what lives long after the campaign ends

You have seen it. Not often, maybe only once. And it stayed with you for a lifetime. Not for its scale or the high frequency you’ve been exposed to yet for the way it touched and reflected something you knew, deep down — a feeling, a memory.

It’s not the media budget, it’s not the celebrity starring, yet it was the idea, the feeling, maybe just a single scene made it memorable. The campaigns that last in our minds (sometimes the ones we still refer to) aren’t always the loudest — but the real ones.

Peter Lindbergh – Helena Christensen & Debbie Lee Carrington, El Mirage, California, 1990

Does Sony’s ‘Color Like No Other’ commercial come to mind?  Thousands of bouncing balls fall down through the hills / streets of San Francisco. You watch every second, you watch the balls the balls in different colors jump — as if hypnotized.  Your mind is trying to guess what’s going on since you don’t see any branding or product. And also you know that it’s not a movie or TV Series. You watched it all along. And only at the very end you see the message — not telling you to buy something, but stating something you can understand and helps you grasp what they achieved. It’s up to you where you feel they’ve done something solid and it makes you want to be part of it. The ingenuity drives the trust. Regardless of the budget, the strength of the campaign lay in its simplicity — and in the belief of the people who brought it to life . The 'making-of' video might be something you want to watch. No spoilers. For those who remember — mind the frog.

People forget no matter how frequent you show them. Or let’s put in this way - they remember for a little time. On the other hand, they remember the feeling how something made them feel, what made them stop, what made them want to share it with someone else, make them talk about it “Have you seen it? It's brilliant. It’s captivating. I love its colors. Do you know the director? “ 

Memory doesn’t follow media plans. It follows the meaning, the feeling, something they can relate to — something real.

It’s not about reach or impressions — the typical metrics of paid media. It’s about the story, how the story is told, the craftsmanship, the ingenuity.. you can name many more. Of course, people can compare this to most advertising which are mainly the same noise/buzz: “limited time offers”, “only for “, “summer sale” , “ collection sale” … These messages are designed to interrupt your flow and get attention and sugarcoat creating an unnecessary urge for impulsive buying. 

Those ads might drive clicks, they might lead you to add things to your basket, yet they fail to create a connection and something meaningful. Where the real does not only drive awareness but builds a sense of something.. It’s like a reminder of something you’ve felt yet couldn’t name. It’s like a silent statement for yourself - “I chose this because of… ”. Nobody has to know. A signal in the mind “ We all see the world like you do.“ You feel understood and embraced.

Apple's HomePod film, directed by Spike Jonze, abandons every rule of product advertising. What it doesn’t do is: product demo, call to action, features list, price… Just FKA Twigs lives a normal life as we do, goes back home from work. Then a song opens a doorway to magical world where it feels surreal, electric and immersive - an invitation to escape the reality. The whole video doesn’t explain what the product does whereas it shows how it can make you feel. 

More examples include with Kenzo's dance film featuring Margaret Qualley in one of her first major appearances. Under Spike Jonze's direction, it broke every expectation of luxury perfume advertising. Instead of predictable glamour, it delivered raw, magnetic energy. Nice move here. It’s strange. Irresistible. Joyful. At the end, a giant blinking eye. There’s no product shot, no monologue. But it leaves you wide-eyed — maybe even smiling. It’s advertising without the pretense. Luxury without the cliché.

These campaigns became memorable not because they were loud, but because they invited you into another world. They reached past selling into something deeper — imagination, longing, wonder. They created spaces where, for 90 seconds, life felt more colorful, more fluid, more alive than the world you stepped away from.

Take Martin Scorsese’s short for Bleu de Chanel - it did the same. We follow a story and each scene makes us wonder for the next. A love story, a love triangle. It’s paced like cinema. Flashbacks in black and white, and the current timeline continues in color. Lit like memory. You don’t watch it as an ad. You experience it like a film.  We feel the people — and they felt real. It’s layered, it doesn’t give you all the plot where it allows you to fill it with your own imagination. It makes you question. And at the very end it reveals a long message line: “I’m not going to be the person I’m expected to be anymore.” 

This all requires courage. These campaigns show us what it looks like when storytelling takes priority over selling. When the brand doesn’t feel like it’s asking for something, but offering something — a way to dream, a breath of joy, an alternate reality that feels a little more alive, a story people can relate to, a memoir we share together, a moment can be lived throughout life. 

What connects these examples isn’t just cinematic craft. It’s emotional intelligence.  It means trusting your audience to connect dots rather than spelling everything out. And that trust makes them memorable where people can feel, reflect and connect.

So maybe the challenge isn't how often a brand shows up. It's how deeply it's felt when it does. And that doesn't happen through optimization. It happens through imagination. Through building worlds, not just messages. Through ideas that play to human emotion — joy, desire, longing, surprise — without asking for anything in return.

Because in the end, the most resonant work doesn’t remind people to buy. It doesn’t push product. It reminds them of who they are. What they believe. What they long for. It builds a world. And in that world, the brand isn’t a logo — it’s a feeling.

That's what becomes possible when brands choose to create, not just communicate. And in doing so, it becomes a part of people's world — not just their feed. That's what's possible when brands choose to create, not just communicate.

Content disappears. Connections endure.