Strange Fascination: A Century Of Surreal Ads

The most powerful ads aren’t logical. They are like lucid dreams – impossible to shake off. Hypnotic, haunting, sticky.

Love it or loathe it – surrealism is as relevant as it was when André Breton published the ‘Surrealist Manifesto’ a hundred years ago. And like Salvador Dalí, it breeds fortune as well as intrigue.

Arguably the movement's most influential artist, Dalí didn’t just melt clocks in his mind – when he painted them, he transgressed time itself. 

Ever the provocateur, he reshaped the art world in his image and finalised a transformation that had already begun: the artist became advertising, art became advertising and advertising became art. 

His legacy is one that few others can rival, and one that means surrealism continues to permeate the subconscious of even the most unwitting consumer. Famously a self-promoter keen for airtime, Dalí was no stranger to brand work, to the extent he could be considered a pioneer of modern influencer culture.

Take for example, his role in a Lanvin chocolate ad, his design of the Chupa Chups logo and his work with Walt Disney on the animated short ‘Destino’ - originally conceived in 1946 but completed and brought to life in 2003 (featuring his signature melting clocks).

But while Dalí was notable for being brazenly commercial, he wasn’t alone in seeing the movement as a playground for brand creativity. Right now, surrealism can be found all over advertising – from the absurdity of KFC’s ‘Believe’ or the Hellmann’s branded designer handbag by Chopova Lowena, to wonderfully whimsical works like ‘Are You On GiffGaff’, and Poretti’s ‘Welcome To The Lake’.

After all, times may have changed, but they are no less dizzying (today has its fair share of war, economic crises, and strange celebrity antics such as flying into space). As VML’s global director Marie Stafford notes in her presentation of the agency’s latest Future 100 report: “It feels like the world has taken surrealism to heart a bit too much. While we are getting more grounded, we are also giving our brains over to imagination and flights of fancy.”

What in the world is surrealism, anyway?

Surrealism is often mistaken for being just “odd” – but it isn’t just visual randomness. True surrealism delves deeper, into the subconscious – Joan Miró’s playful abstractions, Buñuel’s terrifying short Un Chien Andalou, and René Margritte’s distortions of the everyday don’t seek to confuse but to reveal what is hidden beyond reality, in the logic-free world of dreams.

And then there’s its precursor Dadaism, which shocked the world by elevating objects and irreverently defining what art should be; take Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ – the famous urinal flipped sideways and signed “R. Mutt.”

Inspired from Breton’s experience as a psychiatrist during World War One, surrealism takes heavily from Freud’s psychoanalysis. Saatchi & Saatchi’s chief strategy officer Richard Huntington links the growth of surrealism in advertising back to Freud’s nephew, PR man Edward Bernays who saw the subconscious as a way to drive decision-making – tapping into desire, fear and aspiration (all effective techniques, although selling women cigarettes under the guise of freedom would be probably frowned upon now…)

“That was an era in which people saw advertising as this incredible manipulator of the subconscious, which we walked away from. A lot of advertising tradition now is desperately trying to appear rational but we’re at our best when we embrace the fact that advertising is a child of surrealism,” Huntington adds. 

He notes that while in hindsight people might try to rationalise iconic ads like Cadbury’s 2007 ad ‘Gorilla’  by Fallon – its power lies in the fact that it is a “pure surreal dream” which playfully taps into the euphoric feeling of biting into chocolate, building on a primal urge.

Making magic: playfulness as a force

Just as surrealism can draw on longing or fear – it also has the power to unlock wonder. That sense of playfulness, fantasy and escape, much like Miró’s abstract and visually free paintings, has been deployed as an incredibly potent tool in advertising.

One example is 'Honda Grrr', an ad created in 2007 by Wieden & Kennedy. With its escapist rainbow-like imagery, fairytale-like illustration, and catchy jingle, it has a dreamlike quality, taking the viewer on a fantastical journey set apart from the usual landscapes of car ads.

More recently, Pablo’s ‘Are You On GiffGaff’ turned phone contracts into an escapist fantasy, with a trumpet blowing fairy-like woman transforming into a relatably deranged character who blows into traffic cones and talks to pigeons. She’s having a blast because she’s on GiffGaff.

For Pablo’s executive creative director Dan Watts there’s currently a huge appetite for escapism and a push away from the worthiness of the purpose-driven era (which we know characterised a lot of work from the mid 2010s until recently).

“Everybody’s aware of the cost-of-living and hard news and people just want a break from that – they want to be entertained again,” Watts says. “Advertising can get very worthy and become kind of forgettable. If you pull on both sides of the brain – something really smart and thought out with whimsy rubbed against it becomes far more memorable,” he continues.

Huntington – who authored Saatchi & Saatchi’s “What The Fuck Is Going On?” study, and “Heartland” its second part exploring the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the middle classes, concurs. He argues that as fewer people go out, a fantastical spark can be especially useful for generating passion-driven sales for products and brands.

And not only has this meant that brands such as Waitrose are doing well, it leaves the field ripe for playful, unexpected and innovative advertising.

Discussing the retailer’s whodunnit style Christmas ad ­– Huntington adds that it subverts an ordinary moment with a sprinkle of magic: “It’s a normal middle class family having dinner on Christmas Day and there’s nothing unusual, but it catapults you into a surreal world in which a detective, who just happens to be at the table, turns the whole thing into a prime drama”.

By contrast, whimsy has also been used to add depth and colour to serious messages, such as in Childline’s famous 2020 ‘Nobody’s Normal’ ad by The Gate. Created with stop motion animation set to the tune of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’, it enchantingly immerses the viewer in the inner unease experienced by many children.

Likewise, Bodyform/Libresse is renowned for its humorous and surprising takes on subjects that are often deemed taboo or inelegant to discuss.

Its latest film 'Never Just A Period' by AMV BBDO is a visually eclectic mix of humor, surreal imagery, and a Greek chorus-inspired female orchestra to depict the often-overlooked realities of menstruation

"Playful visual hyperbole allows us to treat each experience in the film with humour––which speaks to the truth of how women+ get through all this: by laughing together, but also with seriousness within that humour and acknowledging that these experiences are big. They feel huge, and they are huge. We’re taking them seriously, and giving them the largeness they deserve, in a world that minimises and dismisses us," explains AMV BBDO head of production Rebecca Scharf.

Twist: The power of distortion

Just as Bodyform delivers a unique take on the experience of periods, transforming overlooked pain into a cathartic message – twists are everywhere in surrealism.

And whilst it needn’t be flies or sliced eyeballs (although it could be), adding a disorientating shock factor or a twist is a key method of garnering attention in advertising.

It is certainly at play in the late David Lynch’s parodic 2011 ad for his Signature Coffee, in which he absurdly performs as a Barbie.

That’s without mentioning many of his most iconic perfume and ads – for example this dreamy 1994 Karl Lagerfield ad.

Another gem is ‘Mental Wealth’ the iconic 1999 Playstation ad directed by Chris Cunningham which shows a young Scottish girl staring directly into the camera delivering a poetic monologue but with a CGI distorted face that makes her appear as though she is an alien. Considering it was pre-AI it not only feels arresting but also foreboding.

A twist can be exceptionally powerful in tired and formulaic categories like beer. Among Guinness’s iconic adverts, is ‘Dreamer’ – the follow up to ‘Swimmer’ and ‘Surfer’. Directed by Jonathan Glazer, the iconic AMV BBDO spot features a pub filled with squirrels drinking, horses surfing massive waves, and dogs leaping through the air.

Discussing Pablo’s latest spot for Poretti ‘Welcome To The Lake’, Watts highlights that a stand-out element of the ad is that it both draws on heritage and is distinct from most lifestyle-driven conventional beer advertising.

Although it is filled with swagger, the film goes beyond a typical beer advert which might include picturesque images of lakes. Shot in black and white, it features a dapper man in a suit and speedboat-driving, harmonica-playing foxes.

“It weirdly follows the tropes of beer advertising. It’s a man on a lake enjoying it. It’s not surreal in the same way as Saatchi & Saatchi’s Silk Cut ads were but it definitely nods to it,” Watts explains. 

Another way to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary involves subverting the original role of an object – a concept rooted in the Dada movement. Today, this can be seen from countless brands: McDonald's creating out-of-home with a simple picture of a McMuffin, Hellmann’s mayonnaise handbags made in conjunction with Chopova Lowena, or Warhol-branded Absolut vodka bottles.

For Huntington, one particularly strong example of elevating the object in advertising is Coca-Cola’s 2006 ‘The Happiness Factory’ ad which was made by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam.

“Someone puts a coin into a coke machine and we’re immersed in a surrealist dream in which the product is elevated. Classic Coca-Cola advertising always has a moment of magical transformation. You drink, you anticipate the product and you go somewhere else. That for me is the quintessential example” Huntington explains.

Is surrealism warping itself?

Today, the rise of AI means that distorting reality is easier than ever – but the danger is dilution.

Where surrealism once shocked, enchanted and seeped into the subconscious it now risks being misconstrued to inspire nothing more than visual wallpaper or AI slop – Toys R Us’ ad from last summer received heavy criticism for exactly this. Unless it is deployed with intention, distortion and magic lose their power and meaning entirely.

Trends like the AI-generated Mattel-style dolls people have been posting of themselves on LinkedIn might play on objectification, but rarely leave a lasting impression.

In her SXSW round-up TMW Unlimited's head of social and influence Olivia Wedderburn cites Baudrillard's simulacrum simulation theory, the idea that consumers get copies upon copies of everything now, and argued that we are increasingly in a "loop of imitation for imitation".

Speaking about the risk of repetitiveness, Wedderburn says: "In a world that's grown wary of authenticity, the subconscious finds it harder to be moved by relatability, but we can certainly be moved by distortions. Generative AI is going to produce a shitload of terrible creative but its only slop if you're not aware".

She highlights Channel 4's recent visceral campaign for 'Open House: The Great Sex Experiment' – "By camply leaning in they managed to pull on threads of humour, confusion, and discomfort. I’d expect we’ll see lots of great AI-generated campaigns in a similar vein."

One brand that is cleverly using surrealism to play on fears around AI is KFC. The ‘Believe’ campaign by Mother elevates chicken to a sacred relic and shows how the very human feeling of satisfaction is a constant in a post-truth era.

It features an eclectic combination of an AI minister, a gravy lake, and a strange baptism-like procedure, but every element of it is both deliberately rooted in the brand and unique.

“The surrealism to me, whatever we mean by surrealism, is uniqueness. When people say you’re borrowing from this, you’re borrowing from that – we’re not,” Mother ECD Martin Rose explains, speaking at Advertising Week Europe.

Rose also highlights how carefully thought through the details are – including elevens on the trees representing the eleven herbs and spices used and the fact that the drums are shaped like chicken drums. “There is no surrealism for surrealism’s sake,” he adds.

Surrealism’s centenary is a timely reminder for adland that human desire is not logical – but it also isn’t random. It comes from the types of experiences and impulses we relive in our dreams.

Time will tell what creatives can achieve with AI. "The real question is when (or if) we’ll get beyond meta commentaries on modern creativity that make our skin itch, and start to see work that genuinely moves us?" Wedderburn highlights.

When advertising truly embraces the surreal, it should act as a portal to the subconscious and drive desire.

As Huntington ponders: “We’ve closed ourselves off in a world of rationality and pre-testing but I wonder what that’s done for our value creation because we aren’t seen as these mercurial people that can manipulate people’s subconscious we’re seen as purely rational beings: dramatising selling propositions?” 

And that’s the real risk at this juncture. In a word where access to fast, convenient image generators and detailed data-driven tools is cheaper than ever,  it’s those who dream big and go beyond the realm of logic who will stand the test of time.

Surrealism remains one of the most powerful sales tools.

If advertising ignores its inner strange, it risks potentially losing the plot altogether.