In this abrasive, picayune spot for AT&T, we get this same young woman AT&T sales associate from other recent ads, and she’s trying to sell service to a couple, and she’s bragging about how something costs nothing: zero, zilch, etc. Then the woman who is the customer says: “Zilch”, to which the sales associate says: “Said that already,” and in response to that, the customer says: “Zizzeroni.” And the AT&T salesperson says: “Not a thing.” Then the customer keeps trying, saying: “Zamboni”, only to be shot down again by the smug, contrarian AT&T representative, who says, snarkily: “I think that’s a hockey thing.” And seeing the possibility of this escalating, the young man customer who is with the young woman customer jumps in, saying: “You know what, just sign us up.”
It’s really amazing that AT&T, in its advertising, its public face and first impression to consumers, presents us with a smug, contrarian sales representative who condescendingly corrects and publicly humiliates a client. In real life, the couple would have told her to go (expletive) herself, and they would have gotten their phone from Verizon, whose sales people likely do not attempt to start arguments with, and seek to publicly mortify, their clientele. You’d think a salesperson would have the self control and politeness, if only for the sake of making the sale, to not treat people like crap when they’re trying to be nice, but if this is the message AT&T wants to send about the experience you will have with their company, that’s up to them. (Personally, I have found their customer service to be less than helpful on numerous occasions, which is why I am so surprised to see this ad with the snarky, superior, argumentative salesperson, because in my experience this accurately reflects the actual experience of dealing with AT&T at times. {It’s also why I am currently doing business with another company, and not with AT&T.} So maybe they’re trying to warn us about the treatment we’ll get with AT&T?)
So I think this ad should have turned out more realistically: When the salesperson said to the customer: “Not a thing,” after the customer said: “Zizzeroni,” the customer should have said: “Well, ‘not a thing’ is what you’re getting from me, jerk. I’m going to get my new phone from Verizon, because they don’t embarrass and contradict me in public and in front of my boyfriend!” And then the tag could show the annoyed woman get into a spat with her boyfriend later for not defending her, and she is so flustered that she accidentally mispronounces a word she’s saying, to which he says: “Not a thing,” and in response to that, she throws her new cell phone at him and storms off.
Or else the AT&T salesperson could be witnessed behaving in this disagreeable manner in front of her superior, and she gets fired, with the superior saying: “Don’t you know the customer is always right? It’s like the first rule of retail sales, for crying out loud!”
Here’s the combative, contradictory communications commercial:
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7scq/at-and-t-zero
I guess people being rude to each other is a big comedy thing these days, and I know ads try to be funny sometimes, but if you give the public the impression that your company is going to be rude and contrarian to your clients, you might just chase away business.
I guess people being rude to each other is a big comedy thing these days, and I know ads try to be funny sometimes, but if you give the public the impression that your company is going to be rude and contrarian to your clients, you might just chase away business.
