For some time now, we've been hearing rumors that "the new at&t" would be changing the name of its wireless carrier, which is currently Cingular, but contains part of the old debacle AT&T Wireless, to at&t. Whether or not they are going to make it lower case or not isn't the issue here, it's the fact that they're changing Cingular's name at all. The amount of money that was spent to not only build the infrastructure and the customer base that it currently has, and have it be a "new" company (I've been a customer almost a decade, from when it was Cellular One in New Jersey) rather than an old world one that just happens to have bought its way into the future has to be staggering, but they for some reason feel the need to, now that the megaconglomerate with a lot less employees than it had before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the divestiture of Ma Bell has sort of reformed itself.
I'm not really sure what the point of it is, unless you really think that people are going to harken back to the olden days of yore (ten plus years ago) when good old AT&T was providing them with phone service at home, or maybe back to the 70s and 80s when you had a nice rotary phone that weighed a ton and you rented from the phone company. What, rented a phone? Wow, and we think that today's terms and conditions are out of control.
On Wednesday, Engadget's Ryan Block mentioned that the company was looking to have the rebranding in place by the time that the Apple iPhone was released, so we're talking June-time here. Aside from the fact that a rebrand may leave Jeff Burton's #31 Chevrolet without a sponsor, potentially, why are they just flipping the switch over to a name that isn't relevant to the younger generation in this company, except for when they are reading about technology? Kids these days don't have at&t products, unless they're (now) Cingular customers or happen to have DSL at home that's brought together by them. The only reason that the next generation is going to "know" at&t is because they bought their way into their lives and changed the names (back and forth) from a ton of companies that they sort of owned in the first place, but willingly changed the names of when the companies split up. I understand the value of speaking in "one voice" to your customers, and maybe that works with bringing in new ones, but what about your existing ones who actually like what Cingular is about, think the jack is a cool logo, like the orange and black colors, and so on and so forth? If investments such as that are waste-able (which is what is going on here) then why bother being creative at all? Why don't we just go back and call everything what it originally was, just so we can make a connection with people who aren't going to be your core customers for the next two decades? I think if A&P will change it's name back to The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, I'd definitely shop there more often. Not. Bell Atlantic changing its name to Verizon (say what you want about the name) actually made sense because the company wasn't just Bell Atlantic anymore. Cingular changing its name "back" to at&t is pure vanity.
Has there ever been an anti-drug commercial that didn't treat its target audience like they were complete idiots? If there is, I haven't seen it yet. The latest one to go in my "WTF? file" is this spot created for the "Above the Influence" campaign. In it, a new fad called "SLOM" or "Sticking Leeches On Myself" is sweeping a high school. Even though it seems weird, kids are doing it just because everyone else is. Get it? It's just like smoking pot because your friends pressure you into it!
No, stupid, it's not like that at all. Kids smoke pot because pot makes them feel good. Yes, there's an element of peer pressure involved, just like with tobacco and alcohol, but that's only part of it. Kids do things to alter their state of mind because they enjoy the feeling, and to insist that it's the same as applying leeches to your face is both ignorant and insulting. If you want to tell kids there are better things to do than get high, that's fine, but the first thing you need to do is not talk down to them.
Stupid jingle that is stuck in my head, *singing* "call 1-800-GENERAL now!" Please tell me that your brain has not had the unfortunate displeasure of processing this dumb ad. A 3D (very poorly animated) character called the General (as in military general) answers the phone and claims he can help you save on car insurance. Give me the robo-dancing stylings of the smooth Geico lizard any day. First off, I have a problem with the fact that I am supposed to trust a stupid, very-weirdly moving 3D-animated character with my car insurance needs, much less my money. The not-so-well-done 3D implies that they didn't pay enough to have it done correctly, which also doesn't inspire much consumer confidence. The demeanor of the 3D General is one of a gruff and frankly ridiculous tone that I simply don't care for. I also don't like the fun this ad potentially pokes at our soldiers (though I am sure that was not the original intent). Not a very well done ad, if you ask me (not that you have to take my word for it). I've seen this ad both in TV commercials and online.
It's not an easy thing to create a successful ad that uses singing and dancing. Either the singing is OK but the commercial is annoying, or they use an established song to set some mood and sell a product, which can often be just as annoying.
There's a third category too: a spot that uses terrible singing and terrible dancing and is annoying. That's the trifecta hit by KIA in their new ads. The ones that have the KIA sales team singing "Adieu, Adieu..." and "I hate, to go, and leave this pretty sight..." and hopping around dancing as the cars roll off the showroom floor.
If there's one thing that's good about the commercial is that it's for their year-end sale, and January 1 is this Monday.
It's Christmas time, so you know what that means: those damn commercials where one spouse gives a brand new Lexus to their mate. Oh, it's so extravagant, so nice, so...pretentious? These ads have driven me crazy (I've mentioned this here before) for years, but the new twist on the spots that are running this season infuriate me even more.
I thought that when I got older, illogical commercials wouldn't be as irritating to me as they were when I was younger. But if anything, I'm even more annoyed by them now than I was when I was 25 or 30.
The woman pulls up to the laundry drive-thru in her car. She looks in the rear-view mirror and sees a cute guy in the car behind her. So she gets her clothing, then hands the woman behind the window some money and says she wants to pay for the shirts for the guy behind her, and oh yeah, give him my number too.
But what if this guy isn't getting shirts? What if this guy is married? What if this guy is 400 lbs (and no, don't yell at me for saying this, the woman is obviously making a shallow judgment about the guy just from his head)? What if this guy is gay? And who the hell gives their phone number to some random guy in a car that she has never talked to, even for a second?
If I was the woman behind the window, I'd keep the money and try to get the guy myself. At least she's going to talk to him for a while. The tagline for the ad is "Bold Takes Initative." So does stupidity.
Has everyone else seen the new Nike ad starring LeBron James? It's the one where James plays four different sides of his personality and is labeled, "The LeBrons." I personally had a hard time believing I was actually seeing what I was seeing. I mean how often is it you get four different stereotypes all in one commercial from a major company. Plus, Nike seems to think that buying ads on websites, including home page takeovers of such sites as NBA.com and BET.com counts as "new media." While I do like the idea of giving away 400,000 DVDs on the making of the spots, let me be very clear to marketers everywhere: Buying online ads does not qualify you as new media heavyweights. It's an ad buy, especially when you do it solely on huge portals and existing media sites.
Anyway, the TV commercials just annoy me and I don't really see that being any different with the campaign's online execution. The combination of smug mildly talented athlete and more stereotypes than the barbershop scene in Coming to America (without the benefit of being funny) just make it to much for me.
This is yet another example of a commercial that is absolutely no help to the consumer whatsoever.
A documentary filmmaker is walking along Loch News, talking about the elusive monster that supposedly lives there, and in the background we see the monster grab one of the Toyota trucks and pull it underwater. Then, after a few seconds, the monster throws the truck back on to land, where it proceeds to just start up again because, you know, Toyota trucks are tough and dependable.
Two things: one, there's a little disclaimer in fine print saying "not a demo of Tacoma's performance or crash capabilities." OK, then how the hell does this ad prove that it's tough and dependable? You show us a completely bogus scenario, a fantasy, to prove how tough the truck is, but then you tell us it's not an example of how tough the truck is?
And second, the people on the land are yelling "shoot it! Shooooooot it!" at the end. Why shoot the monster when it has already given you back your truck and not hurt anyone? And since when did the Loch Ness Monster become totally evil? What a lame ad.
I've been alive long enough to know that advertisers, like that fortysomething man who hangs out at high school basketball games even though he has no children, will try to make commercials seem cool to the young kids. You'll see lots of skateboarding, people jumping off of high places, use of slang that went out of style five years ago, it's all part of the game. The ad from Ampd, however, that shows a white kid in a wife beater with a camouflage hat worn cocked to one side on his head is so laughable in its weak attempt to appear hip I actually vomit blood onto my television every time it comes on. The kid doesn't even look like a real kid, he looks like someone who just donned his "white gangsta rapper" costume and is on his way to trick or treat before his mom picks him up and takes him home. This is what we call "trying too hard."
At first glance, watching the late actress Audrey Hepburn dance to AC/DC's "Back in Black" is mildly entertaining, but then one has to ask themselves if there is really anything new in this commercial. My answer to that rhetorical question is, no, there isn't. Mixing a movie star from the old days of Hollywood into a modern motif complete with modern music has been done before, and while her dance moves sync up well with the song, there is absolutely nothing new about the concept behind this commercial. If that weren't enough, there's also a subtle insult inherent in this ad, the idea that The Gap is trying to demonstrate how it can be hip for any generation by smashing a bunch of elements from different eras together. Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Sometimes mixing unique elements together works, but in this case, it doesn't.
This ad for Frosted Mini Wheats begins with a young girl at her school spelling bee. She begins to spell "aardvark" incorrectly, but her little edible pal, a Frosted Mini Wheat who is perched on the microphone stand, gives her a bit of coaching and helps her spell the word correctly. It's a cute idea, and it has nothing to do with my mild dislike for the commercial. I too have relied on talking food to help me out in school, and if it weren't for a talking pan of Rice Krispies treats I never would have passed freshman algebra. No, my problem comes later in the commercial, when the announcer states that Frosted Mini Wheats won't cause kids to "be distracted by mid-morning hunger."
Okay, the statement is true, but it applies to breakfast in general, not just Frosted Mini Wheats. If you eat a decent breakfast, you won't be hungry come mid-morning. It doesn't really matter what you ate. It's like those old Snickers commercials where people talked about how satisfying the candy bar was and how it really filled them up. Right, because that's what food does. The whole commercial could be summed up with, "eating makes you not hungry anymore." Fair enough, but what the heck does that have to do with Frosted Mini Wheats, specifically?
I haven't owned a car in years, so maybe I'm not the ideal demographic for car ads, but there is a kind of car commercial I just hate: ones where the cars or trucks do things that you can't and/or shouldn't do it real life.
Case in point: the "Ask Dr. Z" DaimlerChrysler ads that are currently running, the ones where "Dr. Z" takes the reporter out for a wacky test ride. Near the end, when the doctor and the reporter smash into the wall, a note comes up on the screen saying that it's a simulation and you shouldn't really do it. Then why show it to us? Isn't the point of an ad to show us what a car can do?
There's other ads too. The one where the car literally flies around the city, bouncing off the roofs of buildings. WTF? How does that help me in my purchasing decision? Why not just have it drive underwater or fly to Pluto? You can't do that either in real life. Or that truck commercial where the tons of metal and other trash falls from the sky and completely covers the truck, and then the truck drives away because it's so strong and well made. That's not real either, according to the disclaimer. Then why show it?
It's almost as if car companies want to have it both ways. "We're going to show you why you should buy these cars, but the reasons aren't real."
Okay, I'll admit right up front here that I'm not a very patient person, and that has a lot to do with why this commercial for MetLife kind of rubs me the wrong way. It's not just this commercial, though, as I think a lot of ads suffer from the same thing. Namely, it takes too long to get to the freaking point. It starts off talking about "IF" and how the word is everywhere, and means a lot to everyone, and blah, blah, blahbitty blah blee. See? It has me so frustrated I'm actually typing in tongues. All right, it's not a terrible ad, but after hearing all these vague ideas about the importance of "IF" without ever once stating why I should give a crap about "IF" I just want to change the channel. These days people are bombarded with ads from all kinds of mediums, and while some may be more patient than I, it seems wise to make your point in a more concise and less roundabout kind of way.
There, I said it. I know that might make me seem "weird" to people, but I don't care. It's mostly because of the heat and humidity (though there are half a dozen other reasons too). I can't stand it. June, July, and August are like hell to me. Every June I pray for September's arrival. Yeah, September can be warm too, but fall is within view. I wish it could be November all year long. I'm a fall, cold weather guy.
Another thing I hate about summer? Commercials for cool, refreshing drinks. I must see 20 or 30 ads every single day, for various Coollatta drinks at Dunkin' Donuts, ads for Pepsi and Coke, those Blizzard things at Dairy Queen. You know what? When I'm sweltering in my apartment, the last thing I want to see on TV are ads for cool, refreshing drinks. It just ticks me off. One, I can't reach into that world and be cooled off like the happy people in the ads. And two, those cold drinks aren't that refreshing and cooling, especially when it's 93 degrees and humid. They aren't a cure-all. You see these people in the commercials, and they're in the city, sweating their you-know-whats off in the concrete jungle, and I watch it and even if that damn Coors "love train" comes by, it still makes me feel even more hot and humid.
This isn't just one ad that irks me, it's several ads I've seen over the years. Whenever they show someone in a commercial carrying a bag of groceries, the bags are always filled badly or in a weird way. They are packed one of two ways: they are either filled illogically, with heavy items like half gallons of milk or cans of peaches in heavy syrup right on the top crushing the bread and the eggs and the paper cups, or the items being advertised in the commercial will be right on the very top of the bad, BY COINCIDENCE. The wife will be home and the husband will say he has a splitting headache, and the wife will say something like, "hey, take two Painaway. You'll never have another headache again!" And he'll take them even those he's skeptical, and the headache goes away and then snuggle on the couch or go run with the dog outside or something.
And people in commercials all use paper bags still. What's up with that?
For some time now, we've been hearing rumors that "the new at&t" would be changing the name of its wireless carrier, which is currently Cingular, but contains part of the old debacle AT&T Wireless, to at&t. Whether or not they are going to make it lower case or not isn't the issue here, it's the fact that they're changing Cingular's name at all. The amount of money that was spent to not only build the infrastructure and the customer base that it currently has, and have it be a "new" company (I've been a customer almost a decade, from when it was Cellular One in New Jersey) rather than an old world one that just happens to have bought its way into the future has to be staggering, but they for some reason feel the need to, now that the megaconglomerate with a lot less employees than it had before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the divestiture of Ma Bell has sort of reformed itself. 
Has there ever been an anti-drug commercial that didn't treat its target audience like they were complete idiots? If there is, I haven't seen it yet. The latest one to go in my "WTF? file" is 
It's not an easy thing to create a successful ad that uses singing and dancing. Either the singing is OK but the commercial is annoying, or they use an established song to set some mood and sell a product, which can often be just as annoying.
It's Christmas time, so you know what that means: those damn commercials where one spouse gives a brand new 
I thought that when I got older, illogical commercials wouldn't be as irritating to me as they were when I was younger. But if anything, I'm even more annoyed by them now than I was when I was 25 or 30.
Has everyone else seen the new Nike ad starring LeBron James? It's the one where James plays four different sides of his personality and is labeled, "The LeBrons." I personally had a hard time believing I was actually seeing what I was seeing. I mean how often is it you get four different stereotypes all in one commercial from a major company. Plus, Nike seems to think that buying ads on websites, including home page takeovers of such sites as NBA.com and BET.com counts as "
This
I've been alive long enough to know that advertisers, like that fortysomething man who hangs out at high school basketball games even though he has no children, will try to make commercials seem cool to the young kids. You'll see lots of skateboarding, people jumping off of high places, use of slang that went out of style five years ago, it's all part of the game. The ad from Ampd, however, that shows a white kid in a wife beater with a camouflage hat worn cocked to one side on his head is so laughable in its weak attempt to appear hip I actually vomit blood onto my television every time it comes on. The kid doesn't even look like a real kid, he looks like someone who just donned his "white gangsta rapper" costume and is on his way to trick or treat before his mom picks him up and takes him home. This is what we call "trying too hard."
This ad for Frosted Mini Wheats begins with a young girl at her school spelling bee. She begins to spell "aardvark" incorrectly, but her little edible pal, a Frosted Mini Wheat who is perched on the microphone stand, gives her a bit of coaching and helps her spell the word correctly. It's a cute idea, and it has nothing to do with my mild dislike for the commercial. I too have relied on talking food to help me out in school, and if it weren't for a talking pan of Rice Krispies treats I never would have passed freshman algebra. No, my problem comes later in the commercial, when the announcer states that Frosted Mini Wheats won't cause kids to "be distracted by mid-morning hunger." 
I haven't owned a car in years, so maybe I'm not the ideal demographic for car ads, but there is a kind of car commercial I just hate: ones where the cars or trucks do things that you can't and/or shouldn't do it real life.
Okay, I'll admit right up front here that I'm not a very patient person, and that has a lot to do with why this commercial for 
I hate summer.
This isn't just one ad that irks me, it's several ads I've seen over the years. Whenever they show someone in a commercial carrying a bag of groceries, the bags are always filled badly or in a weird way. They are packed one of two ways: they are either filled illogically, with heavy items like half gallons of milk or cans of peaches in heavy syrup right on the top crushing the bread and the eggs and the paper cups, or the items being advertised in the commercial will be right on the very top of the bad, BY COINCIDENCE. The wife will be home and the husband will say he has a splitting headache, and the wife will say something like, "hey, take two Painaway. You'll never have another headache again!" And he'll take them even those he's skeptical, and the headache goes away and then snuggle on the couch or go run with the dog outside or something.
