According to me, there are only two kinds of ads. The ones you remember and the ones you don’t.

Of the ones that you remember, I’m not getting into the details of awful looking ads because the rub-off to the brand is also negative.

In the days of Doordarshan (legacy Indian TV channel, state controlled) when content was limited to only one channel, advertisements were a welcome break and people remember the ads (aired in the 80s) even now. In those days, it wasn’t about great concept or execution, just the lack of clutter that made it amazingly easy for ads to create the brand association.

Times have changed, and television content and channels have proliferated beyong the wildest imagination. Where there is content, there are consumers, and where there are consumers, there is commerce. All that potent umpteen ad space/spots are occupied by an umpteen brands with their ads.
Some of them are so common and “stenciled”, that you would need to watch it several times over to even know which brand its associated with. Others are so bad in execution, that you wonder if there was a kid behind the creatives.

Even worse are the ones that want you to stretch your imagination, requiring a cryptologist to understand what it means. Perhaps those ads were meant to win awards, please the intelligentsia, make it a bait for future pitches. But did it connect with the customer and improve the perception, increase the sale? Who cares, the awards lie decorated in the shelf!

A great ad may never win an award, but it remains in popular perception long after it is gone. Great Ads, like the Orange (Hutch -> Vodafone ->? …) faithful dog or the Coke “Thanda matlab…” managed to linger long after and created a pleasant association with the brand.

With a thousand brands floating around, the mind choses to remember only the ones that make a distinction.

If a good ad reaches out to the intended audience, a great ad holds on to it.