'Best' of 2010

Recently ITV aired what was essentially a 1-hour ad break – Ad of the Year – and The Guardian published Nielsen’s ‘most-liked’ list online.

My response to this was hardly one of universal agreement. Let’s start with the clear offenders.

1. Go Compare (ITV Ad of the Year no20)

Erm… Did I see/hear/read that correctly? As a temporary schoolteacher, one thing I was interested to observe was that the children (8-10) love it; they think it’s hilarious and so catchy that they (irritatingly) love singing it. Hardly the demographic for a car insurance comparison website, though. In my experience, anyone remotely close to their target market and with an ounce of sanity tends to greet the ads with the mute button. Yes, ads are intrinsically intrusive, but come on, many of the ads deservedly in this list are entertaining or charming or thought-provoking, this is no more than brainwashing, repetitive dross and a gung ho response to the competition, which unfortunately for them, is a certain meerkat.

2. Barclaycard (ITV Ad of the Year no2)

Man rides rollercoaster to work. Different and entertaining on paper, despite sounding like a desperate attempt to make financial services popular and accessible post-recession. But then you watch the ad. Blink at the split second of Barclaycard exposure at the beginning, middle and end of the ad and you’ll be completely baffled by what’s going on. For starters you’ll think the man is a perv based on his peering into a half-naked woman’s bathroom and the time he makes his co-worker weak at the knees with the purchase of an apple. Indeed this female pandering to male attention feels better suited to a bygone century and to me implies men dealing with the finances while women watch gratefully and admiringly. Whatever the interpretation, I watched all 90 seconds but was bored after 60.

3. Cushelle (Nielsen ‘likeability’ report no9)

A koala bear hugs a pack of Charmin before darting to the new pack of rebranded Cushelle. Is this all it takes to make the top 10 most liked ads of the year? The fact that it’s non-descript is not, however, the only thing I have against it. Robert Webb. Unmistakeable voice – the same unmistakeable voice that plays Jez ‘dog-eating, sex-crazed, drug-fuelled, work-shy freeloader’ Usborne in Peep Show. Granted, many Cushelle consumers might not also be Peep Show viewers but for me, that voice now has a lot of associations, and cute koala bears hugging soft toilet paper is certainly not one of them.

There was, as expected, a selection of the year’s best ads (not all of them in my opinion – and I’ll return to this in a later post). Of those mentioned, these get my thumbs up.

1. Magners (Nielsen ‘likeability’ report no2)

Magners embrace their heritage and unique production techniques in the Clonmel ads. The ‘catch’ ad exaggerates the natural and careful treatment of apples, neither picking them nor letting them bruise against the earth. Meanwhile the ‘straight’ ad shows the brand’s insistence on freshness, which is obtained from a speedy farm to cider mill delivery. These ideas are made popular through quirky creativity represented by Clonmel’s cricket team and Aiden Boyle, its resident who can only travel as the crow flies. These ads highlight the method behind the production, and the idiosyncratic ways they go about it, which is deliberately portrayed as ‘mad’ bringing my favourite tagline of the year: ‘There’s method in the Magners’.

2. Audi (ITV Ad of the Year no9)

Audi hit us with ‘Beauty and the Beasts’ to promote their high-end Spyder and reaffirm their positioning as a premium brand. The ad shows some great, old but unloved cars driving uncontrollably over the ice to frantic rock music before contrasting these with the Audi, driving controllably and looking elegant, emphasised by a shift to slow, operatic music. The ad communicates the Spyder’s luxury, in terms of appearance and performance and the memorable tagline ‘mirror, signal, outmanoeuvre’ highlights the latter. This fun, imaginative ad also strives to make Audi Britain’s best-loved car brand, through comparisons to a car with a leaking petrol tank and another with ‘unloved’ sprayed on the back.

3. Thinkbox (ITV Ad of the Year no1)

Harvey is not the most appealing dog in the dogs’ home, but Harvey has an ad for himself that is so persuasive that he has already packed his bags by the end. The ad within an ad begins briefly with slight exaggerations before moving towards absurd contrivances so unexpected that the dog-seeking couple couldn’t possibly resist him. This ad makes great use of the ludicrous Harvey ad to amuse viewers while its implied success with the dog-seeking couple effectively communicates the real proposition, to demonstrate the power of TV advertising.

Coming soon, a few comments on some ads not mentioned in these lists, including print and digital media.