7 social media ad examples worth studying
Seven verified social media ad examples, from Jacquemus' giant bags to Gap's Katseye dance film, with notes on why each one spread.
The seven social media ad examples worth studying right now are Jacquemus’ giant Bambino bags driving through Paris (2023), Maybelline’s CGI lashes on the London Tube (2023), The North Face’s helicopter jacket delivery (2023), Specsavers’ “The Misheard Version” with Rick Astley (2023), the Liquid Death x e.l.f. Corpse Paint drop (2024), Airbnb’s Icons launch (2024), and Gap’s “Better in Denim” film with Katseye (2025).
Of everything clients bring to Moonb, my studio, social ads come up most, because the feed is where their money goes. Most lists ranking for this search annoy me. Half are ad libraries dressed up as examples, and the rest recycle decade-old campaigns. Everything below is social-first work from 2023 to 2025, shown from the brand’s own channel or a credited repost, picked the way I picked our ad campaign examples.
The seven at a glance
| Brand | Campaign | Year | Platform | What I’d take from it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacquemus | Giant Bambino bags | 2023 | Instagram, TikTok | Blow up your most recognizable product until it stops traffic |
| Maybelline New York | Sky High Tube lashes | 2023 | TikTok, Instagram | Fake the billboard, keep the product demo real |
| The North Face | Helicopter jacket delivery | 2023 | TikTok | Answer a complaint in the format it arrived in |
| Specsavers | The Misheard Version | 2023 | Audio, social | Let people experience the problem for themselves |
| Liquid Death x e.l.f. | Corpse Paint | 2024 | TikTok, YouTube | Pick a collab both fanbases will believe |
| Airbnb | Icons | 2024 | Social launch, YouTube | Build the thing people only ever saw on screen |
| Gap | Better in Denim | 2025 | TikTok, Instagram, YouTube | Give the internet a routine it wants to copy |
1. Jacquemus, the giant Bambino bags (2023)
In April 2023 the French fashion house posted an eight second clip of its Bambino handbags, the size of cars, driving through central Paris in chocolate brown, orange and pink, gold hardware catching the sun. Paper reported on April 7, 2023 that the bags were 3D models composited into real Paris street footage by Ian Padgham, a Bordeaux-based 3D artist working through his company Origiful, and quoted his estimate that “probably half of the people who see them either think it’s real or can’t tell.”
This is the clip people usually mean by faux out-of-home, or FOOH. The bags were never on a Paris street, only in the feed, so there were no permits to chase and no media to buy. Per the Paper piece, Padgham filmed real streets so the bags could be tracked into the space, then matched lighting and shadows until the seams disappeared.
What I like most is the scale flip. Jacquemus is known for comically tiny bags, so a comically huge one read straight away as the brand’s own joke, and the clip needed no copy to make it. More Instagram-native work like this is in our Instagram video ads examples.
2. Maybelline New York, the Sky High Tube lashes (2023)
Three months later the same trick sold mascara. A London Underground train pulls into the platform wearing giant false lashes, and a mascara wand mounted on the tunnel wall coats them as it passes; later a bus shaped like the mascara tube roamed New York. Digiday covered the campaign on August 11, 2023, crediting the same Ian Padgham for both films and quoting Fernando Febres, Maybelline’s US VP of marketing: “It was a way to honestly disrupt the environment and get people talking, and wondering, ‘Is it real or is it not?’”
Plenty of FOOH came after it, but this one hides a product demo inside the gag, since the wand does to the train what it promises to do to your lashes, lift and coat. Maybelline’s own TikTok upload is gone now, so the still above comes from a media repost.
3. The North Face, the helicopter jacket delivery (2023)
In November 2023 a hiker named Jenn Jensen posted a TikTok from Hooker Valley in New Zealand, soaked through in a North Face rain jacket, challenging the brand to redesign it and deliver the result to her at the top of the trail. It blew past eleven million views. Advnture reported on December 4, 2023 that The North Face posted its response four days later: a red jacket comes off a store rack, and the caption says it was express delivered to Jensen at the top of the mountain by helicopter. The same report noted that Jensen said repeatedly in the comments that she received no money for the follow-up video, and summed her up as “just a hiker who was pissed she got wet.”
I think the four days was the clever part. The complaint had time to peak, so the reply reached people who already wanted to know how it ended, and the brand still looked quick. And it answered with a native TikTok reply to a commenter who had joked that the brand had left the conversation, rather than a press statement about product standards.
4. Specsavers, “The Misheard Version” (2023)
Nobody wants to talk about hearing loss, and that stigma keeps people from booking a test. So in late 2023 Specsavers had Rick Astley re-record “Never Gonna Give You Up” with the lyrics people actually mishear, released it on social, and in February 2024 put a 60 second version on commercial radio. Radiocentre reported on June 18, 2024 that the re-recording “included misheard lyrics such as ‘Never gonna run around with dessert spoons’ and ‘you wouldn’t catch nits from any other guy’”, and that the campaign took the Grand Prix for Audio and Radio at Cannes Lions, the first ever for UK radio work. Contagious’ awards coverage confirmed a second Grand Prix in PR and counted the song played over 20 million times in its first eight hours.
People caught the wrong lyrics, argued about them online, and the reveal sent them to a hearing check. Specsavers followed up in February 2024 with this film on its own channel, where Astley talks about his own hearing starting to get worse.
This is my favorite entry on the list. The ad gets you to mishear a song you know by heart, and once you notice, your own ears are suddenly the topic.
5. Liquid Death x e.l.f., “Corpse Paint” (2024)
In March 2024 a canned water brand and a drugstore makeup brand released black metal face paint together. The launch film on Liquid Death’s channel plays it completely straight, a pastel teen-bedroom “get ready with me” where the tutorial happens to be corpse paint, taught by a long-haired metalhead in studded leather. The kit had five pieces, including a black lipstick, an eyeliner pen and a cream eyeshadow, and shipped in a removable coffin keepsake box for 34 dollars, per e.l.f.’s own announcement.
For a novelty drop, the numbers were absurd. Marketing Dive, reporting on the sequel collab on January 15, 2026, recapped the original: it “sold out in 45 minutes,” and “68% of the purchasers of that collection were new to E.l.f.’s brand.” So two thirds of the buyers had never bought from e.l.f. before, and that figure is most of why I take collab pitches seriously.
In the announcement, Liquid Death’s VP of creative credits the black metal community with the look and e.l.f. with the cruelty free formulas, and the film sits on Liquid Death’s channel, so each brand brought what its audience trusts it for.
6. Airbnb, the “Icons” launch (2024)
On May 1, 2024, Airbnb launched Icons, a category of stays and experiences built with names from film, music, and sport. The centerpiece was the house from Pixar’s Up, rebuilt among the red rocks of Abiquiu, New Mexico and actually lifted into the air by crane. The lineup also had an X-Men ‘97 mansion reimagined in 2D so it reads as animation, Prince’s Purple Rain house, and a night in the Ferrari Museum. It’s Nice That covered the launch on May 3, 2024, counting 11 experiences and noting that guests apply in the app and receive a golden ticket if selected.
The launch film on Airbnb’s channel mixes animation and live action, and the Up house and the X-Men ‘97 mansion are among the stops.
Icons is a product launch, and I still count it as a social ad because of how the media worked. Airbnb spent the money building things that only existed on screen, then let every platform do what it does anyway, with walkthrough creators, reaction stitches, news segments and screenshots.
7. Gap, “Better in Denim” with Katseye (2025)
On August 19, 2025, Gap released a 90 second spot of the girl group Katseye dancing to Kelis’ “Milkshake,” an escalating group routine in denim and white tanks on a bare studio floor. Marketing Dive covered the launch that day and described a global fall campaign spotlighting the retailer’s low-rise denim, choreographed by Robbie Blue, directed by Bethany Vargas, and run across digital, social, in-store and influencer partnerships. Here it is on Gap’s own channel.
Then fans took over. Meltwater’s social listening analysis counted about 131,000 mentions of the ad across social, digital, and traditional media between August 17 and September 1, cited Gap’s claim that the spot outperformed the brand’s four previous campaign releases combined (on Gap’s earnings call, CEO Richard Dickson put it at 20 million views in its first three days), and measured a 171% jump in brand mentions over the period. One fan’s 11 second YouTube Short, just footage of the ad playing on a screen in a Gap store, pulled 1.5 million views in 12 days.
Meltwater puts much of that reach down to fans and influencers recreating the spot and reacting to it, the same copycat loop behind a lot of the best TikTok ads. Gap had built the previous fall’s denim campaign around a pop star too, Troye Sivan, per the Marketing Dive piece. This one took off because the routine, the song and the outfits were all simple enough to copy in a school hallway.
Where to study more social ads
Before you copy anything, check that it ran. The feed is full of portfolio renders and concept work that never ran as media, and three official libraries cover most of the checking. Meta Ad Library is the public record for Facebook and Instagram; search any advertiser and you see the actual paid placements, formats and active dates. TikTok Creative Center Top Ads shows high-performing paid TikTok creative in the format it ran. Handy for hooks and CTA wording, though it only surfaces winners. Google Ads Transparency Center does the same job for YouTube and the Google network. If a campaign is in none of these and the brand’s own channels say nothing, I treat it as unverified.
Social ad money is also very concentrated. Omdia’s 2026 analysis found that 90% of global social ad revenue flows through just six apps, and that video took 60% of social ad revenue in 2025.
None of these brands stopped at the viral post, either. They kept it going with variants and replies, and Liquid Death and e.l.f. came back for a sequel. Somebody has to make all of that, week after week, which is the setup we write about in creative as a service. A lot of it is plain asset work, too. Ecommerce teams increasingly generate their catalog and product imagery with AI, the way fashion brands are scaling product photography with AI, then cut those assets into statics, motion tests and social edits.
If YouTube is where most of your money goes, the best YouTube ads breakdown sticks to that one platform. For the everyday habits behind accounts like these, see our social media best practices guide.
Frequently asked questions
A social ad sits between your friends' posts, and people can skip it in under a second. So the first frame has to hold attention the way a friend's post would. That means native format, pacing that suits the platform, something that reads with the sound off, and a hook before any branding appears. The strongest examples, like Jacquemus' giant bags or The North Face's helicopter reply, were made for how the feed behaves, with comments, stitches and reposts in mind. A TV cut dropped into the feed rarely gets that.
Start with the platform's own transparency library before you trust any roundup. Meta Ad Library shows real paid placements on Facebook and Instagram, TikTok Creative Center Top Ads shows paid TikTok creative, and Google Ads Transparency Center covers YouTube. Then check the brand's own accounts and look for a dated trade-press write-up. If a campaign shows up in none of those places, it's probably a concept render or a portfolio piece. Viral posts also get deleted, so save anything you verify on the day you verify it.
It comes down to disclosure and intent. The Jacquemus and Maybelline films were 3D work composited into real footage and credited openly to the artist behind them, and the is-it-real debate became part of the reach. It turns misleading when a brand passes fabricated footage off as a real installation and lets the confusion stand, or fakes social proof like crowds and reactions. In practice the format works best when the impossible image shows something true about the product, the way Maybelline's wand coats the train's lashes, where a giant product parked next to a landmark only shows off its size.
