All truly great advertising is memorable—that's a given. It can also be smart, daring, beautiful, arresting, provocative, or all of the above. However, too often in pharma, ads play it safe, and in the process, miss the opportunity to communicate or inspire action.

There is a lot of excellent work out there. And for our fourth annual Ad Stars, the Pharm Exec staff looked through a year's worth of ads to find it. We were searching for ads that made us stop and think, provided real education, reflected the needs of patients, educated in a material way, and were a good use of the medium. We were open-minded: We value creativity, effectiveness, emotional connection, branding, patient and physician insight—and you'll find ads that reflect each of these components in the following pages.

Of course, it's not just the ads that need to be celebrated, but rather the people behind the ads—the smart and innovative agency folk, the strong clients who allowed the creative teams to take risks, or simply the execs who executed according to a well-developed plan. They are our Ad Stars.

2008 Ad Stars:

• AbelsonTaylor for Daiichi Sankyo's Azor
• BBDO for Johnson & Johnson's Cypher
• Cadient Group for Novartis' Fluvirin
• Concentric Pharma Advertising for Bayer's Betaseron
• Digitas Health for AstraZeneca's Arimidex
• Draftfcb for Alcon's Pataday
• Euro RSCG Life Metamax NY for Biogen Idec and Elan's Tysabri
• GSW Worldwide for Roche's Tamiflu
• Harrison and Star for Roche and Genentech's Avastin
• Heartbeat Digital for Organon and Schering-Plough's NuvaRing
• Juice Pharma Advertising for Merck's Gardasil
• McCann HumanCare for Pfizer's Viagra
• McCann Humancare for Pfizer's Chantix
• MicroMass Communications for Shire's Fosrenol
• Regan Campbell Ward-McCann for ProEthic's Lipofen
• Unit 7 for Pfizer's Lyrica