Pepsi re-Review

February 10, 2022 11:47 AM

It's a bit late (and not quite as "official" as the last time around), but as we approach Super Bowl LVI, why not consider revisiting some of the best non-Super Bowl commercials of the 2010s: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like [Old Spice] - Ship My Pants [Kmart] - Love Has No Labels [Ad Council] - One Second per Day [Save the Children] - Lamp 2 [IKEA] - Back to School Essentials [Sandy Hook Promise] - Embrace Life [Sussex Safer Roads] - A Boy and His Duck [Iams] - Dumb Ways to Die [Melbourne Metro] - The Truth is Worth It [NYTimes] - Like A Girl [Always] - The Best Men Can Be [Gillette] - Reindeer Games [Microsoft] - Eat the Ice Cream [Halo Top] - Dilly Dilly [Bud Light] - Dream Crazy [Nike] - Monty the Penguin [John Lewis] - The Epic Split [Volvo] - Dave's Epic Strut [MoneySupermarket] - Real Beauty Sketches [Dove] - I Will What I Want [Under Armour] - Plash Speed [Sony; subtitles] - Wes Anderson: Come Together [H&M] - Thank You, Mom [P&G] - Share a Coke [Coca-Cola]

Sources:
Business Insider: "The best ads of the decade" - Forbes: "20 Memorable Ads From The Past Decade (For Better And For Worse)" - Banfield: "10 for the 2010s: Our favourite ads of the decade"

On the other hand, the 15 worst ads of the decade. Also, was every commercial in the 2010s the same? Perhaps we'd be better off using #DoublesJubilee to revisit the best ads of the 2000s instead -- now (mostly) available in glorious HD:

Balls [Bravia] - Berries and Cream [Starburst] - Birthday [Got Milk?] - Bubble Boy [Volkswagen] - Carousel [Phillips] - Cog [Honda] - Dangerously Low [Levi's] - Diorama [Halo 3] - Evolution [Dove] - Freestyle [Nike] - Gorilla [Cadbury] - Grrr [Honda] - Hello Tomorrow [Adidas] - Lamp [IKEA] - Like [Volkswagen] - Mountain [Playstation] - Noitulove [Guinness] - Odyssey [Levi's] - Rabbit [Comcast] - Sheet Metal [Saturn] - Stork [Monster] - Swear Jar [Bud Light] - Tag [Nike] - Tea Partay [Smirnoff] - Touch [Skittles] - Wedding Toast [Budweiser] - Yes We Can [Dipdive]

posted by Rhaomi (31 comments total)

What, no English for Beginners???
posted by praemunire at 12:07 PM on February 10, 2022 [19 favorites]

Oh my goodness Lamp 2 is the BEST so far! (They are all good ads Brxx but that one really got to me.)
posted by Illusory contour at 12:17 PM on February 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

This looks fun!

Additions? Maybe Apple's Misunderstood commercial?
posted by Caxton1476 at 12:25 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Maybe not Apple's Lemmings commercial.
posted by box at 12:27 PM on February 10, 2022

Lufthansa Airlines' Everyone's Fanhansa (2016) never fails to crack me up.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:30 PM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

liquid plunger the worlds biggest asshole generations of care
posted by robbyrobs at 2:19 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I was so sad about Lamp. I'm glad it got a better ending.

Dumb Ways to Die is still on my playlist on Youtube.
posted by emjaybee at 2:31 PM on February 10, 2022

Gen X has entered the chat.
posted by praemunire at 2:39 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I could watch The Man your man could smell like for hours. "I'm on a horse!"
posted by pangolin party at 2:46 PM on February 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

link-a-riffic!
posted by j_curiouser at 2:49 PM on February 10, 2022

I'll every year or so do the Berries and Cream song at my friends and every time they require a refresher. Ditto on the Feaaaaaast Snickers saga. Hate both candies though, weirdly enough.
posted by Slackermagee at 2:52 PM on February 10, 2022

Smell like a monster
posted by praemunire at 2:52 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I tell myself that my selection of a Kenmore vacuum cleaner was my own decision and had nothing to do with Treating dirt like dirt.
posted by Western Infidels at 2:58 PM on February 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

ctrl-f "nutrigrain"
No hits.
Tsk tsk.
OHHHH YEAHHHHHH.
posted by nushustu at 3:04 PM on February 10, 2022 [8 favorites]

Here is a fresh youngster for ya! Levis, timeless.
posted by Oyéah at 3:21 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

(I thought this was best of the 2010s)
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:26 PM on February 10, 2022

I'm glad folger's never opted to try for superbowl stardom.
posted by maxwelton at 5:13 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Colin Kaepernick In Dream Crazy: "Believe in something, even is it means sacrificing everything."
posted by 3.2.3 at 6:08 PM on February 10, 2022

Jesus Christ, I was feeling pretty wrung out by the time I got through the seatbelt one and then the dog one pushed me over the edge. I have to take a break now.
posted by HotToddy at 6:19 PM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Stumbling into my Communications Studies major in the 90s gave me so many mind-blowing ideas. One of the main ones is that production values of commercials cost xxxx% more than those of movies partly because income from commercials is greater, faster and easier than movies.

Watching a playlist of commercials can seem like a filmfest of shorts.

You're not a dish, you're a man. I'm not a man, I'm a dish!
posted by bendy at 7:59 PM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Old Spice commercial is something like the perfection of the form. It manages to be all funny and weird, but never loses sight of the product it’s selling. It’s fantastically produced, written, and performed, and endlessly rewatchable. It should be studied and revered.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:10 PM on February 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

Also, mentioned in the Forbes article, but I didn't see it in the post, was Chipotle's Back to the Start ad, with Willie Nelson covering Coldplay's The Scientist, where the chain tried to stress it's move towards localized, small farm sourced produce (for whatever it's worth, starts must be had somewhere).

Even as well done as the Nelson backed commercial, The Scarecrow with Fiona Apple covering A World of Pure Imagination is even better, with a breathtaking piece of animation that is, in places, downright terrifying.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:35 PM on February 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

If you wondered what the full version of the jingle sung in the "Eat The Ice Cream" ad was, here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5ayjQliFNU
posted by ShawnStruck at 1:08 AM on February 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

That Halo Top ad is awesome because Mike Diva went the extra mile and wrote the song when he found out he couldn't afford "Mister Sandman" by the Chordettes. And then wrote lyrics to back up the story.

If you want to go down that rabbit hole check out some of his other work like Lone Wolf and the Omega Mart ads.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:20 AM on February 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

When it first came out, I thought Ship My Pants would single handedly save Kmart.
posted by ikahime at 7:16 AM on February 11, 2022

When it first came out, I thought Ship My Pants would single handedly save Kmart.

Well, it certainly remains memorable if nothing else. Almost as memorable as the smell of rancid popcorn oil that engulfed the entrance of the local Kmart.
posted by tommasz at 8:07 AM on February 11, 2022

I missed almost all of these, so, someone, please tell me that Lamp 1 and Lamp 2 ran almost back to back and we didn't have to cry for poor Lamp for an hour or a week or a month before getting the happy ending.
posted by martin q blank at 8:23 AM on February 11, 2022

we didn't have to cry for poor Lamp for an hour or a week or a month before getting the happy ending

No, only roughly a decade.
posted by praemunire at 9:43 AM on February 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

What... how come "When Harry met Santa" isn't in there?
posted by rozcakj at 11:25 AM on February 11, 2022

Because it's best of the 2010s! I'll pencil it in for the next update in ~2030.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:17 PM on February 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Because it's best of the 2010s!

Oops - perhaps I confused some of the links in the discussion thread as being newer... Heh - well, my bad - thanks for posting, cleaned-out the old tear-ducts on some of those videos!
posted by rozcakj at 1:34 PM on February 11, 2022