Although television advertisements and commercials are a great way of publicizing a product or a service, but the most important thing to consider is how these not-more-than-a-minute niche movies compel the public to buy the specific product for which the endorsement is done. Getting the attention of the viewers even for a couple of seconds and moreover, marking a prolonged impression in their mind about the particular product is quite a difficult task.
However, there are some great and unique commercials which break the barriers of general endorsement and lodge themselves in viewersâ collective cognizance just long enough to trigger a dialog or debate.
The most successful, attention grabbing commercials are those which enact a story in a natural, authentic and obligating way, and these are more likely to stay in your mind for a long time. There is no brand today that can exist without some degree of disambiguity and unequivocality. Though timing is equally important, everything would go in vain if the commercial is unable to smite an emotional chord with the viewers.
Here we discuss the top rated commercials of last year, which did their job fantastically.
1. Snickers “Focus Group”
The commercial made for Snickers new peanut butter squared bar adds a pinch of gruesomeness to comedy. The advert shows a round table discussion of sharks who ate some humans recently in a human taste testing session and discussing about which one tasted better. Their pick is that human who just had Snickers’ peanut butter squared bar before the sharks ate him. A brilliant CGI (computer graphics interface) job done on shark, their expressions and responses with their fins and faces and the voice-over work made this advertisement very successful and got a huge amount of positive response from the viewers.
2. Nissan Leaf “Gas Powered Everything”
This commercial is made quite smartly. It answers the question “Why to buy an electric car?” with “What if everything running on electricity like hair dryers, computers and coffee makers, worked on gas?”
This advertisement shows how awfully steam-punk’d everything would be if the electrical appliances in our house give out smoke. This left the audience in a state of mixed responses to the commercial. Some tried to imagine how other appliances would look like if ran on gas while some got hit by the idea of being more eco-friendly, resulting in a triumph for the campaign.
3. Cravendale “Cats with Thumbs”
This one commercial is cute until it turns deadly. The dairy company, Cravendale, gave the new-gen cats the ability to get their own milk through their hands. Wait! Did I say hands? Yes, its a hand when the cats’ paws gets a fully working ‘thumb.’ The cats are shown in their quest of stealing the milk from the cereal-eating human through their ‘hands’. Truly, a nice advertisement to see. Thumbs up to you cats!
4. Deep Silver “Dead Island Trailer”
This two-minute commercial is a ghastly and heartbreaking trailer for a zombie video game. In an environment of uncountable zombies and blood everywhere, the advertisement shows the attack of zombies on a girl that led to her death (in reverse order of events). Her father tries to save her in the best way but he fails. The advertisement is backed by intense emotions, horror and a background score of a mournful piano.
5. Canal+ “The Bear”
Bears have always been a part of many advertising campaigns due to their manly looking body and funny and lovely roles. In this Canal+ advertisement, bear characterizes a Hollywood director! He can be seen doing almost everything from freaking around, giving advice to the crew and actors in a professional way to interrupting everyone and telling them how to do their job. The commercial seems quite funny at every point when the animal tries to make others understand the art of doing their job.
6. Talk Talk “Homes within homes”
Little handcrafted figurines in a miniature house looks like a child-play. But what if they come to life? This is the idea behind this commercial. Not only this, the life in these figurines is shown in a ‘with or without manner’. In between, they are using TalkTalk’s broadband to communicate and do things easily.
7. Google Chrome “Dear Sophie”
Google Chrome waived off the audience’s attention with its witty, highly emotional commercial named Dear Sophie. The advertisement perfectly shows the fatherly love of a person who is saving real life events related to his daughter ‘Sophie’ digitally so that she can see it someday in future.
8. Chrysler “Born of fire”
This two minute spot of Super Bowl Chrysler 200 from Wieden+Kennedy grabbed the 2011 Emmy Award for being the best commercial. The car company attempted to resurrect both itself and its town of origin, Detroit. It showed how an advert, combined with a powerful and confident voice-over, and featuring Eminem’s defiant “Lose Yourself” can reach the hearts of millions. The commercial wraps up with the year’s best tagline: “Imported from Detroit.”
9. Chipotle “Back to the Start”
Chipotle wanted to show its green philosophy in an artsy way and by evoking a keen sense of sadness and regret in the public. This fantastic commercial tells a farmer’s story who is converting his small business operation into a big industrial procedure by penning all his animals, making them fat using chemicals, slaughtering them in machines and polluting the nearby water-bodies in the whole process. He then comes to senses and goes back to his old ways. The commercial’s visuals are simply breathtaking and one of the best.
10. Volkswagen “The Force”
Last year, Volkswagen also showed one of the most fantastic crowd-pleasing commercials of all time, “The Force”. It merged the two concepts of kids and star-wars. The advertisement shows a kid’s imagination by wearing a Darth Vader suit and trying to apply the Jedi mind tricks to many objects in his home, even to his dog. But obviously, nothing works out. Then, his dad returns to his Passat, the kid moves out and gives another try to his mind tricks on the car and this time it roars, making him believe that he actually did magic! But thanks to his dad who activated the car through the remote.
