marketing to the overworked techie
If you’re anything like Wil Wheaton and me, you’re a big fan of the Nextel dancing spot.
Or maybe you’re like Seth Stevenson and didn’t get it at all:
So, for instance, this Nextel ad—coincidentally by the same creative team behind the sheepboys and the cannibalistic Starburst sculptor—shows a trio of nondescript office workers grinding to a Salt-N-Pepa song. For no clear reason at all, other than that it looks sort of funny. Then suddenly, and unrelatedly, they spend a few seconds toward the end of the ad demonstrating their Nextel phones’ advantages. The ad’s central joke has nothing to do with the product. It’s no accident that I remembered guys dancing to “Push It” but, until I watched the ad again, couldn’t for the life of me remember what they were selling.
Clearly, Stevenson has never had a job in the kind of office where, on a particularly hard day or when you’ve just accomplished something big and important, you turn off your phone, turn up your music, and get your groove on.
I, on the other hand, work in exactly that kind of office. And I understood immediately what the ad says about Nextel’s products for business:
- Nextel makes supply chain management so easy that I’ll have time to dance in my office!
- Nextel gives me such instant access to information that I’ll barely have to interrupt my dancing to get it!
- Nextel makes me look good to my boss!
What’s so hard about that?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the playlist for when Steph and I close that big placement we’ve been working on…