Nation Agrees Latest Heineken Commercial Is Coolest Thing Ever

‘Oh My God, We All Have To Go Get Heinekens Now,’ Populace Says

CHICAGO—Americans from coast-to-coast agree Heineken’s latest ad, which features a variety of demographically diverse 21- to 35-year-old men and women drinking Heinekens at a bar, is the best thing that has been broadcast, ever.

Via Larissa.

Nice work Y&R. The campaign is back.

- Debates over terminology and semantics are for archivists and academics. If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.

Nice.

Today, TED announces its Ads Worth Spreading Challenge. An open invitation to the global advertising community to reinvent, inspire and engage audiences with a new definition of what video advertising can mean in the digital age, using TED.com as its platform.

TED is supported in part by advertising. Support from our partners allows TED to share great ideas on multiple platforms and in multiple languages around the world. But as TED’s curator, Chris Anderson, said in his address today during Ad Week: “If advertising is so great, why the hell is it largely failing on the web today?”

The Ads Worth Spreading Challenge invites the business community to submit their most forward-looking video campaigns by January 10, 2011. A judging panel will select up to 10 winning video campaigns, which will premiere at TED2011, February 28-March 4, 2011, for the gathered audience of 1500+ thought leaders, and will appear on TED.com for free for one week in March.

Good idea? Bad idea? Not sure…

Is mis-using video really the problem with advertising? Part of it, I suppose – and TED feels that more acutely than some.

I’m just wondering if TED should have leveraged it’s brand equity to shoot for an even loftier goal. Maybe we should be focused on building fully interactive experiences with rich utility – of which video could be one component – that inspires people and changes the world for better. That could be a really cool challenge.

There are of course times when the brand’s goals are perfectly suited for a video campaign ( Hot Wheel’s Interactive YouTube Races).

I’m just wondering if TED should have gone bigger. Just a thought…still excited to see what the results will be.

(Thanks to phil for the article)