And the winner is: The Advertising Industry! I planned to watch the opening of the Oscars last night and ended up watching the entire show. The reason: the ads were terrific. The first few ads I saw were so good I stayed with the telecast until the end purely to view the ads. Although I do have to admit the Justin Timberlake opening and the envelope snafu at the end were superb bookends to an interesting evening. But the “advertising Oscars” stole the show.

In total I thought the Oscar ads outperformed the Super Bowl ads by a wide margin. Cadillac was a big winner on the night. When was the last time a car company won Best of Show on a big venue like the Oscars or Super Bowl? But Cadillac did a superb job and everyone who participated should have their name called out even if the band starts playing.

The Rolex ads were smart and very creative. Compliments for understanding the target and speaking directly to them.

The Google ads were a standout. Same compliment as I gave to Rolex. The work and thinking behind the ads were very smart and spoke to the audience.

Samsung did a good job as well. Again, they understood the audience and spoke clearly and effectively to them.

I wish I had kept a list of all the good ads. I apologize to those I did not mention.

Oscars to the account planners and account team who devised the strategies.
Oscars to the creative teams who supported and executed the strategies.
Oscars to the ad managers who approved the ads and guided the approval process at their respective companies.

Its great when the industry looks good and last night the industry looked very good. All of us either in the industry or like me spent their career in the industry can take a certain amount of pride from last night.

Bravo!!