The World's Best TV Ads

On-the-air TV commercials are usually bothersome excuses for channel-surfing. As an art form, though, the best ads can be more memorable than any show they interrupt. The British are masters of the form, especially in the comic mode. In British Advertising Films of 1998, an ad for IKEA has British couples with all the stereotypical national traits -- stuffiness, snobbery, obsession with the weather -- being told to buy fun furniture and "stop being so English." It's funny because it's true.

After the best of the best, there's all the rest. The winners of the Cannes 1998 Advertising Film Festival come from 17 countries and put most of the commercials on American TV to shame. Some are shockingly comical, like the German ad for English lessons that shows a family bopping their heads to a song on the radio, oblivious to the English lyrics: "I wanna fuck you in the ass." Other ads are just shocking, like the time-lapse film of what happens to your liver if you aren't an organ donor (think maggots). Ads all have the same aim: to make you do or buy something, and when that urgency meets wit and style, they can outsell anything the big (or small) screen has to offer.

-- Jumana Farouky