Best of Ads, Worst of Ads(in 2007)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/27/07 | SUZANNE VRANICA

[mylife]

Best of Ads, Worst of Ads In Pitching Products This Past Year, Gorilla Worked, but Guerrilla Didn't By SUZANNE VRANICA December 27, 2007; Page B1

Green is the new black.

Madison Avenue tried to curry favor with consumers this year by coloring products and brands with an environmental tint. A long list of companies such as General Electric Co., Chevron Corp. and Home Depot Inc. all jumped on the eco-friendly bandwagon. One Toyota Motor Corp. ad featured a Prius being created from straw, twigs and other natural elements. The gasoline-electric hybrid car is built up and then fades back into nature. [Cast your vote for the Best and Worst Ads] See clips and examples of the best and worst ads and cast your vote.

Despite the energy spent on eco-friendly marketing messages very few stood out, but being green wasn't the only way ad makers tried to grab some attention in 2007. Thanks in part to ad-skipping devices, they littered the Web with viral videos, added smells to print ads and even found ways to have pitches appear in unsuspecting places such as on TV screens on gas pumps.

[mylife]

Mcdonald

[gitmo]

The anti-smoking commercials with the Hippie drives me nuts.

They are revolting.

[gitmo]

The Shakesperean Gecko is quite cute.

[retrokitten]

LMAO! I love the guy with all the floating pills in the car and how the guy with the red wine in the car is a little effeminate.

[retrokitten]

“Hi! Billy Mays here for Ovaltine!”

I'll bet he's an s.o.b. whenever he's in a hospital or a library.

"Hi! Billy Mays here for my colonoscopy!"

[MissEdie]

And why are there bathtubs on cliffs and in fields in the commercials for Cialis? And another thing: wouldn’t you want to at least be in the SAME tub?

I asked my husband that exact same question!! BTW, my favorite commercial is the Jeep ad with the animals that jump into the jeep and they all have a sing-along, after the wolf hacks back up the bird!!

[gitmo]

Ovaltine ads on Rush? For real?

Of course, I listen to his podcasts, so I don’t get any ads.

[gitmo]

That’s a good one.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

Not released in 2007 (actually released several years ago, during one of the Olympics), but my favorite commercial of all time: Nike: Move.

[gitmo]

I like those engineering ads. The one with the roller coaster is great.

What the heck is Vigorsol Air? I don’t think I’d want to try that product. But my two teenage boys would eat it all day. Funny ad.

[secret garden]

Very good commercial.

[Yaelle]

ROFL!

UGGGGHHHH!

[gitmo]

Levis

[RikaStrom]

Those Freecreditreport ads where the guy whines about his fiancee having bad credit and forcing them to rent in a bad nabe. I want to strangle that guy.

I love the freecreditreport one with the guy singing with his little band in the seafood restaurant.

You are right about strangeling the whiney dude with the girlfriend.

[Cvengr]

Ivan Zacharias’ Diet Coke commercial “Back Lot” with the Diet Coke Zombies.

[BluH2o]

Most clueless ad ... a Coke ad (saw it last week I believe it was Coke) showing polar bears and penguins romping together. Polar bears are not indigenous to the Antarctic region, nor are penguins found in the Arctic. Both separated from one another by some 12,000 miles.

[relictele]

I hate to sound like the ‘we home school’ crowd but the fact is that technology has enabled me to avoid most advertising and I take full advantage.

Firewalls, DVRs, blacklists, mute buttons...they are all quite handy at sabotaging the annoying, the loud, and the repetitive. In the case of firewalls they don’t even reach my PC at all.

[relictele]

But what drives me bonkers are the commercials that turn on closed-captioning in Spanish. Makes me want to beat someone senseless.

Go through your TV's setup menu specifically the captioning menu. Most TVs these days have a choice of CC1/CC2/CC3/CC4 and Text1/Text2. If you select CC3 or CC4 the captions will likely never appear since there are almost never any captions on the CC3/CC4 'channels.'

Why TV makers though it a good idea to automatically engage the captions when muted is beyond me but it wouldn't be the first time the marketers were calling the shots.

[LexBaird]

Hey, to make up for mentioning Billy Mays, here's one of my favorite ads of all time, for Honda Accord.

[VOA]

Are thoset the ones where the couple are always sitting in two
different bathtubs, outside somewhere, holding hands??

Yep.
I just always laugh at that commercial, especially when the
lighthouse appears in bold relief on the horizon.

Just reminds me of the "subliminal messages" about S-E-X that
comedians like Monty Python or Benny Hill would use: massive
crashing wave hitting a seawall, missles taking off, etc.
(Sure, they were "subliminal" and totally-over-the-top for great
comic effect.)