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Radio: Greatest Marketing Campaigns

1. 5 Gum’s Truth or Dare

5 Gum’s Truth or Dare radio advertisement campaign is a call to action that fit stylistically with the aesthetic their brands represent through video, but with a creative twist. The idea behind the advertisement was to challenge Spotify listeners to a game of truth or dare, where one headphone would ask a truth question, while the other headphone would dare them to do something. This encourages listeners to make a decision between truth or dare, by removing one or the other headphone. “Truth” in the left earplug would ask, “do you pee in the shower”, while “Dare” in the right earplug would dare you to, “take a selfie with someone else’s food”. They would then challenge listeners to post it to social media with #5TRUTHORDARE. The advertisement’s objective was to achieve virality through that call to action, and create buzz around 5 Gum. Through this, they built brand awareness and establish brand identity with their target market, which is typically younger people who are interested in unique flavors and a brand that represents a bit more of an edge. 

5 Gum’s Truth or Dare advertisement campaign began in 2014 through “challenges” printed directly on the foil of the gum wrapper, which was an immediate hit. Every year, 5 Gum has iterated on this campaign. During the Truth or Dare Spotify Campaign, nowhere in their advertisement did they directly promote their own product, but they saw a 115% better result than Spotify’s Internal Benchmark for ad performance. Wrigley Mars Inc., the parent company of 5 Gum, won a Radio Mercury Award, which is widely recognized as the most prestigious radio advertisement competition, in 2016 for this advertisement. Through this campaign, 5 Gum’s goal was to differentiate themselves from other brands, such as Orbit or Trident, who focused on cleanliness and freshness. 

2. FreeCreditReport.com Radio Commercials 

This is a personal favorite. These jingles were so catchy that they had me, a teenager with no credit, singing songs about credit reports and identity theft. They had several commercials on TV that had different variations of songs that existed in radio only format. The campaign was so successful that they had over 20 different commercials, all featuring new songs, and even an arc where the original band stops recording commercials, Experian searches for a new band, then recruits a new band, and has a reunion with the old band. The original run was between 2007 – 2010, where the advertisement was so successful that even after $72 million dollars spent in advertisement, lawsuits, journalism reports, and refunds. 

Experian was still very profitable throughout the life of this campaign. It’s ultimately a controversial advertisement, as Experian was sued by the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive marketing practices, as they were not providing their credit report service for free, and were actually signing up customers for Software as a Service (SaaS) subscription, that was north of $40 per month. This isn’t the fault of the marketers, but rather the executives at Experian, who continued to fund this campaign, and even found themselves more success after the lawsuit. This prompted a federal statute known as the Card Act of 2009 to be enacted, which directly named “freecreditreport.com” in the act, but was largely to establish transparency for credit related industries, as an answer to the financial crisis of 2008.

3. Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” Commercial

The campaign introduced Jonathan Goldsmith as the persona behind the “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercial. The commercial listed exaggerated exploits that invited the audience to imagine cinematic scenes, which fit a similar format to street jokes about Chuck Norris (RIP). Each spot paired short, image‑rich lines with a final payoff that linked the character to the brand. The format was intentionally repeatable and meme friendly, which helped the ads spread across social and editorial channels and raised Dos Equis profile in the United States.

Here are some good examples, which show how cool this guy is meant to be:

“He once had an awkward moment, just to see how it feels.”

“He once taught an eagle how to fly.”

“If opportunity knocks and he’s not home, opportunity waits.”

“He doesn’t need a GPS. He knows where he is.”

The campaign ran for about a decade before the brand refreshed the character in 2016 and later paused the original Goldsmith era. In 2026, Dos Equis announced a revival of the original Most Interesting Man character with Goldsmith returning in new spots and tied to major sports broadcasts. The revival underscores how a strong audio identity can be redeployed across media to regain cultural momentum. From a business perspective, radio extended reach into commuter and sports listening audiences at a lower cost per impression than TV while maintaining brand continuity. The campaign’s audio work earned industry recognition and awards for adapting a visually driven character into a purely auditory experience. Radio allowed more frequent rotations and reinforced the tagline in a format that served as the call to action. With people driving, they would hear the commercial and already be out and would be persuaded to pick up Dos Equis in place of their regular go-to beer.

4. 1065 The Mom 

 During Mother’s Day, the host had a gag where he let his mother host the radio station, which amounted to a bunch of bumpers for the new radio station, “1065 The Mom”. It’s a pretty entertaining gag, as the mother basically has no knowledge of the bands that are slotted to play and has some fun comments about the host. If this were happening in real time, I would personally have tuned in for the day if time allowed. 

5. Got Milk? Campaign – From TV and Magazines to Radio

In 1984, the National Dairy Board’s first attempt at slogan to boost dairy sales was “Milk: It Does a Body Good.” The promotion was centered around keeping the body strong. However, milk sales were on the decline during this period, which lead the California Milk Processor Board to hire an advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein and Partners to reinvent the campaign. They developed the phrase, “Got Milk?” as they found that people in the study group had an emotional and psychological attachment to milk as a staple ingredient in the American diet. The call to action came to remind people that milk is that staple in our diet, and created advertisements centered around the dilemma of not having it.

The first “Got Milk?” commercial was directed by Michael Bay (of all people) back in 1993. This commercial featured an individual who was unable to answer a radio competition after making and eating a peanut butter sandwich and couldn’t swallow the sandwich because he didn’t have any milk left. Additionally, the milk mustache associated with the “Got Milk?” commercial was first shown in 1994 by supermodel Naomi Campbell. This part of the campaign didn’t translate to the radio, but it was ubiquitous with the tagline, “Got Milk?” and had many celebrities (reportedly over 350 different celebrities) joining the campaign, including parodies of the campaign by late night television hosts, comedians, and movies.

The success of the “Got Milk?” campaign translated well into radio, as the tagline was very much memorable and it allowed the California Milk Processor Board to stretch their dollar when it came to maximizing their spend for this campaign. And despite a reported 90% rate of advertisement awareness over the United States at the peak of the campaign’s run, milk sales continued its downturn during this period of time.

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