MTV Germany have come up with a really fresh way to promote AIDS awareness with these ads as AdFreak explains:
You should always use a condom, unless you’ve got a really good excuse not to—like you were roller-skating down the street, tripped on the curb, fell into the back of a woman who was bent over packing her car, and accidentally had intercourse with her! That’s the message of some amusing new pro-condom cartoons from Grey in Germany for MTV in Switzerland. Read more at AdFreak
As many of you know, this upcoming Sunday features a fairly significant sporting event. Millions of people will be tuning in to see a clash of titans when the Green Bay Packers face the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, and even more will be turning in to see the action in between plays. Of course I am talking about the commercials.
It is well known that the Super Bowl has the best commercials of the year. Companies paid over $2 million for a 60 second commercial in last year’s Super Bowl, and with record viewing numbers that price could only have gone up for this year. With that kind of investment, it is no surprise that everybody goes all out trying to make the most entertaining commercial possible. Hell, some people are more interested in seeing the commercials than the game, especially when their favorite team hasn’t even made the playoffs in years. Over the years there have been many classic Super Bowl commercials, and this year promises to deliver some gems as well. Volkswagen in particular has gone above and beyond in their Star Wars themed commercial for 2011′s Super Bowl. Best of all, they uploaded this great commercial to their YouTube page. Get a taste of the excitement and action that is a Super Bowl commercial right here! It is impossible to resist a miniature Darth Vader.
The collection of Panda Cheese commercials are a treat. The premise of each ad is the same, if people say no to using or buying Panda Cheese they’re dealt with silent rage from a cuddly violent Panda. Dark and absolutely hilarious, lets hope these aren’t the last we’ll see.
Panda Cheese is a popular product out of Egypt and the Middle East if you may have missed it, probably the greatest thing to come out of the Middle East since Bar Refaeli, who’s also rather cute and cuddly.
It seems that the only time commercials are really talked about is during the Super Bowl. This makes sense, as most Super Bowl commercials are well done since 30 seconds of ad time costs a company more than the GNP of most countries. While that is the only time that commercials are widely talked about, there always seems to be a commercial out that is just absolutely hilarious. This is the commercial that will cause conversations to be paused until it is over. In some cases, these commercials are actually more entertaining than the shows they are interrupting. Let’s take a look at some recent commercials that did a good job making us want to buy their products, or at least laugh.
I’m on a Horse
Old Spice earned my customer loyalty with this commercial. They could sell me deodorant that made me smell like a pig farm and I would probably buy it, at least after a sales pitch like Isaiah Mustafa gives in this commercial. I feel like this commercial should come with a disclaimer, stating that using it will not give you magical abilities to fill an oyster with tickets that turn into diamonds. I know I was slightly disappointed when I put on that Old Spice and it only slightly improved my odor rather than making me rich. Seriously though, who could resist buying a product that will make you smell like Isaiah Mustafa?
Steve Nash Promotes Vitamin Water
Steve Nash is best known for being absolutely hilarious. I hear he is also a decent basketball player. He is most likely best known as the spokesman for Vitamin Water, he should definitely be in more of their television commercials. Unfortunately Vitamin Water usually has their commercial starring another decent basketball player, Lebron James of the (insert team here), playing on TV instead. I say we start a write in campaign to get more Steve Nash on TV, besides those 82 other times he’s on every year.
Captain Night Owl
Captain Morgan has been putting out a lot of entertaining commercials recently. One of the best has definitely been the commercial profiling Captain Night Owl. We all have that friend who considers 12:00 am – 2:00 am warm up time and really hits his stride at around 3:00 am. Captain Morgan just decided to portray that night owl as, well, an actual owl. There is something creepy yet hilarious about seeing a man-owl turn his head all the way around to check out a cutie.
Domino’s Oreo Pizza
By writing the header “Domino’s Oreo Pizza”, I have probably done just about all the marketing work necessary to get people to buy a pizza made out of Oreos. Domino’s decided that wasn’t enough, and went on to create a hilarious commercial. All guys remember the patchy facial hair that first grew in, all thin and pathetic looking and plaguing me to this day. This commercial feeds right into those early facial hair days and offers some reassuring words. The first line of “that’s not stuff, Meredith” also made me giggle. I have to thank my friend Dave for finding this commercial, he grows nice facial hair.
Egypt’s Weird Perception of Pandas
This is not a commercial that you will likely see in the United States. Nonetheless, it is one of the most entertaining commercials I have ever seen. It is for some Egyptian product called Panda Cheese. The name of the product is the most normal part of this commercial. I don’t really know how to describe this commercial other than it involves a nurse trying to give a patient Panda Cheese, the patient refusing, and the Panda being an asshole. Apparently Egypt isn’t so sad about Pandas being endangered.
Spike Jonze has come along way from his skateboard video days. He’s done it all from music videos for top artists (Beastie Boys, REM, Fatboy Slim, Tenacious D and more) to top major big screen releases – Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings and Jackass 1&2. Not many though know that he’s done a whole host of commercials as well. (IMDb Profile)
Every single ad he’s worked on has had that distinctive Jonze style to them, a certain uneasiness to it. We could just put this out as a “everyone’s a winner” but award season is coming up so there does have to be a #1, so lets get right into it and start off with the ads that didn’t quite make it, but need a mention.
Honorable Mentions
Miller Auditions – Penguin(Other Miller Audition Ads): The Animal Audition ads were a clever and funny way for Miller to take a pot shot at Budweiser by using their animals to audition for a parts in a Miller ad. All are superbly done.
The only Jonze Ad on the list that’s had any airtime worldwide. To me it feels like Spike’s taken certain elements from Being John Malkovitch. But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
Visualy it’s a masterpiece but sadly this little number loses on annoyance.
Music: Composed by Squeak E. Clean and featuring Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (via).
#4 GAP – Pardon Our Dust
The tagline read: “Pardon our dust, the all-new GAP is coming.” It only ran for a couple of months in a few cities around the States, those with GAP stores going through renovation (link). It’s a real pity, it’s a classic which deserved to be drilled into those lucky city resident’s skulls, rerun after rerun.
#3 Buddy Lee Dungarees – Hall Of Mirrors
Buddy Lee Dungarees commercials played off the Buddy Movie roles. Think Bad Boys, with Lawrence swapped out with the Buddy Lee Mascot Baby.
There were a number of Buddy Lee commercials, but none of them stood out as much as the Hall of Mirrors. It never would have made it to #3 if it never had “the X factor”, X = Y and Y = Fuckin’ Hilarious. You do the math.
#2 Nike Y2K Jogger
Remember the Y2K scare? I remember filling the bath in case the world ran dry when the clock struck the witching hour and eating enough three bean salads for days after to give the Hindenburg flight.
In this Jonze creation the ad plays off of what most feared. It involves a jogger who wakes up on New Years Day 2000 and goes for a casual run amongst absolute chaos, with the tag line firmly drilled home – Just Do It.
Visually this Ad is a treat and fully deserves it’s position at #2. Just watch it.
#1: Ikea Lamp
It’s the ad that almost made the Ikea Brand cool again. It went on to win the best TV commercial for four straight years at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival notably tearing the famous Honda Cog commercial a new one. Well not really, Honda came second for a year or two.
A tragic tale of a Ikea lamp that gets discarded and thrown out on the street with the trash. Theres a strange unnerving twist to the tale, I would say “almost Shyamalan like” but I know I’d be beaten with an ugly stick, so I won’t.
So that’s it, the Ikea commercial makes it #1 on the Top 5 Spike Jonze Produced Commercials list.
