NOMINEES ANNOUNCED APRIL 1ST
29th Annual Webby Awards February 3, 2025

The Best Webby-Winning Ads of All Time

We tapped Daniel Barak, Webby Judge and Global Executive Creative Director at R/GA, to share his take on the best ads he’s seen from the industry in the past 10 years

Daniel Barak is an internationally acclaimed creative leader currently serving as R/GA’s first Global ECD, where he strategically shapes the creative vision for R/GA. He raises the creative bar across the network to drive business and create meaningful, award-winning work at the speed of culture.

Described by Forbes as the industry’s next generation and named by Business Insider and Forbes as one of the 30 most creative people in advertising for 2 consecutive years, he has won over 300 awards for his unique vision. With over 10 years as a Webby Awards Judge, Barak has seen the very best the industry has had to offer.

As judging kicks off for the 29th Annual Webby Awards, we asked Daniel to share his reflections on the 11 best campaigns that changed the advertising space in the past decade.

 

You’ve seen the advertising landscape transform in your 10-year tenure as a Webby Judge. Which campaigns caught your eye?

2014
Ume.net: Living with Lag

Fiber internet provider Ume.net made this fun experiment that asked a simple question: you wouldn’t accept lag offline, why do you accept it online?

This video showed people doing daily activities using a bespoke headset that gave them a passthrough view of reality, just with lag.

It went viral at a time when saying viral was still acceptable, and they deserved all the praise. The combination of a high-tech build on the backend to celebrate such a simple, human moment stayed with me for many years.

2015
Honda: The Other Side

I’m a big fan of interactive video, and the early 2010’s were the renaissance of the genre. And while Honda R wasn’t a traditional interactive video, that’s exactly why it was so successful. It was a new kind of storytelling, 2 parallel worlds colliding perfectly in one video, just like the car’s dual personality.

Combine this with the fact that it was one of the only times YouTube allowed for a unique media buy that gave this campaign a proper reach. And above all, pressing the R key (type R, get it?) to jump between the 2 stories was chef’s kiss.

2016
Volkswagen: Unleash Your Rrrr

A shameless plug that feels more relevant today than almost a decade ago. Unleash Your Rrrr was the first Generative AI project in advertising, sort of. It was a sound-to-video experience where people made funny car sounds and got a Golf R video back, matching their driving noises perfectly.

The visual “generative” portion was not invented yet, so we had to combine our AI engine with a real (human) shoot and built a bank of hundreds of Golf R videos driving and drifting around a racetrack, so the AI could pull from and generate a unique video for every user based on the sound of their voice.

2017
Down Syndrome Answers

The Canadian Down Syndrome Society used a powerful and cold tool—Google search— and turned it into a platform for empathy and education. By giving individuals with Down syndrome the chance to answer the internet’s most-Googled questions about their condition, the campaign turned curiosity into connection. It wasn’t just advocacy, it was an invitation to rethink assumptions, delivered in the most human and accessible way possible.

2018
Xbox: The Fanchise Model

The Fanchise Model was a quiet revolution in affiliate marketing—without ever being called that. Xbox transformed its Design Lab into a platform where fans could create custom controllers, claim ownership, and earn royalties when others purchased their designs. This was more than user engagement, it was a pioneering move in fan-driven commerce, effectively turning consumers into brand ambassadors with a vested interest. By gamifying customization and monetization, Xbox not only sold controllers—they sold creativity. And in the process, redefined what it meant to have skin in the game.

2019
Burger King: The Whopper Detour

The Whopper Detour was one of the most brutal and mischievous challenger-brand moments in recent memory. By geofencing McDonald’s locations and offering a one-cent Whopper to anyone who ordered through the app, Burger King weaponized technology to make downloading their app a cultural event. It wasn’t just about trolling; it was about using the competition as a catalyst for growth.

2020
JFK Moonshot

JFK Moonshot transformed the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission into a shared, augmented reality experience. Every detail was rendered in real-time and brought the mission back to life, from the countdown to the lunar landing. I love it because it helped people understand the scale of this human achievement through emerging tech.

2021
Spotify: Alone with Me

Spotify tried to imagine what does intimacy sound like in the digital age, and came up with Alone with Me, a personalized listening experience featuring The Weeknd. By blending user data with interactive storytelling, it turned every listener’s headphones into a one-on-one space with Abel. This project wasn’t about streaming music—it was about feeling seen and creating a level of connection that only Spotify could orchestrate.

2022
Reddit: Superb Owl

Reddit’s sneaky five-second Super Bowl ad was a blink-and-you-miss-it pause button moment that felt perfectly Reddit and tailor-made for the internet. In a game filled with high-production spots, it stood out by doing what Reddit does best—turning a small moment into a big conversation. I am not bitter about not being on the team that made it at R/GA, no sir, not at all.

2023
SMILE

Film marketing is one of my favorite genres that sadly I don’t get to work on enough. SMILE’s simple strategy of taking over big media moments with a cheap hack that visually communicated the films’ premise truly got the internet to explode. Online guerrilla at its truest form.

2024
The First Digital Nation

When Tuvalu realized their land could disappear to rising sea levels, they built a digital version of their country. Using emerging tech like Unreal Engine to help preserve the country’s culture in the virtual realm. This project pioneered what the next level of digital advocacy could look like in the future.


Have What it Takes to Compete with the Industry’s Best? 

The Webby Awards’ Extended Entry Deadline is your last chance to find out. Enter your best campaigns by this Friday, February 7th at webbyawards.com!

Drag