I don’t know Jill and Matt, but I recently came across their wedding invite on a design blog. It’s not really an ad. (Unless you consider a wedding invitation an ad for the wedding itself.) But I had to post it anyways. It’s an incredible, copy-dominated piece of content. The power of storytelling works in every instance, especially to detail how two people fell in love.

Source: designspiration.net

Here’s a TV spot that illustrates why you don’t need a huge production to make an amazing commercial. They used just one long (and very unique) shot of a runway from the POV of the bottom of an airplane taking off and 97 words of dazzling copy. Of course it doesn’t hurt when you have the eloquent Donald Sutherland on hand to read the script. Very nicely done.

Copy: What’s happening here is not normal. It’s extraordinary. 291 people. 350 tons. 186 miles per hour. You’re not sure what’s on the other side to that time after you land. But momentum pushes you forward. You are a test pilot. Breaking through where others broke. This is why you take off. Same reason the pioneers before you went in canoes and covered wagons with wild eyes and big-fevered dreams. And it’s why we’re with you. 80,000 people now, on the ground, in the air, engines on. Because there is no stop in us. Or you. Only go.

Agency: Wieden & Kennedy, New York

Source: YouTube

Here’s another nice PSA series that was awarded at the Clios. It belongs in a unique category that I’m going to dub “bifurcated prose.” The left side features a negative message, which turns positive when you read the piece in full. It’s like the copywriting equivalent of a Mad Magazine Fold-in. It must have taken tons of careful re-writing, but well worth the effort.

Agency: Publicis, London

Source: CLIO Awards

I saw this series in a collection of work that just won at the CLIO Awards. Powerful headlines draw the reader into copy which illuminates a little known piece of history relating to motorcycles and World War II. They remind me of the classic PSAs done in the 80s and 90s.

Agency: Y&R, Prague, Czech Republic

Source: CLIO Awards