MAR AD PICKS

Welcome back to March's edition of Ad Picks. 

This month I've got an interactive ad, a print ad and I'm ending this post with a fun online video.

This is a fun GPS game to keep the kids quiet on the way to Legoland in Florida. Whilst the parents are driving, this app theme's their real time route with characters, games and fun trivia along the way. It's using digital for the right reasons and I think many parents will enjoy their drive to Legoland a lot more now.

I hope they expand it to the other Legoland locations too.

I bet you've already seen this one shared over your Facebook feeds, but I still really wanted to share it being a fan of the Mad Men series. Many ads were created in the series, but bringing one of them from our screens to reality is genius; this story has had so much PR around it.

It's a win/win for the client and the series, giving people nostalgia about the series and making people watch it again. It would be interesting to see if the viewing figures have gone up for the Mad Men series on Netflix.

Adobe always seem to produce great ads, past ads have been 'click, baby. click' and 'the launch' (click on either of the names to watch them). They've produced the goods again with a spot named 'Hovering art directors'. It's promoting the Adobe stock imagery range, whilst having fun with the working relationships of designers and art directors. I hope we're not this bad.

This blog is quite old now, but it's very funny, topical and worth a reshare: hoveringartdirectors.tumblr.com

I hope you enjoyed this post and you'll share with your friends. Please keep your eyes out for the April blog post towards the end of the month.

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE ADS

I was recently asked at Gatecrasher to write a blog post about one of my favourite ads, and this was my choice below.

Asking an advertising creative to pick their favourite advertising example of all time is like asking a musician to pick their favourite song. With countless award-winning ads out there, the one I’ve chosen not only stands out, but it showcases other great ads that have come out in recent years.

So what is this ad? It’s called The D&AD Ad Filter. It’s an extension for Chrome and Firefox that blocks regular pre-roll ads and automatically replaces them with D&AD winners from past years.

No longer do you have to hover your mouse over the 5-second countdown and wait for the ‘skip’ button to appear. You can sit back and be entertained by a swearing bear or Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits on two moving trucks.

Why I love it: 
Advertisers are always looking for new, creative ways to use YouTube, social media platforms, and other online advertising mediums. Lately we’ve started to see a rise in brands experimenting with the unavoidable YouTube ‘skip’ button, but The Ad Filter feels fresh because you’re too busy enjoying the award-winning creative content to even realise that it’s an ad for D&AD.

It’s a lovely way to showcase the standard of work that wins the top prizes at award shows. Plus, it makes you even hungrier to win an award for yourself. I wouldn’t be surprised if it increased the number of submissions for the D&AD Awards. With this filter installed, you’ll often be left wondering why the standard of pre-rolls is suddenly so high.

If it ran today
It only came out in 2015, but I hope that it keeps being updated to showcase new award-winning work every year. It would be great if they included D&AD student winners to help get them the exposure that they deserve.

Download and enjoy it yourself here