When Change is Bad

Commercial: Lift Off
Product: Some new SUV
Company: I don't know
               

The commercial is the one where it starts off looking like a NASA video where a rocket takes off from a launch pad. The rocket passes by the camera from nose towards engines, until a bumper sticker comes into view on the side of the rocket which says "My other vehicle is a VXQJ 478 Somejunk". Very cool concept! Totally hits home with Science/Sci-Fi geeks like me. Except the name of the darn car is SO complex it doesn't have a chance to stick in the mind.

You know what? I *loved* the commercial during the Superbowl, especially when it then panned up to the rocket's cockpit where an astronaut in full gear is sitting. The astronaut flips back his gold visor to reveal he is the Virgin Atlantic guy (that's Richard Branson). It was a brilliantly sweet and simple commercial: a visual twist on the well known "my other vehicle is..." paired with an instantly recognizable company face. Of course that was also the first problem! I associated the commercial with Virgin Atlantic and not the car company (which I still don't know!). But the commercial worked for Virgin Atlantic, as later I went to the website shown in the commercial (www.boldlygo.com) and discovered I could sign up for a Virgin Atlantic promotion, which not only did I do but I also passed the site along to family and friends I believed would be interested.

Now I've seen the commercial running without Richard Branson and the website address. Not so bad if those were the end of the changes. But they aren't. The bigger problem is that a lot of voice over has been added. Probably as an attempt to better promote the SUV. But instead I now find the commercial a jumble of long messages all hitting me at once, and the result is that none of them stick. I have no idea which car company is it, which SUV it is, and no idea why this SUV is any different or better than any other!

On a side note: I actually would not have recognized Richard Branson had it not been for commercials years ago when he ran that reality TV show.

Posted by trekker9er   0 comments   Post a comment