Continuing on with my Super Bowl Day list of my favorite recent-ish ads:
Here we have an ad that probably brings back memories for a lot of adults who grew up on those Rankin/Bass animated puppet Christmas TV specials! This comes from the much-loved and very silly TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, where Rudolph and his dentist elf friend find shelter after being rejected from Santa’s North Pole. (I guess Santa gives toys away to assuage his guilty feelings for picking on and driving away all the misfits in his midst, if that TV special is any indication.) And it’s a very clever and memorable way to make fun of a competing product for the Christmas season!
So in this spot, there are lots of misfit toys singing their merry song about being rejects and whatnot, and the iPhone shows up amongst the other unwanted toys (already inaccurate, since everyone wanted one anyway, but never mind). So the misfit toys say the iPhone doesn't belong with them, because everyone will love it, and then the iPhone shows its (purported) AT&T coverage map, and they all understand it belongs with them after all. (Except that you have to live in the boonies for it to really matter, I think. But who cares, because this spot handles such a difficult challenge with such elegance and creativity!)
Of course this is a couple of years old. Verizon has the iPhone now, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be welcome on the Island of Misfit Toys now! They all use Blackberries there, I’ll bet! (That’s so 42 seconds ago!) But what a great way to rub in the limitations of a competitor, and especially of a great product on a competitor’s network! I don’t even know if the claim was true or not, but it was a great commercial! (And they needed a great ad to try to compete with the iPhone back when it was new! Everybody wanted one whether it worked or not!)
Here’s the AT&T attacking ad:
