The TBWA\London ad for John Smith's shows the comedian Peter Kay winning a gold medal, with the judges in the ad praising Kay for his "top bombing".
It turned out that Leon Taylor, who won a silver medal in the synchronised diving event with Peter Waterfield, had auditioned for the ad but was turned down because, at 24, he was too young to appear in a beer commercial, for which the minimum age is 25.
While Kaye's bombing is not as stylish as Team GB's medal winning peformance, Taylor praised the ad for raising the profile of diving.
The 2002 ad topped the Ads that Make News survey, compiled by Propeller Communications along with Durrants Media Monitoring.
John Smith's beat off KitKat, which took the number two place with its decision to drop the "Have a break, have a KitKat" strapline in favour of "Make the most of your break". Although the move saw lots of coverage, it also was also greeted with scepticism, as some commentators speculated that it would be followed shortly by a big PR campaign hailing the return of the old slogan.
Barclays' headache over the sacking of Sir Bobby Robson as manager of Newcastle United was at number three on the list. The bank had created an epic ad featuring Sir Bobby as the face of football, although it claimed the spot had always been scheduled to end the day that it did, and that the timing was coincidental.
Martin Loat, director of Propeller Communications, said: "Topicality is a huge factor in an ad making news. But even we are surprised that an ad that had not aired for some time hit the headlines again due to a fortuitous topical event."
Loat said that with Barclays' Premiership campaign, the national press has been keen to suggest that Sir Bobby Robson's sacking must be bad news for the client.
"But in doing this, the newspapers have simply raised the profile of the bank's sponsorship still further so may have actually helped Barclays, if awareness was the objective," Loat said.
At number six in the poll was an ad for a Job Centre in Southampton, which was banned after specifying it wanted "hard-working" warehouse packers. Flake and FCUK both made the list for dropping their well-known slogans, while McDonald's response to the documentary 'Super Size Me' was at number eight on the list.
Top 10 Ads That Make News for August 2004
1 John Smith's Olympic connection
2 KitKat dropping slogan
3 Barclays dropping Sir Bobby Robson ad
4 Audi ban for promoting speeding
5 FCUK dropping slogan from ads
6 Job Centre for "hard-working" job ad
7 Flake dropping slogan
8 McDonald's 'Super Size Me' response
9 BT with Jeremy Clarkson
10 Privilege with Joanna Lumley
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