Bestads Top 6 of the Week reviewed by Ben Mooge, creative partner, Work Club, London
“Your strategy is showing” in all of this bunch, with the exception of the touring band of Swedish insurers, of which I don’t have a bloody clue.
If we’re really going to document the insurers that are there to play the sympathetic music to people who are ready to make a claim, then please go really mental. Partial circumcision on that one. Go the whole way, or don’t bother.
The strategies get a bit serious and po-faced on the Amstel and the Nike spot – there are athletes making it count in other Londons other than our London apparently. Excellent timing of logo in a nicely shot ad – but other than the camera work, it felt a little bit soulless.
So my vote goes for the ad that embraces the ridiculousness of the blatant “strategy showing” – VW. With a classic VW tone and some lovely actual acting in an ad, and a ridiculous visual pay off.
Silver medal goes to Direct TV for at least selling the arse out of the strategy with a few good visual gags to boot, even if we have seen John Cleese in interchangeable ads as many times we have Paul McCartney massacring Hey Jude.
Winner – VW Value Market
Runner Up – Direct TV Questions
The trouble with global print – it’s a bit like Chinese swimmers. The faint whiff of the possibility of doping / spec work running once is always there as rumours surround the success. Having said that I’m taking the Lord (!) Colin Moynihan position and giving Gold because of being innocent until proven guilty. Despite the conspicuous total absence of 3M advertising in this market, it doesn’t mean they don’t run print ads by the barrel in other markets. So the amusing squashed cat gag wins it.
In silver medal position the album cover collage gag makes yet another appearance, this one for a Leeds record shop. Nicely done though, and makes you yearn for record sleeves.
The rest feel like a cliche too far (locked up banks) or evolution that shouldn’t be celebrated (the KFC ad is essentially a still from Mike Judge’s ‘Idiocracy’).
Winner – 3M Roller Cat
Runner Up – Vinyl Exchange David
This seems to be a new category these days – or a combination of other events. Like Water Polo with Dressage Horses. There’s only one poster in this bunch and even that has a trick with it.
There’s an impressive display of budget from Gillette that terrifies me into being wowed, but ultimately leaves me quite glad to have escaped – like watching Team GB versus the UAE. There’s an even more terrifying beach full of sand statues of the dead to scare me from ever swimming again.
And there’s ads on toilet paper about cystitis. Contextual? Too much context.
If that’s Outdoor, presumably it’s in a 1940s tin bath kind of way.
So the gold medal goes to the poster that changes after dark – like the beer, geddit? But I imagine will make sense to the above average punter.
And a close run for the silver in the experiential outdoor category, the Adidas surprise for the fans just pipping the Toronto tourism gay wedding at the line.
Winner – Coopers Dark #lifeafterdark
Runner up – Adidas Surprise for the fans
The Interactive Category was the hardest to judge, as always seems to be the case. Like a Synchronised Dive you have to take into consideration the difficulty of the move attempted, and then the execution marks follow.
There’re tricks, as usual, from well-well-worn path of the ‘interactive’ granny sympathising you out of man-flu for Lempsip, to F1 driving with your wincing, smiling face for Red Bull. Both feel not new enough to claim a podium place.
There’s the quite frankly terrifying prospect of sitting next to Ruud Gullit for an hour and a half from KLM. No wonder Jamie Redknapp’s brain has literally reduced to some kind of sludge.
So the medals were always going to be contested by the big boys of the category.
The Coca Cola Happiness Islands are very Coke, very happy and raise a genuine smile. They’re suitably disposable and suitably charming. Not a personal best, but not a bad performance. A silver won, not a gold lost.
The Gold in Interactive this week goes to the sheer bonkers opulence of Google’s Chaos to Perfection. If you’re going to map the Palace of Versailles, then do it in a manner that Marie Antoinette would have been pleased she’d opened that particular browser.
Winner – Google Chrome Chaos to Perfection
Runner Up – Coca Cola Happiness Islands