They have at least four years to prepare, tons of resources to devote to the cause and the knowledge the world will be watching.

So why is it that, every time the Olympics roll around, so many advertisers trot out the same familiar formula: the montage of dramatic athletes' images accompanied by a lush musical score and/or a deep-voiced narrator?

Even before the opening ceremony’s fiery conclusion, too many of this season’s Olympic ads had started to blend together into one seemingly indistinguishable montage, separated only by Bob Costas and the actual events.

VISA

We were disappointed not to see more originality from the sponsors, but we have to admit that some of the commercials, while still formulaic, nevertheless stuck out from the fray.

We loved that Visa’s "Go World" commercials focused on the worldwide aspect of the Olympic Games, and highlighted athletes from more countries than just the United States.

The photo montage also was among the most arresting of the bunch, and the other ads in the series were equally well done. Also, if you’re going to stick with a stereotypical deep-voiced narrator, you might as well go top-shelf and call Morgan Freeman.

We also were captivated by Nike’s "Courage" commercial, with its lightning-fast series of images of athletes, animals and other visuals from around the world. The catchy soundtrack from The Killers perfectly matched the ad’s frenzied pace.

Home Depot’s obligatory series of images focused on the athletes that it employs. While it's always nice to see athletes in the lesser-publicized sports highlighted, the ad felt like something we'd seen too many times before. Instead, we would have liked to see those athletes called out in a more original, and memorable, way.

Thankfully, a few companies elected to go against the grain with ads that didn’t follow the photo montage formula.

The best of the bunch was Coca-Cola’s whimsical "Bird’s Nest" commercial, which features a series of quirky, cartoonish birds making their own nest -- modeled after the Olympic stadium by the same name -- out of straws swiped from Coke containers. We hope that the environmental destruction isn’t so bad in Beijing that actual birds are resorting to use plastic straws for their nests, but as a flight of fancy, it works.