Anyone in marketing watching ITV in HD on Saturday night must have been massively "excited" by the quality of advertising in the breaks. I know the unscheduled 30 second Hyundai ad break after 3 minutes wouldn’t have gone down that well (or necessarily have been an advertising highlight…), much the same as the famous "tic-tac" moment in 2009.

However, during the ‘scheduled’ break (after 45 minutes) the Nike Ad , the Audi R8 Spyder "Beauty and the Beast" ad and Adidas Originals to name a few were so brilliant – surely on a par with the Guinness surfer ad of the 1990’s. Most marketers must have been watching those ads wishing their budgets would stretch to producing what are more like films than adverts.

I guess most advertisers will have shown their hands early – other than the final I am sure the England v USA game will have the most viewers in the UK– football fatigue has to set in after a couple of weeks. And so have we seen the best adverts of 2010 or have we got better to come as the world cup progresses?

Any media planners out there got any insights?

Jonathan Hirst