This is an ad for the ESPN app for watching sports (football
in this ad) on smartphones and tablets. I first saw this commercial during the
BCS bowl games, and it immediately made me think about something pretty
negative. It’s not a rip on ESPN or football; I like both of them. But it’s the
manner in which this spot demonstrates the use of the service that I think has some problems.
Yes, here everyone is obsessively watching football on their
smartphones, tablets, etc., to the exclusion of everything else. They are hugging
people and yet ignoring them completely at the same time, and everyone is doing it. And the truth is, smartphones are already driving
people apart, with many people playing with them so much, they don’t even
interact with their own dates, spouses, children, etc., even when they’re in
the same physical space. In fact, there are even news reports of people just walking into traffic, onto train
tracks, etc., because they are so engrossed with what they’re doing or watching
on their smartphones and tablets, they are completely oblivious to the world around them. And this
commercial really shows the negative side of this service in portraying it
unhealthily obsessing everyone who uses it like this.
So what I think they really ought to do, if they want to
stick with this eyes-glued-to-the-screen-of-the-smartphone/tablet scenario, is
this: show people obsessively watching football and hugging each other, and
accidentally hitting each other and sticking their fingers in each others eyes,
falling into each other (because they’re not looking where they’re going), etc.
Then, someone compulsively staring at the football on their phone could
unknowingly walk into traffic and get saved by having someone run and tackle
them back onto the sidewalk. Then someone on a date with someone else at a
restaurant just keeps watching the football on their phone, and their date
tackles them to try to get some attention; and then the phone goes flying into
the air, and everyone in the restaurant scrambles to get it, like with a fumble
in a football game. And in a family reunion, one guy is obsessively watching
the football, ignoring his family, and the family takes the tablet away and
plays football with it to keep it away from him, like snapping it, passing it,
running it, etc. (That way at least the family is all engaged in an activity
together.) And that would still show this service in the same negative light,
but at least it would be more fun, and it would warn people of the dangers of
obsession and overuse at the same time.
Here’s the fumbled football spot:
