Creative Best Spots

The best of September brought us a revamped Audrey Hepburn performance, a caveman insulted by yet another ad, and an overstressed employee with nothing to do. The worst served up talking roadkill, a gargling German shepherd and happy people in fall clothes running through fields to a tinny version of "In a Big Country." They were memorable—for all the wrong reasons. (The image of a pulverized pigeon and rabbit, unable to move anything but their heads while they converse, still lingers in my mind.) Let's start with The Gap's resurrection of Hepburn's dance in Funny Face. I love the idea of the retail chain using Hepburn to promote its new skinny black pant; it gives the Gap's everyday casualwear some everyday elegance. And while resurrecting dead celebrities is an old idea, giving the style maven's classic footage a modern graphics treatment is a fresh twist. I would have preferred a different music track, though. I have nothing against AC/DC's "Back in Black" (I even scrawled "AC/DC" on my junior high binder in the "disco sucks" days), but the song is too obvious a choice. Also, it becomes a bit much on the repeated viewing of a heavy media buy.In contrast, the music that Geico uses for "Airport"—a mix of electro-pop duo Royksopp's "Remind Me," which plays throughout the commercial—feels right for the setting. Viewers have to remember a previous Geico spot to understand the reference, though. Need a reminder? Two cavemen are at a restaurant complaining to a Geico rep that the company's "So easy a caveman can do it" line is degrading. This time around, the caveman is on an automatic walkway in an airport when he spots a Geico poster and starts walking back the wrong way to look at it. It pictures, yes, a goofy-looking caveman in loincloth holding a club. The guy in the airport shakes his head in disgust with arms crossed and walks away. No copy needed. Love it.FedEx's "Overwhelmed" has been getting a lot of airplay lately, but I still laugh every time I see it. The idea is that FedEx has made work so easy there's little to do, and that some employees are having trouble adjusting to this. In the spot an employee sits in his empty office staring straight ahead. When the phone rings, he picks it up and immediately slams it back down with a "Can't talk now!" When a colleague says hello, he barks back, "Busy!" He also talks to himself and makes gestures as if he were in a meeting. Funny. Another spot that caught our attention is from Yahoo. It's been a while since we've seen a Yahoo ad that we've appreciated, but this one grabbed us in its final seconds. In the spot a woman sprays a weed killer that she bought on TV in her garden, and everything turns brown and dies. Cut to her using a product she bought with the search engine's help, and the garden comes alive, as does the family's dead (and heretofore buried) pooch. The young daughter says, "Scruffy! You're alive!" It's just off-center enough to work. And sometimes that makes all the difference.

Brand Marketing

Creative Best Spots

Eleftheria Parpis

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Eleftheria Parpis