Hello!
And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus essentially said that Cingular does in fact have the “fastest national wireless data network” as well as “the largest push-to-talk network in America.” The National Advertising Division also said the nation’s largest wireless operator could legitimately claim to have “more bars in more places.” I can almost hear Cingular’s Stan Sigman sighing in relief.
This news from the National Advertising Division is extremely important. But before we go into the details, let me first point out that the National Advertising Division has the extremely unfortunate acronym of NAD. I can’t believe that a bunch of savvy advertising people and marketers actually agreed to the acronym of NAD. I mean, NAD? NAD NAD NAD. NAD. Hilarious.
(If you don’t know why I think this is funny, just say the word “nad” to any 12-year-old boy and then ask him why he’s laughing. This should also give you some insight into my level of maturity.)
NAD.
Anyway, what was I talking about? Nad…. Oh, right, Cingular’s advertising claims. Although NAD said Cingular does indeed have more bars in more places (My question is: Where are these bars, and what’s on tap? Update : Astute reader Dave writes, “I laughed knowingly at your ‘more bars in more places’ comment today. When (Cingular) came out with that slogan, I thought ‘whoo-hoo! Let the drinking begin!’ But they’ve now changed it to ‘more signal bars in more places.’ Which not only mangles the line’s lyrical quality, it’s now much more difficult to ridicule.”), NAD refuted other Cingular marketing messages. NAD said Cingular does not offer “the broadest and deepest portfolio of wireless business solutions” and Cingular’s people and partners actually do not “make wireless work for more businesses than any other wireless carrier.” Somewhere, I can hear Mr. Sigman saying, “D’oh!”
After NAD issued its ruling, the association then mobilized a highly trained team of crack advertising enforcement officers to take down Cingular’s offending ads—by ANY means necessary…
Actually… no. That’s not true, I just made that part up. But wouldn’t that be cool?
OK, now on to my point: All these squabbles over advertising claims are just nonsense. I mean, who even takes ads seriously anymore? Verizon Wireless tells me they have the “most reliable network,” Sprint Nextel has the “most powerful network,” and Cingular has the “fewest dropped calls.” Why believe any of these slogans if they’re all claiming basically the same thing?
I think I agree with my colleague and arch-nemesis Dan Meyer, managing editor of RCR, who wrote recently that the carriers should just settle their advertising disputes in a cage fight to the death. I fully applaud this suggestion, and would like to buy some front-row seats.
I mean, pretty much every company in wireless claims they’re the “leading provider” of whatever they sell. Can everyone be the “leading” provider? Shouldn’t someone be the “barely staying afloat” provider? Or maybe the “almost bankrupt” provider?
Indeed, here at RCR we’re the “Voice of the wireless industry.” Are there other voices out there? No, it’s just us. Everyone else is totally and absolutely silent, mainly because they’ve had their vocal cords pulled out through their noses. And if anyone ever makes a peep we’ll send out our crack squad of drunken journalists to silence them—by ANY means necessary.
So my point is that advertising claims are just that—claims. No normal person believes them, or even gives them a second thought. Thus, thankfully, we can all be the “leading provider” of whatever crap we’re selling.
NAD.
OK! Enough of that. Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. Wanna check out other Worst of the Week entries? Click here for past columns.
And now, some extras:
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Did you see that intelligence from cell phones helped U.S. forces kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? I’ve never been happier to be part of the wireless industry. Congrats to all involved.
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Looks like the wireless carriers cashed in on the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Am I the only one worried that Verizon Wireless is going to pull a Lex Luthor and figure out a way to control the weather or something, thereby getting more people to sign up for wireless? Let’s hear it for natural disasters!
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Brainy-est quote of the week: “We anticipate that the merger of these two entities will have a synergistic effect on our ability to drive multiple streams of entertainment and infotainment through multiple digital distribution channels. The acquisition of BLI, their technology tools, and programming expertise will guarantee that we remain at the forefront of mobile entertainment while concurrently converging mobile, console, and online content categories.”—Kazumi Kitaue, chairman and CEO of Konami Digital Entertainment. Look at the big brain on Kazumi!
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And finally, worst shameless self promotion of the week: Dude, did you check out the RCR Webinar “Wireless portals: Who will own the mobile Web user?” It was totally dope. You should download the archive of it and watch it. Dope.
NAD.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.
