There was nothing plain about Spain's reign in this summer's European Championships and Nike's canny decision to associate themselves with the Iberian effort through the featured commercial proved to be pretty canny. Especially since Spain cast off their reputation as the continent's perennial underachievers by winning the tournament.

The commercial is a beautifully understated effort which depicts the people of Liverpool adjusting to the lack of British participants by switching their allegiance to Spain. It's an obvious choice for Liverpudlians as their manager and some of their star players hail from sunny Spain. Best loved of these imports is striker Fernando Torres and he took time off from filing burglary reports with the Merseyside police and completing insurance claims to appear in the ad... looking appropriately confused at the effort being made by his adopted neighbours to learn his language. Torres scored the winning goal in the Final and this must have been almost as pleasing for Nike as it was for the long-suffering Spain supporters.

DAVID recently wondered where all the decent Nike commercials had gone... since then, we've had Guy Ritchie's excellent effort and now this charming film from Outsider's James Rouse.

When Harold Macmillan was asked by a young journalist what is most likely to blow a Government off course, he famously replied, "events, dear boy, events." His marvellous example of aristocratic understatement could equally be used to describe television advertising in the current era.

In their bids to capture the attention of a fragmenting television audience, advertising agencies and their clients have grown increasingly inclined to spend their money on events which enable them to fuse advertising and public relations in the hope that the resulting noise will make their media spend go that much further. The master practitioners of this art are Fallon who have used the technique with consistently positive results over the past several years.

But there was no involvement from Fallon in the most ambitious example to date on Thursday when an entire commercial break on Channel 4 was given over to a live ad for Honda. 4 Creative's collaboration with Honda resulted in the broadcast of a parachute jump over Spain during which the participants managed to spell the five letters of the advertised brand as they hurtled towards the ground. (Had this been a commercial for Mercedes Benz... we suspect it would have ended in tragedy.)

Despite his world-weary cynicism, DAVID found himself cheering on the intrepid skydivers as he watched. As well as the obvious sense of triumph everyone must have felt on completing the stunt, there must have been an equal sense of achievement that the effort had generated so much publicity.

The Leith Agency in Edinburgh has produced a splendid new commercial for Irn Bru based on the poem If by Rudyard Kipling which manages to keep its tongue in its cheek as well as lick its lips with enthusaiasm... quite a feat, when you think about it.

Inspired by Leith's effort, DAVID offers his own modest tribute to you all:

Iffy
If you can keep your job when all about you,
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
And not give a flying toss about their doubting too,
If you can jump the queue instead of waiting,
And discard the truth and favour lies,
And not care one jot about all the hating,
And care more to look good than talk wise,

If you can dream of earning more than your master,
And have nothing but greed and avarice in your heart,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And not be able to tell them apart,
If you cannot bear to hear others speak until you've spoken,
Their words meaningless to you, your mind made up,
Them interrupted so much, their spirits broken,
You, so triumphant they cannot shut you up,

If you can talk with focus groups and discard their inconvenient truths,
Or walk with Kings and nod agreement to all they utter,
If you can ignore advice from both friend and foe and remain unmoved,
If all men say they trust you but behind your back they mutter,
If you can fill the unforgiving commercial break,
With thirty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is Purgatory and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be an Ad Man, my son!

The idea communicated by this spectacular film for the BBC is that any piece of television is made more cinematic by HD. Whoever came up with the idea of applying this principle to one of the corporation's most sedate offerings created the opportunity for a wonderfully unlikely piece of juxtaposition.

Everyone is on tenterhooks as one of the programme's experts prepares to offer what promises to be an extraordinary valuation. But who could have guessed that the news would trigger a sequence of events that would not look out of place in the blockiest of Hollywood blockbusters.

The mayhem was beautifully co-ordinated by Sonny London's Jeff Labbe (on loan to Red Bee Media) and provides a cathartic experience for anyone who has ever laboured through the dreary programme at the house of an elderly relative and longed for some pyrotechnics to enliven proceedings.

A new commercial out of DDB London for an epilator made by Philips combines edginess and effectiveness in an almost unprecedentedly successful fashion. The ad focuses its attention upon a transvestite whose need for smooth legs is beyond the usual requirement. The myriad of benefits derived from this idea deserve to be listed...

First, the commercial grabs the attention. When men are dressed as women in television commercials it is generally so we can laugh at them. In this tender portrait directed by Sonny London's Fredrik Bond, we are asked to empathise.

Secondly, the argument for the product is persuasive. Deservedly or not, men have a reputation for being fairly feeble when it comes to pain endurance and, critically, they also have hairier legs. So, this man's ability to achieve smoothness appears to underline the product's claim to be the gentlest epilator on the market.

Thirdly, the depiction of a transvestite man in such a sober manner without a hint of condescension supports the idea that Philips is a sophisticated, modern and progressive company.

Advertising is often criticised for failing to take a lead in the positive presentation of those who incur prejudicial wrath. Such criticism often overlooks the fact that advertising is much better at reflecting social trends than it is setting them. While it is incumbent on the industry to produce advertising which takes account of social responsibility... improving attitudes is, at best, a secondary role. And when a progressive agenda appears to have eclipsed the primary role of the TV commercial, the outcome can provoke a cynical response (even if, as was the case with the Dove viral which won a Grand Prix at Cannes last year, most of the industry is fooled by the sleight of hand.)

The Philips commercial's presentation of the protagonist's lifestyle in a non-judgemental fashion is a means to an end. And that end is to persuade us that the advertised product does what it is supposed to do. Both messages are all the more powerful because this prioritisation is transparent.