You know what's funny? Combining the names of places into one big unpronounceable mess. Tee hee. Take that ball and run with it, AT&T!
Guy: "I'm a student. I grew up in Philadelphia."
Mom: "What are you doing, sweetie?"
Guy: "I'm texting, Mom."
"You're probably not familiar with this method of communication, dinosaurs. It involves transmitting words over great distances? Ba-duh." What is this guy even a student of? He looks like he's 35.
Guy: "But I go to school in Delaware."
Wow, Delaware? Hold the phone. All the way from Philadelphia? Distance from Philadelphia to the University of Delaware: 40 miles. That is some coverage plan you've got there.
Guy: "My brother goes to school in Prague."
This is where the commercial gets confusing. Is this guy actually supposed to be spending time in Prague? Or is he just texting his brother? Because a phone that lets you call other places isn't exactly a revolution. I hope it's the former.
Guy: "I got a bunch of friends who study in Chicago!"
Wow. A major American city. Can you believe there's a cell phone that works in Philadelphia and Chicago? I feel like I should be picking it up from the store in my flying car and then letting my robot butler program it for me!
Guy: "So I need a network that works where I live."
I guess he was supposed to be in Prague. A couple points back. Although seriously, if you have relatives who are just studying abroad, how often are you really visiting them? Maybe a couple times a year?
Guy: "A place called 'Phila-ware-Prague-icago.'"
Sigh. AT&T, there is really nothing funny about this. It's just kind of lame. And the whole "other countries" thing is useful, but a phone that works across the US is a phone. I'm not aware of any major provider who has a problem with domestic coverage.
Voice-over: "The new AT&T. Works in more places."
More places than what? This is one of those totally empty statements that commercials are all too prone to using. Does it work in more places than it used to? Does it work in more places than the competitor? What are you saying? Oh, this was just an excuse to build an ad campaign around "funny" mashed-up place names? Well, all right.
2 comments:
Tip to loyal reader Andrew N.P. for first mentioning AT&T's odious campaign on this blog.
Good call, I'd forgotten about that. Reading the comment in question, he was also the first (in these pages) to note the silliness of bragging about your phones working in different US cities, as though cities were these technology-starved backwaters with patchwork service.
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