I guess now that I’m stuck on a desert island, I should probably bring with me 5 pieces of advertising that I consider to be perfect expressions of our industry at its best.
I’m not saying these are perfect ads necessarily (no such thing) but they’re definitely attain perfection in their own way.
Desert Island Ads
The Man Who Walked Around The World, Johnnie Walker, BBH London
This is a beautifully written and crafted piece of storytelling that may well be the highlight of one of the world’s best and most enduring brand platforms. But even more than that, it’s the PERFECT example of the fact that every brief, no matter how unassuming, is an opportunity to do something great.
The brief for this masterpiece was for an internal video, to be used at sales conferences. Remember that, next time an ‘uninspiring’ brief hits your desk.
Braids, H2Oh, BBDO Argentina
Charming, funny, engaging, with such resonance that years after first seeing it, it still lives in my head. I love this film for a lot of reasons. But it’s making it to my desert island because it’s the PERFECT example that great advertising doesn’t have to be big to be good. There’s no big budget here, no big celebrities or famous actors. No effects. No killer music track. No swagger.
Instead, it’s simple, quiet, unassuming, incredibly human, and one of the funniest and most wonderful ads our industry has ever made.
Cadbury Gorilla, Fallon London
I know I said there’s no such thing as a perfect ad, but this one comes close. But what it most definitely is, is the PERFECT example of how emotion will always be more powerful than logic. There’s nothing more potent than making your audience genuinely feel exactly the right emotional space your brand seeks to occupy. And Gorilla did it.
FCUK brand relaunch, TBWA London
This choice isn’t really about a piece of advertising, as it is about how fundamentally transformative creativity can be. Trevor Beattie was working on the French Connection business in London and happened to notice the abbreviation FCUK on a memo in the client’s offices.
Everyone else who saw this just saw a corporate abbreviation. He saw not what was, but what could be. What could happen if the brand changed its name from French Connection to FCUK. This is the PERFECT example of the truth of the creative process: brilliant ideas are all around us, living in plain sight. All we have to do is allow our minds to be open enough to recognize them.
You’re not you when you’re hungry, Snickers, BBDO NY
Everyone in advertising, including me, loves this idea. But I’m bringing it with me to the desert island because it’s the PERFECT example of the power of a great brand platform idea. To be honest, once this platform was established, anyone working on it is already halfway to a really good idea. It’s so simple, so strong and so flexible that the only pressure (which is very, very real) is to live up to the other great work already done on it.
(I could just as easily have taken Dove Real Beauty with me too)
John Mescall is global creative chair of independent crerative agency collective by The Network.
