Verizon Ads - On A Magic Bucket Ride

This series takes a candid look at the advertising being crammed onto your television screens and into your heads. Is it really good advertising, or just wasting a commercial break? Reader suggestions are always welcome.

Verizon is part of the Big Boy's Club (AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Alltel) when it comes to the venue of wireless communications. They are probably most well known for the clever but eventually annoying "Can You Hear Me Now?" campaign whose bespectacled head geek has now transitioned into "That's My Network" without losing any of his horn-rimmed charm.

However, Verizon (just like the other BBC members) is not just about wireless phone service. They also offer television (through a contract with Direct TV) and high-speed Internet service. Logically, they must also advertise these facets of their service to make sure people know about them.

Unfortunately, their attempts at bringing attention to their high-speed Internet service by being clever have wound up leaving me not wanting their service, but rather wanting their ads to go away.

This was again a difficult video to find, but most of you have seen this "I'm Just a Guy In a Bucket" silliness.

On the first try, Verizon showed a guy struggling with his computer, praying to - God? - to "make this work." All of a sudden, here comes the Verizon technician, lowering himself right through the guy's house to help out (though, if I watched correctly, all the guy was doing was hooking up a USB cable).

The surprised gentleman makes the (rather unnecessary and perhaps even vaguely racist) comment of "I always pictured you with a beard." (Ha, ha. Santa Claus. I get it.)

The technician then proceeds to explain how purchasing Verizon's Internet service would solve all his problems. When the poor, hapless man asks about his error messages, the technician makes them go away with a point of his hand. When the gentleman starts wishing for more, the technician leaves as he says, "I'm just a guy in a bucket."

First, there's the obvious problem of a guy in a cherry-picker showing up in the middle of your stairwell. Then we add on to that the obvious logic of "hey, I can show up out of thin air and fix your computer by waving my hand, but don't make wishes, because I'm nothing more than a guy in a bucket." Uhhh, right, got it.

Article Author: Geeves

Geeves is mainly a critic of the sports and entertainment arena, recently shifting his time and resources away from his own middling blogs and into the Blogcritics realm at something resembling full time.

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