Clutter Cutters: Top 10 Ads Of 2022

Brands that cut through: BlueStone, TrueCaller, Spotify, Signature Global, Livspace, Sprite, Zepto, P&G Shiksha, Uber, Tanishq, UpGrad, Oyo, Ariel, Nanhi Kali, Sabhyata, Bournvita.

Updated: January 17, 2023 17:42 IST

Brand campaigns from 2022 that deserve to be in the spotlight.

By Gokul Krishnamoorthy

This year was no different. From 600 to 700 campaigns featured by Clutter Cutters’ “Work That Speaks’ column in The Financial Express Brand Wagon online during the year, there are about 130 that make it to the monthly Top 10 countdowns. To whittle that down to 10 is a near impossible task. But it had to be done. Perhaps the fear of leaving out a deserving campaign or film has led to several shared places in this ‘Top 10 of 2022’, which features 17 stellar pieces of work by brands.

Why not HP’s Diwali film? Trust me, I have asked the question – among several others – to myself a few times before arriving at this list. Why Signature Global? That too.

What do you benchmark a campaign against? Among other things, it is important to look at the brand’s own work from the past and work in its category. When it is an ongoing campaign or one continuing with a broad theme, one also tends to look at the serendipity that it manages to bring. Fresh thoughts do tend to take the spotlight, but persisting with a brand thought in refreshing ways is by no means lesser. The latter is also tougher.

There are fantastic pieces of work from Facebook that followed ‘Pooja Didi’. But she remains the benchmark. Any brand that attempts to celebrate gender equality featuring a trans person will have to live up to the standards set by Brooke Bond and Bhima Jewellery. Any brand that attempts to speak about a woman’s remarriage will be compared against Tanishq’s gold standard. The ones that moved the needle become the benchmarks for the future.

These chosen ones are brave campaigns that evoked strong emotions. Some made us think, some made us laugh, some made us cry. What they have in common is that they all made us remember the work, remember the brands they were made for – and what the brands stood for.

With due apologies to the next 15 or 20, some of which might have made it to a top 10 created by another ad reviewer, here’s my top 10. Or should I say 17?

With heartfelt gratitude to the brand teams, agencies, production houses and everyone involved in each of them. You made 2022 count. And you made our year.

#10 BlueStone | LoveIsInTheLittleThings