Whose ad campaign used a gorilla to try to destroy their luggage?

It begins in an empty gorilla cage at the zoo. A zookeeper quickly opens the cage door, throws in a red suitcase and shuts the door again. Suddenly, a sliding door opens at the back of the cage and a gorilla bounds out. He picks up the suitcase and starts throwing it against the walls. He bounces it off the bars, he throws it on the floor, he jumps up and down on it. Then a graphic appears for the name of the luggage brand.

Most people say this 1970 Samsonite commercial is one of the best of all time. But here's the thing: the commercial wasn't for Samsonite. It was for its number one rival – American Tourister.

Samsonite, at the time, had double the market share of American Tourister. But sometimes in the marketing world, the bigger brand gets all the credit. When people are asked to remember the best luggage commercial of all time, they default to Samsonite because Samsonite spent more advertising money, it is the only brand name they can remember.

Over time, Samsonite solved that disconnect by purchasing the American Tourister company and adopted the gorilla imagery in all its retail stores.

Advertising Age magazine ranks "Gorilla" one of the top 100 commercials of the 20th century, and it is included in the permanent collection at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

American Tourister is a brand of luggage owned by Samsonite. Brothers Sol and Irving Koffler founded American Luggage Works in Providence, Rhode Island, United States in 1933.