Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: David Tamkin Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: AT&T Advertisement Is Stupid Message-ID: <3385@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 31 Jan 90 05:21:00 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX Lines: 41 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 66, message 2 of 8 I quoted Joel Levin in Volume 10, Issue 25: JL> Of course that's the point of the ad; what we complain about is the JL> ludicrous strawman they set up, that someone might confuse calling JL> Fiji with calling Phoenix. And of course the alternate implications, JL> that the ordinary user is stupid enough to make that mistake, or that JL> the alternate long distance carrier would make that mistake. I responded, in part: DT> There is no alternate implication. The caller dials to Phoenix twice DT> and reaches the same phone in Fiji both times. Clearly AT&T's fantasy DT> has the carrier at fault. There is a new version out, part of a longer commercial where everyone else complains that the other carriers didn't save them any money, so they switched back. In this one, Mr. Laurance (I think it's Matthew, but it might be Mitchell: they are twins after all) was hired back to redo his own voice-over. He dials only once and, in the new narration, admits to the listening audience that it was his own mistake. The claim has changed from "other carriers misroute you" to "other carriers give you dialing instructions that are too difficult for our pea-brained heads." Again, he gets p.o.'ed because he has to wait for his next bill to arrive before he can request credit instead of having it done immediately. Poor thing has to *read* his phone bill when it comes, or he'll forget about requesting the credit. If he can't ask for it while it is fresh in his mind, he'll end up paying. (More carriers are offering immediate credit now, from what I've heard in their commercials and read in their ads.) The actor looks like Mitchell but sounds like Matthew. The whole campaign looks, sounds, and smells like bullsoup. David Tamkin P.O Box 813 Rosemont, Illinois 60018-0813 | BIX: dattier dattier@chinet.chi.il.us (708) 518-6769 (312) 693-0591 | GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN No two Chinet users agree about this (or anything else). | CIS: 73720,1570