The Social Distancing Ad Awards

*** Disclaimer: First off, we hope you, your family, and your work families are healthy and staying positive during this epic craziness. Now more than ever, it’s important to focus on the bright side of life and yes, advertising too. 

For example, these awesome advertisements are the most relevant, unifying, creative, philanthropic, and shocking ads to come out so far during the CoronaVirus Pandemic:

The Best Ad: McDonald’s Social Distancing Golden Arches

What It Is: McDonald’s Brazil tweeted a picture of their famous golden arches separated to show solidarity with the world practicing social distancing. The tweet has since been taken down after Bernie Sanders retweeted it with the comment “Give your workers paid sick leave” but it became viral overnight for the little bit it was live.  

Why We Like It: If the worldwide Mcdonald’s account had tweeted it and it had not been taken down, I think we could compare this ad with the infamous Oreo’s Super Bowl ad. It’s today relevant using a unique brand identifier only McDonald’s can use. 

The Most Shocking Ad: Southwest Airlines’ 24/7/365 Sale Is Still Going

What It Is: Southwest Airlines is notorious for always running a sale. They changed up their usual blue background, price, and sale tag ads to mention there are no change fees when you book through June. Southwest seems to be the only major travel brand that has actually increased their ad spend in the last few weeks.

Why We Like It: While most every travel brand pulled their ads because just about no one is traveling, Southwest is spending money to remind you that if you need to travel, they will help you travel with low fares, no change fees, employee & customer safety being a priority, and the ability to book through June 6th.

The Surprise Philanthropy Ad: Anheuser-Busch Now Makes Hand Sanitizer 

What It Is: Arguably the world’s largest beer distributor, known for their funny Super Bowl ads and catchy taglines, strikes a completely different tone announcing they are going to be converting some of their supply chains to make hand sanitizer for those who need it. 

Why We Like It: We like it for two reasons. First off, they are striking a completely different cord than what we generally associate their brand with. Instead of “buy our beer” it’s “we’re here to help the world” and we appreciate that! Secondly, they use the brand elements of their iconic beer bottles in a small hand sanitizer form! We would buy this bottle over Purell long after this pandemic is over!

The Best Ad Placement: Coke Runs Uniting Ad In Empty Time Square

What It Is: In classic Coca Cola fashion they have dropped one of the best taglines of this pandemic on the world in white font on the classic Coke red background. Coke has had some of the best taglines of all time like “Taste The Feeling” ...

Why We Like It: There is a famous advertising research study which explained that for every one time someone drinks a coke, they have seen the Coke logo or heard the name five times in the past. We love the fact that Coke used an already paid for Time Square ad placement to not only spread the social distancing message but do something they knew would be shared on social media around the world.

The Best ‘Trying To Stay Relevant’ Ad: Promo.com Has The Content (and TP) You Need To Get Through This 

What Is It: Promo.com is notorious for using their own content which they sell to their customers, in their ads. Having been a customer of them and countless of their competitors, I can confidently say they have the largest collection of stock videos that don’t feel like stock videos. This is them continuing to show off their content library. 

Why We Like It: It’s fun, relevant, and made us laugh! The video starts with just a still shot of a roll of toilet paper in front of a bright yellow background. If that’s not thumb stopping these days IDK what is?! Pretty simple and awesome if you ask us. 

Which ads would you nominate?

Which ads would you give awards to?

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