Top 5 Best

• Bacardi - Breezer 'Party Puss'
  Well Barcardi seem to have redeemed themselves, after the terrible "that's the way it happened" ads, with a series of really good cat-based ads. I don't think it's just 'cos I'm a sucker for anything with cats in (although I am) as this is a well written, directed and produced campaign which should appeal to most people, especially the alcopop-buying public. The ad features a young male tabby cat and follows his night-time adventures to a local night club where, of course, everyone drinks copious amounts of Bacardi Breezer. The first ad showed the cat being fussed by the young ladies at the bar before returning home in the early hours wearing a bottle top on his collar. His elderly female owner gives him a fuss saying "Been out all night playing with the birds again?" to which the cat smiles to camera. The second ad has some great footage of the cat in question 'dancing' with the men and scantily-clad young women in the club. Nice one Bacardi - keep it up!

Top 5 Worst

• Danone Activ - 'It's got calcium but it's still water'
  This is a particularly annoying campaign features a family of skeletons who all drink bottled water with added calcium. There have been a couple of ads so far with the point being that the skeletons drink the water to get the "calcium they need" with the kids almost blissfully unaware that it's good for them as "it's got calcium but it's still water". The most recent ad features the son of the family, who has now realised that it's good for him (but doesn't care because it's "still water"), skateboarding with Charlie, his friend. Charlie "doesn't have any" and hence falls to pieces when he has an accident on his skateboard. Which is apparently funny. The marketing 'guys' (they could be women...) obviously picked the Skeleton as a concept because of calcium being good for bones and I have to say that I think this is a rather tenuous concept to base a whole campaign on. The advert consists of cheesy, jerky, computer-generated animation and has annoying, cartoon-style sound effects. The narrative grates on my ears not least for the fact that the main character can't even pronounce "skeleton" - he says "Hi! My name is Toby Skelton". Arrghhh!! The advert is clearly meant to appear to kids but surely if the kids are meant to drink the product without realising that it's good for them then it should be aimed at the parents?! Anyway, they don't even get that right - the ad tries to appear trendy by showing the characters skateboarding. Unfortunately the craze at the moment is for micro-scooters not skateboards and this probably won't last long either.

  Apart from the above, I have two main problems with this idea:

  • Assuming you accept that a skeleton walking about and talking is a perfectly natural occurrence, how on Earth is it supposed to drink anything? Surely the water would just cascade down between its ribs and onto the floor?
  • Then there's the small matter of how the skeleton's bones are held together. The advert implies that it's the calcium but I thought that it strengthened bones, not held them together. Even if this were true, how did the calcium get into the bones in the first place when drinking is a physical impossibility?
  And all because some over-paid marketing type thought "hey, calcium's good for your bones - let's use skeletons!". Not to mention the awful (intended?) pun on "still water". Pathetic.

• Lenor Downy - 'What creases?'
  Cheap, tacky, annoying. Those three words are all that are needed to describe this ad really. However some of you will obviously not have seen it so here we go. After running short of ideas to make fabric softener exciting (they tried different 'flavours', colours etc.) some bright spark has come up with a way to make ironing easier or non-existent! So, this product claims that it will make creases practically fall out of your clothes eliminating the need for ironing. Yeah, right... Anway even if you believe the claims, they have little to do with my dislike for this ad. The sets are bright, computer-produced and of the sort that give you the 'idea' of where they are meant to be. The inside of an aeroplane, for instance, consists of a row of 'windows' left/right on a purple background with two seats in the middle having a couple seated on them. OK, that's cheap and tacky. The tale unfolds that one of them has used the conditioner and one has not. The man who hasn't would apparently like to stand up but decides to remain in his seat so that everyone else doesn't see the creases in his shirt. The woman leaps up saying "what creases?" showing that your life will be much better if you use this product. There are a couple of other scenarios in the ad but they are all pretty similar. My questions is: if the man is so worried about creases, why didn't the lazy git just iron his shirt?

All-time Best

• Levis - 'Kung Fu'
  A great ad in which a Bruce Lee lookalike fights through a series of 'baddies' to eventually arrive at the 'Chinese Laundry' just in time to stop the (pretty) oriental washing girl from putting his jeans in the wash. With the aid of some computer-morphing he turns the jeans inside-out with one flick and hands them back before jumping back through the broken front door to continue the fighting. Lots of over-the-top martial-arts noises and amusing fight scenes - great to watch and of course Levis make great jeans too! :)

• Weetabix - 'Driving Instructor'
  The advert consists of some cleverly-written lyrics, pertaining to the visual scenes of terrible drivers on their tests, to the tune of Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive". You can see the lyrics on James Blatchford's website. The ad contains some great 'footage' of a vicar in his Ford Capri jumping over a hill and hitting parked-cars' wing mirrors and a little-old-lady nearly running a Policeman over on a zebra-crossing and ending-up in a lake. The message is that the examiner 'survives' because he's had his Weetabix for breakfast. This ad doesn't particularly make me want to eat any Weetabix but it does make me laugh!

• Persil - 'Lemon'
  To understand why this ad is funny you need to know about Persil's previous ad which I didn't like very much. Basically there's an attractive woman washing-up looking a bit pissed off. Her husband comes up behind her to give her a cuddle and 'notices' the new fragrance of the washing-up liquid. He goes all poncey waving his arms around as her reels off the aromas: "I smell, rosemary, I smell eucalyptus" etc. The wife then looks at the camera, totally unimpressed, and says: "I smell a rat". Yeah, great. Anyway keep that in mind. The new ad features the same couple in the same situation. This time the guy doesn't say anything but as he's gesturing with his hands he makes lots of poncey "mmmm, mmmm" sounds. The woman looks at the camera, raises an eyebrow as she lifts the washing-up liquid bottle up and says in a really unimpressed tone of voice "Lemon". The first time I saw that I nearly wet myself I thought it was so funny. I suppose the thrill wears off pretty quickly, but I was impressed at how the ad changed my attitude from hating to liking the product.

• Foster's Ice - 'Toad Squeezing'
  This ad takes the style of a documentary of a tribe in a barren third-world country. There's a wizened old black guy digging a hole with his hands while his son walks past explaining what his father is doing in his own dialect. A translator's voice tells us what the son is saying, along the lines of: "My father digs for toads in the midday-sun. When he finds one, he will squeeze it to get the moisture out of it which he will drink". At this point the father has indeed found a huge toad which looks a bit worried about what might befall it. The son finishes walking as he reaches and leans on a bar. Just before he takes a swig of his Foster's Ice, he tells us (through the translator) "but then, Dad never was the sharpest knife in the box!" Hilarious, yes?

All-time Worst

• Vanish Liquid - 'not chlorine bleach'
  This is a cheap, tacky piece advertising a stain-removing 'gentle' bleach and has to be the most annoying advert ever shown. There are a few versions of this but basically someone (usually a teenage girl or a housewife) has a stain on their favourite blouse or their daughter's dress. Their friend then says "try this" and pours some 'vanish' on it. The owner of the offending item then puts their hands to the side of their face and shouts "no, not chlorine bleach!". The friend then says "it's alright this is 'vanish' a gentle bleach, safe on colours and delicates". That's about it apart from repeating the "safe on colours and delicates" part another three times. This ad was even copied by a rival company selling "Ace" which follows the same plot almost word for word, except of course for the brand name. I have several problems with this ad not least the pitiful scripting and acting.
  • Firstly are we to believe that the person with the stained item is in their own home? If so, how come the friend happens to have a bottle of the stuff so easily to hand? Had the friend just been shopping and was going to tell their friend about it anyway and so had it out ready. I don't think so, because their friend would have immediately said "what's that pink stuff you've got there?". Alternatively, is the person with the stained clothing at a friend's house? If so, then you can understand how the friend might have some 'vanish' to hand. But, if this is meant to be the case, what the hell has this person taken her washing round to her friend's house?
  • Secondly, I challenge the manufacturers to find any teenage girl or housewife (who hasn't taken GCSE chemistry) who knows the difference between 'chlorine' bleach and any other. Sexist? Maybe. Realistic? Yes.
  • Finally, the liquid itself looks like radioactive flamingo jizzum. Well, not that I've actually seen any, but you get the idea! :-)

• Bacardi Breezer - 'that's the way it happened'
  A really sad series of ads which I can't be bothered to explain that at first appear to be very 'clever' but then become intensely irritating as they reach the inevitable punchline.

• Coke - 'black guy singing on bus'
  This is a very old and crap advert. It features a friendly black guy wearing a personal stereo getting on a bus. As he boards the bus he's singing, yes, out loud "do de do" etc., and espies an attractive black girl. As he walks down the bus towards her his singing gets louder until he passes her and sits down ending with "always coca-cola" at which point we see that she is holding a coke. As you would imagine, nearly everyone on the bus is watching this spectacle but instead of being incredulous they are all really happy and grinning. The guy then takes off his head-phones and grins madly. I mean, where is this meant to be? Anywhere I've been, if a guy got on the bus behaving like that people would be telling him to "shut up" and "enough already"....

• Reisen - 'The Chocolate Chew'
  This is a German ad done in an American style which comes over as really sickly and trite. A really naff song lyrically and melodically makes this an ad to change channel for.

• Shreddies - 'Hunger Strikes'
  These are a series of ads featuring people such as vicars and TV weather girls about to do their jobs when, as they haven't had their Shreddies, 'hunger strikes'. This takes the form of a blue cartoon blob which bangs on the person's stomach making them wish they hadn't decided to do this advert. The message, Hugh Laurie tells us, is to eat your Shreddies and keep hunger "locked up 'till lunch". What an annoying load of old bull - I cringe every time I see it.