Best ads of 2015: Leagas Delaney for Penfolds, adam&eveDDB for Lloyds

Nobody quite crafts an ad like Tim Delaney and his crew at Leagas Delaney and this year the agency produced a labour of love for Penfolds Grange, Australia’s most famous wine.

It’s brave of Penfolds to go for a big global campaign, most posh winemakers reckon that advertising makes them look like Piat D’Or or some other dodgy downmarket blend. Let’s hope this had the Chinese and Japanese raiding their wallets.

As a prelude to moving its business from RKCR/Y&R to adam&eveDDB, Lloyds asked the agency to produce its 250th anniversary campaign. Maybe it was an audition although Lloyds Banking Group knew the agency well enough – A&E handles Halifax.

Some people said it’s just A&E’s ‘house style,’ John Lewis and all that. Others that it had bugger all to do with the reality of banking.

But it’s a brilliantly crafted way of telling what (on the face of it) is a rather un-compelling story – this bank is very old. Even Mr Delaney would have been proud of it.