Every day we are bombarded with advertisements for anything you can imagine—from furniture to pet food to hillbilly dating websites. Most of the time we just give them a quick glance without thinking twice about what they are trying to say. Every now and then you’ll stumble across an ad that basically slaps you in the face and yells “WAKE UP. PAY ATTENTION. THIS IS IMPORTANT.” Those are prime examples of successful advertising—the ones that uninvitedly shove themselves into your brain and refuse to leave, embedding their message so you are sure not to forget. When ads like these are used to spread the word about important and controversial social issues, it creates a winning combination of newfound awareness and the possible start of exactly what they were aiming for: action. We have compiled a list of the top 75 social issue advertisements that made us give a double-take, stop, think and say “OMG”…or, you know, something of that nature.
Which advertisements struck you?
