1. Eat Mor Chikin – Chick-Fil-A

Alrighty, let’s get something out of the way. This advertisement is the reason that you misspell Chick-fil-A when you put it into your GPS. This is one of the most recognizable advertisements of all time. Chick-fil-A was at one time a mall based fast food chain, that owes a ton of its success to this campaign, as they were facing off against many larger burger joints, such as McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s. Inspired to draw on their strength of being a different product from the oversaturated burger market, Chick-Fil-A created a campaign that demonstrated its value proposition based on cows who acted as rivals to chickens and pushed consumers to choose chicken over burgers. Rather than compete with other fast-food chains in the television advertising space, they employed the Richards Group, a world-renowned ad agency developed this billboard campaign. “Eat More Chikin” as a tagline was inspired by Bart Simpson from The Simpsons, who said, “Don’t have a cow man!”.

This ad is extremely effective in its call-to-action, as it portrays the cows in a humorous way, that even gets you to empathize with them more as characters, pushing you away from the competition and towards chicken. It’s unique in both its product and presentation, and is synonymous with Chik-fil-A. It’s difficult to quantify the effectiveness of this ad, but the chicken chain went from a mall-based restaurant in 1995 to having over 3,000 locations, and an estimated total value of $10 billion in 2024, and $9.2 million on average per location, blowing the doors away from nearly all competitive fast-food chains.

2. Muffler Men – The Paul Bunyan Statues of Yesteryear

If you’ve been near a tire shop, a muffler shop or a historic downtown, you’ve likely seen one of these sometimes terrifying, 20 foot Paul Bunyan statues, and thought, “that’s weird, why does that hot dog stand have that Paul Bunyan statue, but so does that tire shop, and that putt putt course too? And why is that one a cowboy, and that one an astronaut?”. Well, back in 1962, a gentleman named Bob Prewitt created a Paul Bunyan statue for a restaurant called the Lumberjack Cafe from fiberglass. Shortly thereafter, Bob sold his company to International Fiberglass, who would use the mold to create thousands of variations of the same statue, shipping them across the United States as roadside attractions. Companies such as Fayetteville Tire Co, Philips, Endo, Texaco, Michelin, Mr. Tire, BP, and many family restaurants and businesses purchased these, and became especially popular around highways, such as Route 66. These fellas had very many variations, such as Frankensteins Monsters, Santa’s, Cowboys, and many more, before International Fiberglass ceased operations in 1976. Luckily, many folks aim to voluntarily preserve these statues as a relic to maintain. One thing is for certain though; when driving down the road, these fellas are hard to ignore.

3. Uncle Sam – “I Want You” WWII Propaganda Poster

Ah, Uncle Sam. No, he’s not the guy from the $20 bill. Uncle Sam has an uncertain history, where earlier iterations are related to the pre-American representation of Lady Liberty, then brought back into the fold as a male during the Revolutionary War. The version that we see today comes from a World War I military recruiting poster that was created by cartoonist, James Montgomery Flagg. The value proposition is presented in the visual representation of Uncle Sam, and the emulated colors of the American flag, proposes that you, yes you, are a patriot, and the call to action is to prove it by joining the Military. This poster was actually inspired (basically blatantly ripped off) from a British recruitment poster of Lord Kitchener, who was the Secretary of State for War in the UK. However, that is just a footnote in the history of Uncle Sam, who received four million printed posters throughout WWI and brought back in WWII. The target audience was to inspire fighting age Americans to join the U.S. Army during the most important conflicts during the 20th century to our nation’s sovereignty, and it worked. Uncle Sam remains a mascot of American patriotism to this day.

4. I Love NY – Economic

Back in 1977, New York City was dealing with decreased tourism, and the New York State Department of Economic Development had employed the marketing firm Wells, Rich, and Green to create a campaign revolving around the state slogan as a call-to-action: come visit New York, we love it here. Since “I Love New York” was the state slogan, Milton Glaser was inspired to create a minimalist version this logo, using a typewriter typeface and a heart. It was a simple design that was drawn in red crayon on scrap paper, which now lives in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. This minimalistic pop logo was imitated and sold across souvenirs, posted on billboards, and was imitated across many other cities and countries.

Throughout the years, the logo has returned and became a symbol of unity following the attacks on September 11th. The value proposition was that the logo had become a symbol of something larger than an ad campaign, and for that, the target market evolved from tourists from outside of New York, to New Yorkers adopting it as well. Speaking of New York…

5. Times Square Coca-Cola Ads

Coca-Cola undoubtedly retains a top three position in advertising, and its roots begin with billboard advertising. Back in 1920, Coca-Cola debuted its first Times Square advertisement. At the time, this was the second biggest electric billboard in the world, with the words spelt in neon lighting. Here’s an illustration of what it looked like at the time:

With this advertisement, Coca-Cola pioneered Times Square as the billboard laden center of New York. Since then, they’ve had a number of billboards that brought something new and interesting into the fold. The most modern iteration of this is actually the first 3D digital billboard in Times Square, which was 68 x 42 feet, and made up of 1,760 individual LED screens! Watch the video posted above. The advertisement looks incredible, making the scene look like you’re getting an x-ray vision look through the building. By doing this before anyone else, Coca-Cola is looking to establish legacy and spectacle, where this new invention immediately draws you in. The target market is not just the foot traffic of the millions who travel through Times Square on a yearly basis, but goes into the digital world of interested parties, with a call to action to drink coke. The message remains clear that Coca-Cola is a world class, premium brand that creates memories.