Bell’s New “ER” Ad Campaign is Confusing
A Slimmer, Trimmer Ma Bell
Telecommunications giant Bell has recently ditched their two spokesbeavers, Gordon and Frank, in lieu of a slick new advertising campaign where everything is better. Their logo has been stripped down to just the Bell name in a slim blue typeface, and now every ad you see for them with any word containing the letters ‘er’ has the pair of letters in blue, making them stick out:
From Bell.ca
From Bell.ca
Since I saw the ads during the Olympics, I’ve been mystified as to what exactly the emphasized “er” was all about. I Googled around a bit and managed to snuff out that it’s all about being easier, better, faster, and so on, but they don’t stick to that theme in their ads. They just throw in the blue ‘er’ whenever they please. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I even Twittered about it and was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who was confused. Then I logged into my facebook page this afternoon and saw this:
Should Bell Bring Back The Beavers?
Bell seems to be testing the waters on this issue. Not surprisingly, most people polled said they didn’t care, but taking those out of the equation, a good proportion just don’t get the ads.
And to think, some ad agency probably got millions to dream up that campaign.
What do you think?
-Tim Ayres – Sooke Real Estate Professional
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Tagged: ad | advertising | Beavers | Bell | branding | campaign | ER | frank | gordon | new | rebrand
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Mannnnnn…. I was just beefing about this the other day. I absolutely don’t get it. It’s probably the stupidest “campaign” I can think of in recent memory. I can’t wait for a new competitor in Canada’s ridiculous cellular market…
Comment by womp — 28 August, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
Confusing as hell – I don’t like it
Comment by Confused — 7 September, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
even my advertising teacher was confused by this ad, n thinks its kinda stupid,, i dono wats up with marketin crew at bell..
Comment by kush — 9 September, 2008 @ 7:32 am
When it comes to trying to be clever with an ad campaign,
your guess is as good as mine. A teaser is always good,
but it’s hard to make any sense of the new Bell campaign.
Their tag lines ending in “er” bold and blue, so it really
stands out, emphasized. Still…..there has been no reference
to what it means……..not yet anyway…..
In the mean time let’s try to figured it out on our own……
ok….so the most commonly known “er’” that we know
stands for Emergency Room……ok so it’s not that!
Someone who is an Engineer will use Er to abbreviate
their degree…..it’s not that! Could it be mean the chemical element
Erbium – Er on periodic table…..I don’t think so………
How about Entity-Relationship – is an abstract conceptual representation
of structured data………sounds good….but…no…….
What about Er as in the Cyrillic alphabet….uhhhh……NO
Er as the Biblical name – was the eldest son of Judah……sorry
Er as in Earned Run – a concept in the game of baseball…..No chance
How about the suffix “er” as degrees of comparison……example when something is
green-er, or fast-er, bright-er, you can see where I’m going, but it doesn’t
work with the words they are using……tasker,rocker or invader…….oh well….
Alright, so what about “er” a filler word used in dialogue displaying uncertainty
you know what I mean “uh”, the way kids talk “um” like yknow, s’up eh….
“er” is one of those gap fillers………..could work….appealing to the youth market
I think the best one would be the following
Extended Range – “er’ – usually referring to missiles or aircraft……
but this could work, referring to communication…uuuhhmmmm???
Or prehaps it means actually nothing at all……just to get people like me wondering
and talking about the new Bell campaign. I guess they’d rather spend millions
on a stupid ad campaign than keep valuable dedicated employees who’ve worked
super hard for years, it’s disrespectful and disgraceful.
Hello Bell !….In the near future I’ll be disconnecting everything….
cell, satellite and even my land-line…… goodbye!!!
Comment by Scott — 9 September, 2008 @ 10:23 am
[...] I wrote about Bell’s confusing -er infused advertising campaign, it’s become one of the most searched-for, read, and commented-on posts I’ve ever done. [...]
Pingback by Bell’s -er Campaign Might Be Confusing, But At Least It’s Gramatically Correct | Sooke Community and Real Estate Blog 642Blog.ca — 24 September, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
[...] I wrote about Bell’s confusing -er infused advertising campaign, it’s become one of the most searched-for, read, and commented-on posts I’ve ever done. [...]
Pingback by Bell’s -er Campaign Might Be Confusing, But At Least It’s Grammatically Correct | Sooke Community and Real Estate Blog 642Blog.ca — 24 September, 2008 @ 3:02 pm