World’s best ads ever #94: Stamps.com and Bob Newhart bring the laughs in ‘Mettman’
We asked our readers to vote for their favorite commercials of all time. Top creatives from the World Creative Rankings and The Drum’s Judges’ Club then ranked the ads. Now, we bring you the definitive 100 best TV and video ads of all time.
In 1999, direct-to-consumer postage company Stamps.com signed comedian and actor Bob Newhart as the new face of its brand. In October of the same year, it launched a television campaign made by creatives at Wieden+Kennedy that viewers wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
Newhart, in ‘Mettman’, plays the heir to the fictional Mettman Manufacturing Company, which, founded in 1942, has built its name on creating ‘ill-conceived products that carry the risk of serious physical injury’.
Directed by commercial filmmaker Joe Pytka, who has spearheaded TV spots for Pepsi, IBM, Canon, McDonald’s, Acura and more, the campaign was widely lauded. It debuted during a boom for Stamps.com, on the heels of its company’s $55m IPO just months prior.