AT&T mLife commercials: judge for yourself
As I wrote several days ago, I thought AT&T Wireless' mLife television commercials during the SuperBowl were moronic. Indeed, I don't want to associate with anyone who liked the commercials!
But the advertising industry is funny. Commercials (TV or radio) don't have to be liked to be considered a success. If the commercial's purpose is achieved -- many people talking about or buying the product/service -- then it's successful. If it's also considered artistically brilliant or intellectually stimulating (a commercial?), all the better. But that's gravy.
Well, lots of people certainly were talking about the mLife commercials, mostly in negative terms. Dotcom Scoop didn't like them, and wrote about others who didn't.
But John Gaffney, in Business 2.0, did like them. Gaffney gives AT&T credit for "bold branding." He also says the commercials drove people to AT&T's mLife Web site, which was the goal. If that was indeed the goal, then these vapid commercials were "successful."
Perhaps the commercials were intentionally vacuous to encourage you to visit the mLife site to find out what mLife was all about. However, the site wasn't even available for part of the SuperBowl.
Judge for yourself. If you haven't seen them, go to iFilm which has all the SuperBowl commercials, including AT&T's on its site. There are five AT&T commercials. I could view four, but I haven't been able to view "The Model" commercial. I assume it's as stupid as the others.
Good commercials
If you want to see an interesting and, I think, successful commercial, look at the HotJobs.com commercial on iFilm. It grabs your attention, you try to figure it out and, then, AHA, you understand. A successful commercial doesn't have to be air-headed.
If you want to see another interesting -- and, possibly, disturbing -- commercial, look at the Xbox commercial on iFilm. It was never aired, and it's easy to see why. I like it, but I'm strange.
9:51:31 AM 
|
