Significant Seven: best TV and cinema ads

Over the next few days, we are publishing highlights from this year’s Mumbrella Annual.

1. The Sydney Opera House, ‘The Ship Song Project’
What its creators called a “labour of love” is the surest sign yet of an agency finding its stride. Spine-tingling stuff as the likes of Neil Finn, Kev Carmody, Sarah Blasko and Martha Wainwright take turns to sing Nick Cave’s The Ship Song as the camera loves every angle of Australia’s most famous landmark, inside and out. Does it matter that the film has echoes of the BBC ident ‘Perfect Day’ made 14 years ago?
Agency: The Monkeys

2. Volkswagen Passat, ‘Pleasure before business’
A lovingly crafted tribute to what lots of Australians like do before they have to go to work – surf, cycle, swim – ending with a blissfully happy man in a suit, lying in a forest with donkeys. Another sincere, canny effort by an agency that knows how to hit the spot for its oldest client. The Toureg and Tiguan work that followed was good -but it did not quite live up to this.
Agency: DDB Sydney

3. Vegemite, ‘Phiggles the flying scientist’
“He flies everywhere teaching heaps of kids across Austraaalia,” does Phiggles, the flying scientist. Bundles of very Aussie charm shine in the story of a local hero brought up on our favourite spread, told by members of an outback community. “I reckon he’s got a massive brain,” says one kid. Another: “My little brother think he’s magic.” And: “Not very tall. Little beardy fella.” That it’s a true story makes a loved brand more loveable. Just shades the ‘Darwin Ice Hockey club’ spot.
Agency: JWT Melbourne