First up, the Freelander ad where the bloke wrestles the crocodile. It is fun to watch and, like nearly everything here, well crafted, but for my money not a patch on the print work. Then there's a very sexy looking BMW Z4 without much of an idea, but that I guess you only have to shoot well to sell.
I enjoyed the hotdog ads about how smart my guts are, but unfortunately for the manufacturers my guts don't like hotdogs much.
The Simple Suncream ad is funny and I guess will appeal to every woman who has been pestered on a Spanish beach. Yes, it uses a man's willy for a cheap laugh, but who among us can honestly say they haven't tried to get one knob gag through in their time?
Next, an intriguing ad from Prague about the need to kidnap people to dress up as clowns to entertain handicapped children.
There's a feature on the two-minute Honda "cog" commercial that everyone is talking about. We see a bit of the original art house film that was the inspiration. It's a lesson in having enough time to do things properly, like three solid weeks of playing with parts to see what worked. You've all seen the ad and it's probably one of the best of the year so far.
What is great is that most (but not all) of it was actually done in camera.
The next section is a quick round-up on the contenders for Cannes. My favourites are "angry chicken" for Nike, the OTT Fox Sports campaign, the John Smith's work, "cog", Audi's "fish", some weird spots for WOW TV from Japan and finally some funny Aids protection ads from France.
In the Most Talked-About section, there's a beautifully written spot from Brazil, which uses a blank screen to sell peace.
It's about this time that something dawns on me: how sad and dowdy the UK must look to anyone who looks at our ads from overseas. Somehow our ordinary, everyday is just so much drabber than everyone else's.
Finally, Tracks of the Month celebrates the best use of music on ads.
A good idea to highlight the contribution music makes to ads (anywhere from 49 per cent to 70 per cent of the ad, depending on which director you're talking to), but I didn't happen to agree with the reviewer's selections.
It is tough out there and I guess it's hard enough to get good work out even in the good times.
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