There’s a Hyundai commercial I see all the time when I’m watching baseball that I hate. It’s so conventional. It tries so hard to be cool, but falls short in a huge way. Like the dad cracking jokes at the cookout, but he’s wearing New Balance 624s and has his Samsung on a belt clip.

In advertising, unexpected things capture consumer attention. Expected things don’t capture consumer attention–they fall on deaf ears and glazed-over eyes. And somewhere in the middle of unexpected and expected, advertising is proven to be low-risk and effective.

Sparkling beverage brand Mixwell is asking people to not buy their drinks. Well, not all people. They recently published a statement, a series of videos, and a collection of bus stop ads asking specific people, who hold a specific set of beliefs, not to buy their products. I’m here to break down why Mixwell’s campaign is actually unpersuasive and unethical–even while being genuinely impossible to ignore.

Leveraging environmentalism for advertising can be a polarizing move. Get too moral about it, and half of your audience shuts off. Polestar nailed this ad by using a real influencer, telling a story, and acknowledging both sides of the issue.

It’s one thing to make an ad with a few lego characters. But creating an entire village of classic Lego characters, all working together for some goofy goal? That’s special.

It was a huge priority for us to showcase as much diversity as we could. Ethnic diversity, scenic diversity, and diversity of activities. Finding models and talent that had unique skills helped us differentiate this ad from the usual.

Everyone would describe their relationship with their significant other as priceless. You can’t put a figure on the worth of love. But De Beers does. They taunt the reader here, prodding for how much they’d be willing to spend to display their love for their fiancee.

So when I’m on YouTube, and Paramount shows me a two-minute trailer for their new movie, I’m willing to watch it. I’m on YouTube to watch content like that anyway, so now I get to see something interesting, and then I get to watch the video I wanted to watch. But when Toyota shows me a 15-second, highly produced ad about their summer car sale, I skip it. I’m not there to see content like that.

We’ve seen villains spruce up ad campaigns for years, most notably with Allstate’s Mayhem character. Recently, the villain-based ad campaign has been pretty popular, with Jimmy John’s, Little Caesars, and Mint Mobile introducing their own villains.

Add this to the list of Apple’s endless innovation: now they’re making their own words. On the landing page for the AirTag, Apple says it’s a “supereasy” way to keep track of your stuff. Supereasy. Supereasy isn’t a word. There’s a red underline in my text editor right now.

“There’s a price to waiting.” Blockfolio’s tagline is pulled straight from an advertising psychology book. Advertisers have tried to induce this fear in a thousand creative ways, and Blockfolio just came out and said it.

All the Instagram Ad best practices say to focus on the products. To call out features. To not get too creative. Dandy Del Mar broke all those rules.

YouTube TV has been running an ad during the NBA Finals, featuring an old lady obsessing over the NBA Finals, even while her family throws her a birthday party. This is an unexpected choice of talent. Why would YouTube do this? The numbers don’t lie: the people who watch the NBA the most are males in their mid-30s.

A few years ago, Trolli (the gummy worm company) launched an ad campaign. It’s still running on TV and on YouTube. But there are no calls-to-action. There are no product descriptions. There are no value propositions. So how is this campaign still running? Extreme creativity.

Axe launched their Find Your Magic campaign a few years ago, and since then have completely rebranded into an inclusive and encouraging voice in the men’s hygiene space. Getting people to take you seriously after being the GoDaddy of deodorant is tough. But Axe did it by being self-aware.

Ad fatigue is real, and when busy people who are watching TV to relax start seeing the same commercials again and again, their brains automatically tune them out. Brands can conquer this by using recurring characters, like Your Cousin From Boston.

Customers were feeling a whirlwind of emotions, as were restaurants, bars, brands, and all businesses. No one knew what was coming next, and everyone was so busy putting their own affairs in order, and hunkering down, that no one had time to say a word. Except Guinness.

Brands, hear this: A recommendation from a trusted source is the holy grail of marketing. You can’t achieve a more effective form of marketing than this. So when creators are on board for a paid sponsorship on their channels, let them recommend the product the way their audience is used to hearing from them.

99 times out of 100, it’s unadvisable for a company to tell their history in an ad. Customers don’t care. But this video has 65 million views, a 95% like rate, and hundreds of super fans in the comments expressing how much they love the ad and the company.

This week in the ads review, I’m breaking down State Farm’s “Surprisingly Great Rates” ads. State Farm’s recent ad set, featuring their spokesman Jake from State Farm, is an interesting and successful approach to integrating a tagline in a natural-sounding way.