Bangalore: 2011 was not a great year for the advertisement industry in terms of its creative contents. Ad gurus agree that though the ads were not brilliantly creative last year, they were likable. Talking to Business Standard, K V Sridhar, the National Creative Director at Leo Burnett India said,  “The bar has been raised as far as average creative work is concerned, which is why the likeability factor of campaigns is growing. Though creative people will have to work harder to raise the bar even further, it is a good sign.” The year seemed to have increased the frequency of popular campaigns.

The campaigns that stood out in 2011 are the ones that scored on popularity, innovation, brilliance of idea and technical finesse. The rankings as per Business Standard are given below:

Airtel’s har ek friend zaroori hota hai: This line became popular among the youth and did the rounds on social networking sites as well. It struck a chord with the youngsters while it left the rest reminiscing about their college days. Agnello Dias, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Taproot India, the agency behind the campaign says “We found that most people have different types of friends. And quite a few enjoy their varied lot. We felt playing this up would be interesting.” He said that the best way to reach out to the youth was to tap into something they understood well: friendship. He also added that the insight of all friends being important came after numerous conversations with youngsters; Har Friend inevitably scores high on the likeability factor.