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November 25, 2004
Duelling ads









This is insanely brilliant. AOL recently began running a series of insanely smug commercials: In one, they portray their company heads as sagely anticipating everything their customers want; in another, their customers show up to offer "some ideas to make the Internet better." (That latter one is stupidly galling -- since it's another example of how AOL likes to keep its already clueless customers even more so, by misinforming them about what precisely the Internet is and who "runs" it, as if the people in AOL's board room created and administer the whole thing. "Hey folks, no need go anywhere else but AOL's flavorlessly bland canned sites. We are the Internet! Say -- why don't we go check out some Time Warner web sites?")

Anyway. The point is, AOL rival NetZero decided to parody the ads -- by hiring identical actors and setting up identical, shot-by-shot reconstructions, except with scripts that mock AOL for offering nothing more than NetZero offers, at twice the price. You can see both sets of ads, back to back, at this site here.

I have no idea if AOL will sue, or even if they can. Would this constitute fair use, because of its parodic nature? Advertising is protected speech, so I'm guessing so, but I'm not a lawyer. Anyone have a more informed opinion?


(Thanks to Techdirt for this one!)

Posted by Clive Thompson at November 25, 2004 03:39 AM

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» Sunday, November 28, 2004 09:48 PM from Critical Section
Have you seen those lame AOL ads, where they claim to be responsive to their customers? Well NetZero has gone them one better [Read More]

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Comments

There is nothing more pathetic than AOL and it's
annoying presence. Hats off to Net Zero to sending a little flatulence their way.

Posted by: Fritz at November 25, 2004 7:04 PM

AOL would be *idiots* to sue, whether or not they have legal grounds. Any attention to the campaign is free advertising for NetZero.

You got nailed, AOL.

Best thing for AOL to do is nothing.

NetZero is a fine ISP -- I use them for dialup (whenever I have to resort to dialup, so mostly I just give them money each month just in case).

Posted by: jason at November 25, 2004 9:19 PM

Remember one of you recent articles here about frequency of words in blogs? You write "insanely" a lot. Here twice in the same line. And always followed by a positive word ("insanely brilliant, cool, intelligent, etc... "). It's funny :)

I know, it has nothing to do with AOL. But they suck, everybody know that anyway :)

Posted by: Guillermito at November 26, 2004 12:36 PM

Remember one of you recent articles here about frequency of words in blogs? You write "insanely" a lot. Here twice in the same line. And always followed by a positive word ("insanely brilliant, cool, intelligent, etc... "). It's funny :)

I know, it has nothing to do with AOL. But they suck, everybody know that anyway :)

Posted by: Guillermito at November 26, 2004 12:36 PM

I was commenting on this to someone earlier today. Bud Light ads are also doing a similar thing with the current Miller Light Ref Ads.

In case you have not seen any, Miller Light has these ads where Refs will come in and call "penalties" for using bad beer and replace them with Miller Light. Well, the Bud Light commercial I saw today started out exactly like a Miller commercial. The only difference was that the Refs were replacing the Bud with Miller, because they were actually stealing all the Bud for themselves.

Posted by: Richard at November 27, 2004 1:07 AM

well, you've almost gone and figured it out, guillermito: clive is really just an insanely awesome blog bot.

Posted by: stop14 at November 27, 2004 1:33 AM

when I saw the NetZero ads starting with the parodies, it made me giggle insanely (*grin*). I think every their ads are an example of marketing genius. AOL does all the work, and NetZero gets all the customers. Brilliant.

Posted by: ntexas99 at November 28, 2004 11:35 PM

Guillermito, ahahahaa! I know I use "insanely" a lot, but two times in two successive sentences is pretty bad. Stop14, well, some A.I. chatbot scientists would agree with you: Humans really are just chatbots loaded up with phrases they repeat over and over ... god knows I feel that way some times, heh.

Richard, that's cool -- I'd not heard of those ads!

ntexas99, yep, that's precisely what's so devious about this ... its's brand vampirism!

Posted by: Clive at November 29, 2004 6:28 AM

Guillermito - use of "insanely" as an adjective modifier is probably more common in Tech circles, relating back to Steve Jobs' invocation of "insanely cool" as the Apple ideal.

Posted by: Jonathan Hayes at November 29, 2004 1:51 PM

Here's an article on this very subject by one of your Slate colleagues (OK, you've probably already seen it...)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2110114/

Posted by: Lisa Fortin at November 29, 2004 2:08 PM

Here's an article on this very subject from one your Slate colleagues:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2110114/

Posted by: Lisa at November 29, 2004 2:09 PM

Jonathan: thanks, I didn't know that. Maybe as a non-native english speaker, I notice these things more easily. Now don't get me wrong: I think Clive has a brilliant written style, very clear, concise and entertaining at the same time, something that we scientists definitely lack. I am learning new expressions by reading his blog, and to be frank I've started in real life to use this "insanely" thingie myself, because I really like the emphasis that is created by this immediate negative / positive connotation.

Posted by: Guillermito at December 1, 2004 4:41 AM

Johnathan, wasn't that "Insanely Great"? Also the title of a somewhat sloppy book on Apple history.

And I wouldn't say NetZero hired "identical" actors, rather "lookalike" actors. The differences actually make the parodies funnier. Similar to how caricatures work in skits taking off real politicians/celebrities etc.

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