FiOS: Hey, we could suck more

Just saw one of FiOS anti-Xfinity spots the other night. To those who haven't seen the new spots, Verizon is taking aim at Comcast's recent rebrand, but the phone company does note an interesting statistic. "FiOS has four times more very satisfied customers than Comcast." Their graphic notes Comcast has 12% very satisfied TV customers, compared to FiOS 49%.

So, yes, Comcast has a lower approval rating. Now to anyone who follows the Telco industry that's not news. Like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, etc., people always take shots at the biggest guy in the industry. And of course, FiOS is only talking about TV, not Internet or phone service, although the voice-over conveniently leaves that out as well. What does surprise me is that FiOS is advertising that more than half their customers ARE NOT SATISFIED.

Now I understand the anti-comp angle here and the idea of touting your approval rating, but usually you only do that when your approval rating IS ACTUALLY GOOD. They attempt to hide this fact by using a very tall bar graph and numbers so small you can barely read them. But you don't hear grocery stores going, Less than 50% of our customers consider our stores to be passably clean. And do you see restaurants saying, Almost half the people who eat here don't get dyssentary?

But that's not all. The fine point says to visit www.changewaveresearch.com for more information. So I did, and unlike the commercial, which notes the Research is from February 2010, the Change Wave site shows a graph dated October 2009, which reads FiOS TV service (once again, television, not overall) approval rating is 46% and Comcast's is 14%. Nothing mind-blowing, but also, not accurate, or maybe FiOS is just bad at find print.

Now, I'm no genius. But, who the hell pitched this strategy and what genius actually endorsed the idea of claiming, you suck, but suck less than the other guy? All I'm saying is, I understand the whole concept of finding your unique selling proposition, but you have to be able to come up with something better than We don't suck that much. Because now it's baseball season, and many Orioles, Pirates and Royals fans have heard that phrase too many times to actually believe it. But I guess asking for 100% honesty in advertising is like asking for 100% honesty in politics or personal ads. Sometimes it's appreciated, but it's not always effective.

--George C. Convery, Copywriter

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Friday(ish) Ad Haiku: Offending Consumers

Caving to the outcry from some very vocal and thoroughly offended folks in the gay and lesbian community (and, of course, Bob Garfield), BBDO's Snickers spot--featuring Mr. T doing a drive-by on a speedwalker with a Gatling gun that fires candy bars--has been bounced from TV.

Personally, I thought the ad was funny--and well-positioned for the brand's core consumers: teenagers who eat too much crap and laugh at low-comedy. I certainly didn't see it as a candy-coated gay-hating manifesto, and I said as much on AdRants. Naturally, with a topic like this, there were some who disagreed with me. A lot. Nothing like a friendly debate to remind you why this business is so much fun.

With the recent imbroglio over offensive advertising--from anti-gay to anti-pit bull-- I've been left wondering a few things. Namely, can great advertising survive this current tide of hyper-political correctness and the continual kid-gloving of special interest groups? Or are we destined to sink into a pool of safeness, to drown in the vanilla extract of soft mediocrity?

Channeling legend Ed McCabe, adstud Dave Trott reminds us: An ad that doesn't cause a ruckus is a lousy ad.

Pissing people off is simply the occasional tax on your investment in making ads that get people's attention. I'll take that over shelling out for FICA every two weeks.

Your work has managed
not to offend anyone.
Now clean out your desk.

Previously in the Friday 5-7-5: Finding the Muse.


M.M.McDermott, ACD/Mr. Wrong

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