Looking back at the TV adverts of the past decade, it's difficult not to be struck by the creativity on show. Rather than the movie-influenced blockbuster ads of the 90s, much of the industry turned to quirky conceptual ideas. Advertisers also exploited the growing power of the web – not only did successful campaigns make their mark on TV, they also went viral.
Some relied on special effects, some relied on exhaustive preparation by art teams – but some of the best were just a clever idea, simply executed. Who would have guessed that a man in a gorilla suit playing the drums would have been one of the most talked-about ads of the decade?
Below are some of our favourite ads of the noughties – let us know what you think we've missed out.
John West Salmon: Bear Fight
(Leo Burnett London, 2000)
Starting as what appears to be a nature documentary, this witty ad quickly turns into a fight between a man and bear over a salmon. The bear was in fact a stuntman in a 7ft-tall bear suit from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Released in November 2000, this was one of the first ads to use the power of the internet through fans downloading and forwarding it. Directed by Daniel Kleinman, the ad was written by Paul Silburn, then an art director/copywriter at Leo Burnett, later at TBWA and Fallon, and now creative partner at Saatchi & Saatchi.
Levi's Engineered Jeans: Odyssey
(BBH, 2002)
Set to Handel's Sarabande, this dazzling ad managed to make Levi's awkward-looking "twisty" jeans seem cool. Director Jonathan Glazer - who has shot a string of ads for Guinness and others, pop videos for Radiohead and Massive Attack, and the movie Sexy Beast - gives it a typically cinematic feel. Despite the heavy effects required, here the 3D work seems to serve the overall concept rather than dominate it. "We didn't think about what action was physically feasible," said copywriter Antony Goldstein. "We sought an expression of freedom of movement with no physical barriers." A Lilt spot spoofing the Levi's ad only served to enhance the original's standing.
Honda: Cog
(Wieden+Kennedy, 2003)
This mesmerising film features a series of Honda Accord parts in a Heath Robinson-esque chain reaction. W&K art director Matt Gooden and copywriter Ben Walker recruited pop video director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet for the ad, which took seven months to make and reportedly cost £1m. The full 120-second version was only aired a few times, but the ad went on to be one of the most influential and award-winning of the decade. Honda also made Grrr, Impossible Dream, and last year's live skydive ad, shown on Channel 4.
John Smith's: Peter Kay ads
(TBWA London, 2003-6)
TBWA's ads play up John Smith's as a no-nonsense beer and introduced us to the phrase "top bombing". Highlights of the series include Kay representing Britain in a diving competition, where he does a bomb, and another where he tells his daughter that she should be worried about burglars and not monsters. The ads, thought up by Paul Silburn, picked up a string of awards including a Gold Lion in Cannes.
Sony Bravia: Balls
(Fallon, 2005)
Like Honda's Cog campaign, the ads for Sony's Bravia LCD TVs marked part of the trend away from CGI-heavy ads. Some 250,000 multicoloured balls bouncing their way through the streets of San Francisco might make an unlikely subject for a technology ad, but thanks to stunning direction by Nicolai Fuglsig, art direction by Juan Cabral and José González's heartwarming music, they rapidly made their mark. The follow-up Paint and Play-Doh ads are great too, but this got there first.
Guinness: noitulovE
(AMV BBDO, 2005)
Telling the story of humanity's 3bn-year wait for the perfect pint, this amusing advert continued Guinness's tradition of high-profile campaigns. Director Daniel Kleinman used a collage of stock footage, computer graphics and homemade effects to create the ad – including a mixture of a dough, Grape Nuts and Special K for some of the rocks. Very few other promos – Hammer & Tongs' clip for Fatboy Slim's Right Here Right Now excepted – can claim to have squeezed the whole of evolution into less than five minutes.
Cadbury: Gorilla
(Fallon, 2007)
If any ad of the noughties could be described as a phenomenon, this is it. It had a simple premise: a man in a gorilla suit playing drums to Phil Collins's In the Air Tonight. But it had a massive impact, being viewed more than 10m times on YouTube, spawning numerous spoofs and winning a string of awards for director/copywriter/art director Juan Cabral. It was even credited with credited with turning Cadbury's fortunes around, helping the chocolate maker reverse the damage done by a 2006 salmonella scare and boost its UK market share last year. The Cadbury chief executive, Todd Stitzer, hailed 2007 as "the year of the gorilla".
Skoda: Baking of...
(Fallon, 2007)
Creating a Skoda car out of baking ingredients was clearly no piece of cake for Fallon: it took four days with master bakers, icers, and a bricklayer to make a full-size replica of the car. However, the hard work paid off, and the result is a whimsical film – set to Julie Andrews' My Favourite Things – that charmed the public. Copywriters/art directors Chris Bovill and John Allison, as well as director Chris Palmer, deserve credit for an ad that is truly a slice of perfection.
PG Tips: The Return
(Mother, 2007)
The return of former ITV Digital frontmen Monkey and Johnny Vegas as the face of PG Tips was a masterstroke, connecting PG Tips with its advertising heritage. In this first ad, from January 2007, Monkey returns drenched and dishevelled after five years away. Copywriters Mark Waites, Ben Mooge and Al Maccuish, along with Mother creative directors, Rob Saville and Mark Waites, helped create the witty script. Ten thousand people signed up to Monkey's MySpace page within the first few weeks of its launch.
T-Mobile flashmob
(Saatchi & Saatchi, 2009)
Highlighting advertisers' desire to interact with the public, this mobile phone ad grabbed national attention as 400 commuters appeared to spontaneously start to dance at Liverpool Street station. Footage of the event was aired the next day as a TV ad and uploaded to YouTube; its impact resulted in a string of copycat events organised on Facebook.
Comparethemarket: Comparethemeerkat
(VCCP, 2009)
It may not be the glossiest campaign out there, but it's hard to ignore the impact of VCCP's work for Comparethemarket.com. Aleksandr Orlov now has in excess of 600,000 Facebook fans – more than Lily Allen – and 33,000 Twitter followers, while the site increased its market share of UK insurance comparison site visits by 76% between January and August, according to Hitwise.
Orange Film Board ads
(Mother, 2003-)
They're not strictly TV ads, but an honourable mention must go to Mother's big-screen work for Orange. Featured a string of Hollywood stars including Patrick Swayze, Val Kilmer, Snoop Dogg, Carrie Fisher, Verne Troyer, Spike Lee and Daryl Hannah. Steven Seagal stands out for me – which is your favourite?
TV9 is a Telugu news channel started in January 2004. It gained instant popularity among the masses with the punchline “Merugaina Samajam Kosam”. Later it expanded its network with news channels in Kannada, Malayalam and Gujarati languages. These channels are broadcast by Associated Broadcasting Company Private Limited of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. ABC Private Ltd. had also launched a Telugu spiritual channel, Samskruthi.
NEW YORK, Dec. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon is delivering more international content to its FiOS TV subscribers with the launch of three new channels from World TV that feature Korean, Mandarin and Greek programming. With the additions, FiOS TV subscribers now have access to 35 international channels covering 20 languages - a collection that cable can't match. The three new channels will be available in all FiOS TV markets by the end of the week.
"International programming on FiOS TV offers a world of diverse channels in a growing variety of languages," said Terry Denson, vice president of content strategy and acquisition for Verizon. "We are introducing our first Greek channel, along with new Korean and Mandarin channels, and delivering an expanding international offering with the amazing picture-and-sound quality that only FiOS delivers."
Verizon FiOS TV's new international programming consists of:
- YTN (channel 1761), the CNN news channel of Korea, which joins a new Korean package that also includes MBC (channel 1760) for $24.99 per month.
- Phoenix North America (channel 1797), a Mandarin channel offering news and entertainment, including programs like "Phoenix North America News" and "Experience America"; the channel joins CCTV4 (channel 1795) and CTI (channel 1796) in a new Chinese Mandarin package for $15.99 per month.
- Antenna (channel 1789), FiOS TV's first Greek channel, featuring comedies, dramas, news, current affairs programs, game shows, entertainment programming and more for $14.99 per month.
The three new channels come from World TV, a division of content management and delivery company GlobeCast, which signed a distribution deal last year with Verizon for top-tier international channels, including Russian channel RTR Planeta, Romanian channels Pro TV and RSC1, Portuguese channel RTPi, and more.
Verizon is currently offering new customers who subscribe to Verizon's better or best bundled package of FiOS TV, FiOS Internet and phone service the option to add one International TV package free of charge for three months.* Customers can select a package in any one of the following languages: Chinese, Filipino, German, Hindi, Korean, Punjabi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish or Vietnamese. Total savings on the International TV package, if selected, range from $29.97 to $104.97, depending on the bundled packages selected.
FiOS TV offers a broad collection of programming, with more than 500 all-digital channels including more than 126 HD channels and more than 18,000 monthly VOD titles. FiOS provides next-generation interactive services including an advanced interactive media guide; news, entertainment and social TV widgets; remote DVR management; multi-room DVR; and more.
For more information on these new channels on FiOS TV call 1-800-VERIZON (1-800-837-4966). For customer service support in Chinese call 877-576-7015; and in Korean call 877-703-7015.
For the latest news, updates and information about FiOS TV, visit www.verizon.com/newscenter and http://www.verizon.com/athomeblog.
*Three-month credits will be given for the selected International TV package.
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, serving more than 89 million customers nationwide. Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers innovative, seamless business solutions to customers around the world. A Dow 30 company, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of more than 230,000 and last year generated consolidated revenues of more than $97 billion. For more information, visit www.verizon.com.
VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts, high quality video and images, and other information are available at Verizon's News Center on the World Wide Web at www.verizon.com/news. To receive news releases by e-mail, visit the News Center and register for customized automatic delivery of Verizon news releases.
SOURCE Verizon
Complaints to the media regulator Ofcom about TV shows have more than doubled over the past four years following an explosion in the number of satellite and cable channels.
Ofcom's chief executive, Ed Richards, revealed today that contrary to the regulator's expectations, there has "been a steady increase" in the number of viewers complaining.
This was true even after stripping out "major incidents" such as the Shilpa Shetty racism row in Celebrity Big Brother in January 2007 and the premium rate phone-in scandals later that year, he said.
Figures released by Ofcom show that complaints for what the regulator calls "all other programmes" have more than doubled, from 6,375 in 2005 to 13,521 last year.
The Shilpa Shetty row prompted 45,159 calls and emails in 2007 – the highest number since Ofcom was created five years ago – contributing to a record 64,996 complaints that year.
Speaking today at a hearing of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, Richards said he thought that the number of complaints would decline after Ofcom was created in early 2003.
"In fact, the opposite has been the case. There's been a steady increase in the number of complaints," he said. "It's not a sharp rise but people have continued to complain, particularly about television services."
Richards said he thought much of the increase was down to "cable and satellite channels", because they wanted to push the boundaries more and have lower budgets and smaller, less experienced compliance teams.
Ofcom also revealed the top ten most complained about shows of this year, so far.
ITV1's The X Factor tops the list with 5,975 complaints, 4,000 of which were about Dannii Minogue after she commented on the sexuality of singer Danyl Johnson.
In second place was Big Brother 10 with 1,154 complaints, followed by Britain's Got Talent with 708, and Celebrity Big Brother with 428.
ITV and Ofcom have also received what is thought to be around 3,000 complaints about Simon Cowell voting to keep the Irish twins John and Edward Grimes in The X Factor, which it is currently investigating. Richards said the regulator "will be looking at" whether it needs to intervene.
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