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The 10 Greatest Ads Of 2014

By Holly Pyne

11 December 2014

Perfected the act of clicking the 'skip ad’ button on YouTube to a fine art form? Consider yourself so experienced at fast-forwarding through commercial breaks that watching live TV has now lost its magic? Welcome to the 21st century.

And thus with almost another year up, you might well be racking your brain as to the few advertisements which did register during 2014. You know, those which either gave you a new-found respect for a brand or product via a tricycle, sniper, Delorean or penguin.

Join us as we salute the ten best:

HBO – HBO Go

HBO’s latest series of ads not only simultaneously showed their content to be edgy while cleverly hammering home the benefits of roaming TV, they reminded us exactly how awkward watching sex scenes with parents can be. We definitely need a NSFW style abbreviation for that.

John Lewis - Monty the Penguin

Just because your mum has text you about it several times doesn't mean it’s not cool. Why you’d have to have a heart resembling an ice cube not to appreciate this new Christmas classic from John Lewis about a young lad and his lovesick penguin.

Nike - Winner Stays

Who says multimillionaire footballers with their own range of underwear and gated mansions on the edge of cities are out of touch with the common fan? Well, most people, to be fair – and yet, somehow, this Nike World Cup advert managed to convey everyone’s love for the beautiful game, superstars or park players, superbly The best World Cup ad by a mile.

Jaguar – Good To Be Bad

The myth that we all know the Queen personally and regularly have tea at Buckingham Palace won't have been quashed with this this mega budget ad, but we don't mind - enlisting the apt help of Sir Ben Kingsley, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Strong, Jaguar remind us why Brits make the best Hollywood villains.

Honda - The Other Side

Beyond ‘OMG’, putting this marvellous Honda advert into words, or even a YouTube clip, is near impossible. For that you’ll have to head to the official Honda page, where you’ll find a video allowing you to segue between similar scenarios for night and day by keeping hold of ‘R’. Easily one of the best ads of 2014, it may also be one of the smartest of all-tim

Newcastle Brown Ale’s unofficial Super Bowl ad

The Superbowl ad that wasn’t. Newcastle Brown Ale’s US marketing bods decided their money was better spent hiring Anna Kendrick to play a comically earnest “beer commercial babe” who admits getting paid “a shit ton of money to be in a commercial for a beer I don’t even drink”, bleeping any referenced of Superbowl for good measure. Refreshing, crafty and viral gold.

Ikea – Shining Spoof

We’ve never been to IKEA Singapore. But if we did we’d hunt down the ads team and roundly high-five them for this gem, which puts a different spin on Danny’s tricycle ride around the Outlook Hotel in horror classic The Shining. It’s almost as horrifying as buying Swedish meatballs from the café and dropping them onto the floor.

American Sniper trailer

Bradley Cooper stars as the most lethal marksman in US military history. Clint Eastwood directs. That was probably enough to pique our interest for American Sniper, but then this came out and swiftly became our favourite film trailer of the year.

Save the Children – One Second A Day

Save The Children’s engrossing One Second A Day campaign showed the world just what emotional and humanitarian impact a cleverly shot commercial can have. Racking up views and tear-soaked tissue boxes in the millions, we implore you to watch it again.

Phones 4 U - Welcome to the #FutureYou

What’s the first thing you think about with Phones 4 U? Time-hopping Delorean taking a middle-aged woman to the future so she can see how her new phone has brought her Hollywood fame? Maybe not, though thanks to some serious wackiness, it is one hell of an ad - even if we are quite worried she didn't even question the tariff. Her next bill could be through the roof.