Customer Reviews

The 100 Best TV Commercials: . . . and Why They Worked

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3 star:		(2)
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This book covers some *great* commercials. It should be a *great* book, but it is not. Kanner is a talented writer, but she is trying to convey in words something that can only be conveyed visually. I would buy this book in a second if it were accompanied by a CD or a DVD containing the commercials.

As it is, it is hard to recommend the book, when the words fall so far short of conveying the essence of any commercial. (To see what I mean, try reading about a commercial you remember well. You will note that the description is accurate, but it does not delvier the complexity of the experience you had when you watched the commercial.)

It's not a bad book. In fact, it's probably as good as a book like this gets. But words are not a medium suited to the task at hand. Books about advertising work better when they are about print campaigns.

Turn this into a video and I'd buy it in a heartbeat! Because 40% of the included commercials are foreign, and therefore unfamiliar to most U.S. audiences, the author's words are essential to conveying the concept of the ad. As talented as Kanner is, her descriptions of the commercials fall flat. I want to *see* the commercials she's talking about, along with first-person commentary with the parties involved.

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.

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.