Well that’s the word on the street. Saw a spot for their tie-in with the (RED) campaign. (The link is buried on their main page with no clip.) AIDS in Africa is a very admirable cause for brands to associate with. But I could’ve done without the humor back and forth between cause and product messages. It really cheapened things. Ron Livingston works in the Sprint commercials playing the set-up guy all the time. Here though, that same flippant approach undermines the serious nature of (RED). There’s an amateur spot on YouTube for this cause that works better. Not sure if it’s a plant by Gap or not, but it feels a lot more sincere.Update: Link to Livingston spot fixed.
Tags: Sprint, (RED), Ron Livingston, Gap
4 comments:
Can't find the link to the Ron Livingston ad on the page you sent us to.
As for the YouTube spot- there's a major typo on there ("Red-Braned" instead of "Red-Branded") that indicates it's probably not a Gap plant. Unless, of course, they were clever enough to intentionally make the typo to throw people off.
Try it now. AS for teh typo, I saw that too after I posted. Definitely a clue Gap likely didn't do it.
Yeah. When I went after this shit last month, Sprint hadn't released this spot yet. It made my mouth get all dry. I think the whole tactic (and I mean, even beyond the ad) of tying these products to AIDS relief trivializes the disease, the foundation, everything.
Even if it works, it's contributing to distance we've already put between ourselves and people with far, far bigger problems than how skinny their cellphone is.
And - oh yeah - it looks like they let a junior marketing manager art direct the set.
yeah, this stuff is terrible. I've been hunting that ron livingston thing as well. we took a look at the general campaign when it first broke a few months ago, and the comments were great!
http://www.afterthesemessages.com/obe/review/44
please take a look, I'd love for you all (esp. you, bill green, to join in on the conversation).
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