Its seems that casual TV viewers and large corporations handle Schadenfreude very differently. While MTV’s Jersey Shore has been a constant source of amusement for at least one Engadget editor, TMZ (our other favorite tech site) reports that Dell has joined a growing list of advertisers that are backing away from the reality series. In fact, a company spokesman (with a less jaded view of humanity than us) has gone on record stating that Dell doesn’t “condone or support ethnic bashing in any form.” And neither do we, of course — but we do love a good laugh. Jenni “Jwoww” Farley is unavailable for comment.
The status quo for the netbook has not shifted much since the Eee PC took over the world, but now Marks & Spencer has come along to revolutionize the segment with the Elonex-sourced MSNB-2009. Delivered using the company’s typically overstated advertising techniques, the machine is said to be “stylishly designed for life on the move,” “both portable and powerful,” and “style and sophistication” wrapped in a “glittery high-gloss finish.” What’s inside is rather less sparkly, the same ‘ol 1.6GHz Atom and 160GB HDD configuration that put us to sleep years ago. M&S calls this “an aspirational laptop for the modern lifestyle” and we totally agree: if you buy this you’ll aspire to buy something better. Available now in three shocking colors for “only” £279 — about $450.
There’s hardly a spokesasshole in the world of tech who doesn’t throw around some kind of tagline. And that’s fine because it’s his job, but there’s no reason for you to repeat those taglines. Especially any of these seven.
Droid Does
Verizon’s Droid commercials haven’t been around very long, but I already keep seeing various combination of “iDon’t” and “Droid does” being incorporated into everything from tweets to articles. (Hell, even we couldn’t resist it once or twice.)
I can sort of forgive occurrences of the tagline slipping into reviews or posts about the actual gadget, but several days ago I found myself overhearing a fellow practically reciting the first Droid commercial to mock his buddy’s iPhone preference. I seriously hope that I was in some sort of bizarro coffee shop or that maybe this guy was just an oddity. Please just skip this tagline, because I assure you: That guy sounded like a complete asshole.
There’s an App for That
C’mon. Be honest. How often have you slipped this gem of a tagline into a comment? And how often have you groaned or rolled your eyes because you saw someone else remark that there is in fact an app for that? It was barely funny the first few times, but at this point even your grandma is using it and that oughta tell you something.
And no, changing a word doesn’t make you sound like less of an asshole.
Think Different
Once upon a time, Apple’s “Think Different” commercial made me smile at its cleverness. Then I saw the commercial a second time and I cringed. It’s actually kinda cheesy and the tagline isn’t much better. No matter what the concept behind it is, it basically feels like it’s a nicely cut down version of the trite and overused “think outside of the box” and hearing it used feels just as irritating.
Can You Hear Me Now?
Unless you’re genuinely wondering if the person you’re talking to can hear you, there’s no way to not sound like an asshole when using the “Can you hear me now?” tagline. Not even in an ironic look-at-me-I’m-so-cool-that-I-can-say-this-to-mock-it way.
Besides, while I’m certain that he’s a nice fellow, do you really want to associate yourself with the slightly dorky-looking Verizon Guy?
It Keeps Going, and Going, and Going…
Last weekend I asked a friend how her date went. She remarked that he was like an Energizer bunny. And, as she thought I was confused by the expression, she continued to explain that he “kept going, and going, and going…” and it took me quite some willpower to not break down in tears on the spot. Someone so clever and lovely insisted on using a reference and a tagline so incredibly cliched that I’d initially thought I’d heard wrong. Please. Think of a better description for these things. (Especially since it’s probably inaccurate in that scenario since hardly gentlemen really manage to keep up with that darned bunny rabbit.)
Where Do You Want to Go Today?
Oh, as much as Microsoft’s good old “where do you want to go today?” annoys me, I actually crave to hear it sometimes. Such as in place of that grunt and nod I get from cab drivers. As with the “can you hear me now?” tagline, this one should only be used when you mean it literally and aren’t attempting to make an allusion to the commercial.
Intel Inside
I’ve seen “baby inside,” “beauty inside,” “goddess inside,” “whiskey inside,” and who-knows-what-else inside tshirts, bumper stickers, and undies. Unless I’m seriously mistaken, those are spin-offs to the ancient “Intel inside” and they’re not exactly funny anymore. I doubt that anyone can show me a single example of play on that tagline that won’t make me roll my eyes (but feel free to try). In the meantime: Let’s just not add to the ridiculousness.
External graphics cards may well be a rarity these days, but we’re not sure if this simple fact justifies the launch of a grotesque and debatably heinous ad campaign. As you can so clearly see above, Gigabyte disagrees. In order to promote its Taiwanese M1305 CULV laptop cum external graphics card dock (housing an NVIDIA GeForce GT220 desktop VGA card), it released posters featuring a disoriented person poking his / her nose, each of which were presumably in the process of “doing some soul searching.” Curious as to what these ads actually say? “How good is an expansion dock with integrated graphics card? Plug in a Gigabyte laptop and you’ll find out!” Thanks, but no thanks Gigabyte — we’re currently preoccupied with flushing our memories of this visual disturbance you’ve just forced upon us.
Psst… two more posters after the break for extra raunchiness!
We hate to point out the obvious, but it really seems that the marketing gurus at AT&T have this all wrong. Look guys — no one’s debating that AT&T’s 3G isn’t the fastest where available. We even saw as much ourselves. But Verizon’s recent slew of ads have been calling out the size of your 3G network, which you absolutely can’t argue is incredibly small when placed next to red-tinted competition. That said, AT&T is still fighting a battle to which no one has challenged it by employing the admittedly quirky Luke Wilson to show off just how much faster his favorite network can download a JPEG of himself compared to VZW. We’ve got to say that the results are fairly hilarious, but frankly, we would’ve rather seen that huge ad buy go towards a few more 3G towers here in the US of A. Vid’s after the break, per usual.
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There’s something peculiar about Verizon‘s latest addition to its promotional Droid onslaught. Sure, we get the expected Mad Libs-esque hyperboles like “it rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana,” but other nods seem to indicate an acknowledgement that, well, it’s not the prettiest of flagship phone princesses. “Should [a phone be] be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?” (Wonder who that’s a reference to.) Listen Verizon, trading “hairdo for can do” is great and all, but why can’t we simply have both brains and beauty? Still, it’s nice to know the fighting words haven’t all but left the industry. See the ad for yourself after the break.
Update: Whoa, so this is crazy. We just checked out the other suit that was dismissed, and it turns out that Verizon actually sued AT&T back in July, but not for any damages — instead, Big Red asked the court to rule that its various “Most Reliable 3G Network” taglines were actually true. That wackiness certainly explains why AT&T felt the need to push back, we suppose, and it makes Verizon’s current whining over Sprint’s “Most Dependable 3G Network” claims part of a larger, lamer pattern. We’ve included a shot of the case after the break, check it out.
Be honest: you really want to crack open a magazine and find one of these paper-thin USB key ads, right? No? Well… here’s the thing. We really think this is a cool concept — made to order, super slim, die cut USB drives that can be tucked in the pages of a newspaper or magazine (if you know what those are) — with whatever content a company wants to throw on there. However, we’re also not really sure the inserts would be compelling enough for us to ever consider loading up whatever content was on it. Regardless, that phone on the right sure seems to be familiar…
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