1/9/06

YES, I can hear you! - Verizon Commercial


On the heels of my last post, I'll give you a cell phone network whose advertising brain reserve believes that I'd want an entire army of people moving with my every step, whirring in helicopters overhead, and listening to my every word.

To go from an innocuous "Can you hear me now?" campaign, amusing in that it echoes so many of our own real conversations, to a paranoia-inducing Big Brother campaign is a little disconcerting. Actually, make that a lot disconcerting. Millions of people seem to have the ability to eavesdrop and track me, and, to boot, I had to sign a contract to get this deal.

Theft of privacy should be as scary a notion as Identity Theft. To add insult to what Verizon's injured, I've also found this little gem from His Side with Glenn Sacks on their other, more questionable ad campaigns.

Let my nightmares begin.

Note: Immediately after posting this, I came across this post on Americablog which details how anyone can purchase your cell phone records online for $110 per request, apparently just for the asking.





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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting take on the ad campaign. My take on it was of a great example of a giant corporation overwhelming its smaller competition. "Look at us — we've got so much more than those guys who are providing you right now — we've got to be better." Yeah, right.

I hadn't thought about it from the privacy perspective, though. I guess I will now, though, every time I see any of those ads.

Rosemary said...

I laugh at the ad, not for your reasons, which are thought provoking, but because we had to get rid of this cell phone company account, because we couldn't hear anybody! Granted, we live out in the sticks, but isn't that the whole point of their old ad campaign?

Lord Kronouss said...

Just once I would love to see some on in these adverts say hey I don't have a car how bout a ride.

Then again half of these adds make the city they are in look like some thing from Omega Man so are they saying that if we get there cell we turn in to the omega man? v