Ads can sometimes be as creative and impactful as art. That’s why some commercials stick with us for so long, they become a part of popular culture. You can’t see or hear the words “Just do it” without imagining a tick in your mind.
From award-winning ads to video game commercials, we’ve rounded up websites that collect the best ads. And yes, there’s one dedicated to Superbowl ads.
1. Ads of the World (Web): The Best TV and Video Ads in the World Today
Ads of the World (AOTW) is the premier destination for anyone searching for advertisements and commercials online. The portal is a collection of commercials from across the globe, so you often find non-English ads as well. It’s a great place to watch, to learn, and to be inspired.
You’ll want to start with the Top Ads section. This page hosts editor picks, most popular, most liked, and most commented videos currently on AOTW. Click a video to play it, and learn when it was first uploaded in which region.
AOTW also hosts collections of topical ads, for example, LGBTQ advertising, Valentine’s Day ads, conceptual realism, etc. You’ll find a lot of sponsored collections of photos by Getty Images here, you can safely ignore those. And finally, you can check out student-made ad films to see how the next generation is pushing the boundaries of commercials.
If you’re an advertising professional or student yourself, submit your ad to Ads of the World. You never know when your work might go viral.
2. Lurzer’s Archive (Web): The Best Print Ads Around the World
Lurzer’s International Archive is one of the oldest-running advertising magazines. Since 1984, it has been collecting the best and most creative print advertisements and commercials across the world. And the whole collection is now available online for free.
Browsing the website is a little difficult, so here are a few pointers. The Print Ad of the Week is a good place to start, rolling back to the previous week each time all the way to 2007.
You should also check the Index by Creatives and Index Work by Year links in the sitemap. Open the magazine for any year, browse to one of the six issues, and then check all the print ads. There will be some video and student ads too, but Lurzer’s is about print first and foremost.
The Creative Index is a cool directory that you won’t find elsewhere. It lists every agency and major advertising professional, categorized by alphabet, contact-type, or country. So you can view all ads from a specific country, and in that, by specific agencies like Leo Burnett or Ogilvy and Mather.
3. Superbowl Ads (Web): Watch All the Best Superbowl Ads in History
The Superbowl has become the biggest commercials and advertisements platform of the whole year now. Companies are jostling for a spot during the breaks, and you get to see some of the most creative commercials during this event. So here’s where you can watch all the Superbowl Ads of present and past.
The website collects ads from 1998 to 2020 but doesn’t host any of the ads itself. These are all embedded YouTube and Vimeo videos. To browse, you probably want to go by the year, and then watch ads in the order they were aired or the top five collections for that year. Superbowl Ads also has a list of the current year’s advertisers, but it’s not a category page so don’t click on any; it just takes you to the advertiser’s homepage.
There are two special sections or collections for Superbowl commercials. The All-time Fan Favorites, at the absolute bottom of the main page, collects 16 of the most popular Superbowl ads in history, including the famous Apple 1984 commercial and the Budweiser Whassup series. The left sidebar also has a Weird and Strange collection of some of the zanier Superbowl commercials over the years.
4. GamePressure (Web): Best Video Game Ads and TV Commercials
From the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, consoles and video games have had some of the most creative ads. You can watch the best ones at GamePressure’s video game ads archive.
You can filter the list in all sorts of ways. Sort the commercials by country, by platform or console, or by year. You can also quickly check the top rated videos and the most popular videos. Don’t bother with the “Last Added”, that doesn’t necessarily mean the latest ads.
It’s a total collection of over 20,000 TV commercials for video games and consoles, with the bulk of them being between 2002 and 2018. You’ll find a few older ones too, but you’ll need to search for them.
It’s funny when you think about it. On the one hand, some games make great ads that you like to see. And at other times, you’re fighting to get rid of ads in games.
5. Best Ads (Web): TV, Print, Outdoor, Radio, and Interactive Commercials
While this website’s name is Best Ads On TV, it caters to a larger set of those interested in ads and commercials. Best Ads includes TV, print, interactive, outdoor, and radio commercials across a range of interests.
You can quickly watch the latest entries in each section, where every ad comes with a small write-up about the thinking behind it. So you get to learn a little bit more about why it was deemed worthy of being a great ad. Along with that, you’ll find information about the client, the agency, and the country. You can use them to sort the ads.
Best Ads also includes a sector-wise category, which you don’t find often. Want to see the latest automotive ads or commercials in the travel world? It’s all a click away.
Google Chrome users might find that the ads don’t autoplay sometimes. If you have Firefox, Safari, or Edge, it will work perfectly in that. Otherwise, you’ll need to dive into the settings and disable hardware acceleration to get it working in Chrome.
6. r/Commercials (Web): Subreddit for Advertisements and Commercials
As with everything else, there’s a whole community of Redditors that share this interest. At r/Commercials, you will find people uploading and discussing their favorite advertisements and commercials from around the world.
It covers all types of advertising, i.e. TV, web, radio, print, outdoor, and even branded content. Use the flairs to quickly filter which type of ad you want to see, and you can even ask the community to help you find certain commercials.
Good Ads Isn’t Reason Enough to Give Up Privacy
As the ads in this article show, for the longest time, creativity was the benchmark for a good commercial. It was about connecting to the audience, making them feel and want the product. But while agencies continue to strive for that, there’s the factor of personal data at stake today.
Thanks to the web, targeted advertising is often more valuable than creativity. In many ways, your personal tastes and needs are being absorbed by technology in order to show ads that are likely to impact you. It can change how you think and it can change your buying behavior. That’s why it’s important to identify this and protect yourself.
