Best ad leaves the losers feeling a little sheepish

An ad featuring two animated bulls with substantial cow-pulling appeal has been voted the country's best television advertisement.

Viewers gave the Toyota Hilux ad more votes than the other four finalists combined for the 18th annual Fair Go Ad Awards.

"We set out to produce ads that New Zealanders love," said Andrew Stone, chief executive of Saatchi and Saatchi New Zealand, which produced the ad.

The ad has a distinctly New Zealand flavour and has not been without controversy.

The bulls in the ad call a ram a "sheep shagger," prompting 17 complaints to the Advertising Standards Complaints Board that the advertisement was offensive.

"Some of the feedback was good, and the way some people complained, you wonder if they had a sense of humour to be honest," Mr Stone said. The complaints were not upheld.

Defending the title it won last year, Tower Insurance's "no worries" campaign again took out worst ad.

"It's probably a category we don't want to dominate for too much longer," said Tower chief executive Pieter Lindhout.

Tower had lured many new customers on the back of the campaign in the last 15 months, but it would soon be time for a new approach, he said.

FAIR GO AD AWARDS

Top five finalists

Toyota: Bulls on the run
Telecom: Cat and dog
TVOne: Ten fingers and toes
Vero Insurance: Bull in china shop
Telecom: Fast kid

Worst five finalists

Teletext: Subtitles
Tower Insurance: No worries
Symbicort: Kick asthma
Ajax: Spray and wipe
Vodafone: Naked volleyball