The Christmas commercial for John Lewis

So one year on from the schmaltzy bear and hare, we're treated to a boy and his penguin. It's a delightful return to form and will, I'm sure get a universal thumbs up. Beautifully shot, it gives us a child's eye view of the world. And a charming and captivating world it is too. Full marks to John Lewis and Adam & Eve DDB

Has Labour shot itself in the foot with its latest pop at Cleggy?

The Labour party's attempt to discredit Nick Clegg as a man of little consequence in its latest Party Political that's filmed as a kind of filmic satire through start-up agency Lucky Generals is pretty questionable. 

For a start, such a personal attack can only really be interpreted by anyone with a reasonable number of brain cells as a blatant and desperate attempt by Labour to steal votes from the Lib Dems. The motif isn't even thinly veiled here. Of course, the idea of reducing the Lib Dems to small, vertically challenged individuals of no real worth isn't new. Spitting Image famously reduced David Steel to a very small player who lived in David Owen's pocket. And I strongly suspect that the damage this image did to the SDP was instrumental in selling the idea to the Labour party. But if you're going to knock individuals, for heaven's sake do it properly. The casting for this satire is shockingly bad. Clegg and Cameron don't look or sound like the men they're meant to represent. Had the commercial been made by Fluck and Law with their famous latex puppets with voices provided by the likes of Rory Bremner, the thing might have just about worked. And it might have been a great deal funnier. As it was, the film lacked credibility and wasn't actually at all funny, which was a shame, because there was certainly an opportunity here to do something radically different.

This aside, personal attacks always look pretty mean-spirited. The Great British public are not great lovers of these kind of tactics. The best and most effective political ads have arguably always focussed on the policies. Think of all those brilliant ads that Saatchis did for Thatcher. None of those picked on individuals; they always tore into the policies.

The only other campaign that revolved around a personal attack came in the form of those 'Demon Eyes' of Tony Blair. And we all know what happened after that campaign, don't we? 

German wit, now there's a rare thing

Once in a while we get to see a truly creative piece of marketing from a sector that has a reputation for being dull and staid at best. In this case, my eyes were drawn by an ad that had been produced for a DIY store by the name of Obi. (When was the last time you admired a poster for the likes of B&Q?) Instead of buying conventional poster sites, the company had bought space on derelict buildings and renovated small sections and placed the logo and headline 'Renovated with Obi' in the right hand corners, as if they were posters. Wonderfully clever, simple and witty. But perhaps most surprising of all, German.

Great topical ad that wasn't produced by an agency

The Sochi cock-up with its Olympic rings during the opening ceremony inspired some very bright spark, and presumably a big Audi fan to create this brilliant ad. The headline, if you can't quite read it here reads: 'When four rings is all you need.' And the clever bit is that the strange star image that should have formed the 5th ring, looks just like an asterisk. What a shame both the client and the agencies didn't recognise the brilliance of the concept and have the balls (or should I say rings?) to pay the creator and run the ad worldwide.

New Old Spice commercial from the US

The first commercial to feature in 2014 on Ad-Glib is a corker from the US. In the UK we're used to seeing the Lynx commercials that feature nubile young things being attracted by blokes using dodgy aftershave. But here we're treated to something arguably far funnier and actually rather insightful. I won't say another word; just watch and enjoy. Full marks to Widen + Kennedy

Scrooge would approve

How refreshing it is to see a Christmas commercial that doesn't extoll the festive virtue of goodwill to all men, but instead focuses on the less attractive human trait of spoiling ourselves rotten. Reminiscent of Steve Martin's famous Oscar acceptance speech (in which he declared: "Thank you all so much... It was all down to me, me, me... and nothing to do with anyone else..."), this commercial created by Adam & Eve DDB (who incidentally brought us the comparatively sickly 'Bear and Hare' for John Lewis) is a delight. The casting and timing of the performances are spot on. If this doesn't make you chuckle, there really has to be something wrong with you.

Campaigning for the homeless

How do you raise awareness of the plight of London's homeless? Creative Guerrilla Marketing has come up with an original and eye-catching solution - nicely dressed individuals carrying messages written on cardboard scraps in much the same way as the homeless advertise their own plight; only in this instance the messages tell the public that these collectors do have homes and meals to go home to. This form of reverse psychology is clever; it reminds us all of our own good fortune and makes it strangely easier to give donations. And by using social media to tell the story of this novel approach, the charity is managing to raise awareness further. Ample proof surely that creative and effective marketing can sometimes be achieved on a shoestring.