2009 TV Spots We Love – Part One
Yep, I’m using the royal “we” in this blog post title. Perhaps in a lame attempt to give you the impression a committee of experts chose these spots as the year’s best. But no, the committee is just me. My criterion: I don’t mute the sound on them. Don’t see one you love here? Let me know, and I’ll post it. Oh, and why “Part One?” Because my list of choices disappeared, but it may turn up.
My top spot of the year is the e*Trade “Golf Baby” spot. The other spot, with the baby singing “Broken Wings,” comes close, but naah, this one’s better. The delivery of the golf-hatted baby is so dry, it crackles. Which makes me cackle. Oh, and I so want the chance to call someone “Shankopotomus.”
For sheer cinematic beefiness, you can’t beat this Jameson Irish Whiskey spot. Quality filmmaking, expert storytelling, on-the-nose strategy, and perfectly executed concept smoothly mesh to reinforce the tagline, “Taste above all else.” Ah, now that’s the stuff.
Budweiser always has gone the extra mile to deliver clever or heart-warming TV spots. This one is a little bit of both. Any dog can fetch a stick, but a Clydesdale? He remains a powerful symbol for The Great American Lager. Huh. That’s funny. A draft horse from the U.K. representing beer which used to be brewed by an American company, now brewed by a German company. Which started as a different German company, Anheuser-Busch, founded by Adolphus Busch and his father-in-law in the late 19th century. But I digress.
Life, color, action! The new iPod Nano shoots video, and this spot practically dances right off the screen with energy, joy and fun. The jumpin’ tune (with lyrics suggesting places you might want to take video, but don’t turn you off) makes even me eager to buy one of these things. And you know that’s somethin’, ’cause I’m as tight as a lizard’s skin.
Some of the Direct TV spots were made in 2008, but I include the whole campaign among the best seen on TV in 2009. For some reason, they’re not on YouTube, so you’ll have to click this link, where you can see all of them, plus outtakes. The commercials, directed by Christopher Guest and starring Ed Begley, Jr. as the CEO of the mythical “Cable Corp., Inc.” and Michael Higgins as the dim-witted VP with all the dumb ideas, make me giggle. I couldn’t remember if they were for Dish TV or Direct TV, which is a bad thing in advertising, but then, I always get those two mixed up.
