The 100 Best TV Commercials: And Why They Worked

With the hundreds of thousands of commercials we see over the years, it's illuminating to be able to have someone separate the chaff from the wheat. Here we have the 100 best of all time. Just about all of them have entered the popular culture. It's fun reading and remembering how they sold their products and services and how much more emotional and impactful commercials used to be.

This is an indispensable guide to what makes advertising work for anyone interested in advertising; and interesting for anyone who didn't think he/she was. Best of all, in a witty way, Kanner explains what the advertising had to do and whether it did it! A classic...

Kanner, an author and advertising columnist, has compiled this nice compendium of top television advertisements, and separated them into their "sell types", such as comparison ads, comic ads, product sample ads, etc. It is a good reference and primer for anyone interested in starting out in the ad biz. Included in the book are such memorable ads as American Tourister's suitcase with the gorilla ad, Memorex's "Live or Memorex" ad, and the classic Timex "Takes a Licking but Keeps on Ticking." To Kanner's credit, she includes some interesting analyses about each ad's results. When I saw her page for Coke's "Mean Joe Green" ad, I thought, "Ah hah, have I caught her in a gaphe? Although memorable the client actually thought that commercial was failure." But Kanner mentions that Coca Cola actually wented to use Roger Staubach, and that they replaced the ad after they saw it didn't work well. That thoroughness confirms that this book is a book reference.