One of my favorite past time is to watch commercials in YouTube. It started when I took up an Advertising class back in College and we had to make our own commercial. So to get ideas, I went to YouTube and watch commercials there from other countries.
I found the search experience amusing since from YouTube, I could see what adverts look like in other places and compare them from the commercials I watch in the country I lived in. I could get creative and clever ideas from some of them. Not all commercials are good though, because most of them are crappy. Watching poorly made TV adverts me feel smarter because I imagined I could do a better than those.
Most of my favorite commercials are from the Super Bowl, the big game in US, watch by millions if not billions of people. Because of the huge crowd it attracts, big brands such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Budweiser take advantage of this to launch their TV commercials. Take note, they pay about $3 million just for a 30-second spot, and they have to make sure that their commercials are very effective just not to waste that millions they paid.
A few of my favorite commercials from recent Super Bowl games are the E*Trade baby talking about how he bought stock, the ugly girl from Planter’s Cashew, the overachiever David Abernathy of Cars.com, and those insects stealing a bottle of Coca Cola.
Another set of commercials I love to watch are those that won awards in Cannes Lions. Of course they could have not won if there’s nothing unique about them. Just like the Ikea Lamp advert. It was a commercial that made viewers to sympathize with the lamp thrown out by its owner. The background music, the cinematography made sure viewers would feel bad for the lamp getting dumped.Then just a few seconds before it ended, a man came in the screen telling the viewers they’re crazy to pity a non-living thing. Kinda negative in a way, but hey, viewer’s will surely laugh about that they did feel sad watching the lamp. Besides Ikea lamp is better than the lamp that was dumped.
The ads I mentioned are just a few of those great ads that can be watched online. Some of these ads are not just a great inspiration for future ad-makers but also some of them are great stress relievers especially the funny commercials.
