AdLand Advertising Roundup- The Ad Part

We started off with missed the Bestest and Mostest Lists (with list goodness including most watched and worst voted) and followed it up with the Roundup- Newsy Part (a look back at the year of advertising) and now it's time for the Best and Worst ads of the year.

Except this year with the increased number of ads to go through in the archive, and large number of so-so or just plain bad ads, it seemed better to stick with a list of the better ads of the year. Because really, are you going to look at the worst? Well, some might. But we figured it'd be better candy for you to have some good stuff to look at.

Read on to see the list of TV spots, Print ads, Virals, and much more. Enjoy!

Commercials

Inspirational. Excellent. Lipsmacking good stuff.

Best Anthromorphic:
Real California Cheese: Peephole, Earthquake, Cloud, Ding Dong, Race, From Back East, Snooze

Best Show Promo:
Channel 4 - Lost Dancers

Best stunt:
Sure - Stunt City

Best Traveling Through Time:
Guinness - NoitulovE

Smurfiest:
Unicef bombs the smurfs!

Best Swag:
In third place, Médecins Sans Frontières - Gaining ground. In second place Aides.org film, tsunami vs Africa... And the number one best swag of the year goes to:
AIDES - The Right One (aka Vibrators)

Best Self Promo:
Marc and Tom's commercial

Best Remix:
Cillit Bang - the eurotechnotrash version

Best Shoe:
Nike Free - Run Barefoot, AKA Chariots of Fire and Nike train barefoot

Best Special Effects:
Hewlett-Packard - François

Best Dancing:
Volkswagen Golf gti - Gene/Singin' In The Rain and Orange - Dancing.

Best Use of Movie Plots:
Aquafina The Fruitrix and Dirty Fruiting and Virgin Trains - Return of the train

Best Hair Care:
Dove - Wilma, Velma and Jane/Unstick Your Style

Best Mortgage:
Ameriquest Cat/Surprise Dinner and Robbery/MiniMart

Best Financial:
Nationwide - Robot / Science Project

Best Medieval:
IBM - Sir Arthur's Business Roundtable Catapult, Cave/Big Picture, The Vile Hex, and Change.

Best Tooth Pulling:
Parmalat - Pulling teeth

Best Epic:
Carlton Draught - Big ad

Best Pork:
Pork / The Other White Meat - Forbidden Love

Best Analogy:
ESPN - Without Sports - Nothing To Say

Best Metaphor:
Tango Clear - Metaphor

Best Tattoo:
Grendene Ipanema - Gisela Tattoed

Best Drop:
Heineken - Big Drop

Best Safari:
Jack Link's Chopper, Release, and Decoy

Best Kung Fu:
Lynx Unlimited – Kung Fu

Best Retro Art Direction:
Jack Link's Wild Side Tip #17: The "Talker" in 5B, Wild Side Tip #28: The Rabid T-Ball Fan, and Wild Side Tip #9: The Workplace Loincloth

Best List:
FedEx - Ten Things

Best Co-Branding:
Cheez-it – Maytag guys

Best Old School Product Demo:
Tostitos - Checkers

Best Breaking Out:
McDonald's - Inner Child

Best Art Sculpture using Product:
Starburst - Hello

Best Taco:
Taco John's - Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey West-Mex Rescue, Viva Las Fajitas, Crunchy Chicken Rides Again, Burrito Rider!, and Blazing Chickens

Best Nose-Thumbing:
Diet Pepsi - Make Up Your Mind

Best Break:
Kit Kat - Butcher

Best Credit Card:
Capital One - Pillagers - New Jobs Garth, Ivan Jr., Marty, Halloween, and Holidays

Best King Kong:
Ford – King Kong

Best Back To School:
Target - Baby Got Back...Packs ver 1 and ver 2

Best Teaser:
GameTap - How Will You Die?, Pac-Man Puppet Show, Sonic-Latte, Pitfall - Sensitive Teeth, Pitfall - Alligator Arms, Pac-Man - Time Is On My Side, Pac-Man - Bidding War, Pac-Man - Sopranos, Galaga - Come In, DigDug - Expecting, DigDug - Joey, and Video Game Theater.

Best Soda:
Dr Pepper Stacy's Mom, Anything For Love, Miracle, and You Sexy Thing

Best Gymnast:
Skoda Octavia 4x4 - Gymnast

Best Love Story:
Virgin Atlantic - Love Story

Best Impressions:
Axe Effect - Impressions (2005) 0:30 (USA)

Best Rivalry:
XM Satellite Radio - Rivals

Best Lemonade:
Gatorade - Lemonade Stand

Best Suckage:
Dish Network Binky, Dinner, Skunked, Dr. Stein Broeder and Arm & Leg

Best Distorted:
Olympus - Distorted Dog

Best InAction:
Degree for Men - In-Action Heroes The Suck-Up, Mama's Boy, and The Wuss

Best Masks:
Nike Pro Apparel - Warriors / Masks

Best Scarecrow:
Weetabix - Scarecrow

Best Pirate:
FedEx - Pirate / Counseling

Best gratuitus nudity:
The Beach

Best awkward family moment:
KFC - Musical Dinner

Most ambiguous line of the year:
"You do more than just cleanse in the shower."

Best Acronym:
U.C.S.A.A.K.W.Y.H.Y.F. from Guinness.

Top Trend Biggest breakdancing trend - the transformers:
In 2004 there was the Citroen transformer...then in 2005 there was the old CV spoof and the Danish - Bump and Rind .

Most Bizarre

General weirdness running amok in adland.

Trippiest:
* Burger King - Ranch Song

Creepiest:
* Wendy's - Ranch Tooth

Most Surreal:
* Stella Artois - Surreal Bench

Strangest:
* Burger King - Coq Roq - Chicken Fries Cross The Road

Bizzare:
* Four Seasons - Camping Scare

Strangest Teaser:
Amp'd Mobile - Rock Star and Amp'd Mobile - Senator

Most Disturbing:
Carl's Jr./Hardee's Deuce Bigalow European Gigolo spoof of their Spicy Paris spot

Weirdest Japanese Commercials:
* Detergent - Family Clean
* Nissin - Noodle and Beef
* Pizza Pretz - Hepp!

Overall Best Print

Tasty print ads that make us wish we had thought of that.

Best Sporty:
Pony campaign, knock outs, groinkicks and sweet kisses

Best Tampon:
Tampax gets interactive.

Best Breast:
Light of Life Foundation "Breast"

Best Jam:
Cute art Direction for London Transport poster

Best Sting:
French AIDS campaign has a sting.

Best Flags:
The Flags: Meet the world.

Best Head:
Heads up, Lowe Bull sells Durex condoms.

Best Clumping:
Not your average kitty litter advertisement

Best Advocacy:
Sweden's advertisers (org) new campaign shows no skin

Best Feminine Pad:
Ladies, this ad knows you

Best Interactive:
Bud Light Print ads

Best Male Cleavage:
Dolce & Gabbana introduce the new male cleavage

Best Nudity:
No cover up for Incognito Clothing.

Best Furry:
Guinea Pig Tested

Best Puzzle:
Stella Artois ads make you think

Best Collage:
Lowe Bull campaign for Cape Times newspaper, collage style

Best Hijacked:
Hijacked Audi campaign?

Best Ballad

Not many ads these days have jingles. And if they do they aren't very good. So bravo to the best ballad/song in an ad for this year.

* Fruit of the Loom - You Can't Over Love Your Underwear

Pointless Use of Celebrity in an Ad

Sometimes using a celebrity is good. Sometimes it's just stupid.

* Silestone - I Am Diana Pearl
* Motorola RRokr with iTunes - Phone Booth

Celebrity endorsments:
American Express - Kate Winslet was popular while, American Express - Robert De Niro caused some outrage. Still the number one celeb endorsment 2005 was: Tiger Woods for watches, Nike, American Express, among his mile long list of brands he shills for.

Most Overrated Ad

The ads that got great press coverage, even though they really wasn't all that great.

* Heineken - Brad Pitt - Paparazzi
* Pepsi - Spartacus
* Adidas - Hello Tomorrow
* Levis - A Midsummer Nights Dream
* Sony Bravia Balls

Banned Ads

People with too much time on their hands tend to feel like it's their duty to complain about things. Some of the times they actually do have a point. But a good part of the time, their complaints are inane and pretty much waste the time of the ASA and other ad standards groups. Sometimes it seems that these groups kowtow to the masses, even if a small number of complaints are made. But sometimes, it's not bad that they banned the ads either.

* This year's banned super bowl commercials.
* Sofa King ad slogan banned
* French court bans "last supper" ad that offended catholics
* Viagra gets rough with Virgin - forces them to pull ad
* Cult cleaner ad for Cillit Bang is banned!
* IKEA Germany - "Midsommar in Schweden" and part two
* Helium Huffing Ad Bannage
* Billboard with logo over nude man's doodle gets banned
* BBC "Faces" campaign withdrawn after more than 1300 complaints
* Banned TV Spot - John Woo style
* Ads called too sexy in Mexico
* Hell Pizza billboard under review

Best use of Media/Innovation

Sometimes cool stuff comes about with the way media is used. Sometimes it's a new innovation

Best Money:
Thinking inside the box - 3M ads fill posters with real money.

Best Nipples:
Nipple billboards erected in unusual places, introducing the ballboard

Best Interactive Billboard:
American Express interactive billboard in Belgium

Best Sculpture:
Relaxed denizens in denim hang around Union Sq. San Fran

Best Taxi:
Tanning taxis promote Nivea self-tanning in germany

Best Edible:
Edible direct mail tempts customers to tapas bar

Best New Car Smell:
Mitsubishi Motors sells cars with that 'new car smell' in Sweden.

Best Lingo:
DC Metro hopes riders will be down with new lingo

Best Use of Building:
Åkestam.holst turn building into speakers

Good Viral Ads/Internet Stuff

Some of the best of this newish ad media.

Best Educational:
Flicka reveals what is behind the retouching

Best self-promo:
VW Polo viral - the punchline kills. (uk)

Best Counterfeit:
Don't Get Hoodwinked By A Counterfeit Mini

Best Hardcore Cleaning:
Cillit Bang, the hardcore cleaning sensation!

Best Backup:
John Cleese at the Institute of Backuptrauma

Best and most complicated integration campaign:
Advertising Campaign for the 2006 Audi A3

Best Fishbowl lens:
Olympus banned ad becomes Olympus Viral Campaign

Best Dogs:
Viral for Opel goes to the dogs

Best Darth:
Sith Sense, can you stump Darth Vader with 20 questions?

Best Dictionary:
British Airways "English to English" dictionary. (+Billboards/outdoor)

Best Game:
Monopoly on the real streets of London

Best Decorations:
Decorate your willie with Dickorations!

Best Epic:
This is a big ad. A very big ad.

Best Film Festival:
Not Showing in New Zealand

Best Corporate:
Coors Light gives monsters jobs for the rest of the year

Best News Spoof:
Milk's new spots spoof steroid use in baseball

Best Puzzle:
Virgin viral game - spot the band names.

Best Equality:
Lodger equalityzone.org viral animations

Best Haunted:
The Haunting Ghost Of Walford

Best Copy:
Coudal says: Copy goes here

Best Ouch!:
Viral BMW spot

Best Bunnies:
Motorola bunnies in the movies

Biggest Ad Scandal

The news items that was the most controversial in the world of advertising.

* L'Oreal apologizes to customer for offending ad
* Marmite Blob Advert Restricted
* Young Designers Emporium quits spanking ads and More spanking used to sell
* Tom Waits sues Opel over "voice theft" in advert
* Parent group boycotts 50 Cent's Reebok Advert
* Street art "guerilla" campaign causes backlash from real street artists
* Another KFC advert under fire
* Viagra, is that a C&D in your pocket....?
* Coke threatens fan-site due to a link to Cokes homepage.
* Ad campaign disparages real apples
* ASA wants proof prayer heals for SA church ad
* Coca Cola India demand "unconditional apology" from photographer
* Million Moms go against DishTV sucky ad campaign (which doesn't suck).
* Dinner Party With Mild Nudity Causes Mild Ad Bannage.
* iTunes ad too close for Lugz? and Lugz wants Apple to pull plug on Eminem iTunes ad
* No "squish" please we're British.
* Sony and Paddy Power ads upset Catholics
* Boeing/Bell Helicopters puts out a print ad and unleashes PR hell on themselves
* Burger King advert is offensive to cows
* Naked Mannequin Mazda spot gets cleared
* San Fran folks miffed at Sony graffiti advertising

Ad Things That Made Us Smile

Whether it was a viral game, web site, joke or short- these were some of the best advertising related things out there.

* Advertising: Get the Message
* The unspoken rules of graphic design.
* What are you really saying?
* Donny Glam Pics
* The PixelRoller Painter
* It’s not you, it’s your ad agency
* Ad Trophies - Send an award to someone who needs it
* Ipod ad campaign spotted in the Simpsons.
* Ad Guy Starter kit - everything you need to be creative.
* Is your ad agency a cult?
* The Ad Conceptor
* iRock- Real iPod man dances through iPod store
* Banned ads collection on the web
* The Official AdLand Advertising Tutorials : Part One , Part Two , and Part Three

Marketing Gaffs:
* Between the buns of a Big Mac, there is special sauce.
* Kellogg's names cereal after street drug: Coco Rocks.
* Missing comma sends wrong message.

Spoofs:
* Yet another iPod (spoof). The flea.
* Everyday Sneakers Viral Spoof
* It's a small ad. Such a small ad.
* Citroen CV2 - dancing citroen spoof
* Ellen Feiss unreleased G4 spot
* Another buncha Switch parodies
* Ogilvy Düsseldorf – No real beauties.
* Burger Duke - Killer King - (Burger King Spoof)

Fun Brand Swag:
* In-Action Heroes - For Real, part two!
* In-Action Heroes - For Real!
* Burger King masks on sale now.
* Cheap and easy- pushing it with Staples

Well folks, that's it until next year. Remember, vote throughout the year on ads. And if you've missed the Roundup- Newsy Part or the Bestest and Mostest Lists check them out.