You've Got Annoyingly Bad Commercials
from the thank-you! dept
I don’t watch much TV, but I keep seeing the two incredibly annoying AOL commercials that I couldn’t believe anyone in their right mind would think to make. Now, Seth Stevenson over at Slate has written up exactly the reasons why the commercials are dreadful. The first one, with the mother asking for a bunch of not particularly exciting features is simply annoying, and all it really does is show that AOL has done a dreadful job telling their own users what features they get. The second, however, is just dreadful. It shows every AOL customer showing up at the headquarters to give suggestions. The message is supposed to be “AOL listens to its customers,” but what I (and apparently Seth) got was “every one of AOL’s customers has problems with the service and wants to complain.” Not exactly a strong selling point.
Comments on “You've Got Annoyingly Bad Commercials”
Bad yes.. but it could be worse
Yes the commercials are bad; particular the one with the mother. Yeah, that one’s real bad. The other one is at least cute though it does fail to delivery the message. Any message.
Maybe I’m numb to AOL but they haven’t learned how to sale their product … whatever that product is.
The animation they used of the little two dimension featureless figure was worse. I kept thinking it was a wal-mart commercial with their yellow round face ‘roll back’ guy.
AOLs basic problem is one of two things. 1) they don’t know what they are offering or 2) they have nothing to offer.
I’m leaning toward #2. The worlds moved on and they haven’t.
Re: Bad yes.. but it could be worse
AOL has the mother with child asking for all the extras at no cost…have you seen NetZero’s SAME commercial where the mom goes into AOL office and wants all those extra’s for $9.99 and the guy laughs and says you’d have to go to NetZero for that! The other NetZero copycat is the man in the AOL business office and his secretary comes in and says all their customers are leaving for NetZero! I couldn’t believe some of the same people are in both commercials!! Or they are look alikes!
They aren't alone...
Anyone notice that Comcast seems to be competing for the dumbest ad as well? Theirs suggests people are so excited about how fantastic Comcast is they just can’t wait to tell anyone. Unfortunately, it’s the company people who do the shilling! So I guess they don’t dare let actual CUSTOMERS tell their stories about Comcast?
Besides being pure Orwellian nonsense, the ad comes across to me as saying Comcast puts a gun to the heads of their employees and makes them read a prepared statement.
Gotta have programming
My fellow countrymen and countrywomen, why do you come home from your 8:30 to 7:30 jobs so that you can site lifeless in front of your braying televisions, absorbing commercial and government propaganda and rich, carbohydrate-laden meals while dreaming of the day you can afford your next piece of consumer-electronics? Get up from your television, unplug it and place it in your closet or other storage, and discover the world you only began exploring when you were a baby and your mother first put you down in front of the electronic pacifier. Love, excitement and the grandeur of a life well lived are waiting for you.
customer input
I loved AOL 1.0 when it first came out, because it meant there was finally a way for my friends and family to begin to see some of the potential of a networked world. Then AOL let them out to play on the Internet. USENET R.I.P.
Anyway, years later and now I’m in a standard cubical-dwelling corporate IT job. I could design and build wonderful process-enabling 4GL systems if I could just keep my end users from insisting on some of the more egregiously stupid “requirements.” And AOL thinks that listening to the unwashed masses is a selling point? I’m genuinely amused.
No Subject Given
My favorite part is how the users are telling *AOL* that they have ‘ideas to make the *internet* better. Funny, I didn’t realize that AOL ran the internet. To me, a (supposed) technology company putting a line like this in their commercials shows either 1) how stupid they really are about technology or 2) how patronizing they are being trying to sell people on the idea that they are the only way to get to the internet.
annoying commercials
Please quit all commercials.
annoying commercials
Please quit all commercials.
commercials
I thought you meant how commercials were just annoying in general. Listen, I’d prefer ‘bad’ ads to the modern, youth-oriented, ‘hip’ crap I see every damned day.