Nathan Hager, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – DVR and you missed them!
As we bid farewell to 2011, the marketing experts at AdWeek have compiled a list of the 10 Best Commercials of the old year.
Several of them probably garnered a lot of eyeballs, since they debuted during the Super Bowl.
Others, you’d need to pay international airfare to see on TV, the way they’re meant to be seen.
Thankfully, YouTube has them all:
- Snickers “Focus Group.” (AdWeek praises its “deadpan, cartoony merging of the monstrous and the mundane.)
- Nissan Leaf “Gas Powered Everything.” (AdWeek calls it “one of the year’s most darkly memorable spots.”)
- Cravendale “Cats with Thumbs.” (Of this British dairymaker, AdWeek says, “Cats are always big in ads, but this spot chased off all rivals.”)
- Deep Silver “Dead Island Trailer.” (AdWeek calls this Scottish promo for a zombie video game “utterly harrowing yet undeniably beautiful.” Some viewers may find it graphic.)
- Canal+ “The Bear.” (You’ll want to stay through to the end for this French movie channel commercial. It contains strong language.)
- TalkTalk “Homes Within Homes.” (A commercial for British broadband and phone service that wraps “the coldness of technology in an enduring human warmth.”)
- Google Chrome “Dear Sophie.” (Not since Hallmark has a commercial jerked so many tears. In AdWeek’s words, “Data never felt so human.”)
- Chrysler “Born of Fire.” (Detroit’s own Eminem heralding the return of the American auto industry. It also won the 2011 Emmy for best commercial.)
- Chipotle “Back to the Start” (Willie Nelson+Coldplay+ stop-motion animation=”the most stirring and thought-provoking environmental spot of 2011,” according to AdWeek.)
- Volkswagen “The Force.” (In AdWeek’s words, “a triumph of fun, unadorned storytelling, which clearly goes a long way.”)
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(Copyright 2011 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
