The 100 Best TV Commercials-- and why They Worked

Book excerpt: Who cares about commercials? All of us, that's who. The television commercial has become a part of the American narrative, as important a signifier of our times as a great work of literature or a blockbuster motion picture. Indeed, we often care more about the commercials than we do about the programming itself (ask any Super Bowl aficionado). The ad is art . . . and some of the art is brilliant. The hundred commercials in this book are brilliant. They were selected by a team of experts at the Leo Burnett Company, creators of Tony the Tiger and the Maytag Repairman, in collaboration with dozens of advertising pros from around the globe and throughout the industry. Their choices represent the very best that the advertising world has to offer. Together, they portray a half century of human hopes, wishes, and dreams. Bernice Kanner, whose "On Madison Avenue" column in New York magazine was required reading for more than a decade, has taken each of these small masterpieces and analyzed what made them work, why they so successfully moved us, and how they broke through the clutter to become a part of the cultural landscape. From the Marlboro Man to the Energizer Bunny, The 100 Best TV Commercials provides a hundred important lessons in how we communicate and persuade today. It is vital reading for those who create our commercial culture . . . and those who live in it.