The Year's Best and Worst Ads

From time to time, I point out ads that strike me as particularly amusing or effective. Today, The Wall Street Journal takes the long view, rounding up the most- and least-successful ad campaigns of the year.

Leading off their "best" list is one that also tops mine: Dove's brilliant, hard-hitting "Evolution" spot.

("Onslaught," another entry in Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign, was equally impressive. Here's my discussion of the campaign, and whether it's actually succeeding on a marketing level.)

I confess myself baffled by what people found so compelling about this Cadbury video of a gorilla playing drums to a Phil Collins song. Evidently, it even helped sell chocolate.

The Snickers ad featuring two mechanics kissing, Lady and the Tramp-style, made the Journal's "worst" list. Some critics found it homophobic; I just found it extremely sophmoric. It would have been both funnier and less offensive had it ended right when the men open their eyes.

Likewise, call me insensitive, but General Motors's commercial that shows an assembly-line robot contemplating suicide after failing to meet quality-control standards is only offensive if you happen to know a robot who just threw himself off a bridge.

And one that should have made WSJ's "worst" list but didn't: PETA's stupid ad attacking Al Gore as a global warming hypocrite because he eats meat.