The 2011 Joshys: Part II
December 15, 2011 3 Comments
The Don Draper Award: The coolest of the year. Advertising like this is what makes people want to go into advertising.
Winner: Heineken’s “The Entrance”
Cool visuals, a cool song by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour (not Avril Lavigne…), and just overall full of fun swagger.
Honorable mention: Anything else Heineken.
The Durr Award: The dumbest of the year. A very competitive award. Crap like this makes people hate commercials.
Winner (loser?): The stupid Fiat commercials with Jennifer Lopez.
Gratuitous and lame. The one with the dancing is worse, though J.Lo “driving” though the Bronx was terrible too. Especially since it was a body double in the Bronx.
Dishonorable mention: Miller Lite’s “Man Up” campaign and Coors Light’s bar exam spots.
American megabreweries have a low-brow reputation and commercials like these play right into it. Miller Lite isn’t manly. And I thought it was amusing how the Coors Light bar exam ads were played endlessly in the summer, when real law school grads were fretting over the real bar exam.
The Timothy Leary Award: The trippiest commercials. You might not have been on drugs, but these made you feel like it.
Winner: “Heart’s Desire” from Sonic
Love it. Trippy as all hell, this seems like it could be either a drug-induced fantasy or maybe just a fat person’s fantasy. Influenced by The Big Lebowski. The song is really catchy too.
Honorable mention: The Toyota Prius “People Person” commercial. Weird stuff.
The Field of Dreams Award: Field of Dreams is a movie that is known to make grown men cry. This award goes to those tearjerker commercials that have the same potential.
Winner: Johnson & Johnson’s Hospice Nurses
Either of Johnson & Johnson’s other nursing spots could have won, but the “Hospice Nurses” ad had the most personal impact on me.
Honorable mention: “It’s Time” from Get Up!
One of the best defenses of marriage equality that you’ll ever see.
The Onion Award: Best satirical commercial.
Winner: Toyota Venza’s “Social Network”
A very funny campaign. And it’s nice to see that the Facebook generation can take a joke as well as we can dish them out.
Honorable mention: Samsung’s “The Next Big Thing”. People who camp out for consumer products are morons.
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Commercial Society 
I like your site. I’m a fan of great commercials…thanks for consolidating them all into one place. BTW, I used to work with hospice and some nurses do open the window when someone dies.
I’m guessing you’ve probably seen this one from Boag’s Draught? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=94syGYcdGcU
Dia, thanks for the kind words. I actually hadn’t seen the Boag’s Draught ad, though it’s very nice. I’ll have to include it here at some point.