Stuart Elliott, advertising columnist for the New York Times, yesterday posted his thoughts on the best and worst ads in 2008.
- Political advertising certainly took a large amount of the advertising limelight in 2008 – record amounts were spent, including an unprecedented 30-minute infomercial purchased by PE Barack Obama in the week leading up to the general election.
- The Obama campaign also wrote the book – or at least the first edition – on the use of “non-traditional” and “social” media and the Internet. Ad industry types and political wonks will be studying it and teaching about the Obama campaign’s use of media in B-schools in the years to come.
- Mr. Elliott also calls out the Stewie Griffin v. Underdog ad from Coca-Cola as one of the year’s best:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc1ADvKwWXU[/youtube]
- Finally – angry moms. Motrin put up the following ad, which angered many moms, who were so vocal in their opposition (mainly via social networking site Twitter), Motrin was forced to pull the ads.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmykFKjNpdY[/youtube]
- Volkswagen also seemed a bit flippant with moms with its “Routan Baby Boom” series of ads featuring Brooke Shields. While it did not stir up as much controversy as the Motrin ads, it did leave some scratching their heads:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZeA_1Ku6Z0[/youtube]
Which ads did you like in 2008?
I certainly think the Mac vs. PC ads were well-done, as were a number of the Olympic ads that were shown during the Beijing games (which also were absent from Mr. Elliott’s column).
