Only one was in the 60-second range. Most were closer to three minutes — an eternity in Conventional Ad Land.
Welcome to the New World of advertising. Never mind that Madison Avenue keeps churning out those 30-second jobbers like so much visual landfill.
The best ads of 2013, almost without exception, were made-to-go-viral videos that, for the most part, averaged more than three minutes each.
HOROVITZ: 5 worst ads of 2013 more than stank
But who's counting?
For one, the savviest advertisers are.
They're counting on these viral ads — that actually have a beginning, middle and end — to become YouTube darlings that are passed around with even greater frequency than a joint at a Grateful Dead memorial fest.
USA TODAY marketing reporter Bruce Horovitz(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)
They're counting on these viral ads — that actually have a beginning, middle and end — to become YouTube darlings that are passed around with even greater frequency than a joint at a Grateful Dead memorial fest.
Why spend a gazillion dollars on TV media time when you can get millions of Millennials to pass it along for free? This burgeoning trend ultimately will force advertisers, the networks and all of the media world to concoct some sort of mass do-over that unchains ads from 30-second hell.
From bottom to top, here are 2013's best ads — all of which went viral:
5. Chipotle: "The Scarecrow" (Moonbot Studios and CAA Marketing) 3:23. For the first three minutes and 20 seconds of this animated ad, you never see or hear the brand name Chipotle. Perhaps that's why it works so well. A bewildered scarecrow finds itself working for the sinister! Crow Foods. Nothing is as it seems at Crow Foods. Behind the "Natural Foods" billboards are sad cows being injected with hormones. Even the meat that Crow Foods sells comes stamped "100% beef-ish."
This scarecrow, however, mounts a truckload of courage. He quits his day job and returns to his farm to nurture, grow and sell food that's actually food. The ad takes a savvy swipe at America's industrial food complex. And it shows a nation of consumers, hungry for a better way, that Chipotle just may be out in front of the food curve. On a scale of one to five burritos, it's a five.
4. Pepsi Max: "Test Drive" (TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles) 3:46. After this ad lets you in, it locks the car doors and doesn't let you out. The setup is ingenious. Race car champ Jeff Gordon — in a mild-mannered disguise — shows up in the lot of a used car dealership with his eyes on a Camaro. An unsuspecting used car salesman thinks he's found a real sucker and baits him for a test drive.
In fact, it's the salesman who gets snookered the moment after he sits down and slaps on his seat belt. Gordon takes him on the ride of his life. The salesman utters all sorts of censored words and those — along his horrified facial expressions — all are captured by an in-car camera. What sells this ad most of all is the salesman's reaction when the jig is up and he finally realizes that it's all joke and he's the center of it. He casually asks: Wanna do it again? Our suggestion to Pepsi Max: Do it again.
3. Volvo Trucks: "Epic Split" (Forsman & Bodenfors Gothenburg, Sweden) 1:17. When's the last time you watched an ad with your mouth agape? It's hard to stop watching and re-watching this ad for Volvo Trucks, which features the ever-bendable Jean Claude Van Damme, pulling off Olympic-worthy splits between two Volvo trucks that ever-so-slowly edge away from each other on a sunlit freeway. The only thing between the two trucks: Van Damme and his magical leg act. The music, which sounds like a cross between a Cirque du Soleil track and some Zen-like download of music to meditate by, is perfectly haunting. It's no wonder this has become one of the most-watched auto ads of the year. Did we forget to mention that the two trucks are driving backward?
I'm fine with the fact that the safety line to which Van Damme is attached is air-brushed out of the ad. That's what makes it so much fun to watch. It feels like a high wire act with no net. The purpose of the ad: to demonstrate something dubbed Volvo Dynamic Steering. This may be the only Volvo commercial that you actually remember the day after you watch it. And the day after that.
"Volvo Trucks - The Epic Split feat.(Photo: youtube.com/volvotrucks)
2. Unilever/Dove: "Real Body Sketches" (Ogilvy & Mather, Brazil) 3:01. This ad is one of the most viewed campaigns of the year. With good reason. It oh-so-gently asks women to stop beating themselves up for the way they think that they look. Dove even enlists an FBI sketch artist to draw women as they describe themselves. ("Big chin." "Big forehead." "Big nose.")
Next, he draws them as others describe them. ("Nice chin." "Cute nose." "Nice blue eyes.") The differences between the two drawings couldn't ! be more s! triking. For all of the ads over the years that have tried to convince women that they need to buy lots of stuff and make lots of changes to achieve anything close to a state of beauty, this Dove ad runs the totally opposite direction. Its message: Never mind all that. The beauty is already there. With just a little assist from Dove, of course.
1) TrueMove H mobile: "Giving" (Ogilvy & Mather, Thailand) 3:03. When's the last time you watched an ad — in this case, an ad longer than three minutes — and wanted it to be longer? Maybe even a movie? The gritty street scene shows a desperate, young boy stealing medicine for his ailing mother. He gets caught, but a kindly cafe owner not only not only pays for it, but gives him some food, as well. Flash forward 30 years later: The café owner suffers a stroke — even as he's helping yet another beggar. His daughter, overwhelmed with his medical bills, puts the cafe up for sale. Then, she discovers the bill's been paid. That street boy who her father helped 30 years ago, it turns out, is none other than his doctor. He's picked up the tab.
The ad's slogan: "Giving is the best communication." What does any of this all have to do with a mobile phone company? Well, something about communication. But who cares? This is — far and away — the best ad of the year. And, the most beautifully filmed. You might say that in 2013, it's picked up the cosmic tab for the thousands of mostly forgettable ads that the rest of the industry spewed out before it. Yes, this is the ad that keeps on giving.
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