Wrapping Up the Year with the Best Ads: Part 1
With 2009 coming to a close, it is time to pay homage to some of the greatest ads of this year. A recent Wall Street Journal article recapped the best in viral, video, and social to get our creative juices flowing into 2010.
Hyundai Motor America by Omnicom Group’s Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Pitch: A Super Bowl ad plugged Hyundai’s “Assurance Program,” which allowed buyers to return cars if they lost their jobs within a year after purchase.
Feedback: As the auto sector crumbled, the Korean company was one of the car makers to buck the trend, thanks in part to the campaign, which generated buzz and sales
Frito-Lay’s Doritos created by Joe Herbert, 33, and Dave Herbert, 32, brothers from Batesville, Ind.
Pitch: An office worker shakes a crystal ball, says it predicts free Doritos, and hurls the ball at a vending machine so co-workers can grab all the Doritos they want. Then an overeager colleague, using the crystal ball to predict a raise, inadvertently throws it into a tender region of his boss.
Feedback: The pros typically spend several million dollars to create glitzy, distinctive Super Bowl ads. The Herbert brothers showed it doesn’t take the Madison Avenue elite or deep pockets to win over the crowd. The spot, which cost just under $2,000 to craft, won numerous big-game ad polls, and sales of the snack increased during the weeks surrounding the game.
Danone’s Evian by Havas’s BETC Euro RSCG
Pitch: A viral video posted on YouTube shows babies Rollerblading and dancing.
Feedback: The video won a Guinness World Record for the most-viewed online ad of all time. As of mid-December, it had received over 46 million views world-wide on YouTube. More than 30,000 bloggers have posted it online, and it has been shown or discussed on over 250 TV shows around the world. The ad never ran on TV in the U.S.
