These 20 ads were the most effective of 2020: Kantar

Kantar has announced the winners in what it calls its Creative Effectiveness Awards for 2020. The list of the year's 20 most creatively effective ads was generated not by a jury, but via Kantar's Link ad-testing technique, which analysed more than 10,000 ads on behalf of clients.

Publicis and Heineken earned top honours with a US spot entitled 'Cheers to all', in which waiters and bartenders make incorrect and gender-biased assumptions about who ordered a beer versus who ordered a cocktail. 

Two APAC works made the top 20:

• At 17: 'Delivery Rider Malaysia' for Panadol Actifast by Grey Group Singapore, in which a harried delivery driver asks, 'Do I look like I have time for a headache?'
• At 18: 'The Fast and the Furious' for EBay Australia by CHE Proximity, part of an amusing series in which two postal workers speculate about the contents of EBay packages passing through their facility (here are some other examples from the series).

The complete list, with links to most of the videos, appears below. Kantar also distilled a list of the five habits of highly effective advertisers, to wit:

Be distinctive: Create the ability to be noticed and remembered in a world where there’s a profusion of ads. Your ad is not just competing in its category. It is competing for attention against the world. Stand out from the category as a minimum, and ideally from any other advertising.

Brand intrinsically: Make sure that the attention won by the ad is at the service of the brand. Get your branding cues right. A surprising number of companies forget this basic rule.

Be meaningfully different: To grow market share or defend premium pricing you need to fulfil consumers’ functional, emotional and social needs in the category AND illustrate your uniqueness compared to the competition.

Trigger an emotional response: Making the viewer feel something wins engagement for the ad, bypassing the natural tendency to screen out advertising. It also has positive effects on the brand’s emotional associations.

Talk with your consumer: Successful marketers know they can get ‘too close’ to their creative journey and lose perspective, so they listen to viewer feedback during creative development.

The company's advice is also available in expanded form in a download.

	Brand	Country	Spot	Agency
1	Heineken	USA	Cheers to all	Publicis
2	Bosch	Germany	Atino	C3 Creative Code and Content (Stuttgart )
3	Burger King	France	Consignes 2 Sécurity - The Retour	Buzzman
4	SheaMoisture	USA	It Comes Naturally	BBDO New York and JOY Collective
5	Samsung	USA	Make their year, with Galaxy Buds Live	R/GA
6	Milka	France	And a lot of Milka*	DAVID Madrid
7	Google	USA	Find your Scene	Google Brand Studio
8	TENA	UK	TENA Silhouette Washable Underwear (I will wear what I want)	AMV BBDO, London
9	TD	Canada	Keeping your business moving forward	Leo Burnett
10	Adrenaline Rush	Russia	More	KAPIBARA
11	YouTube Kids	USA	YouTube Kids Brand Anthem Film	Droga5
12	Avocados from Mexico	USA	Avocados From Mexico Shopping Network*	Energy BBDO Chicago
13	Gatorade	Chile	Gatorade GOAT CAMP	TBWA / Chiat de Los Ángeles
14	Toyota Corolla	Canada	Vente Étiquettes Rouges	The Showroom
15	Kozel	Slovakia	Pimp my goat*	Armada
16	Nissan Sentra	USA	Joy Ride	NissanUnited
17	Panadol Actifast	Malaysia	Delivery Rider Malaysia	Grey Group Singapore
18	EBay Australia	Australia	The Fast and the Furious	Che Proximity Australia
19	Siemens Home Appliances	Turkey	Ankastre	MullenLowe Istanbul
20	Hershey's Kisses	USA	Bells to Blossoms	mcgarrybowen
* Not currently available online