Nielsen Tracks Best-Liked TV Spots in US, UK This Year
The research firm names the best-liked ads of 2010, and meerkat and an actress well over 80 years old feature prominently.
Nielsen Names Best-Liked TV Spots in US and UK for 2010
Forget Cannes, Clio and D&AD. What were the best-liked ads and TVCs among consumers in 2010? The advertising and consumer research giant Nielsen has released its lists of the most popular TV ads of the year in both the US and the UK, and there's not a man you wish your man could smell like in the lot of them.
Most of the best-liked TV spots are for everyday brands that range from retail to consumer products. Largely absent are ads for athletic apparel or fashion and beauty items. According to the Nielsen list, many of the spots feature likeable characters, celebrities or clever twists on product benefits.
The list of best-liked ads in the US includes the following:
- Target's "Smokey," in which an animated 'smoke monster' is scared away from a beachfront shack thanks to its low-priced smoke detector.
- Samsung's "Wonder-full" spot for its 3D TVs, launched earlier this year. In the spot, a family takes a three-dimensional chunk cut from an aquarium, straps it on the roof of their car and brings it home.
- M&M's "Cupboard," part of the long-running series of ads with the animated chocolate candies, in which the M&M's battle a husband looking through the kitchen cabinets for a snack for his wife.
- Chef Boyardee's "Big Beef Ravioli" spot in which a mother shopping at a supermarket goes to great lengths to distract her kid so that he won't find out that the product delivers a full serving of vegetables.
Another M&M's spot, titled "Election," made the list; it's part of an ongoing campaign featuring the candies as they take to the stump to promote candidates of various colors.
Snickers "Game" and "Road Trip" also scored; both are part of the wildly popular campaign that uses celebrities as examples of what happens when you get too hungry (the problem is solved by eating a Snickers.) In "Game," Betty White and Abe Vigoda make appearances as distracted touch football players, while "Road Trip" uses Aretha Franklin and Liza Minnelli to portray diva-like behavior of hungry young men taking a long car ride.
Also making the list was the Starburst "Contradiction: Mime" spot, part of a campaign in which a Scottish man of Korean descent, compete with accent and kilt, discusses the contradictions found in the Starburst candies that have a chewy outside and a liquidy inside. In this spot, he illustrates this 'contradiction' by pointing out a screaming mime performing in a city park.
The roster of US consumers' faves was chock-a-block with work from BBDO, an agency that has historically tapped comedy and celebrity appeal to score near the top of advertising popularity polls. In an article that appeared in the New York Post reporting on the list, BBDO North American Chairman and Chief Creative Officer David Lubars says, "People do zip through the commercials that don't seem as interesting, so creativity is now more important than ever to hold the viewer. "The best ads have a big, simple idea that you can describe in a few words as opposed to something that needs a lot of explaining."
The UK list of most popular spots, which was ranked 1 through 10 by Nielsen with what it called a "Likeability Index," was topped by the CompareTheMarket.com spot titled "Battle of Fearlessness," in which animated meerkats take on a mongoose army as a way of differentiating between Comparethemeerkat.com and the car insurance shopping site comparethemarket.com.
The second-ranked spot in the UK, according to Nielsen, was the Manger's Cider spot titled "Straight," in which the lorry driver for Mangers Cider rides his motorcycle, his bicycle and even his truck full of Mangers' apples through homes, hospitals and golf courses, so that he can take the most direct route to the brewery.
Topping off the rest of the UK list were spots for (in order), Maltesers, Santander Bank, Snickers (featuring Mr. T), Cancer Research UK's raceforlife.org, Marks & Spencer, Velvet Paper Towels, Cushelle Bathroom Tissue and Pepsi Max.
For a full ranking of the UK's best-liked TV spots, along with information on Nielsen's methodology used in developing the ranking, check the Nielsenwire blog.
Published 30 December, 2010
