The Best Advertisement of the Year Is...

The Clio advertising conference in New York named this ad for Tasmania's most popular beer the best spot of the year:

Slate's ad man Seth Stevenson claps politely, but doesn't exactly cheer the selection. I'm no ad-ficionado, but I think it's clearly better than 99 percent of the garbage you see during the Super Bowl, which is, at least theoretically, the top ad expo of the year. It's a worthy selection.

My favorite ads of the year, for what it's worth, both came out around the Super Bowl: the French girlfriend ad from Google and the "I'm on a horse" ad by Old Spice. The first is simple and direct, just like the product, and unbelievably moving, as far as search engine advertisements go. The second is absurd, hilarious and iconically quotable, which is all you can ask for out of a 30-second clip. They are embedded below.