1. Enzyte Commercial – “Smilin’ Bob”

We start our list off with a controversial pick, namely, due to how frequently these ads ran during its heyday, and the resulting fallout. Enzyte was a herbal supplement manufacturered by Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals that promoted “natural male enhancement” and portrayed itself as a pharmaceutical product that would cure erectile dysfunction. Throughout the commercial, Smilin’ Bob’s life has completely changed because of this new over-the-counter medication he’s taking. The commercial is littered with double entendres to make lighthearted jokes that went over the head of little kids, such as myself. This commercial would have meteoric success, which would

The creator of the Smilin’ Bob commercial, Steven Warshak, is currently incarcerated, and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison due to fraud. Under the guise of a free sample being sent, Warshak would receive customers credit card numbers and charge them anyways. Both Warshak and his mother, who was charged with conspiracy and fraud as well, were ordered to forfeit over $500 million in assets, just to put a dollar amount on how successful this advertisement campaign was. Even though fraud and scams seem to be a commonality between the most memorable advertisements, they’re not the emphasis of this post.

It’s very much clear from watching the commercial that the objective and value proposition is to show how happy Bob is since curing his erectile dysfunction. They allude to it throughout the commercial, as he’s reading the instruction manual to Enzyte at his work desk, while his coworkers look at him with curiosity and envy. Even his neighbor stares, while his hose (not analogous to anything else) deflates. They created Bob as a mascot, with a catchy jingle in the background of a 50’s style sitcom whistle to show that Bob doesn’t have a care in the world. This is another commercial that stood out in my mind as a child, where I was absolutely not the target market. Enzyte was very clearly marketed towards men who are suffering from erectile dysfunction but repackaged as “natural male enhancement”. The call to action is emphasized by Bob’s demeanor. I mean, the guy is just so dang happy, and so is his wife. Nothing is really on the nose about this commercial. It very much beats around the bush, but everything is implied, even the efficacy of the medication itself.

Additional Sources:

https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.gq.com/story/smilin-bob-enzyte-steve-warshak-male-enhancement

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Enzyte

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/2006/03/smiling_bob.html

2. Orbit Gum Commercial – “Dirty Mouth Test 37”

Going back to 2007 with the Golden Age of Advertising being the Aughts, (just kidding, consensus seems to think it was the 1950’s – 1960’s with the Mad Men Era), we had this very memorable commercial that is still quoted by my family and friend groups until this day. In this commercial for Orbit, it shows three actors who are acting out a wife confronting her husband and mistress, in the classic “I’ve destroyed everything you own” manner that has become a cliche. But in lieu of using curse words, the actors hurl insults at each other such as “cootie queen”, and “lint licker”. This amusing interaction is followed by the Orbit slogan, “Dirty Mouth? Clean it up with Orbit!”, which ties together why the commercial is self-censoring, as each actor is chewing Orbit gum during the commercial. Let’s start with the value proposition here. Orbit very much ran their advertising campaign and differentiated their brand by emphasizing the freshness of their gum, as opposed to a brand like 5 Gum, which sought to appeal to a newer, cooler generation.

Luckily, there isn’t very much in the way of controversy when it comes to this particular advertisement campaign. The objective was to create an attention-grabbing commercial that was the 37th in the “Dirty Mouth Campaign” by Orbit, so it served as a callback to the other previous advertisements that used the “Dirty Mouth” tagline. Their target market is people between 18 – 35 years old, who value fresh breath as a criterion for their gum chewing and resonate with humorous commercials. The call to action was in their tagline of, “Dirty Mouth? Clean it up with Orbit!”, which was communicated extraordinarily well, as this commercial still resonates in the minds of many Millennials and Gen-Zer’s. This is an experience that we’ve all had, where after a particularly oniony meal, our breath might stink. The value proposition is that their gum will clean it or restore freshness.

Additional Sources:

Orbit Gum Commercial | Know Your Meme

3. Above the Influence – “Flat”

It may be surprising for how specific the category of advertisement is, but there are very many memorable government-sponsored anti-drug advertisements that have aired on television. Some unforgettable ads are the “This Is Your Brain On Drugs” 80’s advertisement by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which was later rebooted into an arguably even more popular version with Rachael Leigh Cook in the 90’s, Gene Simmons insane “Rock Against Drugs” Commercial, or one of the dozens US Department of Transportation “Anti-Drunk Driving” Commercials, that were all very memorable in their own right. But there was one advertising campaign that stands out for its sheer creativity in its messaging, even if it was at the behest of an effective call to action at times.

Enter “Above the Influence”.

Above the Influence was an advertisement campaign directed by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which focused on mitigating teenage substance abuse. The stated purpose and target audience of this campaign was not only teens and young adults, but to inform their parents as well of the signs of potential drug abuse and encouraging them to have discussions with their kids regarding the consequences.

From this campaign came many odd and ineffective ads, such as a teenage girl who got high and had her talking dog voice its concern for her actions, or this guy who is having a conversation on the phone about how high he got at the party from the night before, and while the intent is to show the fallout from his decisions, it just comes across as a bunch of unassociated sentences that don’t sound like any conversation that someone would have on the phone. This commercial I think had the most honest perspective of a guy who chose to go outside and experience the world rather than get high and sit on the couch all day. Each scene transitioned into someplace else that he could rather be, instead of sitting in one spot for 11 hours. But this was just a good commercial. A great advertisement has staying power; it’s something you can reference with your friends or can still be a relevant reference twenty to thirty years after the fact. Above the Influence’s magnum opus is “Flat“.

It features two women in a documentary style setting, where an off the screen director is asking questions of a teen girl, who is speaking for “Sarah”. The teen girl remarks that all they do is sit around ever since Sarah started smoking pot. Sarah, an incapacitated flat woman who looks like a prosthetic horror film dummy, who can only breathe and move her eyes and mouth, is implied to represent a lay about, couch locked stoner who is a vessel of her former self. Above the Influence tried to communicate with teens through both absurd, creative, attention-grabbing and more realistic, honest scenarios. This commercial is clearly the former, but what’s special about “Flat” is that it resonated in the minds of so many teens, due to the irreverent nature of the commercial, it had teens engaging in conversations about anti-drug campaigns, as well as creating awareness amongst parents. The imagery was an odd choice that immediately stood out. After this aired, students at my school would talk about it. TV shows would parody it. They were able to rest on the laurels of their past campaigns that were more straight-forward in their call to action, to get into some odd territory. If we were to talk historical resonance, I believe “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” stands out as the most impactful anti-drug campaign of all time, but as for myself, I was the target audience for this commercial at the time and for how resonant it is for my generation, this commercial was a grand slam.

Not much is known as to the effectiveness of this campaign in its goals, but at least one Ohio State Professor ran a 3,000-person study that suggests some efficacy of this campaign in teen avoidance in drug use. Following March 2014, federal funding ceased for Above the Influence, where it moved into a program apart of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, although it looks like any legitimate efforts to keep the brand active subsided around 2017, from a cursory look over their website. Above the Influence, you will be missed.

Additional Sources:

National Anti-Drug Campaign Succeeds In Lowering Marijuana Use, Study Suggests

Above the Influence

4. Geico – “We All Do Dumb Things”

Let’s go back to a time before insurance companies spent over $10 billion of our federally mandated insurance premiums on unfunny, irritating commercials. GEICO, also known as The Government Employees Insurance Company was founded in 1936 to provide car insurance to federal employees, which has now expanded to becoming the third largest insurance company in the United States. Much of their growth is credited to their expansive marketing efforts during the 1990’s, where GEICO increased its marketing spend from $33 million in 1995, to over $240 million in 1999, and hitting over $2 billion a year in 2025

So how, and why did this spend explode? One study from analysts at Nomura Equity Research cites that GEICO’s success is predicated on its successful advertisement campaigns, rather than on its customer service agents. With the focus on ad spend showing significant results, advertisement spend began to increase substantially. In 1998, GEICO struck a nerve as they began to ramp up the comedic effect of their commercials, in what one can only analyze as self-realization from GEICO’s executive team. Their target market was every American that drove a car, but that target market finds auto insurance to be a boring, necessary evil. If they could represent their company as more fun than other insurance companies, people would identify with that. In a Fortune article, Stuart Brotman identifies GEICO’s advertising efforts not as ad campaigns, but as entertainment portfolios that are managed in a fashion more similar to a tv show than individual commercials. He also notes that the Gecko mascot has existed longer than most sitcom characters, and represents significant intellectual property value to Berkshire Hathaway, the company who owns GEICO. Almost as ubiquitous as the Gecko Mascot is to GEICO, are the comedic commercials that they produce that hardly even bring up policies or a value proposition.

That bring us to the “We All Do Dumb Things” advertisement. The ad in itself is funny, and you wouldn’t even know that the commercial was for car insurance if it weren’t for the narrator, who says their classic tagline of, “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance”, which predated this commercial in particular. What this commercial represented was an inflection point; GEICO began to focus less on convincing customers to consider buying insurance through them by making a case for the advantages they offered, and focused more on building brand identity, which was a massive boon for them. Hump Day, Movie Trailer Announcer, Squirrels, “Wee” Pig, It’s So Easy A Caveman Could Do It, and of course, the Gecko, all derive from the success predicated from GEICO changing their advertisement model towards commercials that were entertaining, comical and entertaining. They inspired blatant, awful, annoying, bland knockoffs such as the Progressive “Flo and Family” commercials. Even GEICO has suffered some platform decay but occasionally is able to get back to its roots with amusing commercials, such as this one. It could also be said that they were greatly inspired by the success of other brands who began to make irreverent, comedic commercials, such as Budweiser, with their “Frogs” ad in 1995, but they were the first to do it in car insurance, and created many memorable commercials following that. Speaking of Budweiser…

Additional Sources:

How Much Do Insurance Companies Spend on Advertising? – CLIMB

GEICO Success Highlights Advertising Dollars vs. Agent Commissions Debate

Why GEICO’s Growth Rate Took Off in the Late 1990s

The billion-dollar bet that turned insurance into entertainment | Fortune

5. Budweiser – “Wassup”

Budweiser is arguably within the top five greatest companies in the world in advertisement, contending with the likes of Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike. Budweiser is a bold brand, and doesn’t stand out in just a singular way, but in many different creative ways. Since the late 19th century, Budweiser boasted themselves above other brands with the slogan professing themselves as “The King of Beers”. Through advertising, they associated Clydesdale horses, which represent royalty and grandiosity, with their beer as a premium product, and forever intertwining themselves with the horse. They also built brand identity with the everyman, dominating beer sales in America. They made it a tradition to advertise during the Super Bowl, first airing an integrated ad known as the “Bud Bowl” where stop motion Budweiser and Bud Light bottles played against one another in a Super Bowl parody, and the “Frogs” Super Bowl ad, which was explosively popular and regarded as Budweiser’s most important advertisement, and pushed Budweiser to follow that same formula of funny, entertaining and quotable commercials, and the sales will come.

“Wassup” needs no introduction. This is truly “living in a cave” territory if you’re an American adult and aren’t aware of this advertisement. In this commercial, a group of friends are drinking Budweiser, watching sports or walking around their houses, and hop on the phone to say “Wassup”. They overexaggerate it and it’s funny, it’s silly, and it became a phenomenon. The commercial was actually based on a short film that was written and directed by Charles Stone III, called “True”. “True” is actually the tagline that Budweiser uses at the end of the commercial and is said several times throughout the commercial. Vinny Warren, working at DDB Chicago came across the short film, and pitched it to his boss, who pitched it to the Vice President of Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Budweiser. From there, Budweiser hired Charles Stone to direct the commercial and brought on his childhood friends, who starred in “True” to film.

From this, came wild success. The commercial won a Cannes Grand Prix award, a Grand Clio award and was inducted into the CLIO Hall of Fame as well. There were parodies from movies and shows such as Scary Movie, SNL, Harold and Kumar, The Simpsons, Family Guy, The Office and many, many more. The commercial even sported copies of itself with the “Grandma’s”, “Girlfriend“, “Wasabi“, “Birds“, “Courtside“, “Pizza” and several other variations. Celebrities and athletes were saying it. My uncle would yell it into the phone any time he called the house. “Wassup” is imprinted into the collective conscience of Americans who lived during this era as a pop culture catchphrase, and orients footing, whether it be massive or minor, in our minds when it comes to beer. This is another commercial that didn’t advertise a value proposition but was rather building brand identity with its target market as a product that meant you were in for a good time.

Additional Resources:

10 Funniest Budweiser Whassup Commercials: 20th Anniversary Edition

‘Wassup?’: The Origins of the Famous Budweiser Ad