Ten Best Olympic Ads

Scoring is based on eight categories (see footnote). Scoring is deductive. Since this is the Olympics, scoring started at 10.0, giving some companies a long way to fall, as you will shortly see.

The 10 Best

In the entire two-and-a-half-week competition, we couldn't find enough good ads to fill out a top-10 list. To be fair, this competition was tougher than usual, because an ad would have to be funny or original, and stay fresh over the course of the Games. But we did find a few winners.

ALLSTATE Weightlifting Easily the most original, funny and gets the point across to sell insurance. The plot twist yields the spot the only 10.0 in the competition. There were two versions -- a 60 second and a 30-second and I found myself hoping for the longer one when it came on. There is a shotput version which is not as good but that does not detract from the quality of this ad.

9.5 10.0 9.5 9.5 9.5 8.0 9.5 9.75 PREMISE SCRIPT ACTING SUPPORTING-CAST PHOTOGRAPHY MUSIC SOUND UPSHOT

 

BUD LIGHT The Low Jump, Four Foot Relay, and Micro Marathon. Original and well-done, funny but with a ring of truth -- these "sports" sound dumb, but not as dumb as some real Olympic sports *ahem* racewalking *ahem*. Very well acted with realistic athlete-models portraying the agony of defeat or joy of victory as if their baffling "feats" had great meaning. Humor lifts the scripts to near perfection. The spots were very sparsely played, leaving the viewer looking forward to the next airing.

9.5 9.9 7.5 9.75 9.5 9.0 9.0 9.625 PREMISE SCRIPT ACTING SUPPORTING-CAST PHOTOGRAPHY MUSIC SOUND UPSHOT

 

NIKE Nike Speed Several variations, all centered on the idea that there is a great athlete lurking in each one of us. Extra points for not stuffing the brand message down our throats (Nike does that in the venue, with their logo on the athlete, shoe, cap, shirt, shorts, ball, billboards, etc).

3.75 7.5 7.5 9.0 8.0 6.5 8.0 6.75 PREMISE SCRIPT ACTING SUPPORTING-CAST PHOTOGRAPHY MUSIC SOUND UPSHOT

 

SPRINT Synchronized Swimmers etc. Though it takes a huge deduction for failing to connect the product to athletics, it makes it in the toplist anyway, because the kids are so cute and are good actors. Which goes to show how thin the field is this time around.

3.75 7.5 7.5 9.0 8.0 6.5 8.0 6.25 PREMISE SCRIPT ACTING SUPPORTING-CAST PHOTOGRAPHY MUSIC SOUND UPSHOT

Category Winners

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY ALLSTATE Weightlifting Cinematographer had to deal with challenges of several scenes - stage, crowd shot, bathroom, garage. The competition shots look like the real thing.

BEST MUSIC  MCDONALD'S Original Olympians McDonald's steps away from the hip-hop -- and the chicken -- long enough to produce the ad with the best soundtrack of the Games. But the spot never got near the podium with several huge deductions in other categories: most conspicuously, it fails to tie together the wildly flung premises -- Olympics, pregnancy, and McDonald's food. But I'd buy the CD if I could.

BEST ACTING -- JOHN HANCOCK The two kid sisters. Hon. mention to Dominique Dawes, Serena Williams, Shane Hallman, Mark Spitz and other olympians for doing what they do best.

BEST SCRIPT -- ALLSTATE Weightlifting. Makes the point, Sells insurance. With humor.

The Field:

This is the great majority of ads aired during the Olympics. Forgettable, run of the mill ads. Ironically, in any extended campaign, these ads can be effective, as they are almost not noticed, and are certainly not remarked upon, but are subconsciously planted enough times to affect potential consumer buying decisions.

...and, for the rest...

During the Olympics, the same ad may be shown dozens of times over the  weeks of the Games. Knowing this, it would seem to be a good idea for the agencies to shelve the "hit a home run" mentality and go for some subtlety and intelligence. But that is a forlorn hope. Unfortunately it seems the advertisers, having been bled dry first by Olympic sponsorship fees, and then having to max out their credit to buy ad time, apparently had nothing left to put into making the ad.

These are world class companies who do not have to worry about their competitors, having excluded them with sponsorship arrangements with the Olympic Committee. They have our attention for more than two weeks. Yet the viewer is clumsily bludgeoned with repeated insertions of the same rancid ad. This not only fails to sell, but is quite capable of driving the viewer all the way to the competing product. These ads also illustrate the failure of creative collaboration, which I won't even go into, except to say certain executives ought to be dragged before the shareholders so they may pass judgment upon them for lost sales. Now witness the very best some great companies and agencies can come up with, in front of an audience of 70 million.

Continue to 10 Worst Olympic Ads

PREMISE - Likeliness of ad situation. SCRIPT - Storyline, with plus points possible for humor ACTING - Lead actor performance SUPPORTING-CAST - Overall performance of supporting actors PHOTOGRAPHY - Aesthetics and execution of visuals MUSIC - Quality of composition, and/or appropriateness of background music, with bonus points possible for original compositions and/or quality orchestrations, ex. Acura TL's reworking of Grieg. SOUND - Category with standard deductions, for instance, points off for using cell-phone ringing as a cheap way to get viewer attention UPSHOT - Number of viewers, out of 10, who will respond positively. A number below 5.0 means the ad backfired i.e.has a negative effect. An upshot score less than zero means people who did not even see the ad will react negatively to it, as they hear about it through word-of-mouth, ex. Quizno's Subs being sold by vermin.