Today, if you’re part of the generation that streams everything, you probably don’t come across many adverts. The closest you’ll get is roughly five seconds before you click the ‘Skip Ad’ button on YouTube.

Back in the day, however, adverts broke up almost every show, and a lot of them were actually pretty decent. Some were so good that they captured the public’s attention and held it long after the advert stopped playing on television.

In 1984, Impact Information started tracking adverts to see how many were out there and, more importantly, which ones were having the most impact.

Bizcommunity describes what is needed for advertising to really stand out:

When done well, ads get people talking about that particular brand or campaign, and one should never underestimate the value of “talkability” in today’s increasingly connected world of social media.

Think of the last few commercials you have discussed with friends or shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. Even if you had seen them before you would probably be happy to watch most of them again.

This brings us to the most likeable advert since 1984, Sasol ‘Ama-Glug-Glug’, created in 1999 by Lindsay Smithers FCB, now FCB Joburg.

Over to Little Black Book for more:

[It] has retained its pole position as South Africa’s Best Liked Ad ‘of all time’. This is according to Adtrack, Kantar’s proprietary advertising testing system which has evaluated the impact and liking of all brand advertising in South Africa since 1984.

Come with us for a trip down memory lane:

FCB Joburg has regularly dominated the Adtrack survey and is still leading the way, being the only agency with two campaigns in the top 10 in 2018.

Let’s get some backstory to the famous advert:

Andriesa Singleton was the Sasol client, and was the Marketing Communications Officer for Sasol Oil back in the day. It was her first job, fresh out of university. In her first year, she was tasked with finding a new ad agency for Sasol Oil. Several agencies were shortlisted, and Lindsay Smithers FCB won the pitch. From the start, she said “there was a great rapport with everyone involved, the agency made me part of the process right from the concept stage and I trusted their vision.”

“In all my years in advertising I never worked with a more trusting client than Andriesa Singleton,” says Les Sharpe, the Film Director on “Glug glug”, “she was tough but fair… once she was happy with strategy and direction she trusted us to execute the plan and take things to the next level. Making ads is easy, making history is something hard and it takes a trusting client to give you the scope. Most amazing client I ever worked with.”

The brief was to set Sasol apart from its competitors.

“Glug glug” was the brainchild of Gaby Bush, who was the Creative Director at the time, and Les Sharpe, the Film Director who brought it to life.

…“It was all shot ‘in camera’ and every detail carefully planned. Post production didn’t exist back then unless you were a Hollywood director,” remembers Les.

“Istvan Gyori, the little boy who acted in the commercial was really young so didn’t really know exactly what the script was, we just started shooting, and all of his reactions were shot in real time,” adds Chris Briggs, the producer from Sharpe Productions.

If you really want to get your nostalgia on, settle in for all the adverts that made the ‘most-liked’ list over the past 35 years:

Ugh, that elephant advert still smacks me in the feelings every time.

[sources:bizcommunity&llbonline]