Best ads of 2016: Sky Q from Brothers and Sisters pips Adobe and Guinness in February

Adobe and agency Goodby Silverstein have moved B2B marketing on a few notches (helped by a pretty generous budget). Here’s a winner from February, featuring the ‘bullshit detector,’ attacking digital buzzwords for Adobe’s Marketing Cloud. Actually ‘cloud’ is a pretty bullshitty buzzword in many of its uses but never mind.

Is there a better client to work for than Guinness? When owner Diageo is making a few odd marketing moves (like dumping BBH from Johnnie Walker) Guinness and agency AMV BBDO carry on producing classic beer ads with a contemporary, ‘story-telling’ twist. Some bright spark will be working on an alternative strategy even now.

Here’s the latest: music producer and talent spotter John Hammond as the ‘intolerant champion,’ the ordinary man who did something extraordinary. Actually Hammond did so many extraordinary things in music that to call him ordinary is a bit of a stretch. But it’s a terrific ad.

If Guinness has been a good client to work for so has Sky. It’s not just the UK’s biggest single brand advertiser but also one of the most audacious. Agency Brothers and Sisters scored heavily last year with its Thierry Henry spot for Sky’s football coverage. In February the agency launched Sky’s ‘fluid viewing’ Sky Q product (you can watch the same show on all your multifarious gadgets without a break) with this craft-heavy effort.

One nagging doubt: does it actually tell you what Q is clearly enough? But there’ll be a mountain of inserts, mail shots etc doing that.

With a score of 8.5 it won February and leads over the year so far.