First it was 100, then over 500 complaints about the Matrix-style (that means fake looking) kung foo action in Volkswagen’s new ad. » about 100 words
From the best-of-Craigslist: Manly Bike for Sale: What kind of bike? I don’t know, I’m not a bike scientist. What I am though is a manly guy looking to sell his bike. This bike is made out of metal and kick ass spokes. The back reflector was taken off, but if you think that deters […] » about 300 words
Supposedly this is more real than it looks. See how it was made.
No sooner do I lay down a rant about how bad Sprint WiFi is than do they run an ad telling us how great their service is. Well, not only that, but they promise to save us from “Connectile Dysfunction.”
Angela Natividad described it best:
It’s hard to position broadband ads. You can be like Earthlink, which kind of laughs at the whole idea of marketing in general, and you can be like Comcast, which takes the easy way out with off-colour humour. Or you can make up a disease, kind of like Microsoft, and propose that your product will in fact cure it.
There’s a fine art to this tactic. A good rule of thumb: the closer you can get your made-up disease to sound like a sexual disorder, the better. Maybe people will get confused and mistakenly believe you could solve both problems, not just (the invented) one. Cute, Sprint. Cute.
It would all be chuckle-worthy enough if — as Zach and Matt pointed out when the shared the ad with me — if I hadn’t just complained about how lousy their Wifi service is.