Alltel Ads Continue to Push the Envelope
When I first posted about the new Alltel wireless phone ads that incorporate the competition's spokesmen/women/things, I received a couple of comments to the effect that the ads would be short-lived once those competitors sicced their lawyers on Alltel. My response was that I believe the usage to be legitimate and legal.
I feel somewhat vindicated as Alltel continues to have fun with and expand the ad series, which is designed to highlight its new service that purports to allow you to create a "friends and family"-style calling group that includes non-Alltel wireless customers. They started out by running a humorous and satirical little disclosure before every ad poking fun at their own lawyers while also presumably satisfying some concerns about misuse of other companies' logos. They also added a couple of new ads to the mix, providing the other spokeslookalikes the opportunity to interact with one another (e.g. the Verizon nerd hitting on the Catherine Zeta-Jones lookalike who represents T-Mobile).
But the latest version really gets edgy, especially when you think about it in these terms: the Sprint spokesman (the big guy in the trenchcoat) rips the head off the Cingular spokesthing and uses it for a bowling ball. If that doesn't generate some legal missives, nothing will.
OK, it's a lot funnier on screen than it sounds, although one has to wonder why that guy never takes off his trenchcoat, even in the bowling alley. Since the Cingular "man" is animated, it's just "cartoon violence" and he seems none the worse for wear. Besides, the Sprint guy means no harm; he simply seems incapable of distinguishing between a real bowling ball and an animated-but-featureless head. The really brilliant aspect of the ad is that Alltel has succeeded in poking fun at two competitors without dirtying the hands of its own spokesman (who's as squeaky clean Middle America as Opie Taylor).
I just wish that Alltel's customer service was as effective as its advertising department...but that's a whole other ball o'wax.
No. "Wrong" would have been if the headless Cingular guy stumbled over to Fake Catherine, ripped off her head, and attached it to his neck, her lifeless body collapsing in a steaming, twitching heap at the feet of googly-eyed Can You Hear Me Now Guy.
Did you notice that Fake Catherine wasn't wearing bowling shoes, unlike Opie and Trenchcoat Guy? How condescending is that?
Maybe the scenario I painted above isn't so wrong, after all.
Posted by: Eric at June 13, 2006 12:47 PMAbout the publisher
Random Abbye photos...
Random Thursday: The Abbreviated Tuesday Political Edition
More rattler than meets the eye
Poop happens. And then disappears.
How the West was Won
Beware of Vampire Dog
Tieing? There's no tieing in gymnastics!
NBC Bungles Web Video
Random Thursday: The Monday Olympics Edition
On Holiday
Random Thursday
Chair Play
Book Review: "The Road"
Education is paramount. Well, next to jet skiing.
Warbirds, Old and New
The Neighborhood:
West Texas Blogs:
[Midland unless otherwise indicated]
Other Texas Blogs:
The Business:
The Church:
The World:
I saw this commercial for the first time, last night. Somehow, when seen in real time, it seemed much more like an absent-minded gesture—as if the Sprint guy simply hadn't paid attention when he reached for a ball and got the Cingular guy's head instead.
Cingular guy wasn't putting up much of a fuss about it, but then again... he hasn't got a mouth, has he? I think it would have been funnier if, when the camera returned to the seating area, Cingular guy's body was wandering back and forth, bumping into things and trying to find his head.
Is that wrong?
Posted by: Foo at June 13, 2006 12:41 PM