Sunday, June 10, 2012

 Siri Ads are Majorly Annoying

I don't get the second "Siri" ad.  I don't know who the old guy is, or why the "two iphones walk into a bar"joke is funny, and I can't understand what they're saying when they talk about  restaurants serving something that starts with an L.  The intended audience isn't sophisticated early adopters - they've had iphones for years.  People understanding the references in this ad do not need to be convinced to buy iphones.  

The first "Siri" ad, with Zooey Deschanel, is better. She's cute, the music is cute, and it sort of makes you think it might be fun to have Siri around.  The problem is the idea of having tomato soup delivered.  Who does this, when you can just open a can? People too good to eat canned soup already have iphones. You've got to live in a metro area to even have the option of getting soup delivered. And why tomato soup?  Why not something more interesting, like tiramisu?  She could be sick and want chicken soup delivered (like Sheldon in "The Big Bang Theory"), but she's not sick, she just doesn't want to go out. 

These ads are for wannabes, pathetic strivers for coolness who know all the cultural referents and want desperately to be trendy.  If they live in NYC they're sharing a tiny apartment with lots of roommates, if they're living in L.A. they've got a bigger place with fewer roommates but they're still waiting tables and selling their souls and/or bodies in some kind of success fantasy.  If they could afford iphones they'd have them already, so the only purpose of these ads is to try to make them buy something they can't afford.  

Surely, you say, advertising has a long tradition of trying to make people buy things they can't afford.  True, but the subset of people who can't afford iphones is vastly greater than the subset of people who wish they lived in New York and were able to have tomato soup delivered.  I'm thinking something along the lines of those famous Miller Lite ads would be more effective.