When did you last see a good ad on TV?

I can't remember when I last saw a good ad on TV. In fact, the last ad I actually noticed on TV was one for coffee which wound me up, because it was a blatant rip-off of an ad that Saatchis did back in the last century for Ariel - the one where Mum shocks just-returned-from-Glastonbury-son with the "in my day, we didn't wear clothes" line. Now we have coffee and granddaughter and granny. I was half expecting granny to say that they took rather stronger drugs than coffee in her day, but boringly, granny comes out with the old clothesline (as it were ) again. Now, what on earth has that to do with coffee???







Anyway, the point is that I do get to see lots of TV ads these days, but not on TV. I get round-ups of the best new ads sent to me by e-mail, or I have a poke about on YouTube, or sometimes friends pass on a link or an mpg. My consumption of TV advertising has completely changed. It is now selective and active. And I think it's not just people who have a professional interest in TV advertising who consume as I do.







One site which is a great source of new ads in the UK is Thinkbox . There are also some extremely good articles on the site, including this one by the great Paul Feldwick . In it, he argues that we should stop talking about messages when it comes to TV advertising. I can imagine it must be frustrating for someone who has spent so long in the business to see that some thinking doesn't seem to move on.