I’ll confess that I am not a advertiser’s dream because I frequently don’t pay attention to commercials, or if I do, I am as likely to remember the ad, but not the product. Seldom do I notice both product and ad. That said, a couple that I’ve enjoyed over the years:
The Molson’s I am Canadian campaign, and in particular the first one, “the rant”.
Years ago EDS had a Superbowl commercial that showed cowboys doing a roundup of cats with a voiceover from a cowboy talking about the herding of cats. I thought it was quite clever.
Somebody did a PSA about not believing everything you see on t.v. that starts off with showing a miniature house hippo and explains about their care and feeding. “House hippos sleep for 16 hours a day”. Dammit I want a teeny little house hippo!
The “Tiny House” reality TV promo that turned out to be a Geico ad. I’d actually watch that show.
The Captain Jack commercial where a guy feigns illness leaving his girlfriend to go to some wedding, and when she calls his cell phone and hears the sounds from the bar, his barmates imitate TV shows to fool her into believing he’s at home listening to the TV.
Others have mentioned: The Peyton Manning AMEX commercials. The “most advanced system… you’ll ever pee on” pregnancy test commercial.
I’m enjoying the voice mail one “Hi, I must have missed you. Not that I miss you, that would be strange so early in the relationship. Not that this is a relationship…”
For some reason it hasn’t gotten old yet. I hear the new version isn’t as good.
The old Nissan ad with the toy car, where GI Joe rescues Barbie from a dinosaur in the toy car while Van Halen plays in the background. Never had any of the toys, never drove a Nissan, and was never a Van Halen fan, but something about it just worked. But not in the way they wanted, I didn’t buy a car, I did buy the first Van Halen CD.
In the same campaign, there was a great one where there’s a woman standing at a bus stop. A man across the street at the opposite bus stop is looking hectically up at the sky, then starts yelling and screaming and pointing upwards. She doesn’t understand. Another woman arrives at the man’s bus stop, sees what’s happening, quickly takes out a sheet of paper and draws a big up arrow. The first woman looks up, then dives out of the way seconds before a falling piano crashes onto the bus shelter.
The tagline is “There’s a lot to be said for clarity.”
To that end, I love the Sonic commercials, especially the ones featuring the married couple:
woman drinking shake “Look honey, I have a mustache.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s very faint and you can see it only in certain light… oh! That is, if you did have a mustache which you most definitely do not.”
I will have my revenge on you, Gail. Maybe you’re willing to overlook the little niceties of polite society, but where I come from, you warn somebody when you give them a link to something containing an Andy Kim song.
Still, the siezures have almost stopped, and I am keeping a positive attitude, because it could have been worse. It could have been these guys.
