While the New Labour campaign, created by TBWA\London, has largely focused on the issues of the health service and education it is the ad featuring the Conservative leader William Hague with Margaret Thatcher's hair superimposed that has won all the attention.
The ad seems to have struck a nerve with the public either in a humorous way or perhaps as a more sinister reminder of the Thatcher years.
According to Bruce Haines, president of the IPA, it is this ad that will be best remembered for the 2001 election.
"This will be the icon ad of the campaign. It's a personal attack, but it is not vicious and it reminds people who may have been dithering that if they don't vote, the party that will benefit are the Tories," he said.
Peter Jones, managing director of Grey Worldwide, agrees that there has been no competition between the parties.
"It's got to be Labour. Their ads have been far more creative, interesting and impactful. It's all about creating and emotion, and Labour have touched a nerve," he said.
While Labour will patting itself on the back for selecting Trevor Beatty and TBWA, the brains behind Wonderbra and FCUK, the Conservatives will be thinking long and hard over their decision to use Yellow M, a small and little-known Newcastle-based agency.
The success of the Hague/Thatcher ad is a stark contrast to the ad best remembered from the 1997 campaign -- the Conservative poster showing Blair with red demon eyes and warning of "New Labour, New Danger".
This ad was widely thought to have backfired on the Conservative Party but in 1997, as in 2001, there seemed there was nothing that was going to save the Conservatives from a drubbing at the polls.