Ads, ads, ads...

Although most advertisements are boring and useless it seems, some commercials spark much entertainment.  The new Nike Soccer commercial for the World Cup keeps your attention like no other advertisement has done before.  Action-packed and energizing, it keeps your heart racing, and your mind wondering what will happen next.  Stevenson even goes as far as to call it the "Greatest Ad I've Ever Seen."

Here is the ad (I tried to upload the video straight to here, but it didn't work!) :    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcWwTLMGttE

In his earlier articles, he mentioned the Clio Awards (an awards ceremony that decides the best commercials for the year).  He thought that the decisions made at the ceremony were a total joke.  So, in recent weeks following, he wrote this article to show which commercial he thought should have won.  In the article, Stevenson uses the compare and contrast method to show that this ad towers above all other ads, and Nike exceeds other companies by creating this.  He also personified the Nike company by saying that they ate Adidas' home-cooked lunch.

Seth Stevenson swayed our thinking to believe that this is the greatest ad ever by:

• Giving specific details about what happens in the commercial
• Telling us that Nike has surely surpassed Adidas in the soccer world as well as many other sports
• Giving the fact that says that the ad has received over twelve million view on YouTube and seventeen million on other Web platforms
• Giving the fact that it has been shown on televisions in more than thirty countries

I do have to agree with Stevenson though, this is one of the best, if not the best, advertisements I have ever seen.

FYI:   Here's a link to the article if you want to see it:  http://www.slate.com/id/2256074/

All About Him

Seth Stevenson is a writer for Slate online magazine.  He has also written some articles for Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, New York, and Washington Post.  Seth recently wrote a book called Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World about his adventure to travel around the world without using any sort of aircraft.  I haven't read it, but I'm sure it is a great book.


Seth won the 2005 Online Journal Award for commentary and received multiple Lowell Thomas awards from the Society of American Travel Writers.  He also has been excerpted three times in the Best American Travel Writing series.

Stevenson graduated from Brown University and currently lives in New York.