Bestads Top 6 of the Week reviewed by Tom Ormes, creative director, iris Amsterdam

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Category: Wow. Cool bunch of work in telly. A big Nike spot that puts their work into fresh territory (again). A Carlsberg spot that pleasantly didn’t suck like a lot of other Carlsberg spots. A fun take on running from Athletes Foot. A very random tourism web film for Ireland that gets the point across (but I would’ve liked it more if it was real). An ESPN spot that’s of course funny/random, but that’s normal for ESPN. And a VW spot, that while my girlfriend said ‘can you turn that shit down’ was actually pretty rewarding in the end. Great feature, I could use it.

Winner: Nike: Game on, World. A great mix of old school real-life gaming stuff with some great looking digital post. A good story, great production. Huge. Kind of pains me a bit to go with the big budget guy as the winner, but this one is tough to beat. An all-round cool ad.

Runner Up: Carlsberg was close, but I’ll go with Athletes Foot, Wife Carrying. Maybe because it’s the opposite end of the spectrum from the Nike spot. Just a sweet little idea. Didn’t make me laugh out loud, but it’s well written, cast, and shot. Very watchable.

Category: Print didn’t really excite me in a huge way to be honest. The Amnesty thing is a great project, but with a ‘client’ like Amnesty you could push it harder than the ‘missing piece of the puzzle’. The Mecano ad is a clean and simple product exaggeration. The Cafe Joe ‘world’s first location based print ad’ is new and shiny and ‘digital’, but something about it makes me not care. Maybe it’s the video. The Rainforest Paper thing looks nice. I did find myself reading the headline with my David Attenborough voice though. Maybe it’s a bit heavy? Colgate is intriguing, but when your copy needs to explain the idea, it’s usually not a great idea. Lost in translation perhaps. I like the 100 Plus work, but the area of ‘run from one country to another’ is pretty well trodden. See what I did there?

Winner: 100 Plus. I wouldn’t normally take the time to read that sort of thing, but it’s pretty interesting to see it come to life like that. It gets the product message across clearly…. my only beef is that the core idea isn’t entirely fresh.

Category: There is some nice stuff in Outdoor this week. The pop up balcony in Germany is a cool idea. I’d imagine this sort of thing created a bit of chatter. The Canadian seed coasters feels like a novel idea – environmentally friendly coasters. Are discarded coasters in the forest a problem? I liked the Park Avenue razors air con thing. Winner, Best Use Of Air Con Vents. The Giant USB Flash Drives is… huge. Can’t imagine I’d be over the moon if I lived in the building, but it’s a good idea. L’Equipe Usain Bolt challenge… Not sure what to say on this one. Erm, wonder what the record is? TNT Falling Skies, is pretty cool. Though the guy at 0.35 is copying my dance moves.

Winner: Giant USB Flash Drives. A fair few campaigns have been done for storage capacity. I like this one though. It’s big, and that’s what it’s meant to be. Gets the idea across immediately, in a different real-world way. But if that shit ended up on my roof…

Runner up: Park Avenue razors. A nice and simple little solution. And a shout out to the German balcony thing. Good fun.

Category: There’s some great work in interactive. Doritos show me 1 guy and 2 girls. They urge me to ‘create a threesome’. But then they tell me it’s about ‘experiencing nightlife’. They had me at threesome. Hero Time is a great idea to raise money for charity, I’m not sure about the logo though. Habezefer. These guys redesigned hackers’ takeover pages and sent their new designs (ott, cheerful designs) back to them with a kind note. Hilarious. Faces of drunk driving. Very pointed message, it does the job of being confronting. I like the fact it’s executed in a way that’s classy and not offensive or using the usual scare tactics. For Jiffy Lube “A rip-roaring monster truck game” is just what I needed after the “Faces of drink driving”. It was fun playing, still not sure what it was telling/selling me though. Man Therapy deals with some very serious issues in a way that’s both approachable, and even a bit funny. Really liked it.

Winner: Habezefer, Better looking hatred. The only thing out of everything this week (in all categories) that made me laugh out loud. Which is interesting, as I completely approached this idea with caution, thinking it was some political campaign that I wouldn’t really get into. Loved it.

Runner up: Man therapy. Seriously heavy shit that’s treated with a humorous, light touch. Part of the problem of guys not wanting to speak to this kind of organization (I would imagine) is the way they sell themselves… being unapproachable and not talking to their target market – regular guys. Work like this gives them a face that men might want to talk to. Nice one.