System1 & Advertising Association’s July Ads of the Month

July saw another crop of excellent ads – we’ll be focusing on two new executions and one return of an iconic campaign. These mostly aren’t ads with explicit sustainability messaging but we’ll be focusing on what marketers looking to promote sustainable messages can draw from this great work. 

First up it’s a 50th birthday campaign for the Golf GTI from Volkswagen and Adam&Eve/DDB, a montage ad showing drivers young and old and their GTIs from the 70s on. From grainy home video footage of the original GTI to the latest electric models, it’s a celebration of a brand that’s become more than just a car for generations of owners. 

There’s a clever soundtrack choice too, with Candi Staton’s disco classic “You Got The Love”, another 1975 creation which is still loved today and seems to reinvent itself via covers and remixes for every new generation. 

The soundtrack and montage show continuity as well as change. That’s important from the sustainability perspective as it affects how the electric GTI is shown and perceived – not as something radical and new that stands apart from history, but as a natural development that builds on a brand’s heritage. For sustainability campaigns that can be a really useful way to make change seem normal, not frightening.  

And the campaign also relies on storytelling to get its point across, not information. It doesn’t need to directly talk about the Golf GTI range or its features – the message is all in the happy customers. It’s no surprise the ad is extraordinarily effective. It scores a maximum 5.9-Star Rating on Test Your Ad, and an Exceptional short term Spike Rating too, putting it in the top 1% of all UK car ads for both measures. 

From a fifty-year legacy to the return of an old friend – Tango’s “You Know When You’ve Been Tangoed” tagline, which is back on screens after 24 years thanks to VCCP. The original thrived during 90s and 00s “lad culture” but its slapstick humour and use of surprise turns out to be timeless. The new ad shows a guy getting tangoed by an icy wrecking ball to the face and scores a very good 3.9-Star Rating, landing in the top quartile of UK soft drink ads. 

“You Know When You’ve Been Tangoed” is an example of what we call a ‘Scenario Fluent Device’ at System1. Fluent Devices are recurring creative devices that drive the narrative of an ad, and many of the most famous ones are recurring characters like Kevin The Carrot. But scenarios – like someone getting a tango-styled shock to the system – can be Fluent Devices too. 

Another example, and our third ad this month, is Twix, with its award-winning recent campaign “Two Is More Than One”. The tagline is genius – so obvious it’s funny, but also a platform for any duo-based entertainment Twix and agency Adam&Eve\TBWA want to show. For the latest ad that’s a ventriloquist and his wooden dummy singing a duet together. It’s surreal, funny and extremely confident in its showmanship, and scores a very strong 4.6-Stars on Test Your Ad. 

What can environmentally themed ads learn from these Scenario Fluent Devices? The main thing is that consistency works. Developing a scenario (or a character) for your brand is a long-term investment but it pays off, with our Creative Dividend report in partnership with Effie proving that consistency is the foundation that drives marketing effectiveness. As Tango shows, you can’t keep a great Fluent Device down – even after two decades it’s still making people laugh and driving growth. 

Sustainable messaging benefits even more from consistency because, as our Greenprint report discusses, it often involves driving behaviour change. A strong, entertaining repeated message, expressed through a Fluent Device, can help make the unfamiliar and risky quickly feel familiar and safe. 

Create with Confidence® 

Great advertising changes how people feel before it changes what they do. 

Testing with real people helps you understand whether your creative is overcoming indifference, building emotional connection, and making your brand impossible to ignore. It shows whether you’re creating work that resonates instinctively, communicates clearly, and earns its place in memory. 

Because effectiveness isn’t a matter of opinion. It’s measurable. 

With System1’s creative testing solutions, you can optimise every campaign before launch, creating advertising that is more emotional, more distinctive, and more likely to drive long-term commercial growth.