Ad of the DayJuly 2008
 Client: Reebok International Ltd. Brand: Reebok Athletic Footwear Description: Like other species, pro football players have their own migratory patterns. Summer is when they migrate from their off-season haunts and come to...More
Client: Planet Green Brand: Planet Green Net Description: Would you want to be compared to a geeky guy wearing swim trunks that are so bright, his groin literally shines like a beacon from the top of a rocky...More
Client: RVL Brand: Red Vines Description: A grown-up commercial for red licorice? We live in a world of wonders! That's what we find here, anyhow, in a spot for the American Licorice Co.'s Red...More
Client: Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc. Brand: Lexus Cars & Trucks Description: A car commercial that doesn't have a pretentious voiceover, particularly with luxe brands, is hard to find. And while this new Lexus spot out of Team...More
Client: South Beach Beverage Co. Brand: SoBe Life Water Vitamin-Enhanced Water Description: Hot (and hot-tempered) supermodel Naomi Campbell? Check. Colony of dancing water lizards, courtesy of CGI? Check. Weren't those the same components...More
Client: Parrot Brand: Parrot Wireless Description: Ground Zero has launched a quirky and multifaceted California-only campaign for Parrot, a France-based provider of wireless communications technology....More
Client: Penn. Tourism Brand: Penn. Tourism Description: Red Tettemer scores with this Pennsylvania tourism effort introducing the Weavers, a fake group of cycling enthusiasts who zig when they should...More
Client: American Legacy Foundation Brand: American Legacy Foundation Description: The singin' and dancin' anti-smoking campaign from the American Legacy Foundation (by Arnold and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky) reminds me of the segments...More
Client: Newell Rubbermaid, Inc. Brand: Sharpie Markers & Writing Instruments Description: It's tricky for a commercial to use an athlete who's now as famous for being famous as he is for doing what made him famous in the first place. With...More
Client: Sealy Corp. Brand: Sealy Mattresses Description: Commercials often combine a practical appeal with a more emotional appeal. A new campaign for Sealy mattresses (by Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago) combines...More
Client: Denny's Corporation Brand: Denny's Restaurants Description: Denny's claims "nothing good happens after midnight," except at its restaurants of course. The chain is trying to officially brand itself as the...More
Client: N.E. Aquarium Brand: N.E. Aquarium Description: The fun thing about sharks at an aquarium is that those scary creatures are on the other side of a thick sheet of glass, through which we can stick...More June 2008
Client: Metro Transit Brand: Metro Transit Description: "What happened to the car? Well, it's like this...Metro Transit of Minneapolis has a message for consumers. That message is: 'Throw away the car!' And...More
Client: Barbeques Galore, Inc. Brand: Barbeques Galore Description: Showing me an angry pig in an ad for BBQ equipment won't convince me to try the brand. In fact, the tactic is ultimately annoying, because it reminds...More
Client: United States Cellular Corp. Brand: U.S. Cellular Wireless Telecommunications Service Description: Have you ever wondered how sometimes you just know a certain someone is going to call right before they do? U.S. Cellular explains that the caller...More
Client: Nuveen Investments, Inc. Brand: Nuveen Financial Services Description: Financial-service advertisers like to link themselves to a winner, and then to beat the "winning" theme thoroughly into the ground. With its...More
Client: Rio Suites Brand: Rio Suites Description: For our high-minded readers (there must be a few of you out there), the phrase "Queen of the Night" will bring to mind the character of that name in...More
Client: Kaiser Permanente Brand: Kaiser Permanente Health Insurance Description: The nice thing about a commercial for a healthcare provider in Hawaii is that it can show picturesque locals in their picturesque locale. This spot...More
Client: Cedra Brand: Cedra Description: Door Number 3 in Austin, Texas, developed GetYourDrugOn.com, an online promo for Cedra, a company that does overnight medical testing. The site lets...More
Client: Nike, Inc. Brand: Nike Golf Equipment Description: It started running on Father's Day, but even without that peg, this latest Nike commercial from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., featuring an...More
Client: VERSUS Brand: VERSUS Cable Network Description: The "Take back the tour" campaign by The Concept Farm touts Tour de France coverage on the Versus cable network and aims to serve as a voice for...More
Client: Apple Computer, Inc. Brand: Apple iPhone Description: There's so much buzz and demand for Apple's iPhone 2.0, the company probably doesn't need to advertise. It does anyway, serving up this quasi-futurist...More
Client: La Quinta Corp. Brand: La Quinta Inn & Suites Description: In airline advertising, business travelers tend to be the most conventional, buttoned-down people in the world. Something must happen to them after...More
Client: GFA Brands, Inc. Brand: Smart Balance Foods Description: This spot for Smart Balance fat-free milk has bad news about 2 percent milk. Or maybe it's good news about French fries. Created by Baltimore-based...More
Client: ExpressJet Airlines, Inc. Brand: ExpressJet Airlines Description: For people who travel by air these days, getting there is almost none of the fun. That's why commercials that depict airline flights as luxurious or...More
Client: Brown-Forman Beverages Worldwide Brand: Jack Daniel's Whiskey Description: This 60-second spot for Jack Daniel's from Arnold will run in cinemas in the U.K., where, apparently, the scotch-whiskey drinking locals need to be...More
Client: Hanesbrands Inc. Brand: Hanes Apparel Description: If you bumped into Michael Jordan and tried to chat him up, would he politely escape as soon as possible? Good chance. So, it's somehow gratifying to...More May 2008
Client: Blue Cross Brand: Blue Cross Description: If you ever feel you've grown old just sitting through some commercials, you might take special pleasure in a campaign whose protagonists grow old in...More
Client: Conservation International Brand: Conservation International Description: Harrison Ford waxing his chest. That alone is reason enough to view this PSA for Conservation International featuring the iconic Indiana Jones star....More
Client: Sports Museum of America Brand: Sports Museum of America Description: In our cynical age of steroid scandals, self-indulgent pampered star athletes and Michael Vick, it doesn't hurt to be reminded of the transcendent...More
Client: SpeedPark Brand: SpeedPark Description: In New York, if you saw a commercial that ended with an oddly dressed man sleeping in a doorway, you'd figure it was a PSA for homeless services....More
Client: Legal Sea Foods Brand: Legal Sea Foods Description: Legal Sea Foods' "Fresh Fish" campaign is probably too simplistic and sophomoric to be considered truly iconic. And yet ... the ads have proven...More
Client: MTV Networks, Inc. Brand: MTV International Description: Created to express a message of support to the citizens of Burma (otherwise now known as Myanmar) living under a military junta, this short haunting...More
Client: Bombardier Recreational Products North America Brand: Evinrude Outboard Motors Description: Women will think this spot puts the "rude" in "Evinrude." (They can complain to Cramer-Krasselt of Milwaukee.) Men will get a kick out of its...More
Client: Hackensack University Medical Center Brand: Hackensack University Medical Center Description: It takes nerve to kill off Grandpa in making a sales pitch for a hospital. That's what the story line seems to do in this spot for Hackensack...More
Client: Luxottica Retail Brand: Pearle Vision Centers Description: Why do I think of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" when I see these Pearle Vision spots? Oh, that's right: since 2007, via Arnold, Pearle Vision has...More
Client: The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. Brand: Scotts Lawn & Garden Products Description: Granted, it's a counterintuitive concept: a sexy sales pitch for plant food and potting mix and the like. But it works in this commercial for...More
Client: Time Warner Cable Brand: Time Warner Cable TV Service Description: That's certainly a cute puppy. Yeah, mighty cute. Even so, Time Warner's contention that DirecTV hates puppies is a bit hard to swallow -- even in...More
Client: Absolut Spirits Co., Inc. Brand: Absolut Vodka Description: This visually appealing Absolut spot sprang from a print execution that showed a cocktail glass exploding to reveal the liquid inside. Here, we're...More
Client: Microsoft Zune Brand: Microsoft Zune Description: In a new spot for Zune's monthly music package, McCann Worldgroup's T.A.G. in San Francisco skips dramatic visual effects for an unadorned appreciatio...More
Client: Cajun Line Brand: Cajun Line Description: Look at ads for fishing equipment and you'd think fishing is less a sport than a vendetta. Minneapolis-based GdB (aka Gabriel deGrood Bendt) provides...More April 2008
Client: Subaru of America, Inc. Brand: Subaru Cars & Trucks Description: If you find people more interesting than cars, you'll probably find the new Subaru campaign (via Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis) more interesting than...More
Client: American Express Travel Related Services Co. Brand: American Express Card Description: It's always fun for the audience when a bit player unexpectedly steals a show. And that's what happens in this spot for American Express (via Ogilvy),...More
Client: Akron Children's Hospital Brand: Akron Children's Hospital Description: "I compare chemo to '80s music. It's nasty." So says a 15-year-old named Nick in this spot for Akron Children's Hospital (by Marcus Thomas of...More
Client: GEICO Brand: Geico Insurance Description: The caveman shows off some snazzy dance moves in this new Geico spot from The Martin Agency. Considering the brand's past success with the cavemen...More
Client: Peter Piper Pizza Brand: Peter Piper Pizza Description: Am I eager to go to a Peter Piper Pizza after seeing the chain's new spots? No. But that's part of the success of this campaign (via Moses Anshell of...More
Client: Nikon, Inc. Brand: Nikon Cameras & Accessories Description: For the past couple of weeks, two TV spots from McCann Erickson NY have urged us to "Get your pics into Ashton's Nikon." It's not as dirty as it...More
Client: Cleveland Indians Baseball Company, Inc. Brand: Cleveland Indians Baseball Team Description: Given the "what have you done for me lately"' attitude of modern sports fans, it's risky for a team to promote itself this year by focusing on the...More
Client: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Brand: Major League Baseball Series Video Games Description: You can't watch a baseball game on TV or read about one in the newspaper's sports section without becoming a connoisseur of cliches. This spot for...More
Client: John Hancock Life Insurance Co. Brand: John Hancock Financial Services Description: It's an old schoolteacher's trick to silence a noisy classroom by speaking quietly. With any luck, everyone will hush up out of curiosity to hear what...More
Client: Apple Computer, Inc. Brand: Apple Computer, Inc. Description: Apple's Mac/PC ads are some of the best 30-second comedy sketches being written anywhere these days-- and I always look forward to new ones....More
Client: AirTran Airways Brand: AirTran Airways Description: This commercial reflects thinking so far outside the box that you may wonder whether there even is a box. Created by Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago and...More
Client: LoJack Brand: LoJack Description: In a world full of unduly upbeat commercials, there's something appealing about the somber tone of this spot for LoJack theft-recovery systems (by The...More
Client: The TJX Companies, Inc. Brand: T.J. Maxx Stores Description: You can think of this vignette as Lost and Found in Translation. The peroration of foreign dignitary (speaking what sounds like Russian) is lost on...More
Client: ESPN, Inc. Brand: ESPN Cable Sports Network Description: Remember the "bug game"? Baseball fans sure do, though perhaps not exactly the way the history is recounted in this very funny spot for ESPN's...More
Client: IKEA North America Services, LLC Brand: IKEA Home Furnishings Description: Oh the joys of the teen years. Adolescent and parent angst is regularly mined in advertising, and this latest spot for IKEA, from Deutsch, New York,...More
Client: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Brand: Wal-Mart Stores Description: As any aspiring "green" consumer knows, it's not easy being green. No matter how much you want to help save the planet, economics often prevail. It's...More March 2008
Client: Exeter Hospital Brand: Exeter Hospital Description: Are hospitals (a) places where you now get treatment that would have seemed miraculous 20 years ago or (b) places of chaos where they'll amputate the...More
Client: DirecTV, Inc. Brand: DirecTV Description: As a rabid fan of Christopher Guest's mockumentary work (This is Spinal Tap is my favorite movie of all time), I can't even look at Ed Begley Jr....More
Client: Macy's Corporate Marketing Brand: Macy's Department Stores Description: In our celebrity-besotted age, it counts as a miracle of sorts that Macy's has managed to make the use of celebs in commercials seem fresh. You may...More
Client: PepsiCo Beverages & Foods Brand: Gatorade Tiger Description: "When you are the greatest golfer on earth, what's next?" That's the question posed by this Gatorade spot from Element 79 Partners introducing a new...More
Client: Barton Beers Ltd. Brand: Corona Beer Description: How many spoken words do you hear in a day? More than you'd like, probably. As such, one of the attractive things about Corona beer commercials (via...More
Client: The Procter & Gamble Co. Brand: Scope Mouthwash Description: I smell a rat. Gamely entering into the spirit of the thing, I sniffed around Scope's highly entertaining and relevant new microsite from Dentsu,...More
Client: Hanesbrands Inc. Brand: Hanes, Inc. Description: For the commercial, I gave myself a terrible wedgie,'' says Scrubs star Sarah Chalke, in one of the video outtakes for this new Hanes campaign for its...More
Client: Time Warner Cable Brand: Time Warner Cable TV Service Description: In a city like Buffalo, N.Y., which globalization has not treated kindly, there's no hero like a local hero. TV spots there for Time Warner Cable...More
Client: Nike, Inc. Brand: Brand Jordan Description: A new spot in the Brand Jordan campaign "Become Legendary" centers on the reverberating sound of a clock tower striking midnight. As the tower rings...More
Client: United Parcel Service of America Brand: UPS United Parcel Service Description: UPS brings to life its "Whiteboard" campaign with animation in this new spot starring The Martin Agency's Andy Azula. Like past executions, nothing...More
Client: Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Brand: Sony Ericsson Mobile Telephones Description: This Swedish Sony Ericsson spot from Saatchi & Saatchi, Stockholm, for the W890 trades on one of Depeche Mode's biggest hits, "Enjoy the...More
Client: Cenex Brand: Cenex Description: When a chain of gas stations proclaims its devotion to the environment, do you think to yourself (a) "Gee, how nice of them," or (b) "Give me a...More February 2008
Client: Crescent Bank Brand: Crescent Bank Description: Which is more fun to watch, a gangster movie or a bank commercial? In light of the obvious answer, one can only be grateful when a bank commercial...More
Client: Bot Beverages Brand: Bot Description: With all due respect to "good," it's not as entertaining as "bad." So, a campaign for a vitamin-fortified water named Bot emphasizes that the product...More
Client: MasterCard Worldwide Brand: MasterCard Description: Taking a detour from its long-running "Priceless" formula, MasterCard delivers a fanciful tale of a man whose right eye suddenly becomes "curious."...More
Client: AT&T, Inc. Brand: AT&T Inc. Description: Martin Scorsese does what he does best in an in-cinema spot for AT&T. We've seen him do his thing in commercials before, but his hyper performance...More
Client: InterContinental Hotels Group Brand: Holiday Inn Express Description: Just what the world needs, another place for obnoxious men to annoy women. It's expected at a bar, but when a hotel breakfast buffet is pitched as the...More
Client: Travel Channel Brand: Travel Channel Description: One of the joys of travel is sampling local food fare. And this new branding campaign for the Travel Channel shows just how adventurous some menus can...More
Client: Pinky Vodka Brand: Pinky Vodka Description: Yes, it's Valentine's Day, but enough already with the hearts and flowers. Instead, this delightful little message for Pinky Vodka, directed by...More
Client: Masterfoods USA Brand: Pedigree Dog Food Description: Cuddly pooches, fuzzy photography, moody piano and poignant emotional appeals define TBWA\Chiat\Day's effort for Pedigree's dog adoption drive. "Help...More
Client: Apple Computer, Inc. Brand: Apple iPhone Description: "What's so great about having the Internet in your pocket?'' this latest spot for the iPhone from TBWA/Media Arts Lab asks. It's a self-reflexive...More
Client: GEICO Brand: Geico Insurance Description: Marketers long to see their advertising transcend its sales-pitch origins and become part of the larger culture. The catch, of course, is that...More
Client: The Coca-Cola Co. Brand: Coca-Cola Classic Description: In a year where there was decidedly less farting and groin bashing (staples of past big-game ads), we were instead rewarded with a refreshing dose of...More
Client: Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority Brand: Mesquite Description: She stumbles for a moment while entering the room on high heels she's out of practice at wearing. He moistens a finger and tries to drape a few...More January 2008
Client: Commonwealth Bank of Australia Brand: Commonwealth Bank of Australia Description: It's a little disturbing how well ad agencies create commercials that depict ad agencies as pretentious and self indulgent. Goodby, Silverstein &...More
Client: Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. Brand: Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Description: As if tax season weren't nerve-wracking enough, ads for tax-prep services work to increase viewers' anxiety. Choose the wrong one, ads warn, and...More
Client: Apple Computer, Inc. Brand: Apple Computer, Inc. Description: If you ever want to send a notebook computer around in an interoffice-mail envelope, a new commercial makes it clear that the new MacBook Air is the...More
Client: Eastman Kodak Co. Brand: Kodak EasyShare Description: If you own a printer, you've probably learned that it's something of a Trojan horse: surprisingly cheap to buy, but then appallingly expensive to...More
Client: DirecTV, Inc. Brand: DirecTV Description: Bound to a chair, a man is tormented by a bunch of teenagers and their dog. Who'll have your sympathies? DirecTV is betting you'll side with the kids...More
|
ADWEEK'S CREATIVE NEWSLETTER
A new newsletter every Tuesday and Thursday focusing on the creative community: New campaigns, personnel moves, and much more.
|
SUBSCRIBE
Stay connected to what's happening in the advertising industry with delivery of the print edition and complete online access.
|
Best Advertising Revealed in AdweekKeeping up with the best commercials and best ads is easy to do with Adweek. We provide you with the "Ad of the Day," in-depth articles on how the best commercials were executed, the latest trends in animation, and much more. You can count on Adweek to deliver the very best commercials and ads currently in rotation with interviews, video streams, and other informational techniques that keep you up-to-date. |
Video
ADVERTISEMENT
News
Havas Posts Record 8% First-Half Organic Gain
July 25, 2008
BOSTON Riding strong Asia-Pacific results and surpassing most analysts' expectations, Havas today reported record first-half organic revenue growth of 8 percent to approximately $1.184 billion. (Havas CEO Fernando Rodes Vila is shown.) Read Full Article
ADVERTISEMENT
Blogs
Ad for the hearing impaired: read our lips
New Zealand's National Foundation for the Deaf offers some tips for speaking to the hearing impaire...
Community
The World of 'Green Advertising'
If you recently happened to turn on the television, surf the Internet or leaf through a magazine, you'll noticed that "green" is no longer only the favorite color of environmental groups. "Green" has become "mainstream" and turned into a big business.
Read Full ArticleMore Guest Columnists
Cultural Movements Usurp Traditional Marketing
I've written extensively about Cultural Movements. They have the power in this digital world of ours to create huge new brands, rip down governments and break age-old traditions.
Read Full ArticleMore Guest ColumnistsFOURTH ANNUAL IMAGES IN ADVERTISING AWARDS
Commercial Closet Association recognizes the best gay and lesbian advertisements of 2007.
July 28, 2008 - July 28, 2008
New World Stages, Worldwide Plaza, New York
At The Roundtable
AdweekMedia's At The Roundtable is a dynamic business networking and collaboration tool for media, marketing and advertising experts and enthusiasts.