My Most Immortal Ad: Shane O'Brien on Dos Equis' 'Most Interesting Man in the World'

With just four weeks to go until this year's Immortal Awards deadline, our jurors have been taking it in turns to select the ads and campaigns that are most immortal to them, revealing the reasons why they've stayed with them until this day.

Shane O'Brien, executive creative director for BBDO Dublin, selects a long-running beer campaign from Euro RSCG that received the Saturday Night Live treatment and spawned an internet meme...

The deadline for this year's Immortal Awards is Friday 10th September. More information on how to enter can be found at the bottom of the article.

I don’t always recommend advertising campaigns, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. 

This wasn’t the first ad I ever loved, or even the campaign that made me want to have a career in advertising, but ‘The Most Interesting Man in the World’ is one that I just keep coming back to over and over again.

“He’s a lover not a fighter… But he’s also a fighter, so don’t get any ideas…”

The writing is relentlessly funny. The casting is of Jonathan Goldsmith is inspired. Steve Miller’s direction is just so sharp. It’s a testament to just how strong a campaign it was that a compilation of all of the executions they made during the 10 years it ran for is over 20 minutes in length. That’s a lot of 30 second spots. And it never really flagged as an idea. You could put it on air now and it would still cut through.

I’ve no doubt I’ll still be coming back to this in 10 years’ time - which makes it an immortal campaign for me anyway.

Credits

Agency: Euro RSCG

Director: Steve Miller

Entries to The Immortal Awards are now open and Little Black Book members can make their submissions here today.