Every case

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• Gumroad: a weekend-built link with payments sells anything at age 192011
• Swoopo's pay-per-bid auction: a MacBook 'sells' for $35.86, every bid costs 60 cents2005–2011
• Nike's 'Write the Future' — one kick's ripple, 12M daily views, Film Grand Prix2010–2011
• VW's 'The Force' debuts its Super Bowl ad online first — a kid Vader starts the Passat2011
• Groupon's 2008 tipping-point coupon: a deal only fires when enough people buy2008–2011
• Droga5 hides all 320 pages of Jay-Z's memoir 'Decoded' across 13 cities — Bing finds them2010–2011
• Chipotle's 'Back to the Start' cartoon sells sustainable farming — Cannes 2012 double GP2011
• Wine Library TV: a liquor store's daily wine show lifts family sales from $4M to $60M2006–2011
• Evian's 'Roller Babies' — dancing CGI babies, the most-viewed brand video of its era2009–2011
• Iceland makes its people the campaign — Inspired by Iceland revives tourism in 10 weeks2010–2011
• Foldit turns protein folding into a puzzle game — 57,000 players beat the computers2008–2011
• Japan's Cool Biz makes saving energy a fashion choice — 95.8% awareness, 460K tons CO2 cut2005–2011
• Sweden's speed camera lottery pays drivers for obeying the limit — average speeds drop 22%2010–2011
• Change4Life: UK's 2009 family health movement — clay characters, 413k families sign up2009–2011
• Humble Indie Bundle (2010): pay what you want, pick the charity split — $1.27M in a week2010–2011
• GitHub's 2011 GitHub Flow reduces branching to six rules; teams worldwide adopt it2011
• NRK broadcasts a 7-hour train ride unedited; 1.2M Norwegians watch, creating Slow TV2009–2011
• DropMocks: a Chrome designer weekend hack that shares image sets via HTML5 drag and drop2010
• QWOP maps every leg muscle to a key, turning running into comedy — 30M site views2008–2010
• Tiny Hearts' Pocket Zoo makes kids love it and parents pay — #1 Education app, 20102009–2010
• YouArchive.It: a teen's iPhone SMS archive grew to 32,000 users, then he shut it down2007–2010
• Shell's GameChanger: a peer fund that gets any employee's radical idea money fast (1996)1996–2010
• Eataly turns a Turin vermouth factory into the 'supermarket of the future'2007–2010
• Dafen turns oil painting into factory work — about 60% of the world's hand-made copies1989–2010s
• NYC DOT tests a car-free Times Square with paint and chairs — the data keeps it (2009)2009–2010
• LEGO turns bricks into a strategy tool: executives build their answers in play1996–2010
• Museum of Broken Relationships turns ex-lovers' keepsakes into a global exhibit2006-2010
• Orcon re-records 'The Passenger' with Iggy Pop — Ad Stars 2010 Grand Prix2009–2010
• Kogi BBQ: Twitter becomes a roving taco truck's storefront — 20082008–2010
• Uniqlo's Lucky Switch turns any blog into a lottery — Spikes 2010 Digital Grand Prix2009–2010
• Coca-Cola's Happiness Machine turns buying soda into surprises — 700K views in a week2010
• KLM surprises passengers with researched gifts — 40 gifts, 1M Twitter impressions2010
• HCL's 'Employees First, Customers Second' makes managers accountable to their teams2005–2010
• Snickers' Betty White Super Bowl ad makes hunger a transformation — sales up 15.9%2010
• Michelin Fleet Solutions: stop selling tires, sell the kilometers instead2000–2010
• Tipp-Ex's interactive YouTube ad: viewers rewrite the title, get a new ending2010
• Domino's 'Pizza Turnaround' admits the old pie was bad — new recipe doubles Q4 results2009–2010
• 2 Bros Pizza: a $1 Manhattan slice, built on volume, grows into a chain2008–2010
• Old Spice's absurd 'Man Your Man' spot and 186 live-response videos revive a fading brand2010
• Microsoft's Language Quality Game: 4,500 staff review 500,000 Windows 7 screens2007–2010
• WHO's two-minute surgery checklist cut deaths and complications by a third2007–2009
• Volkswagen turns a subway staircase into a piano — 66% more commuters take the stairs2009
• Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno's random-instruction cards break creative deadlocks1975–2009
• BBSmart Email Viewer: a UI-stack trick made BlackBerry's top-selling app2007–2009
• T-Mobile 'Dance': a rush-hour flash mob becomes the ad — 5.5M views in a month2009
• FAVI's liberated foundry: trust instead of time clocks1983–2009
• Valve's AI Director paces Left 4 Dead live — no two playthroughs are the same2008–2009
• Sagami's LOVE DISTANCE: real lovers run 1,000 km to a 0.02 mm reveal — ADFEST Cyber GP2008–2009
• Netflix offers $1M to the world to beat its recommendation engine — 50,000 enter2006–2009
• Ghent's Donderdag Veggiedag makes Thursday the world's first city veggie day2009
• iStockphoto (2000): $1 photos create microstock — and Getty pays $50M for it2000–2009
• iShoot: a Sun engineer's self-taught tank game earns $600K in one month2008–2009
• Braid: a $15 self-funded art game sells 55,000 copies in week one2005–2009
• Nestlé Japan turns KitKat's pun into an exam charm — 34% of teens call it omamori2003–2009
• Zappos makes free shipping both ways and 365-day returns the product1999–2009
• 2D Boy drops World of Goo's $20 price for a week and gets 57,000 sales2009
• Kraft 'releases' Diamond Shreddies — the exact same cereal, rotated 45°2008
• São Paulo's Cidade Limpa bans all outdoor ads — 15,000 billboards down in a year2006–2008
• Jeep fuses a husky and camel into one silhouette — AD STARS 2008 Grand Prix2008
• Nine Inch Nails self-releases Ghosts I-IV in price tiers — $1.62M in week one2008
• 37signals cuts to a 32-hour week and finds four days do the work of five2007–2008
• Toyota's A3 report: one sheet of paper, one story — the 1978 format that went global1978–2008
• Valve's Portal turns one student mechanic, the portal gun, into a whole acclaimed game2005–2008
• CD Baby: a bedroom side project selling friends' CDs becomes a $22M company1998–2008
• IBM's InnovationJam: 150,000 people brainstorm online — $100M funds the 10 winners2006–2008
• Petronas' 'Tan Hong Ming': an unscripted crush wins Malaysia's first Cannes Gold2007–2008
• Cadbury's drumming gorilla sells joy, not chocolate — sales up 9%, £4.88 per £12007–2008
• Airbnb sold $40 cereal to raise $30k; YC invested.2008
• P&G's Connect + Develop opens R&D to the world — half its innovation now starts outside2000–2008
• Radiohead sells In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want download — fans name the price2007–2008
• Dell's IdeaStorm lets customers vote on products — Linux wins, Ubuntu ships2007
• M-PESA makes Kenya's corner shops cash agents — the airtime network becomes a bank2005–2007
• Dove 'Evolution': a 75-second unmasking of beauty ads — double Cannes Grand Prix2006–2007
• Metro International 1995: give the paper away in the subway, sell only the ads1995–2007
• Sony Bravia 'Balls': 250,000 bouncy balls roll down San Francisco to sell color2005–2007
• Paris Plages 2002: a beach on the Seine expressway — copied by cities worldwide2002–2007
• Marvel puts 2,500 back issues online at $4.99 a month — comics' first big subscription2007
• Amazon rents storage by the gigabyte — S3 opens web-scale infrastructure to any developer2006
• Nespresso's capsule lock-in: machines via partners, coffee sold only through its Club1986–2006
• A student sells 1M pixels of ad space at $1 each — $1M in five months2005–2006
• IMDb bolts a message board onto every title page — forums built in 2001 that ran 15 years2001–2005
• Honda's 'Grrr' sells diesel with a song about hate — Cannes Grand Prix 20052004–2005
• Andrew Fischer auctions his forehead on eBay — SnoreStop pays $37,3752005
• Zara rebuilds fashion retail: two weeks from sketch to store, 1975–20051975–2005
• Seoul 2005: tearing down a highway to bring back a buried stream2003–2005
• Salesforce (2000): CRM rented for ~$50/user/month in the browser — 'End of Software'1999–2005
• Google's AdWords Select (2002): ads ranked by bid and click-through, billed only on clicks2000–2005
• Slip! Slop! Slap!: seagull jingle makes sun safety a habit — under-30 melanoma falls1981–2005
• Amazon Prime's 2005 launch turned shipping from a cost into a loyalty subscription2005
• Honda's Waigaya: unplanned, agenda-free shouting matches that outrank the org chart1950s–2004
• Semco lets workers set pay and review bosses — revenue climbs 700% in a decade1980s–2004
• Namco's Katamari Damacy turns 'roll everything up' into a cult classic2002–2004
• Burger King's Subservient Chicken obeys typed commands — 15M unique visitors2004
• Shake Shack's 2001 park hot dog cart — art fundraiser that became a burger chain2001–2004
• IBM's ValuesJam lets 50,000 employees rewrite the company's values in 72 hours2003–2004
• Medellín's Metrocable: the world's first gondola system built for daily commuters2004
• Honda's 'Cog' chain-reaction ad — two minutes of real parts, no CGI, 606 takes2003–2004
• The Office (UK): BBC lets a no-laugh-track mockumentary reset sitcom comedy2001–2003
• IDEO's Method Cards put its design process in a 51-card deck2003
• Book Off: 10%-in, half-price-out rules make used-book shops a national chain1990–2003
• Reebok's Terry Tate: one airing, seven million downloads, half forgot the brand2003
• Bogotá's 1995 mime traffic 'police' shame drivers into obeying — deaths halve in a decade1995–2003
• Apple's iTunes Store sells singles for 99¢ — 1M songs sold in week one2003
• AES's advice process: no rules or approval chains — 40,000 employees decide1981–2002
• Copenhagen gave its cleaned harbour back as free public baths — and swimming caught on2002
• BMW 'The Hire': eight A-list short films sell cars online — no 30-second spot2001–2002
• SRC's open-book management: teach workers the P&L, post the score, give them a stake1983–2002
• Goldcorp published its mine data and let the world find its gold1999–2002
• IKEA's 'Lamp' makes viewers pity a lamp, then calls them crazy — Cannes Grand Prix2002
• Guinness 'Surfer': a perfect wave becomes white horses — 1999's most-awarded ad1999–2002
• Netflix 1999 replaces per-rental fees with a flat DVD subscription — no late fees, ever1998–2002
• Agile Manifesto 2001: 17 developers sign 68 words that rewrite software delivery2001
• Singapore's 1979 National Courtesy Campaign turns politeness into a civic mission1979–2001
• Haier Brothers: a fridge maker's cartoon builds a national IP — revenue up 65% in 19951995–2001
• Zentsuji farmers grow square watermelons in glass boxes — the ¥10,000 gift fruit1978–2001
• Big Brother turns a house into a 24/7 TV feed — and the audience into the evictor1999–2000
• Goldcorp 2000: a struggling miner puts its drill data online — the crowd finds the gold2000
• The Sims turns everyday life into a game — the virtual dollhouse sells 200M copies2000
• House Hippo: a fake ad about a tiny pet teaches Canadian kids to doubt TV1999
• Amazon's Bar Raiser: a trained outside interviewer with veto power guards every hire1998–1999
• Taipei's 1999 'little green man' made crossing time readable — and became a national icon1999
• Priceline lets travelers name their own price in 1998, inventing buyer-driven commerce1998–1999
• Sony's 1979 Walkman makes music personal — 186M cassette units shipped by 19991979–1999
• Oticon's Spaghetti Organization: no departments, no titles, best profit since 19041988–1998
• Auntie Anne's: a $6,000 market stall becomes a 558-store pretzel chain1988–1998
• Bandai's Tamagotchi turns caring into play — 40M virtual pets in 2.5 years1996–1998
• Chiat/Day's 1994 virtual office removes every assigned desk — and seeds office hoteling1994–1997
• Toyota's obeya: one big room where Prius engineers work against walls of truth1993–1997
• Ampelmännchen: the friendly East German traffic-light man Berlin refused to replace1961–1997
• Vienna's Frauen-Werk-Stadt: a women-designed housing district — 357 flats for daily life1992–1997
• QuakeWorld: Carmack makes 300 ms dial-up multiplayer feel like single player1996
• Lotte turns 11/11 into Pepero Day — Korea's chocolate-stick gift holiday1996
• MTV Unplugged strips the show down to acoustic — the 1989 format that remade pop1989–1994
• Clean Up Australia (1990): one man's Sydney clean-up draws 300,000 volunteers1989–1993
• Harvard's 1988 designated-driver campaign put a new safety role inside prime-time TV1988–1992
• Nucor 1966: pay tied to profit, pain shared equally — no layoffs1966–1992
• Curitiba's 1974 'metro-ized bus' invents BRT — 2.3M passengers a day today1971–1992
• GE's Work-Out town halls make managers decide on the spot — busting bureaucracy1989–1990s
• TOTO's 1988 Otohime turns toilet-noise shame into a water-saving sound button1988
• UK's AIDS tombstone ad; every household gets leaflet1986–1987
• Chun Shui Tang teahouse invents bubble tea — tapioca pearls meet iced milk tea, 19871986–1987
• Apple's '1984' Super Bowl ad airs once — $3.5M in Mac sales, an Ad Age all-time great1983–1984
• McDonald's Hamburger University: the school that standardized the world's kitchens1961–1983
• Casio's G-Shock survives a 10m drop, 10-bar water and 10-year battery — 50M sold1981–1983
• Jollibee: a Quezon City ice cream parlor that beat McDonald's at home1975–1981
• 3M's 15 percent rule gives staff free time — Post-it Notes are born1948–1980
• Capsule Inn Osaka 1979: a sauna owner sells a sleeping pod instead of a room1979
• Toyota's Five Whys: ask why again until the root cause, not the symptom, gets fixed1950s–1978
• Handelsbanken scraps budgets — branches become the bank, beating peers for 50 years1970–1978
• I ♥ NY: a pro-bono taxi doodle becomes New York State's most imitated logo1976–1977
• Gary Dahl sold a beach stone in a box for $4 in 19751975–1976
• Toyota's 1951 idea system: 250,000 worker proposals a year by 19731951–1973
• Motown's quality-control meetings vote on every song before release1959–1971
• Nissin Cup Noodles 1971: ramen that cooks in its own cup — 21.2B servings a year1966–1971
• Conveyor belt sushi: a 1958 Osaka shop owner's cost cut becomes a global industry1958–1970
• Seiichi Miyake's tenji blocks let blind pedestrians read city streets underfoot1965–1967
• Walt Disney's plussing turns critique into building on what works1955–1966
• Play-Doh: Kutol's dying wallpaper-cleaner business is reborn as a children's toy1954–1965
• Skunk Works: a small trusted team that kept beating impossible deadlines1943–1964
• Toyota's poka-yoke makes errors impossible instead of catching them later1961–1963
• IKEA's 1956 LÖVET table: legs off, flat-pack, no air shipped.1956–1962
• McDonald's 1956: selling franchises, owning the land under every store1954–1961
• Kikkoman's 1961 soy-sauce bottle: Ekuan's no-drip design still sits on tables worldwide1958–1961
• Mister Softee: a jingle turns ice-cream trucks into a summons that lasts decades1956–1960
• Kopi Joss: a Yogyakarta stall drops burning charcoal into coffee and makes a city icon1960s
• Toyota's Andon cord lets any worker stop the line — quality becomes everyone's job1950s–1960s
• Tupperware moved bowls from stores to living rooms in 1948.1948–1958
• Iwasaki Be-I: wax food replicas become Japan's restaurant-window industry1932–1955
• Toyota's kanban: a card that signals production, turning the factory into a pull system1948–1953
• Finland's Kela turned pregnancy allowance into a maternity package in 1938.1938–1949
• Michelin (1900): a free motoring guide sells more tires — and becomes the dining authority1900–1931
• Ford's Five-Dollar Day: doubling pay to stop the line's 370% turnover1914–1916
• Paris cave growers turn abandoned quarries into a mushroom capital1820–1900