That’s a very subjective question. If it’s a case of my favourite ad is of all time, the Guinness ‘Surfer’ ad from the late 90s with the Leftfield soundtrack really sticks in my head. That was a particularly interesting generation. The 90s was kind of the pinnacle of visually-led advertising, visual culture, semiotic sophistication and postmodern culture, if you like – whereas post 1990s and moving into the 2000s and towards the 2010s, things have moved very much towards online. Here ads are targeted by behaviour and profiling.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rLAvkbFugEI?wmode=opaque
Another campaign that stands out are the print and billboard ads for The Economist. They’re very simple, one-line ads – often just a string of text on a red background. Whereas the Guinness ad is a delight for the eye, if you like, The Economist ads are ultra-simple exercises in really good writing. It’s all about the quality of the ad, the writing and the idea.
I guess the worst campaigns are the ones I can’t really remember, so by default they just don’t work!
Andrew McStay is the author of Digital Advertising, now in its second edition.