Seen and noted

This week's guest judges are Dylan Harrison and Feargal Ballance, creative directors at DDB London. The pair teamed up after Dylan fled a respectable legal career in Melbourne and Feargal had graduated art colleges, traveling and shoulder length hair. They met on a D&AD Workshop and landed a placement at DDB London, where they were hired in 2000.
Together they have won numerous awards for clients as diverse as Volkswagen, Marmite and the Guardian Newspaper.
In addition to three Nominations and a coveted Yellow Pencil at D&AD, they have won Gold at Cannes, One Show, Clio, ANDY, Creative Circle, Campaign Press and Eurobest. A high point came when their print ad 'Cops' for Volkswagen won both the Grand Prix in Cannes and Eurobest and became the most awarded print ad in the world in 2004. In the 2006 they won the Budweiser Ireland account and were appointed creative directors. Most recently they picked up a Silver Lion in Cannes 2008 for their Volkswagen TV spot 'Singing Dog'.

Welcome to this week's Best ads review. This is the part where you get a moment's respite from mining the depths of your own creativity and see what precious ideas some of your fellow luminaries have managed to unearth and see the light of day. Blinking into the sunlight we hold them aloft. Do they sparkle? Are they gold? Or a yet another futile day’s effort in the search for precious metal to adorn our shelves?
We acknowledge everyone with work in this week has toiled long and hard to come this far, any ad containing even a flicker of originality has a history of blood, sweat and tears. But the difference between OK ADS and BEST ADS is the hunger and tenacity which keeps us digging deeper until we know we've found something really special. Which ones were worthy of the effort that went into them?

BEST TV First up is the TV. Great TV has the power to charm, seduce and beguile, so much so we accept the relevant rational justification to purchase the product at the same time. Merely good TV usually does one or the other. We think the winner for this week falls somewhere between the two. The Toyota spot 'Every Bit Brilliant' was a sweet little film, subtly taking us through the thinking that goes into every part of their new car. What elevates this ad is that it's emotionally engaging, narrating the story from the perspective of a young beardy designer. We feel his anxiety that he is a talentless fraud surrounded by brilliant colleagues. At one point he even forgoes a beer with his mates to crack the difficult brief. Perhaps it's because this is so close to a day in the life of an average creative, beard included, that it spoke to us. We would have liked to have seen more of the connectivity between the ideas of the designers to really flatter the product and accentuate his isolation at the same time. It also is tonally reminiscent of an earlier ad shot by the same director for Honda which dulls the shine for us somewhat. Flaws aside, it charms us while informing us the car is full of innovative technical ideas. Worth the effort.
The rest of the TV is a mixed affair. Yell.com has the potential to shine as a campaign with some polishing, while the Axe spot probably lured us for all the wrong reasons.

BEST PRINT and BEST OUTDOORSecondly the press and outdoor. Why is it that clients and agencies alike treat print as a dumping ground for all of the product points and grubby tactical offers they wouldn't dare sully their precious tv ad with? Done well, print too has the ability to simultaneously engage hearts and minds. All too often we either get the client friendly version or the opposite, the scam ad. Neither of the two are worth the effort that go into producing them. The question of filthy lucre aside, unfortunately none of the work in these categories this week really caught our eye. The Smart 'Slim ad' and the Ikea 'Sliding wardrobe' were both interesting media ideas and the Screen Enterprises 'Mailbox DVD' stood out, both literally and conceptually. Although we expect with the latter the creatives used more care positioning the leaflet in the letterbox for the photographer than any of the delivery boys would have in reality. The first few would have been stuffed in unceremoniously and the rest dumped down a storm drain.