the fresh TV spots and online responses launched, on top of earlier gains from the first “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” wave.
Why it worked: a character people could quote, a tone nobody else in the aisle used, and speed. The brand answered the internet in hours, which made the campaign feel alive rather than archived.
3. Cadbury Gorilla
Fallon’s 2007 film of a gorilla playing the Phil Collins drum break became one of the most awarded ads of its decade. The IPA Effectiveness case on Cadbury Dairy Milk shows the work reversing a sales decline and winning the IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix in 2008. Contemporary reports put the Dairy Milk sales lift around 9% after launch.
Why it worked: joy without a product demo. The brand borrowed a feeling rather than a claim, and the asset was so odd that it became the memory structure.
4. Apple Shot on iPhone
Apple turned customer photos into the product demo. WARC coverage of the Cannes Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix 2025, summarised by LBB, reported more than 20 billion out of home impressions and 14 billion campaign views across a decade, alongside a five percentage point rise in global smartphone market share since 2015.
Why it worked: the product is the proof, repeated for years. People became the media. That is compound creativity in plain sight.
5. Spotify Wrapped
Spotify’s Q4 2025 earnings called Wrapped its biggest ever. More than 300 million engaged users. More than 630 million social shares in 56 languages. Launch day produced Spotify’s highest ever single day subscriber intake, and the company linked Wrapped to record monthly active users of 751 million.
Why it worked: personal data turned into a shareable story. Every user became a media owner for the brand. Awareness grew because people wanted to post their own card.
The best brand awareness campaign of the year is often the one people perform for you.
6. Husqvarna DOOM Mowers
Husqvarna put the game DOOM on its Automower robots. The Drum awards case study reports reach of 3.8 billion people across 135 countries and coverage in more than 1,000 major outlets. Agency reported interest among young engineers also jumped.
Why it worked: a category that usually looks beige suddenly looked like gaming culture. Awareness came from surprise, not from a bigger media budget alone.
7. e.l.f. Beauty So Many Dicks
e.l.f. Beauty and OBERLAND used a Wall Street takeover to call out male heavy boardrooms. The OBERLAND case study reports 2.3 billion media impressions, 98% positive media sentiment and 81% positive net social sentiment.
Why it worked: a sharp cultural point, a memorable line, and outdoor work that forced a double take. Awareness and stance arrived together.
8. British Airways Windows
Uncommon Creative Studio built outdoor prints that looked like aircraft windows onto the sky. The One Show case reports 11 outdoor prints across 324 UK sites, reaching 26 million adults and lifting ad awareness 73% against the same week a year earlier.
Why it worked: the medium was the idea. People did not need a long film to get it. The brand made looking up feel like flying.
9. Depop New York outdoor
Depop blanketed New York for four weeks in 2025 across liveboards, LinkNYC kiosks, wildposters and station domination. OUTFRONT, working with MFour, measured people exposed to the campaign against a control group. Unaided brand awareness rose 67%. Aided awareness rose 64%. Ad recall hit 60% against a 41% benchmark. Brand opinion rose 19% among those exposed, and consideration rose 20%.
Why it worked: weight, distinctiveness and a young audience that still lives in cities. Outdoor did the awareness job that feeds every other channel.
Depop New York outdoor: lift among exposed audiences (%)
10. Burger King Moldy Whopper
DAVID and INGO showed a Whopper rotting over 35 days to prove a lack of artificial preservatives. The WPP case study reports a 14% sales increase, 8.4 billion impressions, $40 million in earned media value and an 88% uplift in positive brand sentiment.
Why it worked: it broke the category code of perfect food photography. People remembered the mould because every other burger ad looked the same.
11. Snickers You’re Not You When You’re Hungry
BBDO’s global platform turned hunger into a character swap. A Campaign US case study reports global sales up 15.9% in the first full year, market share growth in 56 of 58 markets, and $376 million in sales growth across 2010 to 2012. One early Super Bowl film drove 400 million unpaid impressions with a media value of $28.6 million.
Why it worked: a simple human truth, a flexible format, and years of commitment. Local markets could cast their own stars without losing the idea.
12. John Lewis Never Knowingly Undersold
When John Lewis brought the price pledge back in 2024, Marketing Week reported 55,000 extra organic visits to the site and a clear lift in buzz around the brand promise. The line itself is almost a century old. The awareness came from returning to an asset people already knew.
Why it worked: revival can beat reinvention. A known promise, put back in market with weight, reminds people who you are faster than a new slogan.
What the 12 brand awareness campaigns share
| Campaign | Reported result | Main lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Nike Dream Crazy | Online sales +31% in three days | A stance creates talk value |
| Old Spice | Body wash sales +107% in a month | A character people can quote |
| Cadbury Gorilla | Sales recovery, IPA Grand Prix | Feeling beats product demo |
| Apple Shot on iPhone | 20bn+ OOH impressions, 14bn views | Stay for a decade |
| Spotify Wrapped | 300m+ users, 630m+ shares | Let people perform the brand |
| Husqvarna DOOM | 3.8bn reach, 135 countries | Borrow culture from outside your category |
| e.l.f. So Many Dicks | 2.3bn impressions, 98% positive media | A line that forces a reaction |
| BA Windows | 26m reach, ad awareness +73% | Make the medium the idea |
| Depop New York | Unaided awareness +67% | Buy enough weight to be measured |
| Moldy Whopper | Sales +14%, $40m earned media | Break the category look |
| Snickers | Sales +15.9% year one | One platform, many markets |
| John Lewis pledge | 55,000 extra organic visits | Revive a known asset |
Sources linked in each section. Several results are brand or agency reported. Advertain summary.
Look across the table and three traits repeat. A distinctive idea. Enough media to wear in. And a result that is not just a view count. That is also how brand building and performance work together, which we unpack in our brand vs performance marketing report.
How to build your own brand awareness campaign
Here is the plan we use with brands that want fame they can measure. It borrows from the twelve examples and from the IPA and System1 consistency work.
1. Write the memory structure first
Before the script, decide what people should be able to replay: a character, a line, a sound, a shape, a colour set. If nothing is replayable, you do not have an awareness idea.
2. Pick one human truth
Nike took sacrifice. Snickers took hunger. Spotify took personal pride in taste. The truth should be bigger than the product and honest enough to survive a joke.
3. Break one category code
Moldy food photography. A gorilla on drums. A lawnmower running DOOM. You do not need to break every rule. One clear break is enough to be remembered.
4. Commit for years, not weeks
Apple, Snickers and Wrapped won by staying. IPA and System1 show consistent brands improve creative quality year on year. Budget for wear in.
5. Put the idea on enough surfaces
TV or streaming for reach, outdoor for cities, social for talk, owned media for depth. Same idea, different cuts. That is also how branded entertainment extends a campaign beyond the spot.
6. Measure awareness properly
Track brand lift surveys, share of search, direct traffic, branded search, consideration and sales. Our measurement report sets out the toolkit. Views are a step, not the score.
7. Make it findable in AI answers
When people ask an AI tool who the brand is or what it stands for, your pages, films and press need to be the sources those tools cite. Our guide to generative engine search covers how those answers are built.
I keep coming back to the same point on LinkedIn and on stage. People follow people. Brands earn a place in that feed when they show a real point of view and stick with it.
People follow people. Not vague platforms or a new slogan every quarter.
Frequently asked questions
What is a brand awareness campaign?
A brand awareness campaign is paid or owned work whose main job is to make more people recognise and remember a brand. Strong ones leave a replayable memory structure and publish results in surveys, search, sales or earned media.
How do you measure a brand awareness campaign?
Use brand lift surveys for unaided and aided awareness, plus share of search, direct traffic, branded search, consideration and sales. View counts alone are not enough.
How long should a brand awareness campaign run?
Long enough to wear in. IPA and System1 research shows the most consistent brands improve creative quality year on year. Plan in years, with refreshes, not in two week bursts.
What makes a brand awareness campaign work?
A sharp human truth, distinctive assets, enough media weight, and the discipline to keep the same idea across channels. Breaking one category code helps people remember you.
Do brand awareness campaigns still work in 2026?
Yes. The twelve examples above, and the IPA and System1 consistency data, show fame still moves sales, share and sentiment when the idea is strong and the brand stays put.
Want help building a brand awareness campaign with work people choose to watch? See our work or talk to us about your brand.
