I have to give the nod to Dollar Shave Club. It's hard to make a commercial that's actually funny without it feeling forced, and they pulled it off.

Did you see the bald guy with cream on his head is reading "The Lean Startup" at about 25s?

An amazing nod to the tech / HN / startup community.

Ha, no I did not. I'm sure Eric Ries would be proud.

Yeah, by far the best and just hilarious from beginning to end.

DSC's was so successful when it came out it crashed their servers until the next morning.

I signed up shortly afterward and am on the wait-list until May. Talk about successful marketing!

Where did you see it, on TV? If not, how did they get people (like you) to watch it in the first place?

reddit

The most memorable for me this year would be Path 2.0 and AirBnB. Both told a story. They got out of the malaise of screencasting demos and into the living rooms of its users. Not easy to do, and choosing the right on camera talent is essential.

I would love to see the ROI each of these had for their respective startups. IE, when is it worth it to drop $15k+ and create an adam lisagor masterpiece.

They should really define what "effective" means.