Desperately dire
TV advert from
BT boasting of their new
ADSL services.
Some engineers are digging up a street when suddenly the 'pipe' breaks and a rush of CGI characters fills the local area, including:
A rhino falls from the sky and crushes a parked car.
A Hurricane swoops over the high street while the pilot goes 'tally ho!' in a Biggles voice.
Mongol Warriors gallop furiously across people's front gardens.
Dodgy looking Tekken-style fighters slug it out in a railway station.
Pigs dressed as bikers ride choppers down the sidewalk.
A huge, three headed dragon flies around.
The engineer manages to chase them all back into the pipe, and the 'problem' is solved.
Now, I work for BT Openworld and so I have a few insights into this.
Firstly, our product specialist pointed out a key flaw in this marketing: They try to sell you the product by showing it breaking. Here is the wonderful new product, and what happens? One of the company's employees breaks it. Doesn't exactly put faith into BT, does it?
Secondly, the advert would have you believe that BT invented broadband, that ADSL has only just become available. This is, of course, complete tosh, NTL has offered cheaper ADSL services for well over a year.
And, a few fun things about the promotional materials:
The two little pigs on bikes are called 'Streakey' and 'Smokey'
A huge three-headed dragon statue erupting out of the ground, surrounded by a construction barricade, was placed across from the Queens Arcade shopping centre on The Hayes in Cardiff.
We've been issued with tons of fake roadworks signs with a silhouette of a rhino with the text: "Beware: Rhinos Falling". During a recent spell of severe weather, the winds tore several of the recently fitted cladding panels off the side of our building, prompting a panic to close off the surrounding streets. Several wags took it upon themselves to cover up the signs so they now read: BEWARE: Cladding Falling. We had to enter via a linkbridge entrance from another building for a week before they declared the building safe, and our satellite dishes, which were blown out of alignment, have been inoperable since. Gah.