Comments on: Time Harbinger

Time Harbinger

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:38:35 -0800

Until recently solely targeting luddites thru the medium of nubile women with Matrix-style code flittering over their tits, AOL UK has changed tack with a batshit orgy of self-Godwinisation for their latest television advertisement. [partially Adobe Flash video]

By: lemonfridge

lemonfridge — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:44:43 -0800

I LOVE their new adverts. (But still hate AOL)

By: slater

slater — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:47:11 -0800

oooooh.... "EDGY!!!!" Stupid AOL.

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:47:37 -0800

And in the advert they have John Hurt talk about Orwell being right (the internets are bad) or wrong (the internets are good) depending on which version you see. The interesting fact being that he played Winston Smith in a certain film version of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I personally think that AOL makes the internet a bad thing.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:47:50 -0800

What's the context, here? Is there some kind of big anti-Internet sentiment in the UK right now?

By: matthewr

matthewr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:54:37 -0800

Nope.

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:56:24 -0800

There is always an anti-AOL sentiment for what it's worth.

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:58:27 -0800

That's rather nuts. I saw it as a big advertisement saying 'come join AOL to exercise your darkest desires: steal someone's savings! spread evil! buy babies! get fucked-up porn and as much crazy shit as you can handle!'. I like that %18 of people to see that page happily use the internet to vote that it is 'bad'. Are these ads actually running on TV? Can anyone figure out the motivation for this insanity?

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:58:49 -0800

And in the advert they have John Hurt talk about Orwell being right (the internets are bad) or wrong (the internets are good) depending on which version you see. Or which version you want to see. The Author of Animal Farm lived in a beautiful home on Parliament Hill ten steps from Hampstead Heath, but all he could see was the bad.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:01:15 -0800

As an ad, I have to say this sucks, big time. I liked it; it was well made; but it's a terrible, terrible ad. And in my context (white middle-American freethinking forty-something cultural observer type), it feels like an interesting projection of common fears. But I don't know the UK context. (Again, would be nice to have some UKers pitch in on that.) But as an ad? No. Problems:

Doesn't mention the client until the last three or four seconds
Continually repeats the phrase "internet is a bad thing", which is liable to make people think the internet is, you know, a bad thing
Doesn't seem to know its target audience. Consider: The call to action is to an AOL forum address, "/discuss". Only AOL customers can use it. So is this a retention campaign? If not, it fails in a critical area.
Doesn't really ask people to do anything. "Discuss"? People don't go to the 'net with the goal of "discussing" (though I've no doubt that's what keeps [a lot of] them once they're there). I.e., it's not a strong call.
Finally (at least for this list) it shows them no benefit. People come away from this with nothing they can do to assuage this "badness" they've been bathed in for te previous 30 seconds.

I'm always curious how an ad like this gets made. It just seems so frankly counter-productive. Meta-monkey: That makes a dark kidn of sense, but I'm not quite that cynical yet. Anyway, AOL is so easy to hack it would be as though they were advertising themselves as a target.

By: eriko

eriko — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:01:50 -0800

batshit orgy of self-Godwinisation I just wanted to hold that up and look at it again. Shiny!

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:04:32 -0800

Yes, the internet is a bad place. Don't worry, we'll hold the door closed while you go watch reality TV, or something. Bye bye.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:04:51 -0800

... are you still here?

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:05:15 -0800

.... but all he could see was the bad. And he'd seen a lot of it. The point was to strip away the superficialities and try to expose the problems. Any society will paper over its problems, and in so doing (this is what I see as Orwell's view and I largely share it) they tend to willfully hide from themselves the things that will destroy their societies. (Anyway, I was under the impression that he was never more than middle-class, income-wise.)

By: By The Grace of God

By The Grace of God — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:12:51 -0800

It's a great bunch of ads. They do actually get me and my S.O. to "discuss", especially the one about the Internet bridging cultures depicting a chador-clad lady.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:14:16 -0800

They ran the negative advert for a week or so, then started running a positive version with counter arguments about how good the internet is. I think they were trying to highlight some debate or something. "Join the discussion" or similar was the tagline.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:17:58 -0800

Seeing as a huge portion of the UK population use the internet every day, I thought the idea was to make people angrily think, "Hey, no, it's nothing like that, the internet is great" (hence the "Some people think..."). Then once you've made people decide they love the internet, they'll want to sign up for broadband. Or something like that. For context, here's another UK internet ad that ran on heavy rotation a couple of months ago.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:18:32 -0800

I'm always curious how an ad like this gets made. This is a stylistic difference between British and American ads. US ads go in for the hard sell. Get the brand in your face right at the start of the ad, and then yell, yell, yell it again until you're sick to death of it. British ads tend to be much more oblique and many of them are extremely difficult to figure out what they are actually advertising at first. (Great examples are the classic Silk Cut and Benson and Hedges campaigns. I think that the best British advertisers credit their audience with a little bit more intelligence, and the audience tend to appreciate not being condescended to and appreciate both the advertisement, and by extension, the product.

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:21:01 -0800

"I think that the best British advertisers credit their audience with a little bit more intelligence, and the audience tend to appreciate not being condescended to and appreciate both the advertisement, and by extension, the product." Guinness

By: NinjaPirate

NinjaPirate — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:22:49 -0800

Although also Stella Artois (embedded QT)

By: Plutor

Plutor — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:29:09 -0800

eriko: "batshit orgy of self-Godwinisation I just wanted to hold that up and look at it again." I dislike it. "Batshit" can only be used to modify "insane", in much the same way that "Q" can only be followed by "U".

By: rhymer

rhymer — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:31:39 -0800

I think they're embarrassing. Somehow they manage to be faintly patronising and stupid at the same time; they're like being condescended to by someone who doesn't get it.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:32:45 -0800

Guinness (FYP) From it's earliest beginnings, right up until today - though I do think that they hit their creative apex a couple of years ago, with ads like Fish on a Bicycle

By: bouncebounce

bouncebounce — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 05:32:47 -0800

partially Adobe Flash... Still not used to seeing that.

By: athenian

athenian — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:04:08 -0800

I don't like the adverts. Peter McDermott is right that British ads are more oblique, but this feels completely like an adman's personal project, with the name of the sucker who bought it tacked on the end. The Times (UK) did a similar ad a few years ago, that had lots of pretty pictures and raised lots of deepish questions about life and humanity, and then said "Buy the Times". Bathos, or what? (The Silk Cut and Bensons adverts were oblique at least in part because of restrictions on tobacco advertising at the time). I liked the poster ads that the Church of England ran over Christmas: image.

By: fungible

fungible — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:05:30 -0800

Does anyone have links to the stuff he was talking about? Or do we have to sign up for AOL to get them?

By: glenwood

glenwood — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:34:47 -0800

This isn't an "Ad" for AOL. It's a teaser to get you to go to a website and get embroiled in discussions. It's meant to be viral / get you to start hanging out in a "community" sponsored by AOL. We're talking about it here so I reckon it's sort of working.

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:41:12 -0800

athenian - from your link I just visited www.jesus.co.uk (pop-up warning) and found the awesome FAQ featuring "Was Jesus An Alien?" The answer is fantastic "Well... I suppose people who believe a first-century carpenter was the Son of God haven't got any right to snigger." I love the Church of England. Can you imagine a church in the USA saying anything like that?

By: jlkr

jlkr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:43:27 -0800

Plutor: Never been in/seen an orgy, have you? They can get pretty batshit, with or without the insane. Another great turn of phrase from Protocols. Danke!

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 06:53:12 -0800

Glenwood, who in their right mind would want to get "embroiled in discussion" with an AOL user? Honestly. Different variations of 'asl' does not intelligent discourse make...

By: Protocols of the Elders of Awesome

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:01:46 -0800

Anyone like the title?

By: By The Grace of God

By The Grace of God — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:05:15 -0800

Just noticed it, as opposed to 'warner,' lol indeed. You write well and should get a blog. :)

By: Protocols of the Elders of Awesome

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:10:00 -0800

no gyofb bich

By: hal9k

hal9k — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:45:18 -0800

Whether this is in the public discourse or not, AOL likes the argument. Internet = Good will win out (yawn). But that's a qualified "Good" to some since it brings to mind viruses, porn, spyware or whatever the flavor threat of the day. As always, AOL seeks to further position itself as the safe on-ramp to this good thing.

By: patricio

patricio — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:54:54 -0800

longbaugh: or having a pub quiz in which you can compete against the Spanish Inquisition?

By: Simon!

Simon! — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:57:46 -0800

I think you guys are missing the point of the ad. AOL has always tried to position itself as a family-friendly alternative to the internet. That the internet is a scary, confusing place that you'll never understand and that is filled with monsters waiting to prey on your naivity. But the more commonplace the internet becomes, the less people need AOL. There was a time when the internet was intimidating and unintuitive, but nowadays even your grandma understands the basic concepts of hyperlinks and email. People just aren't scared of the internet itself anymore. And AOL has in turn gone from global powerhouse to money sink. The AOL brand is dead as an ISP. Their attempt to reposition themselves as a legitimate service was like Ford rereleasing the Pinto. Fear was their money maker, and they know it. And honestly, I think this is a hell of a business model. Terror sells, and cable news loves the internet boogeyman. AOL needs to reembrace their status as Internet Lite and actively market to the duct tape buying, rap fearing, Osama Bin Is Going To Bomb My House If The Democrats Win crowd.

By: Protocols of the Elders of Awesome

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:15:39 -0800

On the other hand Simon!, there's no chance in hell this advert or anything similar will be broadcast in America, where most of those people live.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:23:19 -0800

Simon, I didn't miss that point; I didn't want to belabour it. I understand that AOL thinks discussion about the evils of teh Internet will leave them in a good cross-sell position; but I don't really see this ad accomplishing that. It might be that it could be adjusted to do that with minor tweaks; I'm not so sure. I think the whole concept isn't very high-margin. IOW, I still think it's a bad ad, judged on the heuristics that I favor. But then, I'm of teh opinion that most really creative and interesting advertising is actually bad when judged in functional terms. "Generating interest" is not an unqualified good. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you build a solid marketing strategy to back up your wildly creative ads, you've got a better shot at making them work. But AFAICS, that's the exception, rather than the rule. That ad people continue to be able to sell these highly creative campaigns strikes me as an example of gambler's mentality in the client's marketing and product management suites.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 08:26:57 -0800

... all that said, Simon!, you may be on to something -- not for AOL (I have no confidence tey could pull it off), but for some fast-moving competitor, like PeoplePC, NetZero/Juno, or Earthlink. As it's been explained to me, AOL's broadband offerings are basically a VPN. It strikes me that somebody could refine that concept, base it on open tech, and deliver a faster and cheaper version of the same thign that had at least as much benefit. (Maybe they're already doing it.)

By: Foosnark

Foosnark — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:28:27 -0800

MetaFilter: a batshit orgy of self-Godwinisation

By: influx

influx — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:34:34 -0800

What confuses me about the adverts is the CCTV stuff, with accompanying drivel about 1984. What does CCTV have to do with the internet?

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:11:49 -0800

Remember, lodurr, you're not the target market. People who are already on the net, by and large, think it's a pretty good thing. These ads are probably targeted at the people who aren't yet connected. It's not a huge population, but they do exist. Most likely, AOL did research to find out why they're not online, and these ads are trying to talk to them. And I'm not at all sure we're well-equipped to judge whether or not they're succeeding.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 10:36:05 -0800

Well, the internet was doing just fine until AOL came along and opened the gates of zombie crapflooding hell. Thanks AOL! May you be forever violated by B1FF's angry bee filled appendage!

By: insomnia_lj

insomnia_lj — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:04:24 -0800

I'm betting that most of those who voted that the internet was a bad thing were AOL subscribers...

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:11:25 -0800

I THINK THE INTERNET IS GROOD! i mean great. great and good.

By: lodurr

lodurr — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:36:15 -0800

Malor, I don't doubt that they've got a strategy document that would sink a rowboat. I'm just saying that the initial play doesn't make sense. If their call to action takes people to a website on the AOL network, how do people take action? Unless the call to action is just window dressing, in which case, I still think that the negative semiotics are more likely to discourage than encourage. There could even be some high-concept thinking about luring people in via appeal to thanatos or something like that. And it might even work. I just don't believe that the net result will be what they're gambling on it being. Whatever. It's their money.

By: jettloe

jettloe — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:57:41 -0800

Fungible: did a 'spit-take' watching these on Channel 4 last week - especially at the near subliminal shot of the scary/creepy Osama Bin Laden. It was on the PVR so recorded with digital cam and uploaded it to Google Video (ignore my pitch at the end - i just had to do something as the ad killed me). google video link

By: Sparx

Sparx — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:24:31 -0800

Influx: I haven't seen the ad (at work), but CCTV ties in to the 1984 theme. Winston Smith was at one point doing his exercises in front of a TV, and the woman leading the exercises at one point admonishes him to pay attention or something, because it's a two way system. BB is watching.

By: normy

normy — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 12:37:51 -0800

The interesting fact being that he played Winston Smith in a certain film version of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Curiously enough, if I remember right, Hurt also played Orwell himself in a BBC dramatization of the author's final days while writing 1984 in Scotland. It was a long time ago, so my memory might be flaky.

By: 3.2.3

3.2.3 — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 15:38:45 -0800

I like that %18 of people to see that page happily use the internet to vote that it is 'bad'. that's probably a bad thing.