Best ads of 2018: Apple, London Diabetes Centre and Audi show ad artistry still counts

Where does creative advertising fit into the spectrum of services that the various contenders for marketing budgets are now offering? From the consultancies to the ad-based holding companies, nobody seems quite sure. It’s accepted that it’s no longer all about ads as we knew them, but the best ones still have a huge part to play.

And here are three standout ads from March that show that magic can still be summoned.

Apple has always been a smart and enviably consistent advertiser but it’s now showing a welcome sense of adventure. Here’s the latest from creative supremo Tor Myrhen’s magic cave: for iPad’s education offering.

Ads like wot they used to be require craft and experience and the duo of writer Adrian Holmes and art director John O’Driscoll, who made their reputations initially at the great Collett Dickenson Pearce, have that in spades. CDP was the great poster agency and the duo are back in the saddle for the London Diabetes Centre, orchestrated by another old CDP hand David McLaren.

This a cross-track poster that caught the eye of Mike Everett. Not often these days that posters stop you in your tracks, although Apple’s recent series of iPhone X portraits on London tube escalators did that too.

BBH has just been just as consistent for Audi as TBWA has been for Apple. This latest effort for the Q5 keeps the flame alive although it’s strikingly modern.

So it can (still) be done then.