This is my completely biased list of my favourite ads of 2014. The year presented a lot of opportunities to create great ads. There were the usual opportunities such as the Superbowl and Christmas, but also the World Cup and the Winter Olympics. At first I tried to limit my list of ads to 10, but quickly realized I couldn’t even cut it down to 15.

There were a couple trends I noticed while compiling this list:

• Advertising is increasingly embracing peoples’ differences. Some of the ads included on this list come from non-profit organizations dedicated to challenging outdated stereotypes, but you also have for profit companies such as GoldieBlox telling girls they don’t need pink.
• Canada brought it. There are more Canadian ads on this list than I initially expected. I’m sure there is a bit of exposure bias here, but that doesn’t diminish the many great ads that came out of Canada in 2014.
• Airline safety ads got significantly less boring. More on this later in the post, but a number of airlines got creative this year.
• The best ads tell a story. You don’t need a big name celebrity to get views, you just need a good story.

Olympics

P&G
P&G has made a reputation for itself by leveraging moms in it’s ads. You’d think the concept would become tired after a while, but the ad for last winter’s Olympics kept the idea fresh. Get ready for the water works.

The Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion
There was a lot of controversy around Russia’s policies regarding gay athletes. The rest of the world made me proud by coming to the defence of those athletes. This ad in particular fought back in the best way possible – with humour.

Superbowl

GoldieBlox
The toy industry has been using the colour pink and female stereotypes for decades to sell toys. It’s great to see a company like GoldieBlox telling girls that they have a choice!

Newcastle Beer
There were a a lot of commercials featuring big name celebrities, but none were as humorous or clever as the non-Superbowl ad featuring Anna Kendrick. What made the ad exceptional, was it provided incentive for viewers to go online and view the bonus content.

World Cup

McDonalds
This spot (along with the next on the list) also made an appearance on my list of Top 10 World Cup Ads. The whole point of video content marketing is to produce videos that people want to watch. Videos of people doing cool tricks are popular on YouTube. This video almost disguises itself as user-generated content.

Beats by Dre
It’s the song and the rhythmic editing that make this ad awesome.

Christmas

WestJet
Last year, Westjet moved people to tears with its Christmas Miracle ad. How do you beat granting the Christmas wishes of an entire plane of people? Grant the wishes of an entire village!

Sainsbury
Sainsbury does some fantastic cinematic storytelling with this ad based on a heartwarming historical event.

Apple
Like all great Christmas ads (see above), Apple’s Love Song tugs on your heartstrings. It also demonstrates how technology and Apple products can breathe new life into an old song, bridging generations.

Other

Pan Am Games
Toronto is getting ready to host the Pan Am Games in 2015. I can’t express how much I fell in love with this ad when I first saw it. I’m impressed with Tourism Ontario for commissioning this one.

Wren – First Kiss
I hadn’t realized that this video was even an ad when it first went viral. There is no product placement or branding whatsoever. It’s simply a beautiful video of strangers kissing. However, Wren said the video helped increase sales by 13,600%. Well done!

Virgin America
Virgin America set a new standard for in-flight safety videos with this one. It also features some of my favourite dancers from So You Think You Can Dance. Special mention goes to the Hobbit-themed safety video from Air New Zealand.

Netflix
Netflix does a great job of leveraging it’s top original content in this ad. I love that Netflix’s digital video advertising often includes bonus content, like these outakes, which are just as funny as the ad itself.

Norwegian Students’ and Academics’ International Assistance Fund
This video does a great job at poking holes into our assumptions about charity advertising and what we know about the developing world.

Honda
Honda uses this creative video to showcase it’s innovation over the years.

Adobe
Finally, as a marketer I can truly appreciate the the clever message in this ad from Adobe.