Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Review of the Year - Part 2 - Awards!

Not quite the Cannes Lions... but it's been a great year in many senses for advertising, lots of exciting and engaging campaigns worthy of merit. Here are The Ad Pit Awards 2010!

Best Campaign
Nike - Write the Future - Talk about catching the moment and running with it. A brilliant, if sadly prophetic piece of work. Making big superstar spokespeople utterly relevant and endearing instead of shoe-horned.

Runners Up: E4 Flashmob (Utterly brilliant), John Lewis - Always a Woman, Nike Grid, Old Spice, Skoda - Meaner stuff, Match - Music shop


Best Surprise
Ikea - Kitchen at Parties - Jona Lewie brought back to popular culture and a magnificent use of music to demonstrate product.

Runner Up: Gillette - Federer video


Most Improved Advertising
Virgin Media - Speedy Gonzales - Welcome back Speedy. This is how to use existing characters to sell a product. Hits the nail right on the head in a way that manages to sell whilst still being funny.


Worst Advert
Go Compare - Opera Twat - Somehow, somehow they made this even worse than last year. A campaign surviving solely on media budget, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It's not funny, it's not engaging, it's not entertaining, it makes me want to have nothing to do with the brand in a way I haven't felt since Jamster.

Runner Up: Argos - Xmas (Nice ad, now why not wait til Christmas to show it?)


Most Disappointing Work
Cadbury's Dairy Milk - Charmer - Product product product nice soundtrack product product product product product. Not what we expected from one of the most engaging campaigns of recent years.


Agency of the Year
Wieden + Kennedy - Nike write the future, Nike Grid, Old Spice Man... I think there could only be one winner this year. Some agencies have made great work, but this year W+K have been consistently outstanding.

2 comments:

Jeremy Parnaby said...

Isn't that what's great about advertising? One man's meat is another's poison. I hated Nike Write the Future because i thought it looked like every other boring football commercial I've seen. And until Nike stop paying their properties so much money and therefore have to leverage them, we'll continue getting this wallpaper.
Old Spice on the other hand was pure creative genius. No idea what our Creative Director, Sebastian, would say other than he usually disagrees with me

Rob Mortimer (aka Famous Rob) said...

Funny, I liked because it didn't look like another sports ad that point blank worships the stars. It actually took the piss and made them feel like real people.

The fact it looked a bit like a typical football ad didn't cross my mind.

Have you tried agreeing with him and seeing if that makes him change his mind?