Dear AT&T…

[ksmith]

…about your dysfunctional marriage/parents playing favorites commercials? They’re not funny. They’re not edgy. They’re cruel. I don’t remember what you’re selling, but I do remember the sneer in that bitch of a wife’s voice when she tells her schlubby husband that she should have married someone else. I remember the look on his face, just as I remember the look on the little boy’s face when his parents announce that his older sister is their favorite.

For years, your cellphone commercials featured that batshit crazy mother who hoarded unused minutes and browbeat her husband and kids for wasting theirs. Now, we’re treated to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Mommy/Daddy Dearest. Who thinks up this stuff? Does every single person in your ad agency have a shitty marriage, or what?

I mute the damned things now as soon as they come on.

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.

Comments

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Amen. Commercials showing people behaving badly--especially family badness--make me think less of the companies who chose them.

Not funny, not smart, not sophisticated...just stupid and cruel. Tell your ad agency to hire some therapists for their staff and do better.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yes, somehow I don't think "sad and angry" are feelings that a company wants its ads to invoke.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I've never seen these, and am happy at the lack, although part of me is now curious as to how they use these to actually, you know, sell things...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It seems peculiar to this company. I don't know what they think they're inspiring, but it isn't interest in their services, at least not with me.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

God. I'm upset just reading about these ads, and I've never seen them. How horrible.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I don't find them pleasant to watch at all.

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm overreacting to these particular ads, but I just don't understand how anyone could think they're useful selling tools.

Watch--I'll find out that they're some of the most popular ads ever....

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

No, you don't seem like you're overreacting at *all*. They sound utterly awful.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

Ah, one more reason I'm glad I dumped cable. I don't think you're over-reacting at all. I wonder if the same sicko dreamt up that nightmarish creep Burger King character. You have to wonder about the ad agency's pitch to the client, don't you? I mean, wasn't there *anyone* in the room who could see the emperor's willy?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yeah--he was like a cross between a clown and a ventriloquist's dummy, and those cover a broad range of creepiness.

I never did see the emperor's willy, but I never watched the commercials that closely. Looks like I missed something.