AlexLOGIC's Best, Worst Commercial Awards of 2011.

AlexLOGIC's Best, Worst Commercial Awards of 2011.

Worst / Most Annoying Commercial of 2011, Totino's Pizza Rolls, "Kids in America". But be easy on the kids, they had NOTHING to work with in this commercial.

Most Misguided Commercial of 2011, Clorox's "Do it, Do it". Mom encouraging her kid to slide headfirst down a hill like Superman, really?

Cutest Commercial of 2011, Suzie's Lemonade Stand, Small Business commercial for Verizon. Finishes in a tie for second place for best commercial of the year with AT & T's Romantic Dinner.

Uh oh, AlexLOGIC has just viewed a cuter commercial than Suzie. The late entry cutest commercial of 2011 is called "Honesty", and it is put out by values.com. Suzie gets Runner up for Cutest Commercial of 2011 along with tie for second place for best commercial of 2011.

I'm afraid to tell Suzie, you do it for me.


Sounds Too Good to be True Commercial of 2011, Hyundai Assurance. Jeff Bridges does a bang up voiceover job, but does a second time buyer get as much of a discount on their second car purchase as a first time buyer does?

Bad Timing Commercial of 2011, Honda Zombie. Everybody knows that nuclear meltdowns cause Zombies to emerge among the melted fuel rods, but should a Japanese car manufacturer be advertising zombies when they have just suffered a massive nuclear meltdown?


Best Use of Zombies in an otherwise marginal commercial. Toshiba, the Ramifications of Yes. Amazingly uneven commercial, The very beginning and very end of the is commercial is amateurishly done, the rest is very effective. It's like two different entities worked on the same commercial, Zombies probably saved the day, for once.


Back to the Future, but not as Believable commercial of 2011, Audi Pre-Owned. The two Audi Commercials deceptively imply that the Pre-Owned owner is able to go back to the future to remind the original Audi Owner to take care of the car.  A clever commercial because one can easily be fooled by an impossible premise, but AlexLOGIC does not believe in selling sizzle where there is no veggie burger.


Best / Funniest Commercial of 2011, AT&T Ski Lift commercial is basically perfect. Perfect acting, sound, direction, writing, and editing/pacing.  Possibly the only flaw with this commercial is that it was so good it was over played.


Best / Funniest Commercial of 2011, 3 way 2nd place tie, Suzie's Lemonade Stand, Small Business commercial for Verizon and AT & T's Romantic Dinner, and State Farm's "Nostalgia" video starring "Hank" and his nostalgic, almost grieving wife. 


"Romantic Dinner" has all the qualities found in the AT & T "Ski Lift" commercial, really a coin flip between the two and came down to it being harder to film the ski lift commercial on location versus filming in a comfy restaurant setting.

When a company (AT&T) leads in bad customer service, making the very best commercials is even more important... um, I guess?

State Farm's Nostalgia might actually be the best commercial of the year, however because it came out so late in 2011 it's hard for me to be sure if I really like it more than AT&T's Ski Lift Commercial. It should be noted that 3 of the 4 best commercials were basic dialogue commercials with no special effects.

Soft Porn Commercial of 2011, it's a tie! Old Navy "Just Jiggle it"  and T-Mobile " Forgy Wonderland. Either commercial could very well be the opening to a softporn movie.


This is not your Parent's Insurance Company, State Farm Insurance for it's variety of commercials all designed to make insurance fun and cool. Just how much extra are all of these fun commercials costing the customer?


High Speed High Heel Running Scares and Creeps People out Commercial, Target 2-day Sale, She's baaack!  Dozens upon Dozens of google search hits using the phrase, Creepy Target Lady and Scary Target Lady pretty much seals the deal.


Biggest Sellout Award. Capital One "50% more Cash" with Jimmy Fallon. I liked Jimmy Fallon, not so much after this commercial. Not even going to link to it for now.


Repetitive / Obnoxious / turn the channel everytime it comes on commercial of 2011, Big Big Big Smart Car commercial. Does not bear repeating, but this was the one commercial where I automatically changed the channel everytime it came on the air. When a commercial resorts to repeating any word over and over, it's crossed a line in my opinion, and this is one instance where a commercial being remembered is not a good thing.


Most Pretentious Commercial of 2011, Fiat "My World" starring Jennifer Lopez. I am a huge Jennifer Lopez fan, but the voice over in this commercial desperately needs a minor, yet major rewrite.


Most Pretentious Commercial of 2011, Runner up. Samsung The Way We're Wired.  Would have been the winner but Lopez is such a huge star that that tipped the award to Fiat's "My World", how pretentious of me!


Best Single Camera Angle, no Editing Commercial of 2011. K-fee.


That's AlexLOGIC's Best, Worst Commercial Awards list for 2011. Don't forget, AlexLOGIC is available for commercials consulting BEFORE you make your commercial, or after its been edited.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

info at alexlogic.com

You can also view more

commercial critiques

by Alessandro Machi at

Super Bowl Consulting

State Farm breaks the Geek Barrier and the "This is not your parent's insurance company barrier" with their 2011 commercials.

It must be fun to be an insurance company with advertising dollars to spend. State Farm Commercials in 2011 seem to be all over the map, the map of.... fun.

Be it Jerry Newman who seems to magically bend his car around telephone poles like Kreskin used to bend forks, 

space aliens that don't like the neighbor, (but let the neighbor live to tell about it),

the state farm magic swami (if you can dream it, you can flee it), 

or, you can do that on television, but not in real life (late 2010)

and lets not forget Aaron Rogers, aka Mr. Discount Double Check, 

and one of the best commercials of the year, Nostalgia.

It seems as if State Farm is trying to keep their advertising agency so busy that the agency can't court any other customers.

So if there is to be an "I'm too cool to be a geek or your dad's insurance company" award, I would give the award to State Farm Insurance.

Now, if State Farm hired me as a commercials consultant, I'd give them an idea that is so beyond all of these commercials that State Farm executives would hit themselves in the forehead (but not too hard) and wonder why they didn't think of the idea first.

Of course the answer would be, you can't have "AlexLOGIC", you can only hire one.


Check out AlexLOGIC's best and worst commercials of 2011.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

info at alexlogic.com

You can also view more

commercial critiques

by Alessandro Machi at

Super Bowl Consulting

Toshiba, the Ramifications of yes, or "how I learned to drop my computer and cause zombies to appear."

And God said, "Let there be humans" as he dropped his Toshiba Satellite laptop. Seven days later little zombie humanoids came forth, or something like that.
 

If only God had waited for the impact smart hard drive, if only.


Technically speaking, I feel this Toshiba commercial falls short in a couple key areas. First, we see the technician drop the laptop, but nothing really "breaks", like the screen maybe flashing on and off, nor do we "hear" the sound of a hard drive going wonky.


The final shot is not really what I would call a "beauty shot", nor is it reinforced with a "winning" impact smart hard drive sound effect either.


One final thing, I don't like to pick on actors in commercials, but the one lady in the commercial seems to have the giggles. I think they should have cut away visually by at least a second or two earlier from the opening scene while we still hear them talking, and given more screen time to the actual dropping of the lap top and how that causes the power outages to occur. This would be called a "voiceover". (yes, you can giggle if you like).


As much as I enjoy the overall zaniness of this commercial, I feel the editing and sound could have been more fully constructed in both the front and back of the commercial, and the final "hero shot" of the product should have felt zestier, more alive. The final shot of the laptop now has an Impact smart hard drive inside, and we should all feel the betterness caused by that innovation.


Just how much trust can I put into the designer of a product who thinks spoiled milk creates zombies?


Everybody knows that spoiled milk creates werewolves, not zombies.


Check out AlexLOGIC's best and worst commercials of 2011.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

info at alexlogic.com

You can also view more

commercial critiques

by Alessandro Machi at

Super Bowl Consulting

Best Single camera angle commercial of 2011.

Perhaps this is the best one camera angle commercial of 2011? In 2010 that honor would have gone to the Old Spice Commercials, but I don't think Old Spice did any in 2011 that would qualify as the best.

Probably don't want to be holding any type of beverage while watching this commercial. 


One might ask themselves, do you remember what the commercial is still about after seeing it?

Check out AlexLOGIC's best and worst commercials of 2011.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

info at alexlogic.com

You can also view more

commercial critiques

by Alessandro Machi at

Super Bowl Consulting

Samsung's Galaxy S II commercial, The Way We're Wired, not as good as it sounds.

Samsung Galaxy S II commercial, The Way We're Wired, seems to have a tone to it that is similar to the Nike Commercial from the Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt movie, What Women Want.

Beyond that, I found the Samsung Galaxy S II commercial highly pretentious specifically because it seems like it is an inspirational commercial, when it is really an important sounding commercial that fooled Samsung into using the wrong visuals. 

Video editors usually strive to match visuals to the soundtrack, sometimes video editors will try and create an opposite effect, in which the visuals and soundtrack clash with each other. In this instance, I would have gone for a third option.

I believe if I had been a consultant on this commercial I would have been able to get them to see that the glittery words were forcing them to choose the wrong visuals. The voice over could stay as is, but the voiceover, in this instance, should not be used to determine the visuals. 

Let's just say that the Way We're Wired could be easily spoofed and leave it at that.

My question to Samsung is a simple one,

....did your employees who worked on the Samsung Galaxy S II visualize their greatness as being Cell Phone designers when they were dreaming of their own personal greatness and success? 

If your answer is yes, that your employees dreamed of being  scientists and researchers, then why is your video full of images of people jumping around trying to be physically great?

If your answer is no, that your employees dreamed of being famous and instead "settled" for second place by working for your company, then may I ask, why would I want to buy a phone from your company and your second place settling workers?

Philosophically speaking, if a company makes a commercial that gives the appearance of being a powerful, message driven commercial, when it has actually fallen well short of what it could have been, is that still considered a successful commercial?


Welcome to second place.


Check out AlexLOGIC's best and worst commercials of 2011.

If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...

info at alexlogic.com

You can also view more

commercial critiques

by Alessandro Machi at

Super Bowl Consulting