Fast-rising copywriting star Sandra Valencia is a creative leader, teacher, team-builder, and frequently named in lists of the best copywriters about.
A Mexican-American now working at The Basement, Indianapolis, via a stint in Germany at Jung Von Matt, we asked for her fresh perspective on the best ads of the past four decades, to mark 40 years of Lürzer's Archive (despite the fact that she was born only three decades ago).
Newcastle Brown Ale: If we made it
This is the kind of work that sets a before and after in the industry - I remember thinking "Wow, they really hacked the Super Bowl." I think this led to many creatives finding different ways of doing that and thus creating memorable stunts from Reddit, Tide, and Coinbase.
Skittles: Settle It
I always have to think, does the team randomly throw darts at the wall, and somehow that magically works, or is it just that ridiculously fun and easy? Whichever the approach Skittles feels like the kind of kooky you can taste and never get tired of.
Honda: The Cog
From a copywriter's perspective, I read this line as a beautiful bow on top of an already impeccable idea. There's simply nothing more to say. And I think there's beauty in the simple craft of finding the right combination of words that don't let the last 120 seconds fall flat. Great track.
Sony Bravia: Balls
Again, there's a certain nostalgia about ideas like this. I can almost remember seeing these videos displayed on the many TVs of a Sears. There's enormous joy in 250,000 bouncy balls. I'd love to see an evolution of this today, not that you'd need one. 19 years later and this still holds up, elegantly.
Dove: Real Beauty Sketches
I'm certain Dove was not the first brand to rethink how women were portrayed in advertising, but in my generation, they felt like the first to help us recognize where this vicious cycle started. I'm positive that thanks to the success of social experiments like this, creatives were able to challenge themselves to reframe the way we talked about beauty.
Slowly but surely we'd have amazing campaigns like Viva la Vulva, Like a Girl and This Girl Can.
METER Group: Meltdown Flags
In the preceding of pandemic and the COP25 (25th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), Meltdown Flags evolved from a simple print idea to a symbol that activists, scientists, and climate advocates could rally behind. Data had been published for years but in no way had we gotten close to interpreting the severity of our climate timeline to a simpler illustration both politicians and citizens could understand. Creating flags that reflected the glacier melt of each country was the quickest and most widespread way of connecting our homes to a disappearing resource and an increasing threat to life as we know it: If glaciers vanish so will we.
