The Best Of The CLIO 2022 Gold Award Winners

There was one (1) good winning ad, and three ads that didn't make me sigh/roll my eyes/shake my head/curse.

The CLIO winners used to be, fairly consistently, pretty good work. Not any more. To be clear here: I only loved one (1) CLIO Gold-winning ad from this year. However, I will at least acknowledge three other entries that many less-discerning people loved, but that I did not—though I didn’t dislike them. Small victories, people.

Burberry (The UK)

Critics loved-loved-loved this “film” via The UK where a magical wind comes up and allows four fashionable friends to defy gravity, eventually embracing over the English Channel off the White Cliffs Of Dover. Kind of a cool digital trick. Not much else. Created by: Riff Raff Films.

Let’s fly to France. Better food.

Samsung (Germany)

More digital trickery via Germany for Samsung. A spider (let’s call him “Boris”) with many eyes (most spiders have 6-8) is entranced by a billboard image of the Samsung Galaxy X22 Ultra with five “eyes”. Nazareth’s “Love Hurts” (needs a better track, see caption below) emphasizes the heartbreak experienced by the cute arthropod as the billboard is removed. Happy ending! Spider’s man brings home the phone and takes many photos of the love-struck creature. Ad agency: Publicis Groupe, Germany.

I only have eyyyyes for you (better track choice).

Verizon (USA)

My second favorite CLIO winner. Lot of money spent on the CGI of this two-minute “epic” showing accurate depictions of glitches, apparently. Gamers on reddit loved the spot because of the accuracy. It is entertaining. I especially liked the growing pile of red staplers and of course the cat. The track choice, Joe Walsh’s “Life of Illusion” is perfect.

Sell line:

“Don’t live with lag. 5G built for Gamers."

Ad agency: Madwell, Brooklyn. Directed by: Doug Liman.

“Dude…WTF”

KFC (France)

Lastly, the only truly great spot to win a Gold CLIO which I first wrote about earlier this month. This is what I wrote:

The commercial was made to celebrate the reopening of cinemas in Europe. That was the brief. The brilliance here is how the creatives smartly co-sold cinemas and KFC chicken. The Foley Artist is real, but the crunch sounds…I approve the creative license used here.

Will probably end up being my best commercial of 2022. Ad agency: Havas, Paris.

Sell all 41 CLIO Gold winners here.