Overview
This page is a curated tour through some of the most compelling manifestos on the site. Whether you’re working on something specific or just broadening your mental library, you’ll find over a dozen lists below to help guide you on your journey. Do you have a favorite category that’s not mentioned? Send me an email.
Caveat
These lists are highly subjective based on my personal opinions. I’m also limited to only the scripts I’ve come across. There are hundreds of incredible scripts that aren’t on this list yet, especially ones in languages other than English. To those manifestos and their creators, no disrespect intended.
Top 10 Lists
You can use the quick links here or scroll down to discover something new. Pro tip: if you use the quick links, you can hit your browser’s back button to zip up here.
Top 10 Instructive Manifestos
These are the 10 manifestos I have unapologetically ripped off the most in my career. Each one of them provides a perfect template for hundreds of new ideas.
I highly encourage all writers to open up a google doc and retype each of these word for word. (Or any of your favorites.) You’ll begin to develop the muscle memory for what each section needs.
Top 10 Epic Manifestos
These are the best heavy lifters in the archive. The ones that can launch five-year campaigns, redefine a company, and pound a definitive stake in the ground.
You don’t want one of these for every situation. They’re overkill for sustaining campaigns and one-offs. But when I’m up against some strong headwinds, these are my favorite inspiration.
Conservation International "Humanifesto”
CoorDown “Assume That I Can”
DDB "Let’s Tell the Truth”
Diesel "Be Stupid”
Miller "This is the High Life”
Rainforest Alliance “Follow the Frog"
RED “The (RED) Manifesto”
The Big Issue “Cold”
The City of Perth “Thursday Manifesto”
Walter Gropius “Manifesto of the Staatliches Bauhaus”
Top 10 Competitive Manifestos
The best way to be competitive is to flip the biggest criticism about your brand, product, or company — then show how that thing is a necessary byproduct of something more important.
Avis brags about being second, Apple brags about being slow, Oslo brags about being boring. Every negative hides a positive. If you can find yours, your competitors can’t touch you.
Top 10 Funny Manifestos
Most manifestos aren’t funny. Usually, the closest we get are cool ones like Nike Manifestos that leave us feeling motivated. But humor is powerful and I wish brands would use it more.
Each of these uses it in a different way, all in service of their point. I recommend checking out the originals as much as the scripts. They might not help you write any better, but they’re a lot of fun.
Aviation Gin “The Process”
Bodyform “The Truth”
Dollar Shave Club "Our Blades are F***ing Great”
Metro “Dumb Ways to Die”
Newcastle Brown Ale ”If We Made it”
NFL Playoffs “Joe”
Old Spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
Rainforest Alliance “Follow the Frog"
Visit Sweden “Sweden (not Switzerland)”
Water Is Life “First World Problems”
Top 10 Unique Manifestos
If you thought the Funny Manifestos list took risks, just wait until you see this set. These manifestos defy all conventional logic. They’re like a game of Calvinball. No two are alike.
It’s almost impossible to rip these off directly. Almost no brand could pull off a “Mr. W” again. Instead, I use these to see what’s possible, then go back to the drawing board with confidence.
Top 10 Parallel Manifestos
These are all E-Shape Manifestos, but it’s worth pulling them into their own list for how common this form is. There are 40+ on this site, all of them very different from each other, but I like these best.
Notice how each one of them ends with a line that couldn’t go anywhere else in the script. It has the same structure, but it zooms out just enough that you know that’s the time to applaud.
Top 10 Unknown Manifestos
I’ve never heard anyone talk about these incredible manifestos except for hardcore advertising nerds. It’s not a fault of the work. Even great stuff gets lost in the fray.
Thanks to the curse of originality, some of these overlap with the Unique Manifestos. Even so, nothing is more thrilling than stumbling on a hidden gem. These all fit the bill.
Clark Street Bridge “Looking Back”
EV1 "Surely You Can See That. Can't You?"
Facebook “Black Makes a Way”
Girl Effect “The Girl Declaration”
MedMen “The New Normal”
Nike “What Girls are Made Of”
Olivetti “Lettera 36”
Seed “Imperfect Manifesto”
The City of Perth “Thursday Manifesto”
UN Women “When Will She Be Right?”
Top 10 Portrait Manifestos
Portraits aren’t right for every situation. You probably don’t want to do this for a new business pitch or a rebrand. But if you need something between the tentpoles, these are excellent.
A lot of these are J-Shape Manifestos, and it’s a great place to start exploring if you’re stuck. Focus on the person first, dazzle us in their magic, then tie it back to your product at the end.
Top 10 TBWA Manifestos
Next to Wieden+Kennedy, the most prolific manifesto writing agency is TBWA. Unlike WK, they come from different agencies all over the world. Everywhere from London to LA to Mumbai.
I love TBWA manifestos for their powerful simplicity. Study these for how to focus your scripts. Each one takes a single point and makes it distinctly memorable. That is incredibly hard to do.
Top 10 Wieden+Kennedy Manifestos
Where TBWA Manifestos master simplicity, WK Manifestos are masters of feeling. No shop has been more dominant when it comes to crafting pieces that motivate and inspire.
I learned this one year watching the Super Bowl when the Chrysler spot ran. The art director next to me loved it. I agreed and said the VO was awesome. She stared at me and said, “There was a VO?”
Top 10 Nike Manifestos
All of these are from WK, but it’s worth a special list. Every month, I feature the most popular manifestos, and almost every time a Nike script is in one of the top slots.
This is not even a definitive list. There are hundreds of scripts to choose from over the last 40 years, but these are my favorites.
Top 10 Long Manifestos
Length is an interesting thing with manifestos. Most manifestos on this site are under 200 words because they come from TV commercials, but some of the best pieces push 400 and up.
The key is to never, ever pad your manifesto. Only make it as long as you can be interesting. But if you can hold attention, go for it. Almost nobody realizes the Johnnie Walker piece is over six minutes.
BBH “The Power of Difference”
Cadillac "The Penalty of Leadership”
DDB "Let’s Tell the Truth”
Johnnie Walker "The Man Who Walked Around the World”
Miller "This is the High Life”
Nike “A Message from Nike Running”
Nike “Dennis Rodman, American Hero.”
Papercut “This is Not Your Life”
Rainforest Alliance “Follow the Frog"
Ram “So God Made a Farmer”
Top 10 Short Manifestos
Shorter manifestos are much, much harder than longer manifestos. There’s no room to hide in these. Every line — sometimes every word — has to do a lot of work. Filler equals death.
This is another list I recommend people retype word for word. Teach your fingers how little space you need to make a powerful point. You can ignite an entire city with just 12 words.
Top 10 New Manifestos
We’re living in a difficult time for great manifestos. With the declining attention spans, a lot of brands either aren’t getting good scripts from writers or don’t think anthem pieces are necessary.
These are the exception to both rules. Each of these is among the best manifestos on the site. I’d put up the CoorDown script against anything from the golden age till now.
Antarctic Science Foundation "This Isn't Us Saving the Planet”
Athleta “Your world. Your rules.”
Claude “There’s Hope in Hard Questions”
CoorDown “Assume That I Can”
Girl Scouts of the USA “Manifesto”
Lilly “Shame”
Microsoft “Our Mission”
Nike “So Win”
Pinterest “How Did They Do It?”
Visit Oslo “Is It Even a City?”
Top 10 Old Manifestos
This list is deceptive. The span here is quite wide, from 1902 to the ‘60s. Still, it’s interesting to see the foundations of all the scripts we write today, many from the incredible writers at DDB.
I’d love to blow out the earlier decades with great scripts. If you have any favorites from that time, please send me an email.
Avis “We Try Harder”
Cadillac "The Penalty of Leadership”
Cadillac “The Tribute to Initiative”
DDB “Do This or Die”
NASA “Foundations of Flight Operations”
Schlitz “The Owners Protect It”
Volkswagen “Lemon”
Volkswagen “Think Small”
Volkswagen “Ugly is Only Skin Deep”
Walter Gropius “Manifesto of the Staatliches Bauhaus”