Monday, October 18, 2010

TVCs for pondering

So Bruce asked me about my thoughts on a couple of ads - so I shall share these thoughts with everyone. How lucky.

This is for 10:10 global trying to encourage people to cut their carbon emissions.



I personally think this is horrendous. It's not clever, or funny or endears me to the cause in any way shape or form. It actually makes me a little mad. Negative consequences, more to the point negative consequences which are fictitious don't work for me. Yuck. I would change the channel to specifically get away from this ad.

Next ad is for the Windows Phone:



This I quite like until the last the last 10 seconds when the commercial makes NO sense at all.
The first 50 seconds are so so true and funny and clever and I can see myself and MANY people I know it a number of those situations. The issue, is that I don't believe that a phone which is capable of more would ever fix the behaviour which is shown. No way, no how. I became like some of the people represented in this commercial once I got my android. More access to more information, all the time = non-stop phone fiend.

On a related note, this is a nice commercial touching on some similar themes:

Hat tip to @Designpimp for the video above.

That's all I have to say. Anyone else got any thoughts??

1 comment:

Bruce Hoult said...

Thanks for that Monica.

Agree with you on all counts.

I don't have much more to say about the Microsoft one. Yeah, it can be a problem, but so is the hundred year old humble phone. When was it written that a ringing bell is more important than the people you're with *now*?

In fact that's where email and SMS and twitter (and even caller ID) are a distinct improvement because you can glance at it and decide whether it is important to attend to immediately or not.

And, yes, I don't see what Microsoft can do to improve things unless they either make their phone do less, or make it so unpleasant that people don't *want* to use it. People aren't spending so much time on their phones because it's too difficult and slow to bring up a map or add something to their shopping list or consult a web page. It's because it's so easy that they do it more.


The 10:10 ad is absolutely amazing. If an AGW skeptic group had made it they'd have been derided for exaggerating and trying to demonize their opponents.

As has been pointed out, it was very professionally made with people like Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Boat that Rocked), Gillian Anderson (X Files). Hundreds and hundreds of people were involved and not one of them put up their hand and said "is this really a good idea"?

The reaction has been interesting. Membership on 1010uk.org dropped from 95,000 or so to 70,000 before they took the counter down. Major corporate sponsors such as Sony and Kyocera have said "we want no part of this" and dumped them.

What were they THINKING?