Samsung S III–Everyone’s Olympics

Samsung thought they would be all cutesy and make people feel good about themselves and their place in the world. Generally, it’s a good thing to try and associate your product with positive feelings. However, it’s always a bad thing to associate your product with stupidity and confusion.

The premise of this commercial is just flat-out wrong. The Olympics aren’t for everybody–they’re for everybody’s entertainment, sure, but the Olympics are really just for a select group of highly-trained athletes with incredibly specific skill sets. Most Olympic athletes really don’t contribute that much more to society than you or me–being extremely good at badminton is not the same as being extremely good at designing propulsion systems or being extremely good at city planning. Olympians have a very specific skill, and the Olympics are simply the best way to showcase that skill–in general, sports serve no greater purpose than to provide a diversion for the masses. A sewage engineer is more important in our lives on a day-to-day basis. So, for one thing, the slogan is what I like to call “the opposite of good”.

For another thing, half of these 2-3 second clips aren’t even Olympic sports. Surfing isn’t, and it’s shown at least three times here. Call me inattentive, but I sure haven’t seen breakdancing happen in the Olympics yet, either. And then there’s a random shot of a bunch of people at a rave or something…I don’t know, it just seems like they were throwing in a bunch of random crap to appeal to as many people as possible, without bothering to try to stay true to the commercial’s overall theme. Oh, wait, that is what they were doing? Oh.

Finally, even for the things that are real Olympic events, it’s not like they’re shown in proper context. I’ve only bothered to watch it thrice (I’m not made of time, after all), but I’m pretty sure they’re playing table tennis on a table full of bricks. And all those BMX shots seem odd to me. It would be exceedingly difficult to slide, in unison, down those handrails on the stairs. And then they all have their Samsungs strapped to their bikes, which I can assure you has happened exactly zero times in real life. Also, the kid right at the beginning is just standing there holding a tangerine. What?

At least they were putting some effort forward, but this commercial ends up being mostly ineffective and entirely clunky-looking. If David Beckham weren’t in it, nobody would care at all.

Frustration Index Meter: 4/10

Directv–Don’t Make Commercials That Don’t Make Sense

Though this blog would lead you to believe otherwise, I really don’t actively attempt to watch television all that often. I only catch, maybe between 6-7 hours per week intentionally. Certainly no more than the average person my age (and possibly less). That said, I do have access to cable through DIRECTV, so I’m subjected to a fair amount of propaganda both for DIRECTV and against Dish Network, and occasionally a mixture of both. Which doesn’t bother me inherently.

What does bother me, on a very profound level, are dumb commercials. Exhibit A:

For those of you who (mercifully) don’t have to watch this crap several times a week, DIRECTV has been spewing out different versions of the exact same commercial for at least a year now. The basic formula is thus:

When *something bad involving cable* happens, you *something*.

When you *something*, you *something else*. (Repeat x5)

Don’t *something else*. Switch to DIRECTV.

They’ve been churning out this If You Give A Mouse A Cookie nonsense for too long now, and they’re inevitably guilty of two heinous commercial crimes: they rarely make sense, and they always associate the product with something negative instead of something positive.

I’m not going to get into the illogical nature of each and every one of these ads (there are at least 5 versions that I can think of), but to make my point, let’s attempt to follow the train of thought that DIRECTV puts forth in this commercial:

1. “When you pay too much for cable, you throw things.” Well, maybe. I can follow along so far. Although it seems odd that this guy didn’t catch on that he was paying too much until right this second.
2. “When you throw things, people think you have anger issues.” This is true, but only if this is your first impression on somebody. Isn’t that his wife/girlfriend? Or at least a good friend? She’s in his house, after all. She either knows about his alleged anger issues already, or would ask what caused the abnormal behavior. Not avoid him for forever.
3. “When people think you have anger issues, your schedule clears up.” Now, that’s arguable. Does this man hold a job? Does he volunteer? Does he clean and maintain his own house? Does he visit any doctors? I guess having popcorn with the Uma Thurman look-alike was the extent of his engagements for the month.
4. “When your schedule clears up, you grow a scraggly beard.” What, did his schedule clear up for 8 months? He looks worse than when we pulled Saddam Hussein out of a hole in the  ground.
5. “When you grow a scraggly beard, you start taking in stray animals.” Ok, I’ve tried to defend this commercial, but no longer–these are two unrelated circumstances. Taking in (or at least rescuing) stray animals is just the right thing to do, and being cut off from society for having a gross, scraggly beard doesn’t affect that one way or another.
6. “When you start taking in stray animals, you can’t stop taking in stray animals.” How is he feeding all those things? I would say “with his job” but it was previously established that his schedule was 100% clear. Why doesn’t he turn them over to the proper authorities at his local Humane Society or something?

I can nitpick about stupid little details of commericals all day long. However, the real shame here is that they’ve taken their product and associated it with having anger issues, being cut off from society, poor hygiene, and the plight of animals in need. Worse still, they insist that you ignore said plight. I would (almost) let it slide if this were a first offense, but DIRECTV has also subconsciously correlated their product with complete hair loss, faking one’s own death, having one’s child be a disappointment, and getting thrashed to within an inch of one’s life and left in a ditch to die.

These are just the ads that I can think of, I’m sure there are more–or if there aren’t, there will be soon. This is because somebody (or more likely, several somebodies) at DIRECTV doesn’t understand basic principles of marketing, even though an average person like myself understands them perfectly. So, DIRECTV execs, when you hire a marketing team that doesn’t understand their field, you misunderstand your product. When you misunderstand your product, you send out flawed messages. When you send out flawed messages, prospective consumers’ subconscious minds notice. When their minds notice, you lose out on potential revenue.

Don’t lose out on potential revenue. Hire people who aren’t complete dum-dums today.

Frustration Index Meter: 9/10